christmas...

i love christmas, i always have. every year with makenzie is just so fun. she loves all of the things leading up to christmas, the advent calendars, cookie making, decorating, buying gifts, wrapping gifts, the christmas story, the anticipation of christmas day, etc. she is so much fun. this year it was just the three of us and we had a wonderful time together.

i took on the norwood tradition of opening gifts on christmas eve after the yummy christmas dinner of brisket, potato casserole, broccoli salad, and grasshopper pie. mmmm.... the opening gifts on christmas eve takes a little getting used to but it is fun. we open all the gifts to and from our family. and then on christmas morning you wake up to santa gifts and stockings. the only thing i don't like is that santa presents are just there and unwrapped. so, we compromised and we wrapped santa presents. not the ones in the stockings, just the big ones from santa.

makenzie was so sweet about taking turns and so happy with everything she got. she made sure to know who gave her each gift. it was nice because she didn't mind setting it aside and going to the next one but she also cared about each gift. it was sweet. she had gifts for copper, penny, bobby and some of her other stuffed animals. it was sweet. :)

here's a few pictures...



copper and penny loved their new squeak toys...






makenzie colored me a picture and wrapped it up all on her own. she was so excited to give it to me, it was so cute. she also picked out a necklace for me with michael. she is a good secret keeper and loved it.


she picked out a wii game for michael's gift. she wrapped it all by herself. i went upstairs to see if she needed help and i heard her say, "daddy's presents is the prettiest". so sweet. sad, no pic of her with michael after opening it.




this video is so funny to me. she opened the gift and it's markers and a notepad. they are these cool blendy pens. well, our friend chenin gave her this huge set of crayola items. so she got some of the same markers already. i meant to take the package out from under the tree just cuz she didn't really need a million markers. so, it was like she knew she's not supposed to complain about already having it. haha. it's like she's trying to not make me feel bad "you couldn't find anything? it's ok, it's good". haha






makenzie got princess hair for dress up. we all tried it on, even copper. :)


makenzie's big present from us was an american girl. she really wanted a doll to be able to do her hair. she asked santa for the hair style book but didn't think of asking for the doll. :) then at the christmas with my family at my brothers she got a salon chair from my mom and dad for dolls. then later her and noelle played with her dolls. she said that night she really wanted a doll. it was funny, it was the first time she thought of asking for it. the video is pretty cute of her opening it. :) i'm so happy she loved it. she named her aly. :)



with aly...



christmas morning...

up EARLY and excited to come downstairs...

checking out if santa ate his cookies and milk. penny ran downstairs and finished off the crumbs. :)


opening what santa brought her...


a sewing machine!!! makenzie has been wanting to sew and make things alot recently. so we thought it would be fun to get her her own sewing machine. it is real and it works great. she was so surprised and loves it. i am not too crafty and it will take some learning with her but it will be fun...



so excited about the hair style book that she really really wanted...


also so excited that she got lulu, the fur real kitty. it's kinda creepy how it meows, purrs, sleeps. haha, it's cute and she loves it and daddy isn't allergic to it. :)




she got a playdo ice cream maker set. here is all the cute ice creams she made. of course once all the playdo mixes it won't be quite as cute. :)


a bag we made with her sewing machine...


she made this scarf with a kit that noelle, trevor and claire gave her. it was really cute. it came with yarn and she made all the little pom poms and sewed them together...

christmas happenings...

here's a post to catch up on a few things that have been going on this month...

makenzie's kindergarten class had a christmas program on her last day. she absolutely loves her friday music class with mr. healy. she gets so excited that it's friday and music class day. it's pretty cute. she loves singing the songs they learn. when i heard they were having a christmas program i was so excited to see her sing the songs they've been practicing. the funny thing was once she learned they were singing in front of people she got so nervous about it. when they came out and lined up she was behind a girl that started crying and so that made her get even more nervous about it. it took her a little while to warm up to the idea of singing and never really got into it. she is just not a performer. but she looked cute and it was adorable.







we went to my brother's over the weekend to celebrate christmas with them and with my parents. makenzie loves being with her cousins and always has a great time. even though there is a 4 year age difference with her and noelle, they get along great and love to play dolls, school, etc. all three kids have such a great time together. makenzie also loves holding and playing with claire. she is 4 months now and is super smiley and so sweet.





















we made an attempt to build a gingerbread house. in the years past i have bought the kit and now i know that is the way to go. i had some gingerbread dough leftover from when makenzie made cookies with my mom and just thought that would be easy to cut out the pieces of the house and build it using that. well, the pieces all turned out great. but when it came time to building it we could not get the frosting to hold it together. it turned out so messy and would not work. i finally just leaned it all together and took a picture and then tossed it. :) it was still fun to decorate but i think i will stick with the kit for next year.















i am excited for today and tomorrow and will post pictures soon.

merry christmas!!!

letter to santa...

makenzie wrote her letter to santa last week. it's so funny to me that she can only really think of a couple things she wants when it comes right down to it. all year long she usually is saying, i am going to put that on my christmas list. :) back in the spring makenzie was playing with her cousin noelle and doing her dolls' hair. she had a hair style book. makenzie came home saying she really wanted one and i told her to remember that at christmas time. she even made her own book by drawing pictures of hair styles so she could play it. it was pitifully cute. then she saw a fur real cat on tv and that made the list as well. she's also been saying she wanted a belle dress for a while. jeff and jessica just gave her one a couple days ago for her present. she was very excited. she did say, kind of confused, "this was on my christmas list". like she's not too sure if santa might bring one too or something. just this morning she told me, "i don't know if santa is real. but i guess he is, i just can't see him". :)

that's a picture of santa's sleigh and santa going down the chimney. and inside the house is his plate of cookies and milk. :)

10 wonderful years...

this is a couple days late but michael and i just celebrated our 10 year anniversary. 10 years! how am i old enough for that!?!?! i am so blessed to be happily married. i didn't have much of an adult life without michael, i can't imagine it any other way. i love our life and i am so happy to spend it with him.

here we are on our honeymoon...ahhhh. :).


michael surprised me with a trip to new york to celebrate this week. we were going to plan a trip and then it just got put on the back burner and we decided we'd go in the spring somewhere. well last saturday we went to a concert and on the way home he said, oh ya, i didn't want to wait to go somewhere, we are going to new york in the morning! what?!?! haha, i was surprised and slightly stressed he sprung it on me like that. but he had all the details worked out and it was completely perfect. well, except that i had put my driver's license in my jeans pocket that i wore to the concert and left it there and didn't realize it till we got to LAX. so....we missed our flight but luckily got on one an hour and a half later, phew! so, other than that it was perfect! :) we ate at amazing restaurants, walked around central park, shopped, ate more, laughed at people ice skating at rockfeller, and froze the last day in 16 degree weather. it was so much fun.

here's a few pics of us. we are wearing the same coat and same scarf in every pic, haha. i promise we have different clothes on and they are taken on different days. :)



this was taken in the same spot as in october with the beautiful fall colors. just six weeks later it totally looks like winter! i love the seasons in nyc.

as good as it gets here!!!

our neighborhood had a snow play day for the kids. makenzie was so excited and kept asking if the snow was going to be real and going to be falling from the sky. i kept telling her it was real but from a snow maker machine. we got there and it was kind of disspointing that it was so icy and hard to play in. she still had a great time and loved it. when she got home she told michael that she wanted to go to the mountains to play in the real soft snow over christmas vacation. so hopefully we will be able to do that because soft snow would be way better.

but this made for a fun afternoon for a kid who never gets snow :)