Birthday Extravaganza

Yesterday was my 31st birthday. It was a great day, so many people went out of their way to make it special! I received many cards, treats and well wishes on my special day.

Thank you to all of you!

Someone very sneaky decorated my door first thing in the morning. What a fun surprise to find. The "Birthday Heart Caper" also left some delicious dehydrated Mangos as a gift, knowing how much I love Mangos. Thanks J. , you know it was you!!

A week ago Matt bought me this beautiful wicker bench for my front porch. I had been wanting one for awhile, and he finally got it for me. I love it, now I can sit on my porch and watch the kids play at the park, it's perfect! It was probably more then he wanted to spend, and I was totally expecting it to be my "birthday present". Little did I know...Matt is a wonderful, special occasion, gift giver type guy. He likes to make special days really special. So on my Birthday, he surprised me by taking a half day off work and coming home early with roses. Sigh...! He then was going to bake me a cake, but found a beautiful red velvet (my favorite) cake in the bakery. He decided to go for that one, because it was prettier then one he could bake...even though it would have been made with love. He is so funny! The cake, no matter where it came from, was delicious! I even had a slice for breakfast (one of my favorite post-birthday traditions).
You can see from the picture, that the bench was not the only gift he got me. Every year he tells me " honey, I am sorry, but I didn't really go all out for you birthday this year". Yeah right! Roses, cake, dinner out at Olive Garden, and he even went to Baskin Robbins and bought pints of my favorite mint chocolate chip ice cream, then he had four wrapped gifts for me. I call that going "all out" babe!! He does love to spoil me!

Inside the big wrapped box was a new sauce pan, since I have killed a couple of pots I really needed a new one. Matt hates giving "practical" gifts, so I was surprised to find he gave me cookware. Low and behold inside the box was a folded piece of paper redeemable for a maternity wardrobe shopping trip. I thought that was sweet, he wanted to make the practical a little more impractical!

By far, my favorite gift (like my girls), is having Matt home this year to celebrate with me. He hasn't been home for my birthday since I turned 28; so it was so sweet, sweet, sweet to have my lover home with me for my birthday! It was a great day.

The Belly Chronicles: edition 2

Sorry It has taken me so long to update you all. It has been an eventful past few weeks for our household, with lots of surprises. I have had lots of weird bacterial and yeast infections with this pregnancy, which has caused some spotting and other concerns. Everything seems to be fine now, but it leads into our latest discovery! We went to our 12 week OB appointment, and because of all the concerns told the doctor we would really like to hear a heartbeat so that we know everything is OK. He said, well...why don't we just go back and do an ultrasound. While doing the ultrasound we discovered not just one heartbeat...but TWO. Yes, you read right...TWINS! In the picture, Baby A is on the bottom and Baby B is on the top. We can't tell as of yet if they are identical or Fraternal. In this shot it looks like they are sharing a sac, but during the ultra sound it looked like two separate sacs. Ultra sounds do weird things when you zoom in and out, like the doctor was doing so we could get a pic with both babies. So it looks like we will be a family of 7 instead of 6. We still have a lot of "hurdles" to get through to bring these babies safely here, I for one can't wait until they are born at a healthy time and are healthy! Right now everything looks good. Both babies had good, strong heartbeats, were measuring just right, and were moving around. I felt like the "twin" thing explained a lot. This pregnancy just felt a little bit different then the rest. It is kind of hard to explain, I felt the same...but everything was more pronounced. I was more tired, hungrier, more sensitive to motion sickness. Luckily, I haven't been that ill really...just a sense of feeling a little "off". We are all nervously excited about this news. It has been a couple of weeks since we found out, so the shock has pretty much worn off. I will refer you to a comment in the "Kid-ism" section that Cora made about getting two babies. She said that after we had barely told them we were having a "baby"...weeks before we found out about the twin. We are extremely interested in finding out what we are having now. We don't really care if it is two girls, two boys, or one of each. Cora, however, is adamant that we will be getting a boy baby and a girl baby. That is why we are interested to find out, she has been right so far...how prophetic is she? For now, I am just taking it easy, lots of rest, no strenuous exercise, and no heavy lifting. The kids are learning to do more around the house, and I am learning to let them! It is not as clean as I usually have it ( my "Texas girls" will be laughing...they know my cleaning obsession all too well), so this is good practice for me in "letting go", because I KNOW the house will not be as clean after the twins come!!! I am already starting to show...weeks earlier then with my other babies, then I remember "that's right, there are 2!". We are moving along over 13 weeks now, and prayers in our behalf for healthy babies and a healthy mama are always welcome! Name suggestions are welcome too!!!!

