Christmas 2009...

Oh, how I love Christmas! My parents came into town Wednesday night and my sis and her family were with us during the weekend as well. We had an extra special treat - Mom and Dad took us to the Gaylord Texan ICE where we got to wear cozy blue parkas and walk around an ice exhibit themed out to "How the Grinch Stole Christmas". It was AMAZING!!! Loved it! It's hard to even describe and the pictures don't do it justice, but it was GREAT!!

The exhibit ended in an area with a beautiful manger scene complete with stars overhead in the sky and a HUGE angel overlooking the scene.

Notice cute little "Cindy Loo Hoo" to the side of our family picture - Annie sure thought she should be included in this one - she posed so nicely!

Colby went outside in the "blizzard" to play in the snow and Pawpaw surprised him by running out and kind of pushing him down face first into the snow!! Colby was not a big fan of snow in the eyes and came running back in....until we encouraged him to turn around a start pelting Pawpaw with snow balls. Pawpaw was about soaked by the time he got in - served him right! he~!

Thursday night, we went to the Christmas Eve candlelight service at RHCC - I always love that service, but this year was extra special for us since Tyler and some other kids from church were singing one of the songs from the Christmas show during the service. It was a wild feeling evening since the weather had been changing drastically all afternoon - by the time we left for church, it was not only snowing, but the roads were crazy slick and getting worse by the hour. We made it home just fine, and had a sweet Christmas Eve.

My little cute ones on Christmas Eve

Tyler wrote the note to Santa, which apologized for only having one chocolate chip cookie. Apparently, Oreo's are NOT what is supposed to be on the plate of cookies for Santa. Who knew? I'll make sure and have plenty homemade ones for the Big Guy next year!

We spent Christmas Day at the house and Monica and her family were able to drive over (in their 4-wheel drive truck!) to be with us all day, too. I got so excited every time I looked outside to see WHITE on the ground! Beautiful!! We had a big breakfast, opened presents, and had fun just being together. We had a birthday cake for Jesus, and the kids enjoyed blowing out candles for him, and then we told the story of the cake (taken from a friend's idea!). It was a 3 layer cake - chocolate was to represent how we were dead in our sins, red velvet was to represent that Jesus' blood covers us, and white cake stood for we are now clean and pure in God's sight. We all were glad to be reminded of what that the Lord did for us when He came - God made flesh among us. Praise Him. Mom made her Christmas Day enchilada supper that night (Y-U-M), and we all went to bed fat, happy, and thankful for Jesus.

Nonny's homemade cinnamon rolls - yummmmm!!

This baby was hysterical - he loved ripping open presents, and was pretty good at it!
Colby's favorite - the Colts (Peyton Manning's jersey) - no clue why he likes the Colts so much??
Tyler's favorite - Charger's Jersey!(Have no clue why he's such a Chargers fan?!)
The boys had clues around the house that led them to the garage to find a basketball goal that will go in the front yard soon!!!

Brady's favorite gift was his "Cool School" computer keyboard that he can play all-by-himself!Happy Birthday, Jesus! We love you!

"Whew - Christmas can sure wear a guy out!"

VFC 2009...

Our Vaughn Family Christmas is traditionally the weekend before Christmas and FULL of fun traditions! I love it when we get together - the brothers usually sit with their mom, make a list of all the "things" we have to do, and write up a schedule to make sure it all gets done in our time together. Love it.

This year, Christmas was at our house. It started off last Friday night with dinner at our house, then off to Braums for an ice cream treat and a tour around Heritage to look at lights. On Saturday, we had kids' scavenger hunt for a special sack of goodies just for them, church service together, then the annual Pizza Hut / Sonic dinner. Greatness.

Sunday we had the annual family picture (for the VFC scrapbook, you know) a HUGE Christmas lunch complete with ham, Randy's VERY cool stuffing recipes (2 of the 3 that he makes!), broccoli rice casserole, green beans and rolls. Then it was time for kids to open gifts, adult Chinese game, and adults open presents. I am so blessed to be a part of the Vaughn family - they are all SO precious and such a gift to me.

The big kids had so much fun pretending to be spys - Tori and Timo have spy gear, and they were teaching Tyler and Colby the art of spying!
Tyler and Colby got a new Wii basketball game, and I really wish I had an video of Tyler's reaction - he screamed like a GIRL he was so very excited!!!
Our family and Randy's family went in together to get tickets to a Mavericks game for our little basketball lovers, Tori, Timo, Tyler and Colby. They were given a letter/symbol match thing (technical term escapes me at the moment) and had to work together to decode the message that read, "4 DALLAS MAVERICKS TICKETS". They are SO excited!!!

Rockstars!!! Someday they will start a band together!

Apparently, Snuggies are not only "one size fits all", but they can also be "one size fits 2!" he!
My sweet sis in law, Kelly in our matchy matchy scarves and picture frames (and glasses!)

Signs of Christmas...

First, I just have to say, "I AM ON VACATION!!!" For the first time in, oh, at least since Tyler was born, I am on PAID vacation over the holidays while staying at home. It is beyond nice. Yes, I only work 2 days a week, but not having to keep up with a daily schedule, be with my family, and make fun plans on a whim is beyond nice. I am thankful. VERY thankful.

This year the holiday season has been more relaxed than I can ever remember feeling. Busy, yes, filled with "stuff", yes, but more relaxed. Maybe it's because as a family we had to cut our Christmas budget back quite a bit this year, maybe it's because I've asked the Lord to keep me remembering why we are celebrating Christmas in the first place...whatever the reason, I've enjoyed it! And it's not even "the day" yet!!

