It's as easy as a Picnik!!!

I have an obsession photographing things!  Birds and flowers mainly (with the exception of the bazillion photos of my littles!!)  So my 14 year old had been using this editing program to make rather interesting pictures out of generally ordinary pictures of her friends.  I tried it out for a while (it's Free, Free, FREE!!!)- and decided that it was something that we would use alot - so I paid for the upgrade.  Did I say it was FREE???  There are a lot of super great options available in the free categories - and way more available with the paid upgrade!

If you haven't heard of Picnik - go check it out!  It is so much fun!
http://www.picnik.com/  



You can make cards, scrapbook pages, collages, or fun edits to your regular photos!  I was playing with some of my flower pictures this weekend and discovered the 1960's button!  It puts a little antiqued look to the photo and rounds the edges!  It is my new fave!!!

I will leave you with a few that I absolutely loved!

Snowball bush

tulip after a rain

I have 4 peony bushes - they bloomed beautifully this year!





double rainbow over an old farm!

14!!!!!! ALREADY???

On the 19th my gorgeous, talented, smart, funny, loving baby girl turned 14!  I am sitting here wondering where the time went?!  When did barbies turn into ipods?  When did Barney turn into Justin Beiber?  She dances to Justin Beiber like she did to Barney (with a little bit more coordination!)

 When I asked her what kind of cake she wanted she told me butter pecan!  (shocked it wasn't chocolate!)  Then she said she wanted turtles, soccer, music, and anything to do with summer!!  Now how was I going to get all that into 1 cake? The only way I could see getting all of her wishes onto cake was to make 2!!!  Good thing we were having 2 seperate gatherings!  One set of grandparents on Sat. and the other set on Sun.

The Saturday cake was the summer theme!  Sunglasses, orange bikini (which is what she wanted but couldn't find!)flip flops, purple nail polish, swimming pool, music and a guitar!

I started out making this cake using hot pink frosting on the larger bottom cake - I had it all the way frosted - then tasted the frosting - OOPPPPSSS!!!  Note to self - taste frosting BEFORE covering an entire cake with it - This pink frosting was horribly BITTER!!!  I had to scrap it all off - and start the process all over again!  This time I just used white!

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The Sunday cake was the soccer/ turtle cake - this one was much easier to make!  I rolled my modeling chocolate into little marbles and alternated them around the top and bottom.  I placed 4 soccer balls made out of modeling chocolate as well around the bottom.  I placed the turtle on top and wrote my message using melted white chocolate with edible blue sparkle dust mixed in.  (Kaitie said it looked kinda like toothpaste!)

If you read the message on the first cake  - you will notice that I forgot to cross my *T* - oopppsss

HAPPY BIRTHDAY KAITIE!!!!

LOVE YOU!!

I'm linking up with:

http://www.paisleypassions.blogspot.com/

Somethin' Fishy is goin' on here.....

One of the local supermarkets here is having another *contest* for children's creativitiy!  Remember back at Easter time it was egg decorating?  We made *egg heads* and won 1st place for our age bracket!  So this time around it is fish - or bait - Soooooooo this week we have been reading some fish books -

*Rainbow fish
*1 fish 2 fish

some others that I can't remember off the top of my head -

We have also been busy *makin'*!!

I got brave and got passed my OCD and let the littles use glitter!!  (yes you heard me right!  GLITTER!)   We made some shiny handprint fish.

Then we made blow fish - we took balloons and added scales and fins! 

Then lastly we decorated cupcakes with candy coated chocolate bits - (otherwise known as M&M's)!!!  I frosted the cupcakes first then the kids added the rest. 

They are supposed to have a back fin made from those jelly candy fruit things - like a lime or orange slice - take a toothpick and stick it into the back side of the fish - but I felt that there was enough candy on these already -the kids are already wound up enough without adding extra candy!!

So the deadline for entries is Saturday so - we will see if my little Picaso's will come out winning again!!

Wish us luck!

BLESSED

It's the simple things in life that give me peace.

Spending time looking at my flowers.



The quiet things that relax me.

Feeding my birds!  I love it when my littles yell to me from the other room - "red bird is back!"

The little things that bring me back to my childhood.

These were my granma's favorite!  She had them planted around the big pine tree on the hill that the glider swing was on.  These are on the West corner of our house, the smell brings me back to my granma's!

The littlest miracles that make all your worries disappear.

These little babies need to have prayers sent their way.  We have had terrible wind the past couple of days.  I was out in the yard with my boys tonight and saw this clump and flipped it over to find it a nest.  Lying close were these 3 robin eggs!  We gently placed them back in the nest and put the nest high in the tree.  We have been watching out the window to see if we can notice a mama coming for them.  I hope she comes back.!



God Grant Me The Serenity,
To Except The Things I Cannot Change
The Courage To Change The Things I Can
And The Wisdom To Know The Differance.