A little Fun - Define Yourself

One of the bloggers that I like to read, Pioneer Woman, challenged her readers to come up with 5 adjectives that describe who they are. I thought this was a neat idea and figured why not try it out for the whole family. So, here's how I describe who we are:


Me (Mama Vaughn)
- Mother
- Wife
- Sister
- Photographer
- Caring

Papa Vaughn
- Husband
- Father
- Brother
- Gentle
- Patient

Big Boy
- Son
- Sweet
- Gentle
- Brother
- Eager


Boopy
- Daughter
- Precocious
- Cute
- Sister
- Smart


I don't think I did the best on my definition. I found it easier to define others, but when talking about myself I had to think a while. Basically I went with the first things that came into my hear. Now it's your turn - How do you describe yourself in 5 adjectives?

Halloween Pumpkin Carving!

Here's a preview, via my cell phone, of our pumpkin carving. We have a ladybug and a fireman all set for trick-or-treating tomorrow night!

No big surprise that Big Boy really wanted a pirate ship in his pumpkin. Lucky for him, Papa was willing to indulge and help!

Boopy didn't really care what was carved in her pumpkin, so I helped convince her that the spooky ghost face would be fun (and easy for me to help with!).

Happy early Halloween to you all! Hope you have a safe night of trick-or-treating!

Guess Where We Went?!?!

DISNEYLAND!!!! This past weekend, my wonderful sister and brother-in-law hooked us up with the most fabulous deal. Dave's niece is working at Disneyland for a semester while she attends their business school and was able to get us FREE passes for a day into both Disneyland AND Disney California! Neither Papa Vaughn or I had been in over 12 years and never together so we were almost more excited than the kids. Especially since the kids really had no idea what to expect, they just knew that they were going to get to go to Mickey Mouse's house. So, off we went! Papa's great aunt & uncle put us up for the night, Friday and Saturday. They live 15 minutes from Disneyland and they spoiled us with breakfast!

Disney California had a neat Brother Bear obstacle course the kids enjoyed.

Waiting for the Pixar parade in Disney California.

Hey, look - it's Lightning McQueen!!

I was pleasantly surprised at the food options and loved the cute little Mickey Mouse plates the kids meals came in. Yes, I even brought them home!

Big Boy & Papa rode the rocket in Disney California.

I thought Boopy was too small for the ride. She wasn't impressed and stood there pouting. It was seriously, the funniest thing ever.

She perked up when we found out she could go on the ride, so Guya, Papa, Big Boy and Boopy all rode together.

Trying to pull out the sword in Disneyland.

Meeting the characters was one of the highlights of the day. We found Minnie first.

Then we found Goofy, who was acting rather goofy! The kids managed to get his autograph.

Then, my crazy daughter, the ham and flirt that she is, literally stole Goofy away! She grabbed his hand and pulled him from the crowd! Another little girl grabbed his other hand and off they went! It was so funny. She could care less that she was leaving us behind. She had found Goofy and all was right with the world.

As fun as Mickey was, he couldn't compared to Goofy in Boopy's eyes!

We found Aladdin walking around Main Street.

Later, Minnie had put on her Halloween costume and gave the kids another hug.

Of course, my sweet Big Boy fell in love with this big train in a toy shop. He even asked to have his picture taken with it!

All in all a wonderful day! Next time we'll try for 3 days or so as 1 just wasn't enough to see it all. We did do our best though and made it to Pirates of the Caribbean and the Haunted Mansion, which Boopy wasn't scared of at all and Big Boy was only a little scared, but ended up loving them both. They both made it all day without attitude and no nap. Big Boy did fall asleep for a short while after dinner, but perked up in Tomorrow Land in order to ride Star Tours. Both kids and Papa now all have light sabers! Big Boy even got to build his own! Other than all that, we didn't make it to a lot of rides, just got a great glimpse of everything.

We all loved it and can't wait to go back!

Big Boy Speech Update

Most of you know that we been working with the school district's speech preschool program for Big Boy. While it will be a long ongoing process to get his speech up to par, we've discovered through a bit of guidance that it really is practice that makes perfect. Big Boy has no problem with understanding words or mostly saying them. It's getting the connection between all the words that's an issue. Basically he leaves a lot of words out in a sentence. Instead of saying "The truck is carrying the car", he says, "Truck carry car". What has been pointed out to us is to correct him and prompt him to say the full sentence. Both Papa and I have been doing that often. We start him out with the first part of the sentence, continue in small sections and then have him do his best to put it on together, making sure not to leave out words like, the, is, on, am, etc. He's doing really well and with a bit or praise he generally seems proud of himself when he gets it right.

