Tree Fresno!

Last weekend on Saturday morning we skipped gymnastics and headed out to a ponding basin across the street from the Clovis Costco. There we joined in on a tree planting community outreach set up by Tree Fresno. Papa Vaughn had seen a flyer at work and thought it would be a great family outing and something we could do to start building a desire to help the community in the kids. Even though our initial reasoning was to just help out, I think we got more out of it as we had a fun time as a family and created a great sense of pride in ourselves.

The weather was beautiful. The kids had fun checking out all the tiny little frogs hopping around while we were listening to the introductory comments and tree planting procedure.

Don't you just love the supervisors!

My "poser" had to pose at least once for me, of course! Boopy insisted on wearing this particular hat, even though she had pigtails and wouldn't leave the car without her necklace. Guess you just can't plant trees without looking your best!

Both kids got to take turns stomping down the dirt before placing the trees in the hole.

Boopy got to help Papa put the plastic tree guard around the base of the tree. After the first time helping she pretty much did it herself on the other trees we planted!

At least one family shot of us.

After the hard work of tree planting, we rewarded the kids with the fun time on the playground next to the ponding basin. It's nice to see more of these neighborhood parks popping up around town.

Such a big boy. He pretty much handled the rock wall all on his own.

Of course our daredevil, Boopy, had to climb the rock wall too, although she needed help only because her little legs weren't quite long enough.

The kids LOVE monkey bars! Getting a little help from Papa.

A view of the ponding basin after the tree planting. Some day we can come back here and see great big tall trees and know that we helped it to look so good!

I hope that overall the kids remember a fun family outing but also reflect on (one of hopefully many more times to come) the time spent helping the community.

Run Frog, RUN!!!

Last Friday night we ran some errands after work. Driving home into our culdesac, Papa Vaughn saw a frog in the middle of the road. As soon as he pulled into our driveway, he and the kids took off chasing the poor thing into a neighbors yard and then brought it up to our porch for the kids to "play" with briefly. I just wish I had my camera handy fast enough to catch them all running down the street chasing the poor frog!

My frogs checking out the neighborhood frog.





Close up especially taken for Grandma Washington who "loves" (okay, can't stand) frogs!



Don't worry after a few minutes of "play", the frog was returned to our front yard bushes and left unharmed and happy to go find it's frog family!

Another Vegas Weekend

The kids and I took another quick trip to Vegas this past weekend. This time we went over to spend time with "Guya" since her birthday was June 4th. I hadn't spent a birthday with her since our grandpa's funeral 4 years ago, which incidentally was on her actual birthday. Yes, that was a rough year for us, but that's another story. So...since Papa Vaughn had drill weekend, just the kids and I drove over. "Guya" decided to keep the weekend low-key. We spent most of the day just hanging out at the really cool park in the pictures below, shopping at Kohl's and hanging out at Guya and D's house.

We packed a picnic lunch to enjoy at the park before shopping. Big Boy was not thrilled that I made him stop to eat before he was allowed to play. Food is definitely not his priority.

I have seriously "ruined" this child. Boopy LOVES to pose for pictures. She would eat a bite of her sandwich, then go out to the grass area and lay around posing wanting me to take her picture. Of course I have to oblige!

I actually managed to get a picture of both kids together, looking at me (mostly) and being super cute. It's getting harder to get them to both sit long enough for a decent picture together.

I loved the entrance to the park. It had these wooden painted flowers up high above the arched entrance. I had Boopy sit up on Uncle "D"s shoulders so I could get them in the background with the beautiful blue sky.

The rock wall proved to be a big hit for my daredevil children.

Of course I had to try out the twisty slide with Big Boy.

The kids favorite thing at the park was this really cool caterpillar "monkey bar" type structure. After an initially cautious climb, Boopy discovered it wasn't so difficult and she could scale it just as easily as Big Boy. They would have played on this structure all day if we let them.

The park even had tube slides, caterpillars to balance on, tunnels to hide in and other structures to jump and climb on. With all the bright fun colors I couldn't help myself with the camera. Just wish we had parks like this in Fresno since it would be a fabulous park for young kid family picture sessions!

