Where has the time gone?

I haven't posted anything this year and feel really terrible. However, anyone that has 2 children will tell you how busy they become and how impossible posting on the internet can be. When we aren't busy with the girls, Jason and I update around the house, try to have a great yard and more importantly, try to catch up on sleep. I don't know how we manage but we do. I can assure all of you that we have been extremely busy this year. We had so many wonderful things happening this year already that we can't wait to share with you. Although it appears I don't post often, I do manage to capture fabulous times on my flip video that I will be sharing with you.

Kennedy was 2 on November 6th and she is so smart. She definitely blows us away by her vocabulary, what she remembers, and her imagination. She thinks she is the next American Idol by the way she sings. She loves being outdoors, she loves socializing (imagine that) and loves going to spend time at her Nana's and Papa's. She is even spending the night there with her big cousin Kelan. I think her favorite thing to do outside is get dirty, but asks to go to the park almost every weekend. The one thing we haven't managed to conquer yet is her fear for the BIG jumpy castles, but we are trying. She has been to a few big girl birthday parties and is having a blast eating cake and singing happy birthday. It is definitely the little things in life:)

Savannah was 1 on March 23rd and is completely opposite from Kennedy. She is a healthy baby who wants to do everything in her own time. She is stubborn and looks just like I did when I was a baby. However, her crazy faces that she makes, make her look just like David's little boy Kelan. Jason likes to call Savannah the holy terror as she doesn't want to play with Kennedy, but she would just rather antagonize her.

They are both really funny and we never have a dull moment in our house. We are gearing up for Easter and the big Easter egg hunt. I am going to get some recent photos taken of them and mailed out so be looking for those. I will try to post some videos in the next day or so along with some pictures.

We hope everyone is well and we wish all of you a blessed Easter.

Love,

Jen, Jason, Kennedy & Savannah:)

End of another year!

We wish everyone a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year. We hope everyone enjoyed 2010 and has already thought of the resolutions for 2011! One of mine will be to update the blog regularly. Over the last 12 months, we have made fantastic memories, shared tears of joy and sadness along the way, and have been extremely blessed by the hand of God. A look back at 2010 for the Gardner's.

Jason and I were so exhausted at the start of the new year that we didn't even watch the ball drop for 2010! It was a sign of we are getting old LOL! We celebrated friends and families birthdays, engagements, anniversaries, weddings, and even had a few tricks up our sleeves.

Savannah was born on March 23rd by a scheduled csection and she weighed in at a whopping 8lbs 13oz. When we brought her home, she weighed 8lbs 10oz. So much for losing a little weight. She is our very own CHUB a LUB (is what I call her) and such a sweet baby! She has been really good for us and has slept all night since 3 weeks. She is stubborn as hell and only cries when she is hungry or tired! Imagine that.

Kennedy also has excelled really well. The tubes that are in her ears are really working perfectly and we are showing no signs of issues there. After taking the summer off, we moved Kennedy to an "in-home" daycare/school with kids her age and older. There are only 7 kids total (including Savannah) and Kennedy is learning so much. At age 2, she is potty trained, she can count to 10, she knows her colors and her body parts, and her vocabulary is beyond amazing. I am a proud mama and it may sound like bragging, but this was at her 2 year old checkup and her pediatrician's words, not mine.

We have received emails from Santa, I had a 30th birthday, I got my job back teaching 6th grade math at Hobbs Middle School, we took our first family trip to Walt Disney World and even saw Shamu. We saw old friends, hung out with new friends and even watched Audrey graduate with her Masters degree this December. We have had an amazing year and we can't wait to see what 2011 has in store for us. Here are a few pictures of what we have done this year!

Jason and Kennedy after the Shrek ride at Universal Studios.

Auntie Audrey and Kennedy posing as princesses!

Mama and Kennedy at the Gulf Breeze Zoo on a very hot day!

Kennedy and Savannah being too cool for school with their sunshades on!

A little pool time with Daddy.

Kennedy as a princess on her 2nd Birthday!

Savannah having a bad hair day!

Kennedy, Kelan (my nephew) and Savannah all posing for the camera before trick or treating!

Kennedy wearing Auntie Audrey's sweater!

Cowgirl Jessie...aka Kennedy... for Halloween!

Kennedy and Savannah visiting Santa.

Kennedy getting up to something.

Sisters posing for the camera

Kennedy and mama looking like twins!

We hope you enjoy looking through a few of our candid photos for the 2010 year. I will try to post the Christmas photos soon as I need to get them off of the camera. We hope everyone had a fabulous year, a Merry Christmas and will have a Happy New Year. May 2011 be a blessed year for you and yours!

Really.....

