Hayley Joy

I am thrilled to introduce you to our favorite girl!

Our beautiful daughter, Hayley Joy Klaus, was born on Monday, January 13, 2014.  

It was, by far, the best day of our lives.

It was also the hardest day of my life!  Two words: Back labor.  
However, I would do it all over again.

Our daughter came into the world with a sweet, little cry and with her eyes wide open.

She spent the first two hours of her life observing everyone and everything in the world.  She takes after her observant daddy!

Our world changed the second Hayley entered the world.   Life for us will never be the same, in the best way possible.

We are forever grateful for the gift of Hayley Joy.  It is an honor that God chose US to be her parents.  

Waiting Game

Waiting is hard!  Especially when you've been waiting nine full months!

It's completely worth the wait in the end.  I also know that as soon as she is here, this long wait won't seem so bad!  

In the meantime, I'm trying to keep busy!  I've watched lots of movies, gone for walks, tried all the labor-inducting methods, slept, cleaned, shopped,  gone out for lunch dates, and nested.  

And, I'm deleting/ignoring my pregnancy apps.  I'm pretty aware of my daily count at this point ;)

She'll come and it'll be on the perfect day!  

                                                                          Can't wait!

Sugar Cookies and Memories

One of our favorite Christmas traditions is decorating sugar cookies together.  This special tradition is bound to become even better in the upcoming years because we will get to share it with our babies!

When Nick and I were dating, he always talked about his mom's delicious sugar cookies. He has fond memories of decorating cookies with his mom and brother every Christmas.  I love the way he lights up when he recalls these sweet memories.  

Each Christmas, he would ask me to bake sugar cookies.  Without hesitation, I would find a recipe, bake the cookies, and we would decorate them together.  Being the sweet man he is, Nick would kindly say, "They are good!  But... they just aren't like the ones my mom used to make."  This would make me wish I could just call his mom up and ask her what her secret ingredient was.  For those of you who don't know, Nick's mom, Karen Joy, passed away from cancer when he was only 11 years old.  

Fast forward a couple years:

We had been married for a mere six months and were getting ready to celebrate our first Christmas as married couple.  We were at church one Sunday, and a woman named Kara came up to me and told me that she had known Nick's mom.  She told me that she had been going through her Christmas recipes and came across Karen's sugar cookie recipe.  She asked me if the recipe was something I would like to have, or if it would be too painful and would bring back too many memories for Nick.  It was a total God moment!!  I hugged her with tears in my eyes and said we would ABSOLUTELY love to have the recipe.  

The following week I baked the cookies and we decorated them with cream cheese frosting... just like Nick's mom did.  Nick said that they were exactly the way he remembered them.  

These cookies are a blessing in our life because they allow the memory of Nick's mom to live on.  Even though I never had the pleasure of meeting her, it helps me to feel connected to a special part of his family history.  We've had a lot of people come up to us lately and tell us how thrilled Karen would be to learn that Nick is becoming a Daddy.  From what people tell us, Nick's personality is very similar to his mom's.  It is going to be a special time watching him become a parent and carry on special traditions... such as, Christmas cookie decorating, with our children.  

Thank you Lord for allowing Karen's memories to live on in our home!

Nick created a "Ninja-Bread-Man" this year.  It was epic!

P.S.- The secret ingredient was SOUR CREAM!  It makes the cookies very fluffy and light!

NOW we're ready!

My heart is full of joy!  There are many reasons for my joy-filled heart... Christmas was magical with family and friends, my hubby and I got to spend five days together without thinking about work, AND.. I am STILL pregnant!!  

Let me explain.  When I found out that my due date was January 6, I remember feeling concerned with how close it was to Christmas.  

Obviously, I know that no matter when she is born (early, on-time, late), it will be in the Lord's perfect timing and I fully trust in that.  However, I have a deep desire for her to have her own special day and not have to share it with a big holiday, like Christmas!  

I have been joking that if contractions started on Christmas Eve or Day, I would just hold my legs together very tightly.  Luckily, I didn't have to test this out (I'm guessing it would have probably failed miserably!!)

So, here we are.  December 26 and ready to go anytime.  I have a feeling that she isn't coming for a little while though.  I have zero signs of "things progressing".  So, we will wait.  Although, I am becoming increasingly uncomfortable, it's okay.  I am fortunate enough to be on maternity leave and I don't have much on my agenda that I HAVE to do.  What a blessing!

Hope your Christmas was lovely and joy-filled.  

The Epic Story of the Fireplace

Sometimes, good things take TIME!  And sometimes, it's hard to wait!  But, always, in the end, it's absolutely, completely, no doubt about it, WORTH IT.  