I LOVED the brightly colored stairs.

Overall another lovely summer weekend. Happy birthday Guya! AND happy birthday to Grandma Vaughn, who celebrated the day before on the 3rd!

Outdoor Adventures - Up, up and away!

Sorry for the delay (again) in blogging. While we haven't technically had major plans lately, I have been staying rather busy with my photography sessions. This has been great, but it does take away from my pics of the kids and time to blog about them. So this past weekend I did make sure to take Saturday "off" and we played as a family. We spent time at gymnastics in the morning and then went straight to the movies to see "UP". Highly recommend it by the way, very sweet movie.

Anyway, nice day of just hanging out, had lunch out and spent the afternoon snooping around the deals at Gottschalks. Since the weather was still so nice when we got home in the late afternoon/early evening, we let the kids loose in their favorite place - the backyard. They are so my kids in some ways - they both run around everywhere barefoot. If my feet could be naked year round and not freeze, they would be! So with the kids playing I had to play too, so I grabbed my camera and tortured them a bit. At least this time, Big Boy was a very willing subject!

Yes, they are quite acrobatic! My flying "Peter Pan" kids!

Boopy was funny - being barefooted and all she stepped down and shrieked when she stepped on something wiggly. Once she saw it was just a little worm she kept talking about how cute it was and how she just loved it!

Papa helped them put the worm in a much safer place rather than directly under the swings.

Had a little fun playing with some settings on my camera and managed to get a few fun evening shots.

Hope life has been treating you all well. While I've still got more pictures to edit, don't worry, I'll still keep trying to get over here and update you all on our adventures!

Memorial Weekend 09

Our Memorial weekend was wonderful! No real plans and no true agenda to be had. And while there were many chores that should have been done around the house, we really didn't do any of it. We spent most of the weekend playing, hanging out, sleeping in (a bit) and generally enjoying being a family. It was wonderful!

Saturday, Papa Vaughn participated in a motorcycle ride in the morning with a group from the base for a fundraiser. It finished with a small bbq that we joined him for. After that we spent the afternoon at home. Boopy decided that she needed to freshen up her "make-up" getting into my powder. While she's generally a totally tomboy, it's fun to see that she has her "girly" side too.

She's such a little poser - I think I've got her hooked on my camera, unlike Big Boy who often makes me chase him to get his picture - hence the fact that this blog post has many more Boopy photos than Big Boy shots.

We went from putting on make-up to her room where I had to play "Polly Pocket" with her. She got some for her birthday and just loves them. If they weren't such tiny pieces that I'm sure are going to get lost all over the house, I might love them more for what they do to her imagination.

Showing off her room and her "Polly Pocket" clothes.

We did manage to peal Big Boy away from Papa and cartoons with the enticement of a popsicle and chalk in the front yard. While I totally miss the tiny baby he once was, I love the big kid he's become and his independence.

Boopy had me trace her hands for her.



In true kid fashion, and in honor of Peter Pan, they played with their shadows for a bit.



We rounded out our afternoon with some fun backyard fun too.

As for Sunday, well I literally didn't leave the house at all. It was marvelous! Papa and the kids ran a few errands. Papa got the lawn mower working again and put it too good use. I did do laundry, which wasn't so fun - I never tire of hating laundry - it's the chore that NEVER ends... Anyway, that was our Sunday.

As for Monday, the holiday, we lazed around in the morning, got ourselves together for the afternoon and spent it hanging out at the zoo. I didn't bring my camera but did catch a few pics on my cell phone. Oh by the way if you look closely in the picture below take notice of Boopy's shoes. my nice responsible Big Boy was offered his flip flops or his tennis shoes to where to roam the zoo. He appropriately chose the tennis shoes. Boopy on the other hand insisted on her dress shoes because she considers them her "princess" shoes and we all know she's quite the princess. So, yes, she was the one tromping around climbing on everything at the zoo in her dress shoes from Auntie Jenn's wedding.

We finished the day off with a family walk around the block, some play time with the neighborhood kids and getting ourselves ready for the rest of the week when we have to go back to the real world of alarm clocks and chores that can't be ignored. Here's hoping that you all had a relaxing and fun filled 3 day weekend!

