refreshing: to make like new, to give new life

aka, the new year.

As 2009 comes to a close I feel hopeful and excited and somewhat relieved. 2009 was a heavy year. By no means do I mean that it was all bad; everything, all the good, bad and ugly just added up to be really heavy for some reason. I'm excited to be able to set it down and pick up not only a new year, but a new decade. It kind of makes me feel like that new York Peppermint Patties commercial. (I tried to find a link to it, but didn't see anything. If you have no idea what I'm talking about then I guess tough luck.) Invigorated, rejuvinated and light.... ahhhhh. I can't wait.

Last night, Deke and I started talking about our top 9 favorite events of the 2000's, but then it just turned into a discussion about our top 9 favorite make-outs we had while we were dating each other. You can see where our priorities lie.  SO, in order to celebrate the new, I'm going to highlight some of my favorite things of the old. Of the last decade, that is. And I'll spare you the details of our make-outs.  You're welcome. When the first decade of this century began I was only 14. FOURTEEN. Yikes.

Anyway, in no particular order, here are 9 of my top favorite things that happened in the 2000's.

9 - High School

I know it's probably not so cool to admit you like, even loved, high school. But I totally did. Friends, football games, musicals, dating, proms, boys... I loved it all.

8 - BYU

I ventured off alone, not knowing anyone when I moved down, and it was the best thing I ever did. I had some of the greatest girls in the whole world for roommates both freshman and sophomore years. While I still am not (and probably never will be) a fan of Provo the city, I will always love and appreciate the education I received at BYU. I really couldn't have asked for a better higher education experience.

7 - Meeting Deek.

No explanation necessary

6 - Getting Married

A pretty big deal I hear. Kind of a defining day in one's life.

5 - Graduating from college

Proudly graduating with 120.5 credits. You need 120 in order to graduate...

4 - Europe/Russia

It was so surreal to see in person everything I had studied about in school right in front of me in living breathing color. To be able to experience it with all of my senses was one of the most incredible experiences of my life. I honestly think about something from that trip atleast once a day. And to experience it with Deek made it all the more sweeter.

3 - Living in Hawaii

While it took the majority of our savings to do it, it was one of the best decisions we've ever made as a couple. I'm pretty sure both of our families thought we were nuts to just pick up and leave for a semester. Would you believe me if I told you that the suggestion to go was a direct answer to a prayer? Seriously. I was praying about something, and then about 2 minutes after I finished praying I had the distinct impression that we needed to move to Hawaii to address my concern. Seriously. It's not every day God tells you to pack your bags and move to a tropical paradise.

2 -  Being Pregnant.

And I'm not even joking. Minus the first 3 months of my pregnancy that will go under "The Top 9 Worst Things About the Last Decade."  Having a baby was something I really, really, desperately wanted. It was the most incredible experience to physically be a part of the creation of a life. I can honestly say I loved being pregnant, and in a way, was sad to see it end.

1 - Reese

Again, no explanation necessary.

I hope the next 10 turn out to be just as great as the last, and you know what? I have a feeling they certainly will...

Cheers and Happy New Year!

should i be worried?

Every night, Reese starts out in the middle of her crib,  parallel to the long sides of the crib. 45 minutes later she looks like this:

(yes, I realize there's no sheet. it was in the laundry.)

My quirky kid has to have her face smooshed against something in order to sleep. What the heck? Last night after finding her like this right before I went to bed, I moved her back to the middle.  Seriously 2 minutes later, I watched her do this funky caterpillar thing to get back to bumpers where should could continue her face smooshing practices. I'm pretty sure this goes against all crib safety rules. But what can I do? Crazy kid.

"nice to meet you, we share a bed.....

.....and her? Oh yes. She's our offspring. Surprise! Fancy that."

Anyway, the title of this post often describes how I feel around Christmas time. Regarding Deek, that is. Or my awesome lavender linen spray.

You see, we have both been blessed with very active, family oriented, tradition loving families.  But both of our very active, family oriented, tradition loving families come from other very active, family oriented, tradition loving families. And we LOVE this. Seriously. We wouldn't have it any other way. I repeat, we LOVE it. But between our immediate and extended families, combined with the regular hustle and bustle of preparing for Christmas means that the chances of Deek and I having a moment alone together lasting longer than 5 minutes in the days/week leading up to Christmas is as probable as it is that I will refrain from eating every smidgen of chocolate I see.  Or that my last sentence could be described as brief. In other words, not very.

Am I alone in feeling this way?

