When Archer was born, Jason gave me a necklace with a peridot in it (Archer's birthstone) and five tiny diamonds.  Before Hunter was born, I told Houser that I wanted him to take that necklace and combine it with a blue topaz, which was going to be Hunter's birthstone, because I never wanted to have to choose which necklace to wear.

Houser went to Beardsley and presented him with the original necklace and his new design.  He drew a front view and a side view, which Beardsley really appreciated because people design jewelry in their heads all the time, but rarely do they render it on paper with dimensions/proportions.  Both Beardsley and Houser actually went to the same art school, but not at the same time.

There are many styles of birthstone necklaces, a lot of them look like this:

Sorry for the image-heavy post, but for those who have not seen the typical stuff, I wanted to contrast it with my necklace, which is exactly what I wanted and one of my favorite pieces of jewelry.  This is it:

It looks better in person, but photographing jewelry is haaaard.

Hunter calls it "the me and Archer necklace".  

Anyway, I have no engagement ring, my wedding ring is pretty plain (by design, I always bang my hands into things and I wanted a ring I couldn't wreck) - this is the piece of jewelry that represents my marriage and my family more than any other.  I am very happy with it.