The Jeppson Express

We have been doing fun activities each night for our Countdown to Christmas. My sister gave me this idea and I thought it would be so fun. So here is what you do: Read the Polar Express. While the book is being discussed or read, the other spouse sneaks upstairs and places a ticket on top of your kids pajamas. Once the kids are heading upstairs getting ready for bed, start making Hot Chocolate. Then, when the kids are changed and have met in the meeting place, give the kids their cups and punch their tickets and have them board the "insert family name here" express. Then you drive around town looking at Christmas lights. My kids about died, they were so excited. They thought they had to go to bed and then they were completely surprised. It seriously was so much fun. The kids thought it was awesome to have their "to go" cups in the car while we were driving around.

Cambry couldn't wait to tell her teacher at school about it and the kids agreed we should do it again next year starting a new tradition. So Thanks Ali! It was a definite hit!

Playing Catch-up

Why oh why do I wait so long between posts?! Oh yea- it's because life is CrAzY busy :). In the middle of November Josh's bro and his family were able to come visit us for a few days. Josh's parents came during that weekend also and Josh's bro who lives a few min from us was also here. It was fun to have lots of family come and entertain us. That weekend I was also sustained as 1st counselor in the YW. I was enjoying my break of no calling but it feels good to get back in and serve. After Josh's family left, the kids and I headed to Idaho early for Thanksgiving. Josh stayed back to go to the Transsyberian Orchestra Concert- which he said was awesome. We enjoyed our Thanksgiving break and spending time with family (and of course the shopping)! Isaac turned 8 on the 28th and was so excited for his birthday. With everything going on I managed to throw a late night party for him-- easiest, most stress free party EVER!We had the boys make their own pizza, then they had a silly string fight in the back yard and then we turned on a movie for them and they played the rest of the time. Those 3 hours flew-unlike the girl parties that are an hour and a half and feel like 3 days!

We got Isaac a flying helicopter which he's gotten really good at controlling, he also got night vision goggles with a glowing football or something so you can play catch in the dark (Josh thought it would be cool, it must be a guy thing) along with the baptism presents like scriptures, case, markers and a journal. He is super excited to get baptized and loves carrying his scriptures around and of course marking them :).

The week before the party Josh and I along with Josh's bro and wife went to see The Forgotten Carols. It was amazing! I really enjoyed the songs and the power of the live performance. It was a fun date night :). I got pretty sick the day after the performance and was down for a couple days. I couldn't do anything and my throat was beyond swollen to the point where I couldn't talk or swallow without wanting to die. Thankfully that is over and I am back to normal now.

I swear I had memory loss after the sickness because I'm normally on top of things but one night at bedtime Cambry informed me that the next day was their Indian Pow-wow and they were supposed to dress like Indians. So the above picture is what I came up with from the scraps we had lying around. I think she looked pretty cute. Semi-indianish ;). We also were able to have Isaac be in his first Pinewood Derby last month. He was extremely excited about it. Our next door neighbors let us borrow the movie "Down and Derby". Hilarious and so so true. Isaac agreed with me that dad didn't let him do anything and Josh said "Yes I did, I let him sand down the car". The end result was that Isaac came in first place! Crazy ;). Hopefully he doesn't think he will win all of them and won't be disappointed when he loses! He was so cute to watch when his car would win. And we had to have a chat with him when awards were given out and the boy sitting next to us got the award for best looking car and Isaac says loudly, "well at least I won first Place!" Silly kids.

Josh woke up the next day and was very proud of his accomplishment. I can't believe I almost forgot to mention this last thing. Total blog worthy: I purchased my first pair of skinny jeans! Now I am so hip ;). And did you know, you don't even have to be skinny to wear them!! (Thankfully) :)

Friends, Paint and More

We've had a fun couple days here in Utah (besides the election results of course). Wednesday was sort of a bummer day but after talking to many people, I've come to the conclusion that it's for the best. Thursday I got a text from one of my most favorite people in the world saying she was in Utah. We met many years ago while our husbands were in dental school and she is pretty amazing :).

