Born September 19, 2014, and enduring a grueling almost two week detour in the neonatal intensive care unit (NICU) followed by the Riley Hospital for Children, Alice came home on October 3. Alice was named after two of her great grandmothers - her mother's maternal Grandmother, Alice Mae Graham, and her father's paternal Grandmother, Aleatha Jane Turkstra. From her moment of birth onward, Alice has demonstrated an extraordinary alertness to her surroundings. She is generally quiet and mellow, but engaged.

Alice has already made our lives an order of magnitude more interesting. Her beautiful face brings light to us all.

Facing the real possibility of sharing a birthday, though ultimately having it two days earlier, the newest addition to our family, Jefferson, was named following the centuries old tradition of naming son after father. In fact, Jefferson comes from Old English meaning quite literally "son of Jeffrey." His middle name, Edward, comes from his mother's father, Christopher Edward Havrilesko. Born on August 17, 2011, Jefferson is constantly at the center of our family. He grows more interesting each day, developing at an amazing pace and providing endless opportunities for surprise.

It is already difficult to imagine life without Jefferson. He brings a whole new level of happiness to all of our lives.

Born at Butterworth hospital in Grand Rapids, MI, Jeff spent the earliest years of his life living in West Olive, MI with his parents, Donald and Susan Turkstra, and from 1984 onward his sister, Sarah. In September of 1985 Jeff and his family moved to Grand Haven, MI where he spent the remainder of his childhood. Jeff graduated from Grand Haven High School in the spring of 2000.

Jeff's college selection process was probably somewhat less rigorous than many's, but at some point he visited Purdue with his Dad and from that day forward Jeff was a Boilermaker. Jeff graduated in 2004 with a BS in Computer Engineering and again in 2007 with an MS in ECE. For the last three years he has been pursuing a PhD in ECE . In June of 2009 he accepted a full time position as a software engineer with the Rosen Center for Advanced Computing at Purdue, delegating his status as a PhD student to part time.

More about Jeff can be found on his personal website, TurkeyLand.