What really pleases me and makes my heart melt for my sweet, gentle boy is what I heard this morning when I woke up. Big boy was already awake and had come into our room where he was sitting on the bedroom floor with a couple of his favorite books and cars. He was talking with himself and his toys. He has a great imagination and will often talk to his cars, giving them directions. This morning he was talking about the his flatbed truck carrying the race car. As usual, he first said, "truck carry car". But then, I heard him correct himself and work on the full sentence, "the truck" then "the truck carrying the car". While I know his sentence wasn't perfect and he forgot the "is", I am so proud of him for his progress, his willingness to try and his perseverance. He truly is my bright, sweet boy.

Meow! (A Boopy Funny)

The other night the kids were finishing up their dinner and I was in the kitchen cleaning up. While my back was turned to them I heard a bunch of giggling, eating, and more giggling. I turned around to see Boopy standing on the chair, holding on to the table and eating her dinner like a dog, face first. My immediate reaction was to laugh, but since we are trying to set boundaries and proper dinner etiquette, I instead had the following conversation with her:

Me (sternly): "Boopy, that is not okay! You are NOT a dog."

Boopy (with no hesitation, looks up at me and says): "I'm not a dog. I'm a kitty-cat. MEOW!"

And she promptly went back to eating like a dog.

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If anyone needs some cheap entertainment, I'm willing to rent her out!

She Did It!!!!

She did it! She walked down the aisle like a big girl! Boopy was an adorable little flower girl. Not that I'm biased at all. Seriously though, she made us so proud. After the rehearsal on Friday, I was a bit skeptical that she'd actually go down the aisle. She had played shy and didn't really want to leave my side. At the rehearsal dinner she warmed back up and showed to true crazy super good eater self. Big boy was super as usual.

As for the wedding on Saturday, I took Boopy to get her hair done by the lady that does mine. I had picked up cute bobby pins with rhinestones and made ribbons out of extra flowers from the parts of her dress that head to be trimmed off due to it being too long. She looked adorable! We did all pictures before the ceremony which I think helped Boopy warm up to everyone even more. She did so good, doing everything I asked of her. I think she's a little used to me and a camera, don't you think!

She adores her "Auntie" Jen!

A beautiful wedding party!

As for the ceremony, she walked down the aisle after a small confusion where she tried to go around the chairs along the outside. The wedding coordinator helped guide her back to the center where she walked down until she saw Papa in the second row and she ran too him. At least she made it down!! At the reception both she and Big Boy did beautifully. They played and danced with everyone! They really did so good especially considering that both Papa and I were up taking pictures and busy with wedding stuff. They were such troopers. Big Boy even fell asleep around 10 pm in the dance area after dancing and dancing and dancing! Boopy, our little night owl, well, she didn't want to stop dancing! She would have been content to stay dancing all night had we not pulled her away to go home. As it was we left at 10:45 and they only had the wedding site booked until 11! Needless to say our little party animals sleep wonderfully! Big Boy our early riser woke somewhere between 7:30 and 8:00. Boopy actually sleep until 10am!! She has never slept that late! Overall, we are so proud of them both and so happy and honored that our family could be a part of Jenn & Chris's wedding!

Pictures Catch Up - the neverending saga continues...

So I promised that I'd share pictures from Grandma Vaughn's company picnic a week or so ago and I'm finally putting them up! Papa Vaughn had to work but the kids and I had a great time playing at the park with Grandma & Grandpa Vaughn. The picnic was held at the same place as last year. Like last year, they had a clown, face painting and of course there had to be a ride on the train and merry-go-round! Overall the kids had a ball!

Getting faces & arms painted. Of course, Boopy wanted a ladybug and Big Boy wanted a firetruck!

The clown made them ballon animals. Boopy was able to get a ladybug bracelet. Big Boy settled for a cool snake since the clown didn't know how to make a firetruck balloon.

Giving Grandma Vaughn some love. Grandpa spent much of his time helping man the bbq.

When it was time to eat I had a small discussion with Boopy about clean hands for eating. These hands aren't really that dirty, right?

And this is how they got so dirty. Not sure how Big Boy stayed as clean as he did.

A bit more playing.

My handsome little man. He LOVED the train ride as usual!

Can't forget the merry-go-round ride!