A video of our "fancy day" with Spirit 105.3

I just saw that the video that was made during our day up in Bellevue is online! Here's the link. http://www.spirit1053.com/week5.php

A beautiful gift at just the right time

My Aunt Sharon does amazing cross-stitch work. We have her work all over our house. She made us a beautiful framed wedding piece with our names and wedding date, and then made a piece for Katelynn when she was born with all her "stats" that I had framed. She had Kristen's all ready before she was born, she was just waiting for the "stats". It was divine that there was enough room for the details she ultimately included. She gave this to me at Kristen's service and I was so touched. I'd been wanting to get it framed through Creative Memories and just barely got it to them in time before they accepted their last order. (CM no longer does Custom Framing.) We're not sure where we'll display this so I wanted to display it here. You can click on it to enlarge it and see the beautiful details. The saying at the bottom I added so it would look like Katelynn's who's has a scripture at the bottom.
Thank you Aunt Sharon, it means so much to me to have such a special gift for each of my girls.

It was actually interesting to get this when I did. I've been going through a "wave" over the last week or so, which took me a bit by surprise. I had been doing so well most of the month of February and got caught off guard by a wave of grief that started over the weekend. I know they will always come and go in varying degrees, and this was just one of many more to come. There had been so much celebrating of Kristen this weekend and getting to tell her story which I enjoyed. However, all the talk of her without getting to also talk about the hard parts took its toll. I don't enjoy talking about it, but am finding I need to find ways to talk about it because grief will always find it's way out, one way or another, and I'd much rather have it be constructive. Tears are cleansing in so many ways and I had been denying them their power, thinking I was getting "better." Little did I know....have you had a good cry lately? :) Give it a try, you might be surprised how good it makes you feel!

A fun opportunity for a cute photo session!

Our MOPS group is offering "Antiquities", a fun opportunity for anyone who has kids under 16. We did this with Katelynn when she was about a year old and I was really looking forward to it this year! The photographer was amazing and really worked well with Katelynn, letting her crawl all over her as she took photos! Other moms had newborns all the way up to middle-schoolers. (You can click on the photo to be linked to their website for more details.)

Here's how it works - with a few words from their website: You purchase a photo session sitting for only $10. Your session includes a FREE 10X13 sepia-tone portrait (retail value $69.95) and Antiquities provides all the clothing and props for children up to age 16. The 10X13 sepia-tone portrait is a limited offer (one per family or household). Children will be photographed ONLY if a parent is present during the photography session. Once I've received your payment, our coordinators will call you and set up your sitting on either April 3rd or 4th (Fri/Sat) at our MOPS church in downtown Puyallup. The photos will be available before Mother's Day - I don't have the exact date.

This has been a really great fundraiser for our MOPS group in the past as we get 100% of the sitting fees and I believe a residual on any portraits purchased - however there is no obligation to buy photos - you still get your 10x13 FREE! My goal is to sell at least 15 sittings so if you're interested or know someone who might be, please pass this along! You can call or e-mail me or even contact me through the blog.
Thanks!!
Tara

The Big Day!

Today was my special day to go shopping for my grand prize from the radio contest that you all helped me win! We were picked up at 9:30 in a stretch limo and taken up to Bellevue where we were met by a photographer and Matt Case from the radio video taping us! We got to meet another winner and her husband and looked around a bit. We then were introduced to Rex, Marci's owner and he provided us with a small welcome gift: a pair of sterling silver hoop earrings in a little pouch. Matt said a quick prayer and then the caterer welcomed us to enjoy the delicacies. And they were wonderful! Cheese souffle, mini goat cheese tarts, chocolate mousse and chocolate covered strawberries, smoked salmon tarts and fruit parfaits. All accompanied by parkling apple cider!

We each got a personal assistant to help us look around and that's what we did! Rex, the owner, encouraged us to take our time looking but to consider a significant piece, versus a few lesser items. He acknowledged that most things in his store were on the more expensive side so that we should enjoy our prize and choose something that we would treasure for years to come and that would remind of us our love stories. I had thought at first to get a watch but then decided that I wanted something I wouldn't be worried to wear. I didn't think I'd be wearing a $500 watch to the park!! So I then thought of an earring/necklace set. But as I looked, nothing really struck me as "meaningful" and technically I had already been given the earrings! I had a hard time not thinking of quantity over quality, wanting to stretch my prize as best I could, not sure if I wanted to spend my whole certificate on one item. Until......

I went and looked at some of the displays in the window cases and saw the only pearl pendant they had in the whole store. I was interested in something pearl, but not a strand of pearls. It reminded me of Kristen's Christmas ornament and I knew that was it. It is a single pearl on a sterling silver base edged in diamonds. I looked at the price tag and it was 1/2 again more expense than what I had to spend, priced at $1,450. Lori (my personal assistant!) said "let me go check on something" and went to ask Rex what he thought. He came over and said "I can do this two ways, I can change your gift certificate to $1,450 or I can change the price of the necklace to $1,000. How does that sound?" As you can guess, I agreed! The more I looked at it, the more I liked it. I had thought I wanted a pearl pendant, but this one makes me think the pearl is being held, not just dangling there by itself. And if I really wanted to get into "significance", the shape holding it is a triangle, which could represent the Trinity!

As we all had our packages wrapped up we were given a gift from Spirit 105.3 of a T-shirt, a Third Day CD, the DVD "Fireproof" and our Chris Tomlin tickets. Wow! The gifts just kept coming! We all gathered outside for a few photos with our limos and then we were off once again! The three of us winners agreed we should get together before the Chris Tomlin concert which would be fun!







