You can tell this couple will be so great, they already have 2 birds, 3 dogs, and a horse…I am sure I am missing some of the pets but that is what I can remember. They are already taking care of so many they won’t even notice the extra work that this little angel brings.

Life has gotten in the way of my editing and this took me longer than normal to get done but I think the pictures turned out great!! I hope you all enjoy them too.

I really love all the pictures from this shoot but one of my favorites is the one with the mirror! You can see Dad's huge grin in the reflection:)

She was very excited about having her new lunchbox!

Here she is with her teacher, such a sweet lady!  This is Niya's "you want me to do what with who, you do realize I don't know this person Mom???" face.

But when I am by myself I am all yours:)  She takes a lot longer to warm up to people and now talks about her teacher all the time.

Funny Macguire story to end this.  I picked him up from school on Friday and then we drive over to get Niya...he says "Mom, I am really sad that I HAVE to miss 2 days of school" and I didn't understand at first and said "why hon, are you getting sick or something".  He straightens me out and says "NO, it's the weekend and I can't go back until Monday!!!".  How cute is that!!

I am hoping to finish the second shoot in my backlog (the newborn) this weekend.  We have opening day soccer today and Marc and Macguire are out golfing now...I think they left at 6:30am, Niya and I "slept in" she got me up at 6:50:)

<I will try to get Niya's first day of preschool up tomorrow!>..or this weekend:)

The matriarchs

I have 3 shoots to edit and I know I need to get them up but today was a huge day for our little family.  Macguire started Kindergarten.  He loved it!!  It was sad for me to see him go...he didn't seem to mind one bit and can't wait to go back tomorrow.  California schools are just a half day for Kinder, so Macguire goes from 9:30 - 1.  Which I used to think was silly but now I think it is just fine.  Today would have been a lot harder for me had I dropped him at 7:50am and not been able to get him until 2:30!!! It was pretty cute though he wanted to make sure we knew that he was going to be going to school the same days that Daddy works, but that he would be home on the weekends too!  It was a huge success!!

So here is our photo journey from today...

Me:  "How excited are you to start school today?" (plus, check out how is sister is just adoring him!!)

Daddy joined us for drop off.  I needed him there, I think I would have been a bigger baby without him.

Seeing our good friend there is always a plus!  This girl is his good friend from his preschool class last year and they got the same class here too!

(Also, I have to add that she is the same height as most of the kids in class, Mac is a giant!)

"see ya later!" There was not one ounce of hesitation.  I guess somewhere inside I wish that he would miss us a little:)  That is his teacher in the door way, we already really like her!

These are shots of his classroom.  I forgot my camera on meet your teacher so I snuck in this afternoon and took a few. It's a huge room.

Niya starts M/W/F preschool tomorrow!  It's a big week around here.  I have 2 shoots to post and then I will get the shots up from our Monterey trip, where we saw family.  I took some senior pictures for my cousin out on the coast too!

We had a great time with Grandma and Grandpa here, they took the kids to the Laguna Beach and San Diego to the zoo. We all (minus Marc) went to Newport Beach yesterday as the last beach day of summer and my parents were off to the airport this morning. Both kids start school next week on Tuesday!! We had a meet your teacher for both of them this morning and that was a lot of fun. We found out that Macguire is in the same class as his good friend Jaycee (they were in the same preschool class last year) so that was great news and we supposedly got “the best” kindergarten teacher…so yeah for us!  Niya got the teacher we requested for her too!! So a very successful day!

Back to the busy, so on top of a visit from my folks, back to school, photo shoots, and all the other stuff. We are heading to Monterey tomorrow for the holiday weekend. My cousin who plays Volleyball for University of North Dakota has a tournament there and my grandma is flying in too. It’s been a while since we have seen them (Aunt, Uncle, cousins, grandma) all so we are driving the 4+ to watch some games and hang out with the fam! I am going to take pictures too for my cousin…I can’t wait to see them.  It should be a fun weekend.

With the kids going back to school next week life should be a little more normal for me and I will get back to my at least 2 posts a week.

So this post isn’t too boring here are a couple of shots of the kids jumping in to the pool.

Well they got together with family for a vacation in the San Diego area and I got to see them again.  They were so much fun, running around and playing games.  Grandma even got in on the action.  Seemed like such great family times and what a great way to remember the vacation with the cousins so young.  Thanks guys I had a great time seeing you again!!

we had lots of laughs...

And lots of dancing...

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This is the mini garden that is along the pathway to the front door. and I can take NO credit for any of these flowers:)  As a matter of fact our gardener got so tired of looking at dirt that he finally just bought flowers and planted them for me and they are beautiful.  I get complimented all the time and then I say "Thank you, here is my garderners number".  He takes amazing care of our roses too, I will have to take some shots of those when they are blooming in all their glory.  I actually wish I had a little green thumb in me but I don't, I kill everything...that is why there are no live plants in my house.  I can deal with outside ones though, because of my good friends...automatic and sprinkler and of course Gonsalo!!!

But I can't be out front too long or I get a little one wondering where I am and insisting I come back inside or the "bees will get me":)

The kids had a blast at the park and I didn’t know about the water area…excuse the undies.

I also dug up some old photos from Typhoon and one from Seattle when he was up there for a bit. Seriously though, Brian is one of the nicest people EVER...Marc and I both think so and I know there are many others that think that as well. Hopefully we will see them again, sooner than 7 years!!

I'll start with an old one (that is my friend Ann in the middle)...

The guy that lived below us in FL was an animal trainer at Universal and he would bring the animals home every now and then. We got to hold this baby chimp!!

And one from his visit to Seattle...

Now the more current ones. Their son has the longest eyelashes EVER!!

Niya's pull-up is barely hanging on:)

He hasn't aged, he lookes exactly the same! It was so fun to see them. We still need to get ALL the Typhooners together for a reunion!

This is the one...I just LOVE this one.

So here is what I got http://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/526139-REG/Canon_2318B001_WP_DC17_Housing_f_Canon.html and here is some of the fun we had playing with it. I also need to mention that Niya has been hysterical screaming/crying anytime we took her from her little sanctuary (baby pool/spa/her pool) and actually held her in the pool where her feet wouldn’t touch. We had scratch marks on our necks and she would just scream to get OOOUUUT. Well these photos were taken 5 days (1 week) into our 6 weeks of summer swim lessons. Needless to say she LOVES the ‘big’ pool now and we have to watch her so much more because she’ll just jump in and try to swim to us. I also want to mention because I know my son would want me to brag that he went from level 2 to level 4 during these 6 weeks…he is a crazy good swimmer for a 5 year old. Full on dives and flips off the diving board, freestyle, breaststroke, backstroke…you name it, he’ll do it.

These first 2 are Macguire and Marc perfecting their canonballs.