As the sun sets on Christmas night I'm always sad that the anticipation and activities have come to a close for another year, but a little part of myself is actually a tad relieved. I finally get my own little family all to myself.

Again, particularly saying this to our mothers - we LOVE all of the family get togethers. They're one of the things that make Christmas, Christmas {in a good way :)}. But it's just nice to be our own little unit once it's all done.

So, this year in order to celebrate, we took a holiday from our holiday. The Saturday after Christmas was the first day in a long while we had no event to be to or shopping to be done. We slept in til 12:00. As in noon. All 3 of us. Reese woke up at 7:30AM to eat and then went right back to bed with the both of us.  Beautiful.

We then lounged around in our sweats ALL day and ended it with a movie before heading back to bed. Even more beautful.

It was one of the very best gifts I received this year - a whole entire day with nowhere to be, nothing to do, and my 2 very favorite people in the entire world by my side. That was the most beautiful thing of all.

{The cliche Christmas post is coming soon. Probably. Eventually. Still waiting to get a few pictures and stuff.}

temple square

There's something so festive and heart warming about Temple Square Christmas lights. I love them and I'm so glad we made the effort to go.

Of course as soon as we got there Reese decided she was ravishingly hungry and started screaming and wouldn't take the bottle of defrosted milk I had brought. Fun. I'm really sure our fellow patrons fully enjoyed the sounds of our screaming offspring as they peacefully watched the Nativity production take place.

Lovely.

By the time we finally got her settled down we only had about 15 minutes left to walk through, but what can you do, right? We still had a great time, even with our little monster along for the ride. Much thanks to Jason & Erin for putting up with difficult company. :)

Us:

Jason & Erin clan:

Merry Christmas!

annual tree cutting extravaganza

Except for this year, while there was a tree, there was no cutting involved. For the first time in all 5 Christmases we've been married, we didn't cut our own tree down. Gasp.

I know, I know...

Instead of voyaging to the land of Christmas Meadows, we took the equally {not as} long journey to our local Smith's Marketplace to pillage for our tree. The logistics of taking a 3 month old who still nurses every 3 hours trekking around the snow covered mountains in sub zero temperatures just wasn't sounding so great. So we did the next best thing. We let someone else do all the work for us. Awesome.

Deek with the loot:

High quality picture of Jen:

Right before this picture was taken I was yelling at Deek saying something along the lines of "It's too dang cold to take a picture! I'm getting in the truck..." (it was, like 8 degrees.)

But then he made me feel really guilty about not documenting significant events (like buying a tree at a grocery store) and how I'll regret not taking a picture, and yada, yada, yada. I'm sure it provided quality entertainment for the Smith's parking lot public.

I grudgingly let him take the picture. Meanwhile, my fingers were snapping off.

Don't tell him this, but now looking back, I'm a little bit glad we stopped to take the picture. But I never said that.

baby, it's cold outside

who: reese
what: in her new winter hat
when: thur dec 10
where: the family room couch
why: gettin' all gussied up to go see the lights at temple square. in 5 degree weather.

3 years ago i was living here

with him..

some days, i really miss hawaii.

while everyone else was frantically shopping on black friday

I was polar strolling (yes. you read that right. it's a totally made up sport that i have invented. as of right. now.)  in the solitude of the mountains near our cabin.

Some of the other faces of whom were there.....

Mr. T-Rev

the Russ-man

the be-ootiful Cami

and my hunk-o-munk, Deek.

along with {most of} the rest of the N clan.

Yup. I scored the deal of the century on Black Friday. Let the Holidays begin!

she's 3 months

Some things I'm loving about 3 month old Reese:

-She's finally discovered her voice.  She babbles and coos and squeals in delight all day long. It's so fun to have a "conversation" with her.

-She's still as smiley and happy as can be. Unless it's tummy time. And then it sounds like she's trying to yell at me.

-Her bald spot is awful. At night, when we put her down for bed she'll rub her head back and forth for up to an hour. Maybe she has an itch? Who knows.

-She loves all things soft and snuggly. I have to prop her on her side in the corner of her crib when she naps to help her flat spot go away. She'll sometimes rock herself so she's flat on her back and then smash her face into the bumper. If there's a blanket anywhere near her face she'll try as hard as she can do the same thing. Safe? Probably not. But she loves it.

-She definitely knows who Mommy and Daddy are and greets us with a big happy grin whenever she sees us.