Boopy's official birthday...

Since Boopy's actually birthday fell on a Tuesday, both Papa and I had to go to work, but we woke up Boopy with sweet happy birthday hugs and lots of morning kisses. Sam treated Boopy, Big Boy and Gaby to a fun morning at the new bounce place in town, Bounce U. From what Sam told me and the pictures she sent via her phone, the kids had a ball!

After Papa and I got home from work we took Boopy to Red Robin per her request for her birthday dinner. She was very excited to have the staff sing happy birthday to her.


When we got back home it was still early enough to give the kids some time to play outside for a bit. Our neighbor friends were out in their yard playing with Noah's Slip N Slide and even though it was too terribly hot, the kids jumped right in and had a good time. All in all, a wonderful fun filled birthday for our crazy 3 year old!

The Princess Party!

This Tuesday, May 19th, Boopy will officially turn 3 years old. I seriously can't believe that our little girl is three! We celebrated this past Saturday with a Princess themed party at our house, per Boopy's request. Before I go into party details, I want to brag about my wonderful husband. He designed and made Boopy's requested princess castle cake. He was up until 2 pm the night before working on it, but at least Sam (who watches the kids for us) and I helped bake a bunch of the cakes the couple days beforehand since Papa Vaughn was out of town from Tuesday until Friday. (Thanks Sam!) Didn't the cake turned out awesome! He's really set a standard now after this and Big Boy's pirate cake.

Our princess posing after coming down all ready for her party. Aunt "Guya" helped get her dolled up. I found her dress at Sams Club for a mere $12!! I loved how pretty it was AND if you look closely in the black and white pattern right above each flower is an actual sketch of Cinderella, Belle & Sleeping Beauty.

Shortly after the guests arrived, we encouraged everyone to have a bite to eat. We served hamburgers, hot dogs, my dad's recipe potato salad, southwestern chicken salad, watermelon, princess punch, iced tea, basically the usual BBQ food. While the kids were eating, the gal playing Cinderella showed up. I smuggled her inside to the bathroom where I had the Cinderella costume waiting for her. Once she was ready, I smuggled her back outside via the garage where she then waited and rang the doorbell. At that point we told Boopy to answer the door as she had been greeting all her guests. It was so funny when she peered out the front door window. She was so stunned and surprised, she just froze with her hand on the doorknob. Papa had to go over and "help" Boopy to open the door. It was so cute!

I think it took Boopy a minute to realize that, yes, Cinderella REALLY was at HER party! The real fun and reason we set this up was that Cinderella is one of Boopy's favorite princesses. Of all the characters we saw at Disneyland in April, we never managed to see Cinderella. Boopy had commented on this fact more than once, so the idea of having "Cinderella" at her birthday party was just too good to not have happen. One of my friends managed to find "Cinderella" for us through her cousin's drama class - gotta love Facebook and great friends!

"Cinderella" was wonderful! She sat with all the girls, helped Boopy hand out goodie bags and helped her to open her presents.

Boopy and friend, Gaby, had to point out the Cinderella figure to Cinderella. Every Cinderella thing Boopy got as a gift, she pointed out as well saying, "look it's you!" to Cinderella.

Singing Happy Birthday and blowing out her candles.

After Cinderella and all Boopy's guests left, the kids sat back and enjoyed all the new presents Boopy got. Big Boy managed to sit in one place long enough that I finally got a picture of him. He spent most of the party outside on the playset and trampoline even though it was 100 degrees outside. I swear he would live outside if we let him!

Boopy got some fun "Princess" make-up from cousin Kennedy. She promptly put some on in the evening and insisted she do it all herself. Didn't she do a lovely job! (wink, wink!)

We finished out the birthday celebration on Saturday watching the boys take a nap, playing with toys, me messing around with pictures and overall relaxing. Sunday was wonderful as well as we simply went to Target to spend Boopy's gift card money from Grandma & Grandpa in Washington and then did some more relaxing at home. All in all a very nice birthday weekend. One I hope Boopy has very fond memories of in the years to come!