e's first day of preschool

august 17th - elena's first day of pre-kindergarten!!! she went in like a champ. i was not surprised. i think she's just going to be one of those kids that likes school!
she has not stopped running out to me *every* day when i pick her up and it's still such a great feeling every time she jumps in my arms and i get to ask her how her day was! (thank you heidi for capturing this!)
every monday she has homework due. she is assigned a letter a week and is to draw or cut out a picture of something that begins with that letter. she LOVES doing her homework and asks to do it all the time. i've limited her to just school days....i mean she's got to be a kid, right?! so she powers through about 35 pages in one of her "homework" books on those days. here is one of her assignments....she came up with every word except one...
we're SOOO proud of you elena!!
another proud moment was elena writing her 16 birthday thank you's all by herself, at once!

"What we want is to see the child in pursuit of knowledge, and not knowledge in pursuit of the child." ~George Bernard Shaw

family pictures

i'm so behind and i feel like i'm generic posting all over the place, but what are you gonna do?! just the way it has to be right now...

gina, stephanie, mom, heidi, me... we're missing super jan....

the whole fam bam for a sunday brunch...

the cousins...ALL 5 of us!

uncle t-bone and landen...

uncle t-bone and natalie...

nona with her kids....and their kids....and our kids (exccept we're missing drake)...

me and my lanie jae...

adde ann and i taking pictures...

heidi and adelyn...it's too bad they weren't enjoying themselves...

jason and landen...

my dad and super jan...

gina and adelyn

the girls....

uncle e and aunty steph....and baby due in jan!!

um....yes, she adores her cousin!

adelyn and heidi with some pool time...

landen and gina relaxing...

me and j with landen...

super jan and e...

heidi with ad and e...

e and super jan...

e and heidi...

"Families are like fudge - mostly sweet with a few nuts." ~Author Unknown

our *actual* birthday

on our actual birthday elena's preschool had their "meet the teacher." not the best thing to do on your birthday necessarily, but it was nice to spend the morning as a family of four. after that we kissed daddy off to work and rallied the troops for some lunch and shopping!

me and my girls...

unfortunately, gina and landen were headed back to cali that afternoon.... :(

fortunately, uncle t-bone and natalie were able to meet us as well and then tony took them the rest of the way to the airport...

super jan and mom...

the kiddos each got a sundae...

geej and adde...

the birthday girls...

the next generation cousin pic...landen holding drake's picture like we do all the time (inside joke)....

ad enjoyed the sundae...

me, heidi and gina...

happy birthday e!!!

after we did some shopping...
shop til ya drop ain't happening here...
and headed home....where we had e's favorite dinner - tacos! and then daddy surprised us with cookie dough ice cream cake.....

um, yes please....

the girls got to lick the candels....or in adelyn's case - eat a chunk of wax!

a few more presents...

the girls went down, j was half asleep, so heidi and i decided a few drinks out were in order...

with our mothers of course...

who were on top of their going out game, let me tell ya...
lesson of the night - THIS is how you take a picture of yourself with your camera....

and THIS is how NOT to.... ;)

it was a rockin' night...

and we may or may not have ate cookies when we got home...but most definitely had attitude...

it was a perfect day!

"A birthday is just the first day of another 365-day journey around the sun. Enjoy the trip." ~Author Unknown