A little somethin' from the Deardens

2010-10-20T12:17:00.000-07:00

Lilly and Landon are getting so big. It's crazy how quickly it goes by! It's fun to watch them develope their individual personalities, but it's also lots of fun to watch them learn how to deal with each other. The magical "twin connection" that I've always heard about just didn't seem to come pre-programed with these two, but slowly they are becoming good friends. Today in the bath tub Lilly looked at Landon and smiled and they both started giggling. It was so cute. They are learning how to share and how to play without hurting each other. (Landon has been known to use Lilly as a step stool.) This morning Lilly was laying on the floor crying and Landon crawled over and put his hand on her back and just sat there by her. It was so cute.

2010-05-04T22:15:00.000-07:00

Shall we introduce our little ones?

I don't actually know if anyone even looks at my blog since I never get around to updating it, but here's a quick update just in case...

Lillian Christine and Landon James arrived at 4:45 and 4:48 in the morning on New Year's Day. Talk about a great way to kick off the New Year!

Both were very healthy then and have continued to be healthy, happy babies. We love them to pieces and can't imagine what life would be like without them. (I can imagine that we'd be getting much more sleep and have a cleaner house, but other then that...)

I will try to do a better job of updating my blog when I have time. In other words, check back when we send them off to college!

Back to School

2009-09-20T11:45:00.000-07:00

Last Monday we went to the school for Savannah to do her Kindergarten evaluation. At that time they gave us a folder that had the date of Sept 2 as the start date for school. Since then, I had been talking to a neighbor friend about the possibility of car pooling for school but our kids ended up in different classes. We had a typical lazy morning today, knowing that it was one of our last summer days before school started on Wednesday. Around 11:30, my neighbor friend called to report that her daughter had a great time at school and ask if Savannah was excited or nervous. My response was "doesn't school start on Wednesday???" Thankfully the teachers had remembered to tell my friend that there was a misprint on the schedule that they handed out but they had not remembered to tell me!!! In less then 15 minutes time, and with the help of Jeremy who happened to be home, we had Savannah fed, dressed, hair combed (or thown back in a pony) and dressed for school. We made it to the school without being late, and we happened to have already had some fresh apples at the house so that she was able to continue the tradition of taking an apple to her teacher on the first day of school. Not how I would have planned for her first day to go...but we all survied!!! Now I'm home in an quite house, this will take some getting used to....

2009-09-14T11:30:00.000-07:00

This is a contest entry for those crazy folks at TodaysMama and Cricut. Be sure to check out Cricut's cool new cartridges and the chance at $30,000 in travel for you and your friends at the Great Gypsy Escape site! Great Escape Meme

1. If you could escape to anywhere in the world where would it be? Castaway cay; Disney's Private Island.

2. What song do you play when you are by yourself in the car? Welcome! from the Brother Bear Soundtrack (it just puts me in a good mood.)

3. If you had a night to yourself, and money was no object, what would you do? SCRAPBOOK ALL NIGHT LONG! If money were no object, I would first pay for my Mom and sisters (of course sis' in laws too...) to hire babysitters so they could come, then order prints of digital pictures on my computer (yes, all 29,000 of them), then go on a shopping spree at Roberts, then order in all kinds of delicious food to keep us going, and spend the entire night scrapbooking and chatting!!! Now that sounds fun...

4. What is your guilty pleasure? Sleep. Not glamorous, but true.

5. What is the farthest place you have traveled away from your home? The Virigin Islands.

6. Last book that you couldn't put down? Any baby book about twins. They have me scared to death, but at least I'll be well informed! My favorite book though is "How to be like Walt." I would recommend it to anyone.

7. When you want to escape into another time, what movie do you watch? Last of the last of the Mohicans. (In fact I'm listening to the soundtrack right now...)

8. What is your favorite local escape? Ross. I love a good buy.

9. How do you escape on a budget? With the fam...go to the zoo. Without the fam...head down to my scrapbook room.

10. Best food you've ever had while on vacation? Macademia Nut Ice Cream at Haleiwa Joe's in Oahu.

Savannah turns 5!

2009-08-10T11:24:00.000-07:00

We had such a good time celebrating Savannah's 5th birthday! In the morning she had a little pool party with some friends and in the evening we had a luau with some family and a few other friends. Here favorite thing from her birthday was a pack of bubble gum that she got from Dad. It was a great reminder to me that it really is the simple things that bring the greatest joy!

Review of July 2009

2009-08-01T10:54:00.000-07:00

Holderness Reunion 2009

2009-08-01T10:30:00.000-07:00

Thanks for the memories!!!

We had a great time at the family reunion. Thanks Brauns for planning such a fun event. Thanks Grandma and Grandpa for making it possible for so many of us to attend. It was so nice to visit with everyone, and the best way I could have imagined to announce our news! Thanks to all of you for making it great!

2009-03-09T13:36:00.000-07:00

I also just found a highlight clip that I put together from our Dec '06 day trip to Sea World. I can't believe that Savannah was ever that little (or that I thought my hair might look good that curly...)