So it seems the last time I blogged, we pretended we didn't know the sex of baby #2, which was clearly not the truth. We did know that we were having another beautiful baby girl and we chose to call her Savannah Rose. She made her big debut on March 23rd at 5:45pm weighing in at a whopping 8lbs 13ounces and was 19inches long. Once we announced we were pregnant with Savannah or if we mentioned we were having baby#2, we were always told we were going to be super busy. Again, I am not sure exactly what I was thinking, but BOY OH BOY was everyone right. As to date, Savannah is 3 1/2 months old and we still haven't sent out her birth announcements. Looks like we do not qualify for parents of the year for her this year.....ha ha ha! Hopefully you will be glad to know that we will have those announcements out this week!

A brief, yet funny update on how life has changed from 1 baby girl to 2 baby girls.....

• Truth: We have a choir in our house everyday. Funny part of that is: Savannah starts the crying choir because she is hungry or tired and then her fabulous big sister, Kennedy, likes to join in and the rest is pure harmony.... Sometimes Jason wants to cry along with them......
• Truth: We are working out/lifting weights now. Funny part of that is: If we are walking in the house carrying Savannah (@ 3months, almost 16 pounds), we now have Kennedy wrapped around one of our legs and being carried through the house at the same time. Talk about getting weighed down! ha ha ha
• Truth: My life can't get any better. Funny part of that is: with kids, everyday is a new experience and a new adventure! Both Kennedy and Savannah brighten my day everyday with their loving smile, their big eyes (trust me....), their loving and beautiful nature and make everyday for me better than the day before!

We have all adjusted well, some (me) better than others (not naming anyone here...hahaha) and I wouldn't change it for the world! We live for our girls. We are going on vacation this year to DISNEY WORLD. It will be our first FAMILY vacation and we are super excited. I know what some of you are thinking, but seriously......when you have kids, where else do you vacation? From now on, until they are grown and on their own, they dictate where we vacation. We are still the parents and we make the decisions in this house, however, would you seriously want to take 2 toddlers to Fiji where they are going to be miserable and make you miserable? Not me....I will wait for when Nana and Grandaddy ask for them to stay a week/maybe two and then I will plan that FIJI vacation Jason and I dreamed of for a honeymoon!

Have our lives changed? ABSOLUTELY.

Have they changed for the best? ABSOLUTELY.

Can I talk about anything other than our girls? ABSOLUTELY, but why would I! I love them!

Our girls are well loved and I live my life for them! My priorities have slightly shifted and instead of doing things for myself, I would rather do them for Kennedy and Savannah. So here is the pecking order according to me in the house.....

1. Kennedy and Savannah (in no particular order)
2. ME and at time Jason (I know not grammatically correct but see below for explanation)
3. Jason (yes he is above as well. Explanation: Most of the time we share the priority space in the house, but there are times when I need to put myself first and very rarely do, but I am working on it!)
4. Then my poor dogs....but don't let the number they are fool you. They still have a fabulous life and are spoiled rotten.

So here is my goal: To keep this blog up to date!

Will it happen, not sure but I am definitely going to try. I am hoping to post pictures of both girls soon. Honestly, not sure how up to date I am going to be since I am already behind on my to do list and I am super busy with everyone's schedule. However, we do have some candid shots of both girls but they are mostly on facebook.

I hope it has been enjoyable catching up with us and we hope to post again soon.

Jen and the gang.....

March madness.....Part 1

The month of March has just begun and already it has been a wild and wacky month. We thought baby #2 was going to be born on March 4th as I was having contractions and ended up in labor and delivery. Apparently a false alarm as we are now gearing towards the middle of March and we are still very pregnant. However, we have started our weekly visits with the doctor and baby #2 is scheduled to arrive early morning on March 23rd.

Work is going well for us. My last day of school will be March 19th and then the maternity leave will begin. I am planning on returning around April 19th and finishing out the school year. I have been a busy bee with nesting, planning for my students while I am away, preparing for a substitute, attending doctor's appointments, and keeping up with Kennedy. She is definitely into everything and on the go 24/7. The only time she seems to slow down is when it is nap time or bed time. At least she is wearing herself out during the day and sleeping the entire night in her own bed! It is what a parent dreams of sometimes, right?

Kennedy has been extremely entertaining to everyone that is around her and is such a ham for the camera. She is always dancing, doing a funny face, trying to fix her crazy hair and now either singing or playing a musical instrument. We were fortunate enough to catch her in the kitchen pretending to play her Backyardigan's saxophone that Uncle David, Aunt Tiffany and Kelan bought her at Christmas. She loves to put a little booty dancing into her music as well.

We will definitely keep you posted with the new arrival of the baby and Kennedy's progress with the baby. I am excited to see her reaction to the new baby and I know she will be a big help!

