Her Second Birthday- Part Tres

My kids and I had the idea of creating a giant slip 'n slide, you know, so they could really get some speed. We are so blessed to have Kahuna as the head of the house. He always comes through for us! He took the kids to Home Depot and bought 50 feet of six mil plastic. They secured the sides with stakes that were flush with the grass, turned on the hose, added just a bit of dish soap to the slide to make it really fast, and boom... homemade slip 'n slide.

I'm pretty sure the kids broke some speed records.

Her Second Birthday- Part Dos

Hey, thanks you guys for the sweet birthday wishes for Beach Bunny! What can I say... my blogger buds are the bomb!

Here is a quickie collage of a few more pictures from the party.

Here's a link to the cupcake cones like the ones I made for the party. They were seriously yummy. If you ever make them, prepare yourself for ooo's and aaah's and 101 questions from party-goers. Martha Stewart, you just got schooled! Clickety HERE for the cupcake cone 411.

Pictures from the 50 foot homemade slip 'n slide tomorrow. . .

Her Second Birthday- Part One

Monday, June 29th, is Beach Bunny's second birthday (Is my baby really going to be two tomorrow?!). We had a little ice cream themed family party for her on Saturday at the park in our neighborhood. I love my family so much! It is so much fun to hang out and celebrate with them. We had a way-too-big-and-fattening sundae bar, and the kids ate cupcakes shaped like ice cream cones, too! Kahuna and the boys constructed a homemade 50 foot slip 'n slide for the kids to ride on. It was a riot . . . even Beach Bunny took a ride (with daddy's help)! I have some great action shots that I'll post later.

I enjoyed designing her little invitation on the computer and then emailed it out to the family.

More pictures to come. . .

I ♥ Faces- Fix-It Friday

Yea! It's Friday... my favorite day of the week AND it's time for Fix-It Friday over at I ♥ Faces.
The original picture below was submitted by Jennifer. You can find her blog HERE. As you know, I LOVE photo editing. I am always trying to learn something new. I couldn't resist this baby boy's adorable face with the tear streaming down his cheek. I can only imagine why he was crying...maybe he'd rather be outside getting into all sorts of mischief. I know my kids would!

Below is the original picture.

Here is my edit:

1. Gave it an aged antique look in Lightroom 2.3, then imported image to Photoshop Elements 7.

2. Cropped picture. Cloned out crumbs on chin and runny nose.
3. Unsharp mask on irises only

4. Burned lashes just a touch

5. Unsharp mask on tear

6. Reduced noise

7. Softened fur just a little bit around his face

That's it!

I hope you have a fabulous weekend!

Wordful Wednesday- Check and Double Check

With the magic of photo editing software I made up a little game for you. I call it "Check and Double Check". Look at the original picture on the left and check out the one on the right. Look carefully. Can you find the six things that are different? Of course you can! I know you bloggers have a keen eye!

Happy Hump Day!

To see more Wordful/Wordless Wednesdays clickety HERE, HERE, HERE and even... HERE.

He's Totally Right.

I gave Goofy Foot (who is eight years old) the challenge of naming this photo of his sister. He thought for a second and came up with "Little Stinker on a Time Out".

We both laughed.

He's totally right.

Wordful Wednesday

I've always wanted to try to add a texture to a photo in Photoshop Elements. After I tucked the kids in bed tonight, I gave it a try. I took the picture below ...

...and placed the texture (below) on top. I lowered the opacity of the layer so the boys would show through. Then I lowered the amount of blue in the clothes so they would look a little more rustic. I burned around the edges to give it more depth. I also removed almost all of the texture from the boys' faces.
I can see the flaws, but with more practice I hope to get this right one day. I'm havin' fun in the meantime!

Hop on over to Seven Clown Circus for more Wordful Wednesdays.

