My Parents Celebrated 40 Years of Marriage!

On November 9, my parents celebrated 40 years of marriage! That is amazing! I have learned a lot from their marriage and their love for each other. They have been a great example of what a marriage should be by putting God first and each other second. 

My brother and I put together a surprise anniversary party for my parents. They enjoy planning surprise parties for each other and we wanted to pull one over on them. They were genuinely surprised when they showed up and mine & Kevin's house on November 15th. They thought we were having a birthday party for my nephew who's birthday is right before Thanksgiving. They were certainly confused when they walked in the door and realized the party was really for them! They loved it and were very appreciative of what we planned for them. We played "The Newly Wed Game", ate some great food, enjoyed a sweet treat (cake from Goobers Bakery) and watched a slideshow my brother put together. My parents also received gifts and cards from the guests. The gift I gave my parents was an idea I found on Pinterest and it turned out great. I took a canvas I had and created this:

1. First, I created this in Microsoft Publisher and printed it on my inkjet printer. I taped the two pages together to form one. It was the perfect fit for the canvas.

2. I then turned the print over and traced the letters with a pencil. I pushed hard so there would be enough lead on the paper for the transfer.

3. Next, I flipped the paper back to it's original side and taped it onto the canvas for transfer.

4. After that, I took a blue crayon and colored over the letters. I pressed hard so that the lead from the pencil markings would go onto the canvas. After I used the blue crayon, I realized that it wasn't transferring very well, so I colored over that with a black crayon. The black crayon worked much better.

5. The lead from the transfer was very light, so used a pencil and traced over the light lead markings. This was a tedious task and gave me a sore arm by the time I was done.

6. When I was finished tracing over the lead markings, I used sharpie to trace and color in the letters. I used a red sharpie on "married" to make it stand out more. As you can see, this word was also a different font than the rest of the saying.

7. Here is the finished project. I really like how it turned out and my parents loved it. I think it will be a special gift for them to look at and be reminded of how much love they have in their lives. 

Here they are with the gift! 40 years and going strong! :)

We all had a really good time at the party. I am blessed to have the parents that I do and the love that I see between them. What an excellent example of marriage they are to me. 

Trick or Treat

As it always is in West Michigan, it was cold and wet on Halloween. In fact, on Halloween, we had our first snowfall. Boo!

But, we got to see our nieces and nephews in their costumes!

 Henrik the turtle!

 Myla as Doc McStuffins!

 Penelope, the cute little strawberry!

Remy, the vampire!

Halloween Traditions

As Halloween approaches, I think about the traditions that Kevin & I have started as a family. Halloween in Michigan is often a cold and wet holiday where kids trick or treat with winter coats on over their costumes. We hardly ever get to see the children's costumes as they come to our door. I do wish it could be a warmer holiday here so we could see the cute (and scary) costumes parents spend way too much money on each year for their children. 

Sometime the week before or the week of Halloween, I like to carve a pumpkin. Usually, I carve a regular pumpkin face but this year I decided to get a little more creative with my carving "skills" and carve Doc McStuffins. Our niece is going to be her for Halloween, so I thought it would be fitting. It turned out pretty good and I am proud of my handiwork. 

At dinner time, probably around 5 o'clock or so (since trick or treating starts at 6), we have Chili. Kevin likes to load his up with sour cream, cheese and fritos. He hates tomatoes so this apparently covers up all that yumminess. I like to eat my chili plain with a little bit of sour cream. This is a tradition we started a couple of years ago. Kevin grew up eating Chili every Halloween before he went out trick or treating. It's a great meal to have before you wander off in the cold collecting lots of candy that will probably rot your teeth one day. 

Around 6 o'clock, I like to turn on Halloween music on the TV or an ABC Family Halloween movie to get into the mood. Our first visitors are usually our two neighbor girls (they always get extra candy)! Lucky ducks! :) It seems like kids don't like to say "trick or treat" anymore, it's usually a simple knock or a doorbell ring. If we know the kids, we make them say "trick or treat" before they can get their candy. After all, it is Halloween and that's how it should be done. We usually sit around listening to the Halloween music or watching a Halloween movie, like Hocus Pocus while waiting for our next batch of Princesses and ghosts. Our niece and nephew always visit our house and get lots of candy from their favorite aunt and uncle. We enjoy seeing their costumes every year! 

Buddy isn't too keen on people ringing our doorbell constantly. He likes to jump at the window and bark at everyone and I mean EVERYONE that comes to the house. We dress Buddy in a glow-in-the-dark Halloween shirt and take him for a short walk once the trick-or-treaters have died down. It's usually a cold walk but a good one to calm him down after an anxiety-filled evening. 