Enjoy the video and we will speak to you soon.

With Love,

Jason, Jen, Kennedy and baby#2.

Singing Sensation.

I am still trying to get Kennedy's Single Ladies debut on video, however, I think I have caught the next best thing. This video clip is of Kennedy in the kitchen listening to "Single Ladies". But you have to watch the entire video and make sure your volume is turned up. She has decided to sing along with Beyonce. I think I have the NEXT AMERICAN IDOL in training already! Maybe I should send the video to Simon Cowell? Hmmmmm, just kidding. Anyway, we hope you enjoy and I will try to continue posting more videos of her as we discover much more fabulous things!

With Love,

Jason, Jen and Kennedy.....

Dancing the night away.

On our previous blog entry, I talked about how Kennedy would dance to Beyonce's "Single Ladies". Well we tried to get her on camera for what seems like ever and we have not been successful thus far. However, on Saturday night, we were in the kitchen listening to my ipod and Fergie's "Glamorous" came on over the speakers. Here is what Kennedy thought of the music.......

We hope you guys enjoy this dance-fest as much as we have.

With Love,
Jason, Jen and of course, "the Dance Diva" aka. Kennedy!

Starting 2010 off right....

The year 2010 has just begun and part of my New Year's resolution is to maintain our blog and definitely dedicate some time to keeping everyone involved in our lives. For those of you that may or may not know, we are definitely expecting AGAIN and baby Gardner #2 is scheduled to be here in March of 2010. That means that Kennedy and her baby brother/sister (as we don't know the sex of the baby) will only be 16 months apart. We are super excited and can't wait to have another Gardner running around. As much as we LOVE being parents, Jason and I are definitely out of the baby making business. Two babies is all we need and NO MORE!

A few weeks before Christmas, Kennedy's Godfather (I'm gonna make him an offer he can't refuse.....ha ha ha) Thomas arrived to spend the holidays with us (and of course his wife). We mailed out our Christmas cards ( a collage of Kennedy) during the week of Christmas. Our apologies if they didn't get to everybody in time, but with a 1 year old, and another baby on the way, we were just swamped and Christmas Cards were the last things on our minds. The next major event would be Christmas. As usual, we celebrated Christmas Eve with the Jurey's and then a few hours on Christmas day with the Gardner's before the Jurey's came over to join us for a wonderful Christmas dinner. We are all about Family during the holidays! I have posted some fabulous photos of these great times on my facebook page, so look me up and you can see the albums. Trust me, there are too many of the pictures to post on the blog.

After Christmas, came the new year. We had big plans and great intentions on hanging out at the Jurey's (as they were having a mild New Year Party), but we never saw 10:00 p.m. Jason, Kennedy and I were all passed out before we even got started. We don't mind though, when you have a child that sleeps through most of the night, you take what you can get when you can get it! So not ringing in the bells this year was quite alright with us. There is always next year and the many years after that! We were pleased to hear all about our friends and families stories though! Good times!

January 4th brought back the work week for both Jason and I and Kennedy back at daycare. Kennedy is all grown up. We celebrated her first birthday on November 7th (the day after her REAL birthday) with a Backyardigans themes birthday party. It was a blast. We had a pinatta for my nephew, Kelan, and had several different things set up to entertain the kiddies (even though there were only a few in attendance). Nonetheless, Kennedy had a fabulous time and received way too many presents, but what are birthday's for! She now eats ALL table foods and is really becoming Miss Independent. She is on the move and there is no slowing her down. She is walking all over the place (without holding on or holding hands) and is always chasing after the dogs. She is all about music and her favorite thing right now is DANCING to Beyonce "Single Ladies (put a Ring on it)" and it is hilarious. However, every time I try to record her doing it, she stops and goes on to something else. Trust me when I tell you the funniest thing ever. She even slaps her hands on her legs and squats, shaking her ghetto booty (or lack of in Kennedy's case)! I will keep trying to get in on camera, so keep looking for the clip. We go back to the doctor on January 5th for a check-up on Baby Gardner 2, and no we don't know the sex of the baby, and if we do decide to find out, we ARE NOT telling anybody. It seems as if we have so much to do and so little time to do it in.

With the loss of both of my grandmother's (now having no grandparents alive) and an Uncle, we sure could use a bit of a break. However, God does work in mysterious ways and even though it isn't always what we want or ask for, it is what is best in his eyes. We do have high hopes that this year, 2010, brings us fabulous memories, great times, and a million moments of happiness. I know for Jason and I, nothing is taken for granted anymore and life is way too precious to be missing out on such blessings. We hope you and your family ALL have a fabulous year ahead of you!