I ♥ Faces- The Vacation Edition

This week at I ♥ Faces we have something fun! It's called “My Story Through Photos: The Vacation Edition”. I'm posting a little photo album from our Caribbean cruise (aboard the Freedom of the Seas) two years ago. Big Kahuna's parents splurged and took the whole family! How could we refuse?! His parents said that they were spending everyone's inheritance now- with them- so that they could be a part of the memories.

A few months before the cruise, hubby's parents gave each one of us a "clue" as to where we were going. They did not tell us anything else... just to pack for warm weather. On the morning of our trip, as we boarded our flight, they handed us our boarding passes... and we found out we were headed for the Caribbean! We were like freaks jumping up and down at LAX airport!

If was fun to flip through the album just now and relive the memories. Our ports of call were: Miami, Florida~ Cozumel, Mexico~ Georgetown, Grand Cayman~ Montego Bay, Jamaica~ and Labadee, Haiti. It was friggin' awesome! Oh, I'll introduce the people in the album... Hubby's parents, his sister Laurel, his sister Cindy with husband and two kids, and our family (before Beach Bunny was born!).

Click here to view this photo book larger

Hop on over to I ♥ Faces and pretend you're on vacation! Ya, Mon!

Sunday Citar/Sitar?

Recently, I've been reading a blog called, "Fresh Mommy: Everyday is a New Start". She posts some really cool photography, and I dig it. Each week she posts a blog carnival called "Sunday Citar". Being the genius that I am, I misspelled the word "citar" in my google search, and instead typed "sitar". Here's a picture of what I found...

"Weird!" I thought. "She must really be into Indian music on Sundays".

Oops! My bad!

What Citar (with a C, thank you!) really means is 'to quote' in Spanish. Pretty straightforward, nothing too crazy. It's a place to share an inspiring, interesting or funny quote, plus a picture or two. The picture/s can correspond with the quote- or not. Don't you love freedom?

Ok, so here's my inaugural Sunday Citar (With a C, genius!) post:

"Sometimes being a brother is better than being a superhero." -Marc Brown

And if I were to frame these pictures up, it would look something like this...

"Sometimes being a brother is better than being a superhero." -Marc Brown

Click on the blog button below for more fun. Come on. You know you want to.

Favorite Foto Friday

Here's my favorite photo from the week...

Come see more "Favorite Fotos" with me. Clickety over HERE.

Conversation With an Eight-Year-Old

Here's a little conversation Goofy Foot had with his dad while we were at Disneyland...

Goofy Foot: Dad, are we really at Disneyland? Is this real? Am I dreaming?
Dad: Umm, well, what do you think?
Goofy Foot: I'm gonna try to fly and throw a fire ball, and if I can't then I know this is real.
(flaps his arms as fast as he can and does some sort of ninja fireball-throwing-move, I think)
Dad: Well?
Goofy Foot: This must be real! Sweet!

Wordful Wednesday

If you'd like to see more Wordful Wednesdays, clickety HERE.

The D's @ Disneyland

I don't know about you, but our family is on a pretty strict budget these days. We decided last summer that we'd like spend a day at Disneyland this year. We talked with the boys at dinner one night about approximately how much it would cost. We all decided at that point that we were going to save up for the trip as a family. So over the last year we saved and saved, but had fun at the same time. We had two garage sales, where the kids sold tons of their old toys. I sold most of Beach Bunny's baby clothes. We made a ton of "free" money from recycling our plastic bottles and cans... good for the environment, too. Woot! Woot! The boys even sold their old Pokemon cards on Ebay.

Do you see why we call them "Neapolitan Ice Cream"?

One of my favorite ways of contributing to our "Disney Fund" was to collect any money I found while doing laundry. Instead of everyone squabbling over who the money belonged to, I just put it aside for the trip. Over the last year I collected $78.23, plus a few rocks and love notes. I'm super proud of my family for working as a team. Looking back I think each one of us enjoyed and appreciated our day just a little bit more.

Silly Girl goofing around with Daddy pulling Daddy's hair out
while waiting in line for Buzz Lightyear