Picture Editing

Oh how I wish I knew more about picture editing. 

My picture editing consists of....shoot, point, and delete.

I shoot the picture.

Forget to point.

And DELETE.

However, I stumbled upon picmonkey.com.  I know, I know.  I'm, like, the last person on the planet to find this.  It's a free site to edit pictures. 

Here's my first few:

The pictures above just have words added in different colors and sizes.

Then I got brave and added a graphic and words.



















And finally, I tried tones and such:

Not by any means professional, but I like learning new things.

Ta-Da!!!!

Parental VICTORY!!!

Josh just took Macey her milk.  (She was in a trance on the couch watching Super Why!)  

Macey, without looking up from her cartoons, told Josh THANK YOU!

Whoop Whoop!!!

PARENTAL VICTORY!!!!

My Favorite Mess

Macey is my favorite mess.

It's good thing God made kids cute.  Otherwise, they'd never make it to adulthood!

That's what I found after I took off her shirt so that she could go swimming. 

Marker.  Lots of pink marker. 

Pink is fast becoming her favorite color.  (I wonder where she gets that from......Daddy?)

I knew that she had drawn all over her legs.  In fact, I rounded the corner as she was doing it and scared her out her diaper!  

But I had no idea that she had done it other places, too.

And here's Ms Princess.

Rockin' a diaper with fuzzy Princess shoes and books in her hand.

Check out that hip action.

It's a good thing she's cute.

Can't Touch This

We still brush our kids' teeth at night.

I read somewhere that you should still brush or atleast supervise your child's teeth brushing until around age 7 or so.  So....to make it more bearable for both parties involved, we sing songs while we brush.  (We've also done the timer thing, the flashing-light tooth brush, all just meant to get them to brush longer.)

I sing good songs, like "You are My Sunshine", "This Little Light of Mine", and the like, while Daddy........

sings MC Hammer.

That's right.  White boy can't can rap.

Well, the current tune is "Can't Touch This".  It was a hit in the early 90's.  

Josh sings it all the time.  He used to sing "Can't Touch Me" but has since learned the real lyric.

So....one day we were looking to burn time and energy before bed.  We decided to see if YouTube had the dance video.

Sure enough.

And yes, that is Josh flopping around.  That is his signature dance move....and he's darn good at it.

I'm not sure what Daddy's doing here.  Immitating Josh?

When every the 4 minutes video would stop, I would have to click play again.  But before I could do so, Macey would stop and look at the TV and say, "Touch This."  It sounded so cute with her little kid accent.

And Macey is ALWAYS game for a close up.  

So now, our kids L-O-V-E to dance to the 90s video of MC Hammer's "Can't Touch This" over and over and over and over.  

I just hope the get some better dance moves before Prom.  

Dad's the Funner One

So the other day after the pool fiasco, Macey wanted to come inside before Josh did.

She gets so hot so fast.  We have to REALLY watch her.

Anyway, while Macey and I were inside preparing dinner, I happen to hear some squeals of joy-not pain-coming from outside and I look out to see this:

They're having a water fight.  

They both have Easter baskets I got on sale for 45 cents and are filling them up and throwing them at each other.

Literally!  Josh just threw the whole basket in the picture about.  I'm not sure if it slipped out of his hand or if he meant to.  Either is a real possibility.

And then when Josh gets to loosing too bad, he wants to stop.  Sometimes it's hard for Daddy to let him win.  Daddy is just too competitive and so is Josh and well, that leads to tears.  (Not on Daddy's face.)

Then came the legal child abuse.  At least that's what I call it. 

Sometimes, there are just times when you want to just give your child a little of the 'shush up' medicine.  He's told you no for the last time and time-outs just aren't working, and lighting his toys on fire would make you feel better, but cause lasting harm only to be undone my psychologists.....and........

Somehow squirting them with a "cold" garden hose just makes ya feel better.

And the kids think you are just so fun.  It's a win-win situation!