She has had a pretty rough year. Her oldest was diagnosed with bone cancer and has been in Seattle at the hospital there for the past 8 months. They found out while Cherish was a few months pregnant with her sixth child and she moved to Seattle with her oldest while her other kids stayed back at their house (the youngest being 18 months). So she went through the treatments with her daughter and had a baby 3 months ago. Just this last weekend her daughter was released from the hospital. So thankful that they are together as a family again and that their daughter is cancer free! It was so good to catch up with her and meet her newest little cutie pie. I don't think I've met anyone who is so calm with her kids. You would never know she had 6 kids with how well she handles everything and how positive she stays with everything she goes through!! I'm pretty sure she doesn't read this but Thanks for visiting me Cherish!!! We sure love your cute family! :) I feel like I have been painting since I moved in and I am able to say that I am done painting now!! Yay! The kids didn't have school this past Monday so while they were here I decided to paint my bedroom. (I remembered to take a picture after I started so you could see what color was there)

We have played name that paint color and some names we've come up with were: throw-up, puke, ugliest color you've ever seen, etc. They called it gold but I don't think thats possible. So I painted it without Josh knowing to see if he would notice. This is post painting:

He went into the room 5 times without noticing and I kept texting my sister to keep her updated and that I couldn't believe he hadn't noticed. At 10:30 that night I was giving my sister a final update that was going to say I can't believe he can't smell the paint and I started laughing and he came over and grabbed my phone to see what was so funny and read all the texts. It was pretty funny cause then he goes in and his mouth drops. He said it just looked natural and that he probably wouldn't have noticed for a while. Men! I don't know if he felt guilty about not noticing cause when I went into the office yesterday and starting removing wallpaper he jumped right in and helped take it all off- without me asking!! Be prepared for the following picture this wallpaper was pretty Loud to say the least-

I documented my hubby helping cause he wanted to keep the wallpaper. It was "golfy" to him. Actually it was because he thought it would be too much of a pain to remove it. Fabric softener and hot water makes it come off quickly and my house smelled soooo good after we were done :). Here is the final results:

We love it! The paint we used was supposed to be the match of the rest of our house but Lowe's was way off by about 5 shades being too dark. I'm glad we were able to put it to good use. Lastly I thought I would post a picture of Halloween. Cambry was an angel and looked so beautiful but they were at the bus stop when I realized I hadn't taken her picture and by the time I ran out with my phone they were climbing on the bus:(. Cal wanted to be a witch but I convinced her to be a super hero like Court. I thought their outfits should coordinate and I think they looked cute. One little boy told them they weren't twins anymore though cause they weren't dressed alike.

This was the best picture I got of Isaac. He just wore his karate outfit. Lots more to blog about but for now this'll do :).

One More to Catch Up

I thought I would post some pics in this post since my last one was pretty much picture free. I forgot to mention that my sweet little shy Cambry had a talent show a couple weeks ago for the 4th grade and she got up and sang "You Belong With Me". I was a little unsure of the whole idea because nobody could have paid me any amount of money to get up and sing in front of people but she did so good!! She said everyone was coming up to her and telling her she did a great job. I asked if any boys said anything and she said "Mom, I said Everyone." So cute. I was so proud of her!!

The kids had picture day at the beginning of October and I swear I had all their outfits picked out ahead of time and matching. The morning of Isaac comes down stairs wearing this:

After I laughed out loud for a minute I told him he was NOT going to wear that outfit. Did he wear it? Yes he did. He is definitely my styler. I think I like it this way.

I'm pretty sure I have pictures of all the kids at their actual games they are just on Josh's phone. At the beginning of the season, I wasn't sure how Cal and Court would do at soccer since they've never played before so I decked them out with cute bows and hair so they would at least look cute trying to play. They ended up being the top scorers on their team and were super good at defense. So not only did they look cute they also played awesome :). Bonus! Isaac was by far the number one player on his team. He had a group of boys that just wanted to fool around the whole time and not play. It was very frustrating watching the games and seeing Isaac try his hardest while no one else did anything :(. Cambry was a champ! She tried out soccer a few years ago and hated it but wanted to give it another try and she ended up doing really well. She improved so much from the first game to the last. We were very proud of all of them for giving it their all.

Right after Josh left for priesthood session of conference, Callie busted her head open. Thankfully it wasn't as bad as it looked to begin with and will hopefully not have a scar on her head to match her twin :).

This is an after pic of the twins room. AKA the hotdog room. The wall to the left and the window wall were bright red, the other walls were mustard yellow. Thankfully I have it under control now. The plus side is that cool paris mural in the back ground. The girls love it.

Josh cleaning the windows (from the last post)

And this is the biggest family portrait I have ever been in. Josh doesn't think it's big enough but believe me a 20x30 picture of yourself on the wall is definitely big enough!! Well now that I've spent my break blogging, I need to shower before the kids get home. Who says all we do is watch TV and eat Bon Bons? ;)