Mommy and Reese hangin' on the playmat:

A week or so ago my angel of a sister in law volunteered to watch Reese while Deek and I went to his company party. Not only was this awesome of her because we were gone 7 hours, but because she has her own little Eliza who is 5 weeks younger than Reese. She snapped some pretty great pictures of the two. Here's one of my favorites:

                         

Total mugshot. Eliza looks totally guilty of something, and Reese looks like she could beat you up. Love the matching mohawks. Love, love, love it. Thanks again Katie!

happy thanksgiving

I love this song. One of my favorite lines is: "'Tis the gift, 'tis the gift, 'tis the simple gift to be!"

Indeed it is such a wonderful gift to simply be. 

I feel as though my heart could burst with all of the gratitude I feel today. This year of all years, Deek and I have so much to be grateful for. ..

...to be the parents of our little Reese. Simply look through our blog to see how enamored and in love we are with her.

...to be financially afloat. Some of you may or may not know, but Deek hasn't had a real stable job for quite a number of months. This last month he finally landed a job with an excellent company. HUGE sigh of relief. Really, we shouldn't have survived financially, but somehow we have thanks impart to having a savings, but mostly, I'm sure, due to a hand from the divine.  I honestly have felt His hand give me strength when I simply wanted to break down and sob because I wasn't quite sure how we would be able to cover everything. But somehow we're here and there's food on our table. Which leads me to the next thing...

....simply having food on our table. Food is kind of an important ingredient to be able to be.

...to be a part of the families we are.  Really, do you know either of our families? They're all pretty fantastic people.

This year was truly a year of simple, wonderful, beautiful gifts. A year to simply be.

It's amazing how little it takes to be happy, isn't it? Really, when happiness is stripped down to it's bare nakedness there's just not a lot of the material fluff left. What's left is the solid core of simple truths that ground us and keep us connected, most importantly to Him. ahhhhhh.... How much we have to be grateful for this year.

Happy Thanksgiving everyone! And may you all find joy in the simple gifts that let us be.

speaking of names

Ours has changed.

Did you notice? In effort to keep our blog public I have decided to remove all references to last names on our blog. So, now instead of "the H______" this blog is now known as "Jenerek". Get it? Like... Jen and Derek, but generic? Isn't it fantastically cheesy? But what good is life without a little cheese. Give me some cheese, please, and if you have our blog listed on your blog roll under the old name, change it to the new. Por Favor. Gracias.

For now on, all references to Jen's immediate family will be "N" and references to Deke's immediate family will be "H". Extended families will be referred to in like fashion.

And since we're just switching it all up, there's another name I need to change. I was informed by the significant other that I've been spelling his name wrong all this time. Yup. D-e-k-e is no good. For 5 1/2 years I've been getting it WRONG.

5 YEARS.

WRONG.

He even has a track sweatshirt from high school with the "correct" spelling to prove it.

Who'd a thunk. So, here it is...... the "right" way to spell it....

Deek.

Huh. Doesn't it look wierd? It will take a little getting used to. But no, I'm not going to change the web address to suit the new spelling. That would be a little too much change for right now. (Feel no need to change your blogroll if you have us listed as "Deke & Jen" or something similar. I'm only doing it because I keep getting flack from the man.)

So for now, dekeandjen.blogspot.com will stay put.

Peace Out.

it happened again

She smiled. On camera. Oh yes.

She's such a funny little thing. She cheeses it all day long, but as soon as we whip out the camera, she gives us faces like this:

or this...

or this..

or this...

(and yes. can you tell we like the red flower? it's a good one.)

But finally she gave us a gem like this:

I love this girl.

the man of the house

Happy Birthday!!

Deke had a birthday a few days ago. Isn't he one good lookin' son of a gun? Sigh... I know. And he is mine. I'm one lucky gal, Yup. Sure am. Last year for his birthday I posted a big list of a bunch of reasons I think he's the greatest person this side of anywhere. Today, I'm going to make a few addendums to that list.

So, without furth adieu...

Addendum #1

Deke has a quality that I find most of my generation lacks. I really can't put my finger on exactly what it is, but it is one of the most lovable, endearing, treasured traits about him. It's his love and appreciation of pure, good, and simple things. It's that he'd rather speak face to face with someone versus phone or text. It's how he lights up when we first put on Oakridge Boys and the Kenny Rogers Christmas CD's. It's the emphasis he places on building relationships versus acquiring things. It's the joy he gets from helping other people. He's as down to earth as one can get. I wish I could better explain it - it's an old fashioned quality that embodies all of these things, but is somehow more.