Jeppson Easter Fun

Easter started out on Saturday with a classic round of egg decorating. No one in our family really likes boiled eggs (except Matt), but we all love deviled eggs!!Here is a picture outside our Chapel of the girls in the Easter dresses. It was a bright day, and this is the only one that turned out with all their eyes open.
After church and after dad got home from his meetings, we did our annual family Easter egg hunt. Dad hid the eggs, and then the kids rushed around frantically to find them. I try to divide the eggs up evenly, and tell the ones that can count "you can find 20 eggs". It usually works out well, and then everyone has eggs to find. Especially little (not so little) Cora.

Before the eggs were hidden by Dad, Hannah had her eye on a sparkly egg. She was most insistent that she must find that egg, since she loves all things sparkly and shiny...a bit like a crow. Her she is, victorious...she found her pretty egg!counting out the eggs, just to makes sure everyone has the right number and all the eggs were found. we did well this year, they were all found. Last year we were missing an egg, and we didn't find it until the movers came and packed up our stuff!!

It was a great day of fun and family time, but more importantly it was a great day to reflect on the Savior, his gift to us and how amazing it all is. With Matt being sustained and set apart on Easter Sunday, he and I both had the opportunity to bear our testimonies during our meetings. Thinking about what I would say really brought everything to the surface, and gave me much time to remember the true meaning of Easter. I loved Elder Holland's talk on the Savior and Easter and I loved how he put that experience to words. The Savior had to feel as low as we do, in order for us not to be alone. There is always One who will know exactly how we feel. I do love my Savior, Jesus Christ.

Changes for Matt

So today, as I have mentioned before, the Fort Irwin Branch Presidency was released. Obviously, this means that Matt being the second counselor in the Branch Presidency was released from his calling in our church. Do you think he got to relax for long, take a breather, chill out a bit. Not one single bit. He has been called as the new Fort Irwin Branch President ( for those of you not familiar with L.D.S. branches, he would be the bishop of a ward, or pastor of a congregation). Today, Easter Sunday, He was sustained by our congregation and set apart. Right now the branch is not a small branch. It is the size of some small wards I have been in, but we fluctuate so much in size with move ins and outs that we are kept at a Branch status instead of made into a Ward. We feel humbled and blessed all at the same time. I think he will do a great job leading the Branch here at Fort Irwin, because he already knows he can't do it all himself. He takes his spirituality very seriously, and is always searching out ways he can do better and be better. He is a tremendous example to me, and I love him and am so grateful to have him. He is one of my "lights" and I am sure he will be a "light" to many others. I will post more later about the rest of our Easter Sunday when I have some more free time.

Moving Along

Things are going well, and just moving along. Nothing much has happened this week, and I am starting to feel normal again (more on that one later). We are getting ready for this Sunday, Easter Sunday. It will be a big day for our family (again more on that one later-hee hee, I am so cruel-). We will have the pleasure of having Matt's mom, dad, sister and niece visiting with us next weekend for Easter. I have decided that I need to buy a bigger ham!! His mom will laugh hysterically if she saw the "ham" we purchased for our little families Easter dinner. Now that we will be a bigger, meat eating, group...I will correct the "ham" situation. The girls are out for spring break this whole week. We aren't planning too much since Matt will be working all this week. We plan on making the trek to Home Depot, going swimming, maybe some picnics, a possible Angels baseball game with Dad's office. If Matt doesn't have to work this Friday then we may attempt Universal Studios...it all depends on how I am feeling at that point. The greatest part about spring break is...I get to sleep-in (kind of) all week!!! No alarm clocks for me!!! So excited about that!!!