Remembering

You may or may not know that yesterday, October 15th, was National Infant and Pregnancy Loss Awareness Day. I had been looking forward to this day for a couple of months - since I found out that my support group (www.mend.org) would be doing a balloon release in memory of our babies on that day. Karlie came down from Shawnee with her boyfriend to participate in the event, and it was really beautiful.

They had lots of balloons ready to go when we got there!

We were given balloons so that we could write messages to send up to our babies. It was very sweet, and also very emotional. Mark started tearing up as soon as he started writing on the balloon.

After we finished writing on our balloons we took a couple pictures before going outside to release them.

When everyone had finished their balloons, we all went outside on the porch and got in a circle. The leader said a prayer of thanksgiving for our babies and then after the prayer ended we all released them. We watched them go up into the sky until we couldn't see them anymore. It was beautiful.

After the release we had our regular meeting, and it was nice to have so many couples with so many different stories. The cool thing about MEND is that it's remarkable to hear how people work through their grief in so many ways. You can see the healing, the redemption, and Jesus all in the midst of the pain. It's really incredible. You are also surrounded by people who understand how it feels to experience a pregnancy loss, and people are open in sharing. It's people loving other people who are experiencing the same walk in life. I can't say enough good things about it! (-:

After our meeting, we went around and looked at the tables. People brought memorabilia for their babies and it was really special to see what everyone brought. I chose one of my ultrasound pictures, a little lamb, and a card saying that a Bible was donated in memory of our baby.

All in all, it was a perfect evening. (-:

~Kathryn

A Jam-Packed Weekend

Well, everyone, I hope you had a fabulous Mother's Day weekend. (-:

Ours started off bright and early Saturday as we went to my sister's graduation. She received a BS degree in dental hygiene and was the president of her class. She even got to give a speech. It was great to go and celebrate her and get to see her new house. She is getting married in July. Wow - college degree, new house, new job, new husband! How's that for a busy year! (-:

I went completely paparazzi at the graduation. That pic was from the big screen - as she got her diploma. (-:

Here I am with the graduate:

Some people think we look alike. (-: In fact, at her graduation, her friend's mom saw me in the crowd, without knowing me previously, and said, "That must be Bekah's sister." How's that for similarity? ha. 

Here she is with the whole fam:

Her college also had bag-pipes process in and out ahead of the graduates. It was slightly creepy, but super awesome. They were legit. No one is really sure why they were there, but I'll take it. (-:

After the day of graduation, Sunday was Mother's Day! We spent a leisurely day with Mark's parents and celebrated his sweet mom. Mark's dad cooks the best burgers on the planet, so we ate some yummy burgers and took naps! Karlie got me some beautiful flowers and some perfume with a sweet card. She is such a thoughtful gift giver. What a lovie.

You may or may not know that Karlie is very passionate about missions. She has been to multiple countries, and today she left for India for three weeks to work with an organization called Rahab's Rope. Last night we cooked her favorite meal before she left, as she calls it: "Hot Pockets." Now, it's not what you think. When she and her friends from college were talking about their favorite meals from home, they were all talking about whatever food their moms made. Well, then it was Karlie's turn, and she said she couldn't wait to have "hot pockets," and the girls were like "What?!" And they started saying, yeah, we're excited for cereal, etc etc, teasing her. (-: Karlie didn't realize that Hot Pockets are actually a food item you microwave and NOT what most people would get super excited about. haha. "Hot Pockets" are actually crescent rolls that are flattened and filled with a chicken/cream cheese mixture and then made into a pocket of sorts. She still gets razzed about that one. See picture:

Yes, as you heard from the previous paragraph, Karlie left for India today. I did pretty good until we got to the airport and we prayed for her. Pretty much as soon as we held hands and Mark started praying I started crying. I tried to keep it together so I wouldn't be a big sobfest in front of her other mission friend, but it just kind of got worse and worse. By the time she was in the security terminal I was kind of in the middle of a total meltdown. It was like a piece of my heart was getting on an airplane to India. I've pulled it together now, although it took a few hours. After I came back to work I was riding on the elevator and felt a wave of peace - like the Lord said, "I'm going to take care of her." and I felt much better. I still cried after that, but I think I've gotten most of the tears out - for today. ha. Now to get over this trying-not-to-cry induced headache I've had all day... Thankfully, there are a couple people on her team that have phones and she thinks she will be able to Skype us. She returns on June 5th. Please come soon. (-:

So, those are all of the updates from our neck of the woods! I hope you are enjoying the beginnings of summer and had a great mother's day!

xoxo

~Kathryn

Family Photos and A Winner

(Well, the winner of the curling wand is "soccermom1." Random.org generated the number 42, and soccermom1 was commenter number 42. So, congratulations! And thanks everyone for participating! Hopefully I can do another giveaway soon!)

