The Birthday Celebrations

First of all, I would like to say THANK YOU to everyone who remembered our birthdays. We really (me especially) appreciated your gifts, cards, phone calls, and messages. It's kind of hard to really celebrate when no one in the state knows it's your birthday, so it was so nice to know that people still love us enough to remember our birthdays even though we (in some cases) haven't seen them in years. Seriously--you're awesome.

May 28th--Meg's 23rd Birthday
Jon & I aren't really big into celebrations, but I still try to make our birthdays special. I celebrated being 23 by making myself some cinnamon struesel muffins for breakfast, which immediately sent the baby into kick-boxing mode due to a high sugar content. But it was my birthday, so I ate two anyway. Sorry baby.

I then took a celebratory 2 hour birthday nap, woke up, and then proceeded to NOT shower, nor remove my pajamas. All day long. Not my original plan, but whatever. I spent most of the day catching up with friends I hadn't talked to in ages, and making my birthday "cake"--strawberry crepes.

Around 3 pm there was a knock at the door, and Joyce, my co-Activity Days/Primary teacher was at the door with a strawberry pie for me (can you tell we picked strawberries for our last activity?). Luckily she didn't mind that I was totally disgusting. It was my birthday, after all. I was actually really touched that she would think to do that for me, since I tend to make a point of not announcing my birthday to anyone. Plus, now I had something to stick candles in (although I was trying to figure out how to put candles on crepes).

Since we designated our second week in Hawaii as our birthday presents, we had a really low-key evening. I cooked a yummy dinner, blew out my candles, and spent the evening on the phone. I did, however, thoroughly enjoy my birthday massage from Jon.

May 29th--Jon's 26th Birthday
As much as I didn't want to, I got up in time to have blueberry muffins ready for Jon's breakfast. I sent him off to work with 3/4 of a strawberry pie and a bunch of crepes (they were having a work meeting and had to provide nourishment. No way we were going to eat all of that).

To celebrate Jon's birthday, I DID shower and get dressed. I even did my hair and makeup. My plan was to surprise him by having the bedroom and upstairs hallway all cleared out (they were full of Hawaii/moving stuff), but he walked in the door just as I was finishing up the hallway.

He got his requested Chicken Parmesan for dinner, and a chocolate pudding pie I made for dessert. Sadly, the pie wasn't exactly what he wanted. He would have been happy if I had just plopped a bowl of chocolate pudding down in front of him, but I had insisted that it had to be in a pie so we could put candles on it. Oh well, lesson learned. Anyone want some pie?

We celebrated his birthday by going to bed early (Jon's favorite activity).

Funny story about Jon's birthday present: Back in March, I asked him what he wanted, and he told me he'd like the Starcraft Expansion--Brood Wars. So I sat right down and ordered it off Half.com before I forgot entirely. A week or so later, he asked me what this strange package was that came in the mail. I (stupidly) told him it was probably his birthday present, at which point he RUNS into the bedroom, LOCKS the door, and HIDES the CD. The punk! Lucky for him, I gave in and let him keep it. So he's been playing with his birthday present for two full months now (and has almost beaten it). He still thinks he's pretty clever for that stunt.

And there you have it. We had a nice, relaxing couple of birthdays. I'll finish with my thoughts on turning 23, since I know you're all dying to hear them. First of all, 23 sounds significantly older than 22. This is nice when people (noting my belly) ask me how old I am. And no, I am not a teenager, thank you very much. Secondly, life is just interesting. Did I ever think that at 23 I'd be married, own a house, and have a baby on the way? No. Maybe I'd be married, or engaged, but not having a kid! Am I happy with the way things have turned out? Absolutely. It just makes me glad that Heavenly Father knows what we need so much better than we do. So here we go! Year #24...