The Place Where Dreams Come True

The kids voted to have a smaller Christmas so we could go to Disneyland as a family.  I even convinced Grandma and Grandpa to come with us.  We had so much fun!  We went on everything we wanted to, and found awesome souveniers (I'm all about the souveniers!).  At the Star Tours gift shop you can build your own Lightsaber.  Emma made herself a purple one (shock!), Zach made a double ended red one and Tyson made a blue one.  Tess of course picked a princess toy set and a fun princess mickey ear hat.

Tyson isn't a big roller coaster person, but he loved the rockets.

There is a fun Jedi training show where they pull kids from the crowd to learn the art of the Jedi's.  Tyson tried twice and Emma and Zach once, with no luck.  They like the younger kids in the show.  I felt so sad for them, they wanted to do it so badly.  (A fun side note.  I took Tyson back to Disneyland for his birthday two weeks ago and he was picked to be in the show that time, I'll post that later)

Don't look too closely at this photo, we don't look that great!

Tess got to meet Cinderella, Aurora, and Jasmine

Emma got pulled out of the crowd to dance during the parade. 

Tess had such a great time and was happy the whole day!  When we finally got in the car she zonked right out, but wouldn't let go of her bag with her souvenier in it!

I can't believe we went to Disneyland to ride a carousel, but it was one of their favorite rides. 

My kids are weird, but it was a great day!

BAPTISM

Baptism's are a very special and sacred event for our family.  We purposely had Ron come home for R&R after Emma turned 8 so he could baptize her while he was here.  We had tons of family come and it meant so much to us.  Unfortunately I didn't take very many pictures, which I really regret.  But I did get some of Emma and Ron after the baptism.  Emma always beams when she is with her daddy.

And per our family tradition, Grandma and Grandpa Vaughan bought Emma her first set of scriptures.  Of course the case HAD to be purple!

New Beds!

The girls have been sharing a full size bed for a few years now.  It started becoming a bit of an issue (that's a bit of an understatement).  So when Ron was here, I recruited him to help me find the girls new bunk beds.  We finally found some that fit out requirments: they needed to look similar when they seperated into individual beds,they needed to be REALLY sturdy, and there needed to be enough head room on the bottom bunk.  We had the beds delivered when Emma was at school and suprised her with them.  She was THRILLED! She has been telling everyone she sees about her new bed.  I love them!  And for now I let the girls pick their own bedding, Tess is princess of course, and Emma is purple and green with flowers.  Lots of fun!  Oh, and it came with a trundle bed, which we are currently using for storage!  Love it!

Their room is pretty small, so its hard to get a good shot of the headboards and footboards, but they are really pretty.  I'm thrilled with what we picked and I'm even more thrilled that the fights at bedtime have stopped!

P.S.  a side effect I wasn't expecting is Tess misses sleeping next to someone so now I have become her someone, usually around 5:30am!

Pumpkin Picking

I miss REAL FALL so much it's driving me crazy.  Luckily there are a few fun fall things here, like Bates Nut Farm where you can go and pick your pumpkin, buy candy, pet and feed some goats and take a pony ride.  Luckily Ron was with us to do the heavy lifting!

HALLOWEEN FUN

Hi everybody!!  Okay, I know I'm extremely behind in posting, but its been CRAZY!!!

So, I will start with last night and our fun Halloween night.

Oh, and yes Ron is back in Afghanistan.  Pics of our fun together to come later.

Emma - a 20's Flapper

Tessa - A Princess Mermaid

Zach - an Aprentice Ninja

Tyson - Davy Crockett

I PROMISE that I will catch up on my posts this week.

I hope you all had a wonderful All Hallows Eve.



R&R, Worth It?