2012, he was a Michigan football player

We usually always have left over candy, which Kevin very much enjoys. We should divide it up so that we don't eat it all up in the following week, but nonetheless, it's pretty much always gone a week after Halloween has passed. And of course, we regret eating it so quickly then. 

As per the usual Michigan weather, this year Halloween will be 41° with a 60% chance of rain. Awesome! (insert sarcasm here). Have a Happy Halloween!

What are some of your Halloween traditions? 

Aunt & Uncle

On August 8th, Kevin & I became an aunt & uncle again to 2 beautiful babies. We are so happy to welcome Henrik & Penelope into our family. We love snuggling the babies! :)

 Everyone is so excited to meet the twinsies!

 Kevin & I with the twinsies

 Our nephew Remy, our niece Myla and our new nephew Henrik

 Our niece Myla with our new niece Penelope

 The twinsies & me

My beautiful niece Penelope & me

Getting Healthy & Staying Healthy

I have finally realized that it's important to get healthy and stay healthy. As I have aged grown up, I have realized that my metabolism isn't what it once was. I was so small in high school and college. I wore a size 4 wedding dress and looked pretty good during my mid-late 20's and then 30 hit and something happened. I think we all realize what happens once you reach the age of 30 ... it's all down hill. So things have GOT to change. I am challenging myself, and my hubby can come along for the ride (as moral support of course ;))! 

I am challenging us (yes both Kevin & I) to eat healthier and exercise more. I plan on keeping a journal to track everything that goes into my body and every exercise that I do. My goal is to start this next Monday, July 28, and keep it up for a year! (yep, you read that right... A YEAR!!) 

Well, let's take things slow and take one step at a time. It only takes 30 days to develop a habit. So I will start small. My first challenge is to drink more water and less sugared beverages (soda is my downfall & Cherry Coke is my favorite). My second challenge is to walk or ride my bike at least 30 minutes a day. 

I encourage all of you to challenge yourselves. And I know that both Kevin and I could use the encouragement from you, so kind words are always welcome. Join us on our journey to become healthier and happier people! :) I dare you!

Our Fertility Journey

Because so many of you know that Kevin and I have been trying to conceive a child for quite some time now. I wanted to write and fill you all in on our journey thus far.

In January, Kevin and I began our IVF journey. Prior to this decision, we had done 4 rounds of IUI (intra-uterine insemination), where the sperm was put into Laura and left to find the egg. None of the IUI's that we did worked. We decided then that it was time to try IVF (invitro fertilization), where embryos are made and then put back into Laura. IVF has a higher success rate than IUI. We did our first IVF in March and was certainly hoping for positive results, but we ended up with a negative. We were completely bummed and wanted to try again as soon as we could. Our doctor told us it was up to us when we tried again, so we told him right away and we were put onto the list for May. I did another month of fertility drugs and we did a FET (frozen embryo transfer). We had 6 embryos frozen. The doctor put 2 embryos in and we're hopeful for good news this time around. This past Tuesday, Laura went and did her blood work and once again received a negative test result. We were not pregnant. We were pretty upset but we didn't know any different. We've never been pregnant before and we don't know what it's like to get positive results. 

The most frustrating part of it all is being told that nothing is wrong with either of us. Our fertility doctors have said that we are both young and healthy and have perfect embryos, so there's no telling why this isn't working. We have 4 embryos left (out of the 8 we started with). We are going to take some time "off" from fertility treatments before we try again. We want to pay off what we owe for these treatments and also to give Laura's body a chance to recooperate and not have to be on fertility drugs. She has been on them for nearly a year between IUI's and IVF's. 

We are definitely NOT giving up! We are determined to have a baby and create a family. Apparently God's timing is not our own. We will get through this. We appreciate your prayers during this difficult time. We fully trust in God and the plans He has for our lives and that is what's getting us through. 

                                                                                    -Kevin & Laura

fall pictures

we have recently had new pictures taken. the last time we had pictures taken was about 2 years ago and we have since then added a new member to our family. so we thought it was about time for new ones and we needed to refresh our wall pictures, too. we are very happy with the outcome, as usual. our wonderful sister-in-law over at Alexe's Photography always does our family pictures and we have never been disappointed with her work. she takes beautiful pictures and does an amazing job editing them. if you need new family pictures for your living room walls or christmas cards or whatever, check out Alexe's Photography. I promise you, you won't be disappointed.

and no, we were not asked to promote ali's business, we are just great in-laws! :)

as always Buddy is the star of the "show!"