But seriously, Daddy is the "funner" one.

Redneck Swimmin'

We've never had a summer without a pool.

Until.......

this summer.  When Josh decided to jump on the pool (ya know the kind-from Wally World about $10 and hard plastic?) while it was turned upside down.

Yeah.

Trashed.

He cried and cried.  We really try to take care of our toys.  Even the ones that aren't supposed to last more than one season.

This pool had been with us since the last summer, and maybe even the summer before that.  We'd always stored it in the shed.  Not out in the open in hopes of making it last longer.

But......when a 4 yr old thinks he's light as a feather and the pool is just B-E-G-G-I-N-G to be jumped on......things don't last.

So........

With a heart-broken kid and a creative Daddy.....

That's right.  Your eyes are not deceiving you.  

That is a blue tarp on a slant for a 'pool'.  

It's probably not even 2 inches deep, but it's water and there's a boy.....so we call it a pool.

After seeing that, how could a mom not run to Walmart and buy a new pool?!

So now here's how we swim.

Both kids shoved into a pool.  

It was the biggest one that would fit in my car. 

Not that the thought didn't cross my mind to buy the biggest one, slap it on top of my SUV and drive down the backroads  VERY SLOWLY holding the pool on top of the roof with one hand. 

But...we're not THAT redneck!!!!!!

Dinner with Monkeys

Tonight I really didn't have anything planned for dinner, and since we don't have a maid or chef, Chad decided it would be a good idea to go out to eat. 

That is a 'perk' of the new H town.  There's slightly more of a choice when one wants to dine out in a small town.  There's a Mexican restaurant, a small 50's diner, an Italian place, Pizza Hut, and Sonic.  

Some of our extended family welcomed us to town by providing us with a gift certificate to the Italian restaurant.  So the Italian restaurant it is!


On the way, we were singing "Deep and Wide." 

I have a small bag that I keep in the back of my car with stuff to do in restaurant while waiting for our food.  It's stuff that only gets pulled out a restaurants so that it's special.  

I keep special stickers, special color books, special books, etc.

They didn't have any kids cups and I didn't bring any from home, so they had to drink like 'big kids.'

Well, then later when we were playing Musical Chairs, Chad and I both reached for a drink to move it out of the way and we both spilled the cup.  (And incidentally, it looked like Chad wet his pants.)

While all this is going on, I want you to know that it is AT LEAST 75 degrees in this place.  I don't know if their AC was on the fritz, they cut it down because it wasn't 100 degrees, or it was just the pure body heat by being mauled by 2 kids....but it was H-O-T!!!

So by the time our pizza comes exactly at the time we're cleaning up the water and trying to maintain composure and patience.

Then I try to cut the cheese pizza for the kids as fast as humanly possible and blow at the same time to cool it off.  

Then Josh informs me that the pizza is too gooey.  

Seriously?  Who on planet Earth has EVER said that a pizza is too gooey?  Only my child.

Then Macey wouldn't sit in her high chair, climbed on me, and then started jumping on the booth seat. 

I procede to look across the booth at Chad and he's sitting there, smugly enjoying his perfectly portioned pizza with a smile on his face. 

Because I'm sitting on the other side of the bench, sweating, with 2 kids playing or complaining, while tring to eat my pizza.

Um....check please!

Then we stopped by to see Baby Tanner.  

He's grown so much in just a few weeks!  His hair is a titch longer, he looks a little more like his mommy, and can even sit up for an extended period of time!

I love his face in the picture above.  It's like "These kids are BIG!"

Macey and Josh both love to sqeeze on him and 'pet' him, but Josh by far, loves him more.  If he could just carry Tanner around, I think Josh would love it.  

He's always so excited and willing to go and see Baby Tanner.  There's even been a couple of times when we couldn't or Tanner couldn't come over and Josh has cried!  Real tears!

All in all, we had a great evening. 

The after dinner company was much better than dinner.