Here are just a few little "signs of the season" both from around our house and at different things we've been up to:


Random - meet Rudolph, Tyler's geometry project. He had to make an object out of the 3 dimensional shapes that they had been studying. Can we say that this was a parent project, not a student project?? He helped with some things, but really - mostly parent!! Cute though! Rudolph is made out of an oatmeal can body, toilet paper roll legs, soap box head, tootsie pop nose, santa hat (cone) with geometrical shape presents in it, and "3-D hands". You can't see his rectangular pyramid tail, but it was cute!! ha!

This was from Tyler's class Christmas party. Meet Jewel. He gets a little twinkle in his eyes when he talks about her. You might say she is his first "crush". She's a sweetie, too!

We went to see Santa and Tyler drew a picture for him of Santa's sleigh with all the reindeer labeled. Santa had him put it in his mail box. And yes, he's still a believer - hard core. Nothing his friends tell him can convince him otherwise! He's been a HUGE Santa fan since he was 2 or 3.

Aren't they getting so big??

Cousin Christmas pictures at the Clubhouse - obviously Annie wasn't exactly in "the mood" for pictures....oh well - documents a funny memory!!

These two are so crazy together. Always have to have a "silly picture"!

Christmas show at church!! My little snowmen were so very cute and they had a blast!
Colby takes his part in the show very seriously - he works hard, does all the moves right, and wants it to be perfect! He's next to cousin Timothy, which was fun for both of them to be around each other!
Donny made these CUTE little Nutter Butter cookies - he said it was way too much work, but they sure were tasty and oh, so cute! Nutter Butters are his favrorite cookie.
The boys went Christmas shopping at the Christmas Market with their saved up Bible Bucks that they had earned at church. I love that they get so excited about buying presents for their family.

Looking SO forward to the rest of our "holiday" days around here! God is so very sweet to give us time....I pray we use it as He would have us use it.

No more scissors and lots of cookies

Brady got in trouble last Monday. I mean BIG trouble. Right after I wrote my last post about how much I was loving my Monday, I went to take a shower. Spencer came with me (in his bouncy seat to play with toys while Aunt K got all clean), and Annie and Brady were instructed to "play nicely" until I got out. As I was finishing up, the little ones came into the bathroom, and Brady says, "Hey mom - look at me!" That's when I noticed that he had somehow lost half of the front of his hair. Surely not....no way did that kid cut his own hair!!! NOOOO! I quickly looked to Annie's head to make sure she hadn't joined in on the hair trim party - I knew I was dead meat if my sister's little girly girl had chopped up hair for all the Christmas memory pictures (and Brady would have to work real hard to get back in Aunt Moni's good book!!). Thankfully she appeared to be intact. So this mama was ANGRY at her youngest. Apparently, Brady had been cutting paper in the kitchen (note to self, make sure all kid scissors are put away at night), then he decided to give his stick pony a hair cut. When asked why, he replied, "Well, you know, at the farm, some horses have long hair and some have short hair. I wanted to make mine a short haired horse." Ok. So, when asked why he cut HIS hair, he had a brilliant answer..."I don't know." I'll spare you the details of how he learned an important lesson that day, but let's just say that I really don't think he'll ever forget that scissors are for cutting PAPER, not HAIR (unless you have a special talent in that area, then go for it). Bad choice, little Brady man. Bad choice. So, his hair got another hair cut that night - by a professional who charges money for using her talent. He looks ok - not like my Brady at all, but good news - it's just hair, it grows, and he's still the cutest little 3 year old I know.

I mean, that is some chopped up hair, yes??

Yes, this is the stick pony that got chopped up before my boy cut his own hair...

New topic - I had a GREAT time at the annual "Davis Girls Cookie Exchange" this past Saturday morning. I love girl parties - I REALLY do! I have so much fun chatting with these women uninterrupted by our sweet children! I love traditions at Christmas time, too, and this is one of my favorite ones with some of my favorite people. Thanks, Davis girls! I had a GREAT time.

The Davis girls - Holly and Tami (not sisters, just same last name!)Vanna, I mean Monica, loads up all her cookies to take home!

Me and 2 of my very favorite ladies, Kim and Tami

Aren't these cookies so very pretty? Maybe I should post this and go get me one RIGHT NOW!

My Mondays....

Mondays have been very sweet to me the past couple of months...I've gotten to keep my niece and nephew, Annie and Spencer. Brady loves it, it reminds me of the days I had little babies (seems like forever ago, but time just flies that way), and I've loved getting to have special relationships with them. This is a sampling of what Mondays look like around here...

Sweet little guys...

Brady is so encouraging to Annie with potty training...he likes to sit in front of her and, well, model the "noises" you need to make to get the poop out! Sorry if that's TMI!! Pretty much, Annie and Brady just run around the house playing with anything and everything, pretending they are on secret missions, being various animals and dancing like crazy to music in the living room whenever possible. Spencer, well, he just lays around, smiles, naps, eats, and smiles some more. We try to keep crying to a minimum at Aunt Kendra's house, but everybody has to cry a little bit, you know. Our only big adventures include a VERY occaisional outing like to get one thing, and to pick up the brothers and Mr. Sam from school. That's when the car gets REAL full!Life is sweet with these guys.

Blessings -