I need to vent a little. I am having such a hard time with this one. Ron left Afghanistan on Saturday, still not a word from him. I have no idea where he is or when he’ll get here. I want to kill him for not keeping me informed. I am so terrified, nervous, anxious, and frustrated that I think I’m getting an ulcer; I feel like I’m going to throw up all day long. I hate feeling like this, but I have felt it every time we are reunited after a separation, all the way back to when we dated. For some reason I get horribly nervous and terrified that I won’t still love him, that things will be different, he’ll be different, I’ll be different. Its torture!

And I wonder if this whole R&R thing is really worth it. I don’t know if I want him to come and visit. It’s really hard to go back to normal life for a few weeks and then be ripped apart again inside. It’s like being told you won a million dollars in the lottery, so for two whole weeks you’re on cloud nine and then they rip it away from you and say “Just kidding!” I’d much rather stay in this frame of mind that the kids and I are all alone and we have this routine going, and not mess it up. I don’t want to deal with the sadness that my kids will go through when their dad leaves them again. The worrying starts again, will he come back whole (mentally and physically), will he get hurt, will we get a horrible knock at the door or a scary phone call? It’s never ending.


Do I want him around? Will I be able to talk to him? Will our relationship still be strong? Who knows! How can anyone stay connected to someone else that they can only talk to once a week for twenty minutes? It’s impossible! By the time I get used to him again, it will be time for him to go back to “work”.

Oh, and try explaining to a 4 year old that her daddy is just coming for a visit, like cousins do, and then he has to go back to “work”. Do you think she gets it? Of course not! And again, who gets to deal with that aftermath – you got it – ME!

I do want to see him, of course I do, but it’s still awkward and weird at first. I just really hate this. I wish it were already over. Just get here already!!!

My Day on Tuesday

7 am - wake up, gets kids up and ready for school
7:50- take kids to school, drop off Tess with sitter
8-8:45- go back home to make pan of brownies for Scouts tonight and put one coat of paint on a sail boat for rain gutter rigata on Wed
9-1:20 - work
1:45 - pick up Zach and Tyson at school (different schools mind you) for their 2 pm dentist apt
2:05 - drop off Zach and Ty at Dentist, leave to get Tess
2:15 - get Tess from babysitter
2:30 - pick up Emma and two friends from school
2:45 - head back to dentist office to pick up Ty & Zach (make follow up apts for next day for tooth extraction and sealants)
3:05 - drop Ty off back at school for flag football practice
3:10 - drop friends off at home
3:15 - get home, eat snack, do some homework, get ready for Taekwondo
4 - leave for Taekwondo
5:15 - leave Taekwondo head to school to pick up Ty from football practice
5:22 - phone call from Ty yelling at me because "why is it taking you so long?"
5:23 - hang up on Tyson (if it was safe to leave him at school by himself, I would)
5:27 - pick up Ty and instruct him to not open his mouth and to go directly to his room when we get home until I want to see his face again.
6:00 - dinner, and yelling at Tyson to never talk to me that way again.  Ty is very apologetic and thankful for everything I do the rest of the evening.
7:00 - go to church for Boy Scout Court of Honor, Tyson gets 5 merrit badges and earns rank of 2nd class
8:00 - go home and send everyone to bed

This was by far one of the craziest days I've had in a long time.  I hope I don't duplicate it anytime soon.

Looking forward too...

Ron coming home for his two week R&R vacation.  He leaves Afghanistan on the 3rd, and we just get to wait with baited breath until he calls from Atlanta telling us when he'll be landing here in San Diego (usually takes 4 days of travel time to get state side).

For fall to arrive.  We are having a HUGE heat wave right now, with highs in the 114 range - uck!  Where did my beautiful fall weather go?  Oh yeah, its back in New York  :-(

And for Emma's big day.  I really can't wait for that!  And Emma can't wait to wear her beautiful dress again.

Our friend J.J. Campbell did the photo shoot, and my sis Adriann made the announcement - Thank you guys!

For family and friends that are far away, my intention is to order these and mail them to you.  But in case that doesn't happen, here you go!



