Arielle | 4 Years Old

~ Grey Sweater & Blue Heels Series ~

Reflections Apartments | Virginia Beach, Virginia | February 7, 2025

Life got so busy, we never did our 3.5 years old installment – so now we have moved to just an annual shoot for these. Arielle was excited to take these this time. When I brought it up at 3.5 she was not interested. Originally I wanted to keep going to the same place – the Oceanfront, for these, but this time Arielle wanted to stay home. We recently FINALLY moved out of our 2 bedroom apartment and into a 3 bedroom home. So, looking back, this is a sweet way for all of us to remember that time in our lives.

We took these a few months into being 4, and in that time Arielle had became a big sister, had an epic birthday party at the Virginia Zoo, got stitches, celebrated Christmas and New Years out of town with family, got COVID & pink eye, lost her sibling Chase Ryder in January due to miscarriage, and now we moved into a new house! Arielle has been coping with the loss of Baby Chase the best out of all of us. And keeps saying she is still a big sister even if she can’t see Chase in Heaven right now. We also took that time to tell Arielle about Baby Z, the embryo we lost prior to her in 2020 for our Fresh Transfer. She understood and said that she was “happy to be our Rainbow” and that she knows Baby Chase is going to send her another sibling soon. We do plan to try another IVF cycle. We are in the baseline portion of treatment right now and have another transfer scheduled in a few months.

Arielle has been excelling in school. We enrolled her in private preschool in the fall and she has learned so much and had so many “glowing” ranks on her very first report card. She can recognize her sight words, can read, write, and spell her own name and is learning some Spanish words every month. She also is learning so much about Jesus and just has the sweetest heart for the LORD. They had the cutest Christmas program and she was a chicken and got to sing “cockadoodledoo!!!!!” She sings grace before dinner, and “Let It Go” from Frozen the rest of the day. We started breaking into our princess phase, with Frozen and Tangled. She even put on her Elsa dress for her 4 year heels & sweater pictures. And just like in Frozen, we had SNOW this year at the beach!!! It happened a few times this year but this was the biggest snow storm since 2016! I was in love with that experience, it was beautiful and so strange to feel snow and sand move under your feet. I absolutely love her funny personality, humor and sweet soul! She is SO smart and her love for animals grows each day. She said she is going to be a Big Cat Vet and have her own Vet Ambulance when she grows up.

We had a super cool birthday party for her at the Virginia Zoo in Norfolk. Arielle had so many friends and family show up for her, it was such a fun filled day and party! HUGE shout out to the Virginia Zoo for being amazing hosts and the legless lizard and screaming armadillo for being their adorable ambassador selves! Also I would love to thank Ariel, from Twisted Sisters Cupcakes for making this EPIC Sonic the Hedgehog cake for Arielle, she LOVED it! The flavors were chocolate cake with mixed berry icing and confetti cake with chocolate frosting. Arielle is OBSESSED with Chocolate, she picked the cake flavors and they were YUMMY! After a wonderful afternoon touring the zoo once the party concluded, we ended up in the Children’s Hospital. We were loading up the cars and I opened Michaels van door and then saw there was no more room for anything and I would need to put it in my Jeep. I went to shut the door, not noticing Arielles hand in the way as she was climbing out of the front seat…she needed 7 stitches y’all! I was beside myself. I felt SO horrible. But by the grace of God no broken bones and the stitches healed wonderfully and her finger is completely healed and back to normal now.

Before you scroll any further – I wanted to place a Viewer Discretion or a Trigger Warning…

I miscarried our baby, Baby D (Chase Ryder) at 12 Weeks, 2 Days gestation. I passed my baby at home and once we both were discharged from the hospital, the next day I photographed our baby. This is one of the only photos we will ever have of this baby. But, we were ready to share Baby Chase with you all. Arielle picked the name.