the vaughans

 it has been a while - we are still kickin'.  good times.  but bad times with blogger ... many an issue, still spending time at night working on owen's sleeping, auburn football has been top notch this year {war eagle, anyway! tailgating was still great}, gary travelled a bunch in september & october for work, not to mention his work has been just a bit hectic {thankful for his work indeed}, the boys have had a few rounds of sickness, we had a couple of trips, gary just finished another semester of grad school {still carrying that 4.0 average, way to go vaughan!}, throw in random things here and there and BAM! it is december 8th.

 that being said ... since catching up and staying in somewhat chronological order hasn't worked well, been terrible, eek! for me since I am still in oh, july, of this year, let's try posting about current times with the vaughans. will catch up on the past {hopefully} before 2013 marches right on in ...

today {saturday} we selected our christmas tree ... nothing like seeing shorts and tee shirts for the cutting of the christmas tree. december it is, right? oh well. we have had some warm temps here in auburn to say the least. we went to the same farm we visited last year and had lunch afterwards with friends that live nearby.

 henry and owen have been asking to put up christmas decorations for alomst two weeks - needless to say they were extremely excited!

 gary, amused.
 we always, and this dates back to my days on our farm in virginia, get a virigina pine. however, this year we all decided to get a fairly tall tree and viginia pines around here are just not tall. so, we went with a arizona blue cypress.
 maybe this one?
 can we pick a tree already?!?!


henry and owen each got to "help" use the saw with gary for a bit. 

 

here she is - the griswold family tree.  little full, lot of sap.

home ... let's bring it inside, says h.

am guessing gary told him to show him his muscles ... he took these two pics.

 

 

all done! h was so cute ... after we finished decorating he exclaims, "let's all stand around the tree and sing happy birthday to Jesus!" {go h! so we did and meanwhile owen said we were singing the wrong song}

and the reason for it all ...

another beautiful sunset and view of the house from our driveway

so coming home one evening from work, the sunflower field looked like the below ...

... and the very next morning they all popped ot and looked like this!

what a special time of the year

cotton on the right of the driveway, sunflowers on the left ... love it!

view of the yellow tips from our porch

 the boys watching the tractor {the gentleman across the street farms the cotton and sunflowers on our land} and every time the tractor headed for the fields, it was a majoy deal.

 henry's masterpiece {he said this was a sailboat}

 and owen's masterpiece {he said this was a pond with ducks}

then we headed out of town to sarasota / siesta key to meet the perlins for our annual trip {which we missed last year}!

the next week he attended his first Vacation Bible School at our church.  

he really enjoyed it and in typical henry fashion, remembered most everything about it and soaked it up like a sponge ...

the next two weeks he had swimming lessons every evening. 

oh. my. goodness.  he completely loved it.  loved it!

and the reflection from the door on the living room wall of two of the sweetest and loveliest sets of hand prints in all the earth. 

i don't remember what they were watching, but isn't this just cute?

father's day weekend - watching a little golf.  owen loves anything that has a ball and really enjoys watching sports.  it is about the only time he sits still.  :) 

but seriously, witnessing this two year old intently watching sports is hilarious.

silly O!  and, he has the longest, most gorgeous eyelashes you have ever seen.  crazy how this commonly seems to happen to boys rather than girls?!

 peppers, peppers everywhere.  we had seven different types of peppers. 

they are still producing fruit!

 baby carrots - these were henry's favorite to watch grow.

 mini cantaloupes.  we only had a few but were tasty!

 basil and mint.  need i say more?

 peas

 and lots of tomatoes ... which just stopped bearing fruit.  i am absolutely, one hundred percent convinced there is NOTHING that compares to a home grown tomato.  move over grocery stores.  not only are tomatoes one of my favorite foods, store bought totally pales in comparison to home grown.

 our very first orange pep

 sweet bananas, jalapenos, a hot banana, and tomatoes

and pimientos.

we attempted to be as organic as possible.

THIS whole gardening experience was an excellent experience in so many ways ... we ate what we produced, we were more resourceful and wasted less, it provided a great teaching tool for the boys, it gave us another means to see the beauty of God's handiwork ... sure it required some effort, but the benefits were well worth it.  and, gary is quite a gardener ... he really has taken an interest.   

 for a while now, henry makes the distinction between the "light hairs" {mommy and henry} and the "dark hairs" {daddy and owen}.  it is a hoot. 

those handsome "dark hairs" :)

 family movie night!  the muppets re-make.  none of us had seen it and it was hilarious!  owen's first movie and he has termed it "the muffets."  he sings the "doo doo doodoodoo, do doo doo doo ...me-no-me-na" - funny funny.

and guess who stopped by for a visit?  it was so nice to see jordan lee and her mom.  she asked to the boys to be ring bearers in her wedding {which was held in august, another post to come}.  they said yes but had no idea what that meant at the time. {but when the time came, they really did great!}