1 Down

I'm Back!  And I had a FANTASTIC weekend and birthday.  I talked, and talked, and talked; shopped, and shopped and shopped, and ate and ate.  I quickly must thank a few people that facilitated my ability to run away and have a break for a few days.  My parents, (who watched the girls), my brother Andy ( who watched his children and my boys so his wife could run away with me), my brother-in-law Shane (who watched Ivy so my sis could play with me and who picked up 32 quail and brought them down from Ogden for my brother Andy), and Ivy (who gave up her bed for her aunties to sleep in).  I love you all and I'm so grateful for your help in support of my mental health.  :-)

So these are pics of my latest completed project.  I took all of our "family" pics and put them in these albums.  There is easily over 4,000 pictures there.  I still scrapbook the kids personal pictures (birthdays, awards, special events), but every other picture got put in a photo box.  So I finally got all the pictures out of those photo boxes and put them in viewable albums.  I also had to suck it up and order 3 years worth of pictures online (here's the key, wait till they have a screaming deal on prints - and free shipping!)  So I am thrilled that I finished this and I can have a small sense of accomplishment.  I'll just ignore the 8 years behind I am in scrapbooking the kids photos!

Each album is label and organized chronologically.  These albums are from Michaels and they fit 10 to a page.  I also waited until these babies were 40% to buy them.

I love being able to flip through the pictures and watch the kids grow up.  So many precious memories.  These albums are definately what I'm grabbing if we have a fire.

Looser as a mother

Do you ever feel like a total looser as a mother?  I feel like a total looser as a mother this week.

Why?

Well, since I don't mind making myself look bad, I'll tell you. 

Some days are just crazy, you know the days.  When everybody has something happening after school and you don't know how you're going to fit it all in.  Tuesday was like that for us. So the only way that I could make everything work was to bribe Zach into thinking it was a good thing to miss his Taekwondo class.  He was thrilled but I felt bad that I couldn't pull it all off.

Then today.  (Side note, tomorrow is my bday but I am leaving in the afternoon to run away to Utah for the weekend so we were having my birthday dinner and cake tonight)  This afternoon was pretty calm, and I actually fell asleep watching a movie with Tess.  Well, then I wake up at 5:30.  Noone has their homework done, Zach was suppose to be at scouts at 6 and I still hadn't picked up the pizza for dinner (pizza is my favorite).  So then everything got crazy, we didn't eat til 6:30 and Zach missed scouts. Oh, and it was Tyson's back to school night from 6-8 where I was suppose to go and meet all of his teachers!  Yeah, didn't happen either.

MY BAD!  So tonight I totally messed up, but mostly because I just wanted a nice night to enjoy my birthday and have some cake (that was super yummy and I didn't have to make - THANKS MOM!).

Maybe tomorrow I won't be a looser or let my kids down, yet again.

Favorite Time of Day

This is my favorite time of day. 

So beautiful, so calming.

This is the view from my parents deck.  The sun just went down over the Escondido hills.

When I was in High School I use to go for walks at sunset and go to "my" spot to watch the sun go down. 

It was my peaceful, thoughtful time. 

One of the biggest perks of living near the beach on the West Coast is watchng the sun set over the water.  If I could watch that every day I would, and I'd never get sick of it.

Of course, I keep missing my chance to get a picture of the really gorgeous part of our sunsets.  I'm usually in the car when I notice it and then I rush home and I've missed it. I promise to catch it one of these days.

A message to all my friends:

there is still an open invitation to come stay with us for a visit and enjoy these sunsets yourself.

What is your favorite time of day?

It doesn't happen to Dads

The other day when I was in the shower the kids were bombarding me the entire time I was in there (about 10 minutes).  They were banging and pounding on my door,  "Mom!"  "Mom, I need your help!"  "Mom can you get ... for me?"

And the same thing happens every time I use the bathroom.

Why is that?  Why does it always happen to the Moms and not the Dad's?

Are Mom's just so awesome that we can do amazing feats including help put shoes on AND shower at the same time?