Addendum #2

He's going to kill me for writing about this one, but it's too funny not to write. Deke has a lot of quirks (don't we all?). I discovered one of these most recent quirks this last week. I have this lavender linen spray that I spray on my pillow at night.  It's divine. Anyway, the other night as we were getting into bed I sprayed my pillow and went to put the spray away. As I was doing this, Deke says, "Hey!! You forgot mine!!"  "What the crap?" I thought to myself, "My 'manly' husband want lavender spray on his pillow?" "Are you serious?" I asked him. "Yeah. It helps me sleep at night." ...  Priceless. 

Hey H________, Yer not so tuff... ;)

Addendum #3

He is a man of honesty, intregity, and faith. Values that seem to be ever declining in this crazy world of ours.

Addendum #4

His love of serving others. I can honestly say that I am not naturally inclined to serve others. It's something I really have to consciously think about doing.  Deke is not this way.  He is one of those few people who genuinely LOVE giving a helping hand to anyone who needs it and is always looking to find ways to serve.  He will gladly go out of his way to help anyone, whether it be family, friends or strangers. I have a lot to learn from him in this regard.

I could keep going and going about all the things that I admire and love about my husband, but I'll leave it at this. He really is the love of my life. I couldn't have hand picked someone better to be my companion through this crazy journey life. He brings infinite balance, joy, and love into my life daily. I luff him.

(sigh again)....He is my Mr. H_______....

 

because every little girl needs a harley outfit...

Happy Tuesday!

i am so doing this so i can enter the banner boutique giveaway more than once..

If you enter at bannerboutique.blogspot.com you can win over $100 of cute stuff like this:

The entire giveaway goes to one person. Oh yes... I really hope I win.

i'm thinking it's a little big

In lieu of the first snow this month, we tried to put Reese in her snowsuit. Apparently the size 0-6 months is a little deceiving.  She wasn't a fan.

random stuff about 2 month old reese (a couple weeks late)

• At her 2 month appointment her height dropped 15 percentiles and her weight jumped 20 percentiles. She's short and stocky just like we like em'!
• She still LOVES being snuggled. In this respect, she's definitely a mama's girl. When she gets really tired she'll just rub her face back and forth against anything soft, whether it be a shoulder, a blanket, or her own little arms. It's adorable.
• This little missy is all smiles with her mommy and daddy (unless the camera is out. of course.) It melts my heart when I go into her room and pick her up after a nap - She'll give me the biggest, gummiest, cheesiest smiles. How wonderful it is to feel so loved and needed!
• She still has blowouts that would impress the marines. This gal can fill 3 diapers in 10 minutes like it's her job.
• One of the best things about my little 2 month old? She started sleeping through night just a few days after she turned 2 months!! Break out the date night, folks. She pretty consistently sleeps 9 hours in row. Can I get a woot, woot!? Do I feel super lucky? You bet. I owe it all to Babywise. I know this book is controversial, but I'm a schedule person and it's been a life saver. I'm also lucky in the fact that Reese isn't a big cryer, so we really haven't had many "crying it out" episodes. She seems to do really well with routine too, and is happiest when she stays on her little schedule.
• More and more we're getting to know the personality of this enchanting little creature. So far, she's been a really chill, happy, easy going, snuggly little gal, but when she's tired or hungry she can yell/cry with the best of them. I'm sensing there's a lot of spunk hidden in her sweet little grin.

Oh, how we love our little Reese.

the baby blessing

Yesterday, we blessed Reese at Deke's parents home. It was a  beautiful blessing for a beautiful girl. I am so grateful for Deke and his worthiness as a priesthood holder. It has blessed my life on numerous occasions, and I am so glad Reese now gets to be a recipient of it.

Some pictures from the big day: (warning: a LOT of pictures. mostly for annie and andi's enjoyment....)

happy halloween!

And what are we, you ask? Reese... a bumble bee. Jen....a flower. Deke.....

Any ideas?

Do you need a closer look?

Still no thoughts?? He's a jar of honey. And yes... those are bit o' honey's all over him. You're all jealous aren't you?

Here's a closer look at our little bee...

... our little bee who soon turned into an angry bee...

Last Monday we celebrated with the H's and today with the N's.  At N's, we happened upon the Wicked Witch of the West...

Who turned out to be Grandma :)

We had one killer leaf fight.  Of which yours truly started. Ya'll better bring it next year, cuz you're goin' DOWN.

The whole Fam Damily:

And now we're off to trick or treat!

Happy Halloween!

p.s. i would love if any of the harbies would email me some pics from the other night :)