Now. Are you ready for this? Mark and Karlie and I took family photos with the fabulous Kelly Stocksen over Easter weekend. And let me tell ya, I have been on pins and needles waiting to get them back. If you follow me on twitter, you are well aware of that fact. (-: Mark and I took pictures back when we were engaged and before he lost weight, and we haven't had pictures taken since Karlie became part of our family a year and a half ago! It was high time we got some new photos around the house.

So, without further adieu, here are a few of our favorites:

Just so you know, October 30th of 2010 is the day Karlie moved into our home. She very quickly changed from "the teenager that lives with us" to a forever member of our family.

My friend Jane had her engagement pictures done in a vintage picnic theme, and so she was my inspiration. (-:

I kind of have a Crush on him... (-:

We had so much fun taking our pictures, and I love how Kelly captured such cool moments.

Karlie insisted on doing a "daddy daughter picture" so she could have one for her wedding one day, and just because she wanted one. They turned out so sweet.

I got a couple pictures with Karlie myself, which I LOVE:

And there you have a peek at our photos. I hope you loved them. We are pretty ecstatic! 

Happy Tuesday!

~Kathryn

An Easter Tradition

Happy Easter, Everyone! I hope you have a great day, filled with celebration of the resurrected Savior, some egg dyeing and hunting, an Easter basket with all your favorites, and lots of yummy food and wonderful time with family.

This weekend has been perfect. Karlie has been home, and so we had lots of fun family time. On Friday, we slept in, Mark made a yummy breakfast, we went shopping at a fun shop, went to the gym, and then we hurried home to get ready for our family picture photo shoot we had Friday night. We are SO excited to get our photos back. We should have them in about two weeks. I'm excited/anxious/nervous to see them! We tried to be creative in our props, and hopefully they turned out great. Don't worry, you will see them soon. (-: To top off our photo shoot, we had dinner at a local Mexican dive and ate a lot of queso. Yum. On Saturday, we all camped out at a local coffee shop for several hours and worked on... homework. Blah. But we were productive. We also had a yummy lunch at Whole Foods and went to the gym again. Doesn't get much better than that.

Here we are driving around after family photos:

We had a very eventful Easter day. It started off with a wonderful celebration at church - and we were packed to the brim with people. Of course, the Easter bunny stopped by overnight and Karlie got an Easter basket, which had in it an Easter egg dyeing kit. Well, apparently the eggs weren't quite exciting enough for Karlie - she had her own ideas.

Need I say more? Bella is her own Easter egg. (-: She is now fully dry, and fully pink, purple, and blue. She kind of looks like cotton candy.

A really neat tradition that my family has done for... we think around 17 years now... is the Passover Seder. We don't usually do it on Easter Sunday, but it just worked out this way this year. Here is my plate from our Seder:

The stuff on the left is called charoset, and is apples and pecans and I believe honey and cinnamon - it represents the mortar the Israelites used when making the bricks when they were enslaved. You also see some dots of grape juice - one for each of the ten plagues. The egg is dipped in salt water to represent the bitterness of the slavery (I believe), and the horseradish is obviously bitter enough as well! We had already eaten the parsley dipped in salt water to represent the tears of the Israelites.

Here is a picture of the Seder in action:

In this picture, Mark and Karlie are reading a question answer section together and my mom and Doc are looking on. The Seder is always fun, always funny, and always meaningful. You should think about doing it too - we do a simplified version and it's great!

And now we are all relaxing before the crazy week starts back again. I am very thankful for holidays. 

Do you have any special Easter traditions?

~Kathryn

A Trip to the Pumpkin Patch

Happy November, everyone! Isn't this just a delightful time of year? I think it is. I love all things family friendly, making new traditions, and creating memories. So, we went to the pumpkin patch. I believe this will be a great new family tradition.

Mark and Karlie and I loaded into the Accord and headed toward our pumpkin patch of choice. This particular patch edged past the others due to the simple fact that it actually had real, live camels. That won it for me.

I mean seriously - how often do you see a camel in Oklahoma?

On our way we listened to Linus talk about the Great Pumpkin:

Each year, the Great Pumpkin rises out of the pumpkin patch that he thinks is the most sincere. He's gotta pick this one. He's got to. I don't see how a pumpkin patch can be more sincere than this one. You can look around and there's not a sign of hypocrisy. Nothing but sincerity as far as the eye can see. 

I just love Linus. I didn't see the Great Pumpkin this year, but maybe, just maybe, we will next year.

The pumpkin patch was everything we expected. There were lots of pumpkins in all sizes.

We also took the opportunity to take several goofy pics:

But wait: it gets even better. There was a petting zoo. Who doesn't love baby goats? Precious.

I also decided, since I'm thinner now, to redo my high school senior pics. (-;

We had a great time at the pumpkin patch. We even bought some fudge which was devoured in the car before we made it home. (-: This is one tradition I plan on keeping.

Happy Fall, Y'all! (-:

~Kathryn