Beach Pics

I promise to come back with more pictures and fun stories from our beach week and KatMandoo adventure, but I wanted to quickly share the AMAZING pics taken by my bestie's husband. Matt is a GREAT photographer and he only does it as a hobby right now! I feel SO blessed to have these pictures and having Matt as the photographer makes them even more special.

Here is just a preview....I havent even seen the rest yet, but I am so excited!
(A little background info: Eric, Whitney, Grady, Mandy, Matt, Brooklyn, and Easton all trucked our happy butts out to the beach at 5:45am. It was an hour drive and, thankfully, all four kids slept in the car on the way there.  We rushed to get out to the beach in time to capture the "good lighting" of the morning sunrise, hurriedly throwing a dress on Whitney and tossing a bow in her hair. Shoving Grady into his romper, and rushing down to the sand as a group.  So, did yall know that the sun is 902928 GAZILLION degrees at 7am?!? I mean, it is FREAKIN HOT! I figured we would catch a bit of a break from the blazing heat of the day since it was so early, but nooooo.  It was 1,000 degrees. Not exaggerating.  So, before we even got off the pool deck, my hair was frizz, my face was "glistening" (read: dripping) and my light colored dress was...Im not kidding...drenched.  DRENCHED. Gross, i know.  I can blame hormones or the extra 20lbs I am carrying lately.  I can blame the 15lb baby I was carrying or the stress of the situation.  Whatever the reason, I was GROSSSS.  And not feelin' it.  Mandy was kind enough to nicely and firmly tell me that I would hate myself if I threw in the towel (she was right...again), so I stuck it out and Im soooo glad I did! Sure, my hair isnt the way I pictured and those extra twenty pounds are glaringly obvious to me now, but these pictures show US. This is who we are.  And I looove our happily ever after.)
And didnt Matt do an AMAAAZING job making us all look sweat-free!? We didnt give him much to work with, but he took our sweaty, argumentative ball of nastiness, along with our diva-licious three year old and our grumpy-because-it-was-time-to-eat 12 week old, and made us look fun and happy and fabulous. Love you, Matt! (and Mandy!!)

We told Whitney she could run in the water if she "just took ONE more picture....with a smile....ok....ONE more..." (about thirteen times).  She and Brooklyn had so much fun! I cant wait to see the rest of the pics!!