Summer's winding down, Savannah's growing up

There's a little bit of a chill in the air, and all my friends kids have gone back to school. It's the time of year that I have come to love, the time when Savannah and I get to reclaim the playgrounds and library story hours! The time when the McDonalds Playland is not so crowded and noisy. I'm so excited to have eveyone else go back to school while Savannah and I get to stay home and play. That is- until Monday.

You would think that after all of the time that I have spent getting Savannah registered, shopping for school clothes and trying to squeeze in a few last lessons on letters and numbers, I would have been more prepared for this. BUT I AM NOT! My baby is going to be gone 3 hours a day, 4 days a week. And from what I understand, they'll take her away from me even longer each day every year for the rest of her life!!! The saddest part is that she is sooo excited to be going. I, on the other hand, have no idea how I am going to make it through the first day of school without having a nervous break down! I just cannot believe that she has gotten so big!

On August 10th Savannah turned four years old. The time just keeps flying by at warp speed! Whenever I ask her if she needs help or tell her that she can't do something by herself, she holds up her 4 fingers in front of her face and says, "I'm not a baby, Mom. I'm four." It's very cute. She loves it when I pretend to be scared of her four little fingers, but the reality of it is that I AM! She's such a great kid. She's so thoughtful and helpful. She makes us laugh and makes us smile, but she also is so great about giving hugs and cheering me up if I'm having a bad day. She never fails to tell me that I am her best friend. Sometimes it's followed with "can I have a treat?" and sometimes it follows something nice that I have done for her. (Thanks for lunch, Mom. You're my best friend!) I'm not looking forward to the day that Savannah realizes that there are more interesting people to be best friends with then boring old mom.

Jeremy and I celebrated our sixth wedding anniversary on August 16th. This year was kind of a combination of "wow, we've been married that long?" and "I thought it had been longer then that" at the same time. It's great to get past the first few years of marriage and get to the point where we just enjoy being around each other and don't have to stress about big plans for the occassion. This year we celebrated by going for a six mile walk/hike up City Creek Canyon. In the twelve mile round trip, we did a lot of talking and catching up. It was so much fun! Our plan was to have April babysit that night so that we could catch a movie, but we decided to just stay home instead. It really was a great day. Besides, our surprise trip to Disneyland for Jae's birthday was really supposed to be part of our anniversary anyway.

Jeremy is definatly the hero of our family. He is still working crazy long hours and stressing about work even when he's not there. He's still enjoying being in financial services and is geting rave reviews from his clients. It will be an uphill climb for the next few years, longer then we had anticipated, but he feels that when he gets to the top it will be well worth it. In the meantime, he is so great about finding fun things to do in the little time off that he does have. Last weekend we went to Lake Powell with our friends, the Hadleys. It was a lot of work getting there, but tons of fun once we arrived.

We finally got all of our belongings out of "storage" in our friend Travis' basement, and moved into the basement of our house. The previous homeowners are still in a bit of a bind on their new house so they are continuing to rent from us. It works out well for us as we can stay in Jeremy's parent's home until they return in December. Savannah is excited both for moving into our house and for having Grandma and Grandpa Dearden come home.

So summer is winding down, and Savannah is growing up. I guess that pretty well wraps things up for us at the moment. It's nice to look back on all the fun that we have had this summer, but it's also nice to look forward to all the changes that are coming for our family as we head into fall. I suppose that the same could be said about my feelings towards sending Savannah off to Preschool. I suppose that I don't really want her to stay a baby forever. We're happy to see her grow and learn and I know that there are so many excting adventures that lay ahead of her. I guess I'm just going to have to learn to do something that I have been trying to teach her since she was little- SHARE.

Both of us could use some improvement in that area.