Needless to say it was a very fun day with lots of treats and surprises! Thank you Spirit 105.3 for the opportunity! Thank you Marci Jewelers for the experience and the wonderful gift! Thank you Salon and Spa Dolche for the fun, new hair style! And thank you everyone who voted for our story. It was an honor to honor Kristen in such a way!

Katelynn's First Dance

Katelynn's grandpa (Kevin's dad) had been waiting for years to take Katelynn to the Father Daughter Dance they have at their church each year. Katelynn was finally old enough to go this year and daddy went along. She looked so cute in her beautiful dress she got for her birthday!
It sounded like she had a great time, running around in circles, chasing the dance floor lights!

Katelynn's New Ride

Our friends Ryan and Staci gave us their daughters bike and helmet she had outgrown. Katelynn thinks she's pretty cool on it! Of course she still needs a little help from daddy. :)

My friend Shelly watched Katelynn for me last week and took these photos. Amazing! Shelly is the one who did our family photo for our profile and also helped take photos of Kristen. She does an amazing job! If you want her info, let me know!

Playing Catch Up (again!)

So many things to post, so little time!
Between computers crashing, birthday parties and radio contests, there’s so many things to post and very little time to keep up! I’ll do my best to catch up and post them in the order they all happened.

Happy 3rd Birthday Katelynn!

Hard to believe Katelynn turned three this weekend! (on the 2nd) We had so many things going on this weekend that we’re taking today to just chill! My parents came over from Spokane and we had family photos taken on Saturday morning. We then went to Olympia to celebrate Katelynn’s Great Grandma Rosemary’s 80th birthday.

Sunday we had the red party with balloons she had asked for! It was great to have family and a few close friends around to celebrate her. We did the best we could to have everything red and she thought it was so fun.







Then Monday (her actual birthday) I decided to start a family tradition for her that my family had always done. We woke her up singing “Happy Birthday” each of us carrying candles, flowers and then she got to open a gift. (granted, she was already awake by the time we got it all ready and I told her to go lay back down for a surprise!) I don’t know if she really got what was going on, but it was fun just the same! Unfortunately, I had made Katelynn’s 3 year check up for that morning, thinking she didn’t have any shots coming and it would be easy and carefree. But they had a flu shot ready for her and that kind of put a damper on her day.







Later that day I had two girlfriends over and their three kids each – so with just two other families present we had 7 kids running around between the ages of 5 and 20 months! In the photo with them all on the couch, it looks pretty harmless. However, it was lunch time for everyone, nap time for most (including the birthday girl!) and considering I am used to one at a time, we'll just say I have a lot of learning to do when it comes to kiddo birthday parties! I am sure I'll have lots of exposure in the coming years, and this was just the start! (I am so glad the moms were here with them, they each pitched in to help with lunch and it was really fun!)
I won’t post all the photos from the weekend but here are a few to show she had LOTS of fun! Thank you to everyone who participated in one way or another!

Momma's got a brand new 'do! (thanks to Spirit 105.3 and Salon & Spa Dolche!)

As a qualifier for the first week of the radio “Love Story” contest I received a gift certificate to Salon and Spa Dolche in Everett. We were going to be talking family photos over the weekend so I decided to make the trek and get my hair done! For those of you not familiar with the area, it meant an hour drive north - but oh so worth it! My friend Shelly took Katelynn for the whole day so I could take my time and not worry about her (thanks Shelly!!). Shelly even gave me a note as I dropped Katelynn off letting me know she remembered it would have been Kristen's 5 month birthday that day and this was a wonderful way for me to celebrate her - with a gift I wouldn't have had if it wasn't for her! Thanks Kristen!

My hairstylist was amazing! She took her time to listen and and then took it from there. I had no idea what I wanted and what I came out with was incredible and really fits me. I am so happy with the color (well, colors, four of them to be exact!) and the cut is really fun and easy to take care of. The whole “treatment” was a bit more than my gift card would cover but she said that since I was the grand prize winner, she wasn’t going to charge me for the haircut. Thanks Kelsie!!!

Before, During and After:

Hidden Treasure!

We purchased our house from the original owners who had it built in 1964. We knew there were hardwoods throughout the house under the carpet, but had no idea what condition they were in. (the bedrooms were already exposed.) The floors were going to be our next home project, when we had the money for rugs and possible fixing of the floors.So last Sunday during dinner I noticed how nasty the carpets were looking and asked Kevin if he thought we’d be able to pull up the carpet before Katelynn’s birthday party the coming weekend. So we moved the couch back just far enough to pull up a sample. This is what we found!!

So we started pulling and cutting! The floors are just beautiful! Talk about a little sweat equity!! Here are a few before and after photos. All we've done to them is patch up a few holes from the carpet stretcher and tack strips and then we gave them a good mop cleaning. After talking to our neighbors, it sounds like the floors have been covered since the original owner bought the house! Thanks for sweeping a treasure under the rug! :)

Our Budding Artist!

I know every parent is proud of their child’s drawings, but I love this one! Katelynn has really enjoyed drawing smiley faces. She is getting really good at them too, complete with two eyes, a mouth, nose and chin - which apparently is really good and not expected for a child her age. This drawing was really cute because she drew Daddy – complete with his short hair and goatee! (the main face towards the top, the circle under the mouth is his chin!) There are a few other faces too, I think Katelynn and I may be a few of them. (the two "real" smiley faces and the “mouse/rat” were compliments of Daddy.)