David, Lisa, Kayla, Isaac & Annika

The highlight from the time with our parents was that we were able to tell them our exciting news – we’re having a baby!! We wanted to be able to tell them both in person, so we held off telling anyone until we saw them over the holiday’s (and since we had known for about a month by that time, it was so exciting to finally share our secret!!). We told each set a little different. For David’s family, we waited until the whole family was together (and Steph didn’t come up until we’d been there for almost 2 days!). We were headed out for a birthday dinner, and we said that we had one more “gift” we’d like to share. Well, we had ordered specialty M&M’s that said, “Is it a Boy?” and “Is it a Girl?”, and they were pink and blue. We set these in a candy dish, and put it on the coffee table. Both Steph and Laura picked them up, and were looking at them curiously. Laura is the one who understood first what it meant, and asked us if we were pregnant!! Their first response was to ask if we were joking! But as soon as they knew it was true there were hugs and tears all around!! It was really special!

For Lisa’s family, each year we make them a calendar with a different picture for each month. For the one we made them this year, we had a picture of our positive pregnancy (see pictures below) test on the cover! When they opened it, my mom was just staring at it, confused. After about 1 minute (in which David and I were dying!), she had my dad look at it and asked if he knew what it was! He said, “It’s a pregnancy test? With two pink lines?” in a very timid voice… My mom’s first reaction was to give him a look like “How can you suggest something like this!” And then looked at us, and we were both shaking our heads yes! I think they were completely shocked and stunned, but also very excited! We had made very clear to all our friends and family that kids were in our 5 year plan, so not to bug us about it until after then for sure! And, to be fair, our due date is August 8th, which is about 1 week before our 5 year anniversary!! However, no one (ourselves included really) thought that we’d HAVE the child by that time!

While my parents were here, we were able to tell some of our closest friends that we were having a baby as well! We had Nate and Jill as well as Josh and Crystal over, and we set out the M&M’s for them as a snack. However, they did not even look at them for about 10 minutes (meanwhile, David and I, and my parents, were dying!). Finally, Crystal asked if there was anything special about the colors of the M&M’s, and then finally our news came out! Again, I think everyone was in a bit of shock! Nate and Jill even betrayed, since we had actually had to lie to them during that time!! But once the news had sunk in, everyone was happy for us!

We honestly couldn’t be any happier. We had planned and prayed over this decision, and while we might never really be ready to be parents, we are sure excited to take on the challenge! We are so blessed, and so thrilled about this new stage in our lives!