Can I just have 10 minutes of peace for myself?  Please!!

First Day of School

Emma, the big 3rd grader

Zach, the shaggy 5th grader

(Yes, the mom was too tired to give him a hair cut for the first day.  He did have one by the 3rd day though)

Ty, the big 7th grader

(If you noticed, Zach and Ty have the same shirt.  I swear anything with camo or military they are both drawn too.  At least they aren't at the same school.)

(Oh, and Tysons new hair do is wet/flat/messy.  If I try to put a comb to it, or part it, he freaks out.  Hello to pre-adolescence!)

The consensus after the first day was they all loved their teachers.  I'm really hoping for an awesome school year and no more drama.

14, but really 10

Today is Ron and my 14th Wedding Anniversary.

I can't believe we've been married that long.  But then I got to thinking about it. If I deduct all of his deployments and training, we've really only lived together for about 10 years.  I tease him that I can't believe I still love him after all this time.  Maybe the separations really do make the heart grow fonder.  I certainly do appreciate everything he does for us while he is home.

I mentioned to Tyson yesterday that today was going to be our anniversary.  I asked him to guess how many years we've been married.  (Quick explanation, this is the son that just turned 12).  He looked at me and said without hesitation "10 years."  I said, "Tyson think about that and think about how old you are.  We were married before you were born."  Then he guessed the correct number.

I realize that MANY couples get married after they have a baby - but not me.

So honey, I want you to know how much I love you and miss you.  You are my rock; without you everything would fall to pieces.  Thank you for your sacrifice for our family and for our country.  Stay safe, and come home to me soon.

Love always and forever,

me

Vaughan Family EXTRAVAGANZA

We weren't aloud to call our reunion a reunion.  It had to be called an EXTRAVAGANZA!  And it was!  My amazing brother Macc flawlessly organized our activites and we had a great time!

The water was suprisingly warm the day we went to the beach.  Even the moms were willing to get in!

The boys spent the whole time in the water.  They love the beach!

Emma actually let the boogie board get in the water a little.

Uncle Shane  brought a kite to the beach.  It was a huge hit!

Tess loved it!  And I love her smile!

We brought kyaks to the beach with us.  My dad and I took them out and it was so much fun!  It is so peaceful out on the water.  I did keep a sharp eye out for sharks, but we made it back safe and sound.

The cousins burried themselves in the sand

The girl cousins were so cute together.  The 3 in princess dress up even called each other by their princess names.  They got along so great and it was adorable watching them together.

And we collapsed at the end of every day!

My mom and sister put together an AMAZING, Amazing Race for us.  We split up into 3 teams and we had tons of challenges and pit stops.  We had to organize everyones birthdays by their baby picture, race between trees, shoot baskets, buy something at a dollar store, eat cold mac'n cheese, go to the Wild Animal Park and have this picture taken, dive for marked poker chips in the pool and then race to the end.  The best of all was MY TEAM WON!!! 

Of course we did other awesome things.  We spent a day at the lake having fun on the boat.  We had a Wii tournament that came down to the boy cousins of course, Zach won!  We played baseball at the park, ate In-n-Out twice, had a movie night outside (Darby O'Gill and the Little People), and did a service project of care packages for soldiers in Afghanistan.

I love my family so much and I'm very greatful that we had such a wonderful week.

Beach

We went to the beach almost every week.  One night a friend of ours was camping at the beach and we went and bummed with them and roasted marshmellows over a fire.  I took these pics that night.  I love watching the sun set over the water.

My Family

Whenever we're together we attempt a family picture.  Ron is usually the only missing member, so it isn't the entire family, but close enough.  This time, it was my children who were the uncooperative ones.  Tess was a complete nightmare, and I HATE the way I look, all I see is fat (working hard on that one!)  But here is my awesome family!

L-R: Adriann, Andy, Me, Macc, Jacque and my Mom & Dad

All the grandkids.  See what I mean about my kids being the naughty ones?