Happy Birthday, Cash!

Emerson, along with his mama and daddy, were invited to a birthday party this past Saturday. His buddy, Cash, was turning 3 years old. Cash's parents are great buddies with Emerson's parents...and since we were in town, an invitation was extended for Emerson to bring along the rest of his family.
Cash was trying his hand at a game in the carnival. His mama spent no telling how much time, putting together an incredible 'carnival' in the garage. There were probably 6-8 different games for the kids to play. Little prizes were awarded for each one. Katrina had little colored bags for each of the kids so they had somewhere to put their prizes...
Emerson and Benjamin enjoyed 'fishing' with their papa.
Emerson was examining one of the fish to see if it was 'real'...
This is Wyatt...big brother of the birthday boy! Wyatt loves his fireman's clothes...
The boys 'fished' for quite a while...Benjamin was equally enjoying just splashing the water around...

Benjamin threw some of his 'prizes' in the water to see if they'd float. Papa to the rescue!
Cash, the birthday boy, tried his hand at fishing, too!
Cash and Wyatt have this great wooden structure in the backyard...it has a slide, swings, and this little room.... the boys LOVED it...

They would both go inside and hang out...or one would go in, close the door, and then they'd look at each other through the windows saying, "Hi!" back and forth to each other. They made my heart melt!
Natalie is a little doll....she's also Emerson's cousin, but she's not Benjamin's cousin...can you figure that one out? I can tell she is familiar with cameras! I'd be taking some pictures of her, she'd see me, and start giving me this adorable smile!

My little guy, Emerson!
This little doll is 12 hours younger than Cash, the birthday boy.
As I said, Wyatt loves his fireman's clothes...
Besides the wooden structure, there was also this little house. Benjamin found it and found out it had a doorbell...a working doorbell...

Cash, the birthday boy's mama and daddy, fixed up the entire house for this 3rd birthday party. Not only was there a carnival in the garage but look at this candy shop! I asked Katrina how long it took to put all this together, making the games, collecting it all... "About 2 months," she said. Wow!
No, this is not a real aquarium! This is a real window, with all this added outside.
Cash, the birthday boy, was practicing his bubble-blowing.


His daddy was making sure he captured it all!
When it was cake time, all the little people gathered around the cake in the 'candy shop' to sing Happy Birthday to Cash!
Emerson decided to try the fireman's hat, seeing as there were flames in the house (because of Cash's BIG 3 candle!)
Benjamin decided to try the fireman's hat on for size, too!
Gabe and Cash's daddy...commonly called Christian!
Cash had a Black and Decker drill set in his room. Natalie was trying to show Benjamin how to work it. He told her he already knew how to work it!
Emerson came in to check on his cousin...

What a fun party...both for the kids and for the adults, too!

The Batman

The original Batman...
the bat...
my batman...my hero...who saved me from attack by the bat...

We were up Friday night, just casually enjoying a glass of wine...when something flew through the living room...

we weren't sure what it was at first...a bird? a bat? We finally determined it was a bat... and my Batman leaped to his feet, grabbed his batbroom, and took a dynamic swing (or it could have been a dozen swings) at the intruder...

BAM! It landed with a resounding THUD on the kitchen floor...
My baby boy, my hero in disguise...he swept the intruder into a box...
all in a days work...
R.I.P.

The boys in January, 2011

I'm playing around in PSE9...

again...

I learned how to cut someone/something out of a picture...
and put them together...
and then put them in a frame...

Have I said how much I love playing with Photoshop?

Hound dog

Welcome, Snoop...or is it Snoopy? I'm still not sure, but this little guy is Blu's little brother. Technically, he's not a 'Hound Dog' as the title of this post says, but that was the subject in the email that Joshua sent with the photos...

He's a shih tzu...is that how you spell it?

Beware Blu. Shih tzu means "Lion"!
He's 8 weeks old...but look at him run after Blu! Maybe Blu's already heard that Shih tzu means 'lion'...

A new puppy...he's adorable!

Saturday at Joshua's

Joshua, Erica, and Thalia have eucalyptus trees in their backyard...BIG eucalyptus trees! Joshua felt they were a bit dangerous, or would be in a storm - think 'wind' - blowing - 'hitting house'... you get the idea.
Zoom in on this photo and you can see part of the tree as it is falling!

Joshua decided they needed to be trimmed...to the tune of about $1800! I asked him why he just didn't trim them...

"too tall, Jutze, too tall"

Seeing these photos, I remembered they were definitely too tall for my baby boy to be climbing and cutting...
Check out the people in this photo...and you get more of an idea of how tall they were...

Now when they grow back, Joshua will be able to do the trimming...or maybe that'll be Thalia's new job...

Saturday afternoon

So, I haven't moved much since the last post...found something else new...lens flare!
Here's the original without lens flare...and without whatever else I did - which I can't remember!

This was our last day in the little town we used to live in...

so long ago...

Saturday morning

Here is my baby girl...quite a few years ago. This picture has been edited in Photoshop Elements 9 (PSE9), which I wrote about earlier...my new toy!Here is the original...

This was before digital photography, but when I scan them, it digitizes them so I can play around. Today, I also learned how to use the grid on PSE9 and this was my first attempt. Besides the grid, I was playing around with 'rendering' photos (don't have a clue what it means, but I like what it can do)... and also making photos look like a watercolor painting.
In this grid, the bottom right is the original...The top row are both 'watercolor' and I don't have a clue what the bottom left is. I don't really care for it, but I put it in because I wanted a fourth photo for my new-found grid work.
Wanting to practice more with the grid...and with applying textures to photos, I found this photo from last years People to People trip to Kinderdijk, which is outside of Amsterdam. The top right is the original photo...

Well, let's keep going...I was thinking I SHOULD do some school work, I WANT to paint, I SHOULD clean the house, I WANT to read my book (not all the PSE9 tutorials I have bookmarked or downloaded)...but instead, I thought I'd practice adding a frame to the grid of photos....

Then I called my guy in here to look at it and asked him if he thought it looked like a postcard!

Fortunately for him, he said, "Yes"...

Then I thought, "Well, I should blog this..."

and as you know, I did.

Now what?

Joshua's bees...

These are only some of the bees that have been inhabiting the ceiling over the outside entryway leading to Joshua, Erica, and Thalia's front door...

Joshua told us the bees had gotten worse, meaning some days they couldn't even go in their front door because so many bees would be swarming around. He got an estimate, $900, to have the bees removed. When he told me that, I told him to hold on...his Pops probably knew something about removing bees...

which he did...

but Joshua figured out another way...

fogging...
After fogging them...he took down a piece of the wood that was covering the hive...not having any idea exactly where it was...this is what he saw! You can easily see 8 huge honeycombs...and Joshua said you couldn't see the little ones... you realize those are 2 x 4's next to the combs...
He started pulling them down, Erica had been excited about all the natural honey.

"No, it's nasty," Joshua told me.

His tools are a mess...just so incredibly sticky...he said he just laid his tools in the backyard instead of the garage...thinking ants would think they struck gold if the tools were in the garage...
Oh my gosh...Joshua told me he'd send more photos Tuesday when he had more time, but I had to blog this now...

Joshua's bees are a thing of the past...

Thank goodness!