We are lucky enough to have a home with two fireplaces.  We both wanted a home with a fireplace, but when we found our dream home and it had two fireplaces... well, that was just the icing on the cake.  

However, the living room fireplace did not fit our style.  Not even close.  It wasn't the type of thing where we could add pretty decor and make do.  We knew right away, that we would eventually do something different with it.  

When we decided to move in with my parents for seven months and do a complete remodel of the house, we decided that it would be best to take down the massive rock wall.  We realized that if we didn't do it now, it might not happen for a very long time, if ever!  

Here is day one of starting to take it down.  We are guessing that one day, our kids will say, "Dad!!  Why did you get rid of this!?  We could have used it as a rock climbing wall!"  

                        Taking the rocks and concrete down was quite the process!  

When we brought the rock and concrete remains to the construction recycling center, it weighed 3,000 pounds!  

Nick and my Dad patched the wall above the fireplace and closed up the yellow, rectangular windows on either side.  In the meantime, we were working days, nights, and weekend to finish everything else in the house (kitchen, bathroom, floors, baseboards, paint, you name it!)  

We started looking into hiring out for the fireplace because we were so exhausted by this phase of the house remodel.  We had a couple quotes for stone casting and we promptly decided that a $5,500 fireplace was not what we were wanting to spend our money on!  

This is when the waiting came into play.  We made the decision to put the fireplace on hold, and finish it at a later date.  For me, it was a hard decision because I really wanted to move into a house that was done.  At first it was hard to see that big hole in the wall because it was a constant reminder that there was still a lot of work to be done.  

Luckily, I have a sweet husband who thought of a great solution.  He covered it up with a lovely cardboard fire.  This kept me quiet for a little bit.

Within a few months, we saved enough money and were ready to tackle the project.  Unfortunately, we had no clue what we wanted to do!  So, we just waited some more.  We looked at hundreds of fireplaces online and started dreaming of what we wanted.  

After a few months, we picked out a tile and started to frame the box.  

Nick built.  I watched.  

He amazes me.  I am blown away with how handy and creative he is.  I wouldn't even know where to begin with a project like this... even if I had instructions!

He worked on the box on nights and weekends; it took a couple of months until it was completed.  There were a couple of snags along the way... gotta love those learning experiences!

Once the box was built, he finished piping the gas.  

Our good friend, Peter, spent his entire Sunday helping Nick to lay down the concrete inside the fireplace.  

After the concrete was finished, Nick painted the tan bricks inside with a fireproof black paint.  

And, eventually, it was finished!!  It turned out exactly how we had hoped.  We wanted a simple, yet elegant design.  Clean lines, no frills.  Modern, yet not cold.  Did I mention that we absolutely love it??  

The final step in order to have it be officially "complete" are the fake logs.  We are currently on the hunt for the perfect set of "fake logs"!

The best part?  Well, there are actually two best parts.  It is finished BEFORE baby arrives... hooray!!  Secondly, it's finished just in time for Christmas!  This means I have two mantles to decorate!  Woohoo!

And that, ladies and gentlemen, is the story of our fireplace.  It was a long process, but looking back on it, I think it was a really good process.  It forced us (me) to be patient and wait for something that we really wanted done right.  

Cheers to many years of warm fires and toasty evenings in our living room!

Oh Baby!

Here is my 34 week update (a couple weeks late.. sorry!)  It's hard to believe how close we are getting to my due date!  Baby continues to grow and is very active!  

We have been keeping busy on the home front by getting ready to welcome our sweet girl.  We have been busy setting up the nursery, getting ready to sell my car (hello, Mom Mobile), nesting (my cupboards have never been so organized), and doing loads and loads of baby laundry.  


We've also been going on more dates lately.  We figure it might be a little more difficult to get out the house for awhile once the baby arrives, so we are soaking up extra "us" time now!  

Although things have been busy, it's exciting and fun to anticipate the biggest life change that either of us have ever gone through.  Both Nick and I feel ready to meet our girl and start this new chapter of life.

Oh baby!  I'm sporting quite the belly these days!  The sight of my belly never gets old.  Each day when I see it, I'm in awe of the miracle that my body is growing.  It's absolutely incredible that our body can stretch and mold in order to support a precious life.  Can't wait to meet her!

Just the Three of Us

A few weeks ago we took maternity photos!  I wanted to take pregnancy photos so that one day our little girl can look back on photos while I was pregnant with her.  I have often wished that my Mom had more photos of when she was pregnant with me.  

We had a lot of fun doing the shoot and I am thrilled with the way they came out.  Don't worry, no bare belly photos!  Not my style!!

For Momma....

For Daddy....

I wonder which ones she will prefer...?!