2009-03-09T13:31:00.000-07:00

I'm a little late posting it, but I thought you might enjoy seeing some highlights from our Thanksgiving 2008 trip to Disneyland with the entire Newbry Family.

You think Elephants never forget anything...

2009-01-13T22:06:00.000-08:00

We always joke about Savannah having an incredible memory, well, here's a little proof of just that...

Yesterday Savannah came to inform me that she could not find her piggy bank. When I asked why she needed it, she told me that she needed to count the money in it. I told her that we didn't need to do that right now, she replied, "a long time ago, we counted the money in my piggy bank. Remember, on the floor, and said, 1-2-3-4... We need to do that and count the money to see how much 'puz that was a long time ago."

I stopped and thought about it, and the only time that I could recall ever sitting down and counting the money in her piggy bank was in fact a LONG LONG time ago... I asked her what room we were in when we counted money and she said, "I'll show you" and took me to look at the photo of her in her bedroom in our house in American Fork. Infact, the bedroom was the one that we had her in when she was a baby but moved her out of just after she turned two, when we moved her to a larger room down the hall. The other funny thing that it I remembered taking pictures of her counting the money from her piggy bank because she just looked so cute sitting on the floor putting the coins back in, one by one. But if it was the time that I was thinking of, she couldn't possibly remeber it, could she? She must have only been about 16-18 months old at the time. No, she couldn't possibly remember that....

So, just for curiousity sake, I started looking back through my pictures today. I started with Feb 2006, when she would have been 16 moths old. No pictures there, nor in March, April or May. Okay, maybe she was older then I was thinking, maybe she could remember this experience. So I kept looking and found nothing. It couldn't possibly have been any earlier then this, could it? So I started going backwards, and guess where I found the pictures. October 28, 2005.

Savannah was 14 months old. Sure enough, she is sitting in her room, counting her money. (Not really counting, playing, but I do remember that I had tried to show her how to count.) Since this was the only time that I could think of, and I was certain that she had never seen these pictures before, I turned the computer screen off and called Savannah in. I asked her what she remembered and she again told me about being on the floor, counting money in her old, old room. I turned the computer scrren back on and said "is this what you remember?" She looked at the picture for a minute and then said "where's my crib?" I was shocked. Not only did she rememeber the setting, but she knew it well enought to know that the picture didn't look right. In the picture that I showed her, the futon that was in her room for a short time was behind her. When you look at the rest of the pictures, you can see that she was facing towards the crib, so that would have been what she would remember.

Isn't that wierd. I know that this was a very long story, but I really wanted to get it written down more for my sake then for anyone else. But as long as I was writting it down anyway, I thought I may as well remind you what an amazing kid I have! (Now if we could just get her to remember things like how to spell her name....)

Summer's winding down, Savannah's growing up

2008-09-05T08:42:00.000-07:00

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.

How often am I supposed to update this thing?

2008-07-14T10:07:00.000-07:00

It was my understanding that once the initial time is wasted setting up a blog, that it would automatically be updated every time that anything cute, funny, important or the least bit interesting happened. Is that not the case?

My mom is on her way from Idaho to spend a few days playing with Savannah and me and we are still on our pajamas. I would just die if my mother arrived at my house to find me in my PJs at 11am, but I will of course blog about it for the whole world to read. In any case, I only have time to post a few photos and then I better go get my clothes on.

So here are some of our latest pics, and I will update this blog thing in the next month or so...

Savannah talking about Cruella deVil

2008-05-22T13:25:00.000-07:00

The other day Savannah was talking to me about Cruela deVil and told me that Cruela doesn't like dogs. I said, "she only like to make coats out of them." Savannah didn't say anything for a while and then said, "but they would go to the bathroom on her."

I thought that it was very smart of her to be able to

We have arrived!

2008-05-20T19:32:00.000-07:00

Well, everyone else seems to have a blog, so I guess it's about time that we do too.

I guess that the most recent "big news" to share would be that we just got back from one of the most fabulous vacations that anyone could ever take. We spent seven days aboard the Disney Magic cruising the Western Carribean as part of a throng of 111 Holderni'. If you've never actaully head of a Holderni' before, it's because it's a made up word that is slang for "one belonging to the Jim & Ardelle Holderness family." It was incredible. Besides all of the wonderful food, entertainment, and activities aboard the ship, our ports of call were St. Maarten (were Jeremy and I did a shipwreak dive), St. Thomas (where we had fish eating out of our hands) and Castaway Cay (Disney's private island and most incredible island in the world.) It's no secret that we are HUGE Disney fans, but I can't imagine that there are any cruise lines out there that do it better then Disney. I also doubt that there are any famalies out there who are as wonderful to cruise with as the Holderness family. HUGE thanks to all the family members who made the trip so magical; especially Uncle Bruce & Aunt Nancy. There aren't words to express our gratitude.

It was hard to narrow it down, but here are a few of my favorite pictures from the trip.