My Third Decade of Life

Well as it happens I'm a bit behind on my blog (again) and I failed to write about my 30th birthday. First of all, it seems weird to be thirty, but I thoroughly enjoyed my twenties and have absolutely no regrets. I got to do everything I wanted to do and more: finish school, teach in my own classroom, travel, serve a mission, have adventures (Nantucket and others), get married, and start a family. My twenties have been wonderful and hard and rewarding and I am so looking forward to the next chapter of life.

Curtis threw me an incredible birthday party. We had both of our families come to our house for a BBQ and dinner and cake/ice cream.  We ate and visited and had fun chatting, then we did presents. I got a lot of fun photography stuff and clothes.

(Ignore how utterly goofy I look in this picture. Apparently I thought Curtis was done taking it before he was actually done... but I'm keeping it for the memory of the cute scarf Nicki got me.)

Then we gave our families a present of our own.  We wanted to announce that we were having twins when everyone was together and we figured my birthday was the perfect occasion to do that. I told everyone that since it was my birthday, I could do whatever I wanted and I wrote a poem I wanted to read. So I started reading with a few puzzled glances from people. (Why is she feeling so artsy? Huh? That's cool. Express yourself..)

Poem coming soon....

We got a great reaction and it was such a fun way to get to share the news with our loved ones.  After our big surprise Curtis planned a surprise that I loved so much- 80's karaoke, but all the songs were straight out of 1984- awesome! He worked on this for weeks and I've gotta say it was super fun. Not only did the adults have a ton of fun, but the kids loved it as well. Kaden was stealing the show with "Yankee Doodle" and the ABC's.  He is a little bit obsessed with the microphone and the spotlight we've decided. :)

The boys sang a smashing rendition of "For the Longest Time" by Billy Joel

I sang "Let's Hear it for the Boy"- love!

Curtis was so sweet to plan this whole party, but told me he learned a valuable lesson about cakes. He didn't realize you couldn't bake it/frost it an hour before the party, so my German chocolate cake was more of a German chocolate blob, but it still tasted good. Ha ha. One candle for every decade. We decided the little boys (Kaden, Jace and Jackson) would have them all blown out by the time we got all 30 lit.

We were initially going to wait to announce our twins on social media until I was farther along, but I was so excited the day after my birthday and kept getting asked daily by people if our IVF was successful, so I thought, "let's do this." I wanted to do a "Thing 1 and Thing 2" theme since we are having twins and figured if I borrowed Miranda's Cat in the Hat stuff for Kaden it'd be perfect.  My social media post that went on Instagram and Facebook said, "Miracles do happen. Thank you for all the prayers on our family's behalf. We are thrilled to announce that we will soon be outnumbered by small people. #twins" The sign that Kaden is holding says, "I have a surprise and it really is true. I'll be a big brother to Thing 1 and Thing 2.  Fairbourn TWINS coming June 2015."

We have had such a positive reaction, it's been overwhelming all the kind phone calls, texts, emails and social media messages and comments we've gotten. I think because I opened up and shared our infertility story with others it made for that much more of a captive audience that was anticipating good news.  Plus I think when people realize that something has been a real struggle for you, they are that much more excited when things work out well. I think that is honestly the best birthday gift I could've ever wished for- to grow our family and have more sweet babies in our home that we can love and call our own.  I'm certainly loving 30 so far and I feel like life can only get better from here on out.