october trip...family, the wedding, fun times...

jeff and jessica got married last week up in the napa valley. it was a week that was busy but fun. it was so wonderful to see michael's family! everytime i'm with them it makes me sad that we all live so far apart. i love just hanging out as a family. i'm so blessed to have joined such a wonderful family.

makenzie and i drove up together to my parents before michael's family got into town. it was my first trip alone with her and it went perfectly. makenzie is pretty easy in the car, not requiring too much. i was actually worried more about my horrible habit of getting tired while i drive. but it all went great! i bought beverly cleary's ramona the pest book on dvd. what a great idea that was! makenzie loved it and it even entertained me too!

we went to get our nails down with my mom during the day that we had there. makenzie has gone once before to get her nails done and she loves it. :)






then we met up with michael's family on friday and spent the day in san francisco. the kids were super excited to see each other. it was just a bummer that michael couldn't come up till sunday.



















pre-wedding hanging out...



















rehearsal dinner...

they had the rehearsal dinner at Taylor's Refresher. it was AMAZING. great burgers, fries and shakes! yummmm!

me and julie...



they had a photo booth there. it's so fun cuz it's such a fun way to capture the night in photos with different people.

me and michael...


sibling love...


cindy and her girls...


the girl norwood cousins...


the boy norwood cousins...


me and julie and our girls...


wedding day...

makenzie and aly played in the tub at the house where we were getting ready. silly girls...


it was alot of fun getting our hair and makeup done...


















and the bride and groom...


the kids went back to the house that was on the property to watch movies and play together during the reception. after the wedding they were all crashed out. makenzie and luke were cuddling sleeping next to each other. :)


true to tradition i didn't have my camera with me most of the trip. ugh, i stink. so most of these are from julie and a couple from hayley and brooke too. michael and i did have our picture taken a couple different times by our photographer friend Becker and I'm really hoping that we get to have a few of those soon!

it was a wonderful week and it just makes me excited to spend time together again at christmas!

cousins that should live closer...

makenzie has a cousin named aly who is only 8 months younger than her. they love each other so much and always have so much fun together. unfortunately, aly lived in texas, so we don't see them too often. :( back in july when we went out to see the family jessica took some pictures of aly and makenzie together. they are beautiful girls that actually look alot alike for cousins! we get people asking if they are twins and it's always funny to say, no just cousins. ;)

makenzie and aly are going to be flower girls in jeff and jessica's wedding next week. no doubt they will be adorable. and i am just excited that they get to see each other and spend time together. whenever we get together it always makes me sad they they don't live closer to each other. i know they would be the best of friends for life! :)

i was downloading my camera card and came across this video of them eating noodles like "lady and the tramp". :)



and some cute cute pictures taken by jessica... i know there will be many more of them to come after this week!

first school project...

makenzie is really enjoying kindergarten. it's kind of weird having her gone every day but she seems to really be happy. she's always happy to go and happy when i pick her up, which is a good thing! she is making friends and talks about all the things that she does. since it's right down the street we walk there and it is so nice to not have to sit in the car line! we have neighborhood friends that we walk with, so she even enjoys that part!

she did ask me this week if kindergarten is over after september. :) i guess since we kept saying school was in september she thought it ended then too. but she was actually just concerned with the fact that its getting to be fall and going to a pumpkin patch and carving pumpkins and dressing up for halloweeen, that she wasn't going to get to do all those things if she had to go to school in october. i convinced her that we would still make time for all of that! :)

last week for school she had to make a book box for her to keep the books in that she is working on. we went to michaels and she picked put all the things that she wanted to decorate with. she loves crafty things, so a place like michael's is overwhelmingly fun for her crafty imagination! :)

it turned out very cute!!!











and here's just a random picture we took one morning before heading out to school. she was giving copper a hug goodbye, sure that copper really misses her while she is at school. :)

family vacation 2009...

we had SUCH a great time on our family vacation to bass lake/yosemite. it was just the 3 of us and our dogs. we had so much fun. it was relaxing and enjoyable being together for a few days in the mountains. we pulled up to our campsite and the people next to us were the pro campers with everything you could imagine you would need for a week of camping. it was so crazy. they probably thought we were lame! but, turns out we had everything we needed and it didn't take us ALL day to set up or tear down. it was awesome. we swam in the lake, went on the rock slides, fished, drove through the mountains, had campfires, it was perfect. when planning the trip we decided to take the dogs with us. it ended up working out great. they were so worn out, they were always so happy to lay down and sleep whenever we stopped. we even took them swimming! it was hilarious.

we drove up to yosemite for the day one day. it was beautiful. we walked the trails, swam in the freezing lakes, bbq'd and took some pictures!



our beautiful girl...





















one of the days we decided to rent a boat and go tubing. made us wish we had a boat! makenzie was hilarious. she laughed so hard the first time and kept saying it was so much fun. it was great. she never got worn out, we just traded turns with her. michael and her did tricks and then would fall into the water. she loved it and it was so much fun seeing her have that much fun!









makenzie was so sad to leave, she loved it! we will definitely go camping as a family again!

first day of kindergarten...well, kinda...

i cannot believe that makenzie is going to kindergarten. hard to believe that my baby is growing up that fast. just the other day makenzie told me that god only makes her grow bigger and i can't keep her little :) today was her first day of kindergarten. she's been excited for a while now because most people are already back in school and she wanted her turn too! so, today was her first day but it was only kind of her first day. i say that because it was only an hour and i was with her the whole time. :) so, it was more like orientation/get comfortable/fill out paperwork day. :) makenzie was a little nervous so it was probably a nice thing that i was with her. she does have 1 friend already, a neighbor boy, so that's nice. she enjoyed the story time and seems to really like her teacher. everyone tells me she got the best teacher in the school, so that's nice to hear! here are a couple pics of her today. we will have more tomorrow of the official first day.