Emma's turning 2!

I don't really have a lot to say in this post except...enjoy!

Elements

So everyone knows I got a new camera for Christmas and I'm sure everyone thought that meant I would be posting all sorts of fancy pictures on here. Yeah, me too. I don't know why but it is really hard for me to set time aside to post anything. I'm working on it people.

Anyway, I got my first photoshopping software a few weeks ago. I didn't get Photoshop CS-whatever in it's entirety, but instead I got Photoshop Elements. Let me be very honest here it is still too confusing for me and it's very basic compared to Photoshop. Baby steps people, baby steps.

I had this picture of Emma that I took earlier this year when I first got my camera. I thought it was a pretty good picture except Emma had a little "friend" hanging from her nose. Here is what the shot looked like originally:

So I started messing around with this picture on Elements and this is the picture after:

It's not a huge change, but I think the picture looks a lot better. The color is better and it looks more "crisp" and Emma's "friend" is gone. I know I have a lot to learn and I really need to sit down and spend some time figuring all this stuff out. It's a start though.

I have all sorts of other pictures I need to post soon. I've had TWO new additions to the family. I have a new niece Madelyn Jane and a new cousin Marlee Dawn. I will try to get their pictures up this weekend because they are BEAUTIFUL and I can't wait to show them off.

I hope everyone has a great weekend and enjoys the gorgeous weather! Love ya!

Happy Valentimes Day!

Yes I said Valentimes. I think it adds a nice touch of humor to the day. Don't you?

Anyway, I thought I would post really quickly and let you all in on how my V-day went down. Usually Ron sends me a beautiful arrangement of flowers to work so all the ladies can drool over them, but this year I kind of got in the way of those plans. *Sidenote on this one-does anyone else think it's weird that we want our husbands/boyfriends to send us our V-day presents to work even a day early if necessary, just so the other girls can see it? I do. I mean let's just get it out there, we all want our present to be better than the others right? But at the same time, I love the girls I work with and I would never want to make them feel bad about what they did or didn't get. Weird. Ok back on topic...

Before I go into this story let me just say that I am not one of those girls who says "I hate getting flowers or roses" or "I would rather get something else" and then gets upset when they don't get flowers or roses. I do love flowers of all sorts, even carnations, and there was a time in my life when I loved getting them more than anything. But lets face it people, I've been there and done that quite a few times now. I don't know if it's because I'm getting older or I just have so much other stuff I could use the money for, but I really didn't want flowers this year. So all that to say this. I was on the BOK website balancing the checkbook when I saw a charge for flowers that was about to go through. I called Ron and told him to cancel it. Of course he was like cancel what? I tried as politely as I could to tell him that I would much rather him clean the house or do the dishes or take the kids away for two weeks while I catch up on everything. Those are the sort of things I'm into these days. After some gentle nudging, I convinced him to cancel the order and I told him I loved him for the thought, but really any of those other things would be acceptable. Ok maybe two weeks is a little much for taking the kids away. I mean I'm sure I'd miss them after the first 10 days or so, right? ")

Anyhoo, last Friday Ron was off work and had to run some errands and I really wasn't thinking much about Valentimes day anymore. (Oh I should probably mention I had the worst week in the history of worst weeks at my job last week. So getting to Friday was really all I had on my mind. That and a nice bottle of wine.) Ron came to pick me up for lunch and you will never guess what he had. Nope not flowers.

He made, yes I said MADE, chocolate covered strawberries and brought them to me at work! Oh it was the best gift ever. They were so yummy and instead of drooling over flowers the girls got to share some strawberries with me. So I'm going to have to say after fifteen years Ron still found a way to out do himself. Way to go honey! I love you and I'm glad you're mine!

The crazy 8 year old I once spoke of.....

Turned 9 today! Yep. 9. I'm not going to get all sappy and go on and on about how fast time has gone by with Kyle, but it REALLY has. This boy. Let me tell you. He's pretty special. He's the king of one liners, he's very smart, very athletic and really a sweet little boy. He says he's a Daddy's boy, but I know the truth. ")

For everyone else's birthday in November I did a little post about funny memories about that person. I think I'll keep up that tradition at least once more for Kyle. So here we go:

1. Kyle was three weeks early. He came during the only snow storm of the year. I went to the hospital at about 8:30 pm or so on the 27th already dilated to a 6. I got my epidural about an or so later and slept until about 2 in the morning. I started pushing about 2:15 and only had to push a few times and there he was. He weighed 6 lbs and 10 ounces and didn't look a thing like his brother. I fell in love with another boy that day.

2. He is in 3rd grade this year at Kane. He passed the GATES test earlier in the year (which stands for Gifted And Talented Elementary School). We are very proud of him and honestly have no idea how he became so smart. He never wanted me to teach him anything and to this day when his teachers praise him, I'm like I don't know where he learned it, but he picked it up somewhere. I choose to believe that he is one of those people who are just born smart and he won't ever really have to try at it. That's my story anyway.

3. One time when we were all eating at Mazzio's, Kyle busted out a quote from a pretty popular animated show (I'm not going to say which one, because it makes me sound like a bad parent) and we all almost died from laughing so hard. I really almost choked on my pizza.

4. The other day Ron asked Kyle if he knew where Emma's cup was and he said "well let me think about when the last time was I used it." Oh I couldn't contain myself. *Sidenote on this one - if any of you know Ron he is always saying things like this, so I found it very amusing that he was on the receiving end for a change.

5. Kyle is the perfect example of Murphy's Law. If anything can go wrong, it will go wrong. Right on Kyle's head. Or face. Or knee. Or elbow. I swear. One time the boys went to stay with my Aunt Dawn and I told her, "Watch Kyle. If anyone will get hurt, it will be him." I'm not kidding within the first few hours the child was hurt.

6. Kyle loves to help Ron do "men's work." That's what he told me one day when I asked him what he was doing outside. He said "Men's work with Dad." Oh ok. Keep it up!

7. This year Kyle played tackle football for the Y. It was his second year and he didn't seem to be as hesitant as he was the previous year. One day at practice he was playing defense and busted through the line and sacked the quarterback, whose dad happens to be Kyle's head coach. The coach was going crazy, all excited about the play and the other parents were like, umm, that's your kid he just tackled! He didn't care and really, neither did Kyle.

8. Kyle used to call magazines, mazagines. I think he still slips every once in awhile and says mazagine. We like to give him a hard time about it.

9. Kyle is a really, really good big brother to Emma and a does an awesome job with any kiddo. Our nephew Ayden loves Kyle to death and follows him around everywhere and the cool thing is Kyle likes it. He likes to have him around and entertain him. He's a very good helper. I'm going to start renting him out to parents of 2 to 4 year olds. I can guarantee it would worth every penny for an hour or two of relaxation.

10. When Kyle was born Luke was around 3 and he used to love the song BINGO. So if you asked Luke what his name was he would say Lukas Brody Freeman-O. Just like in the song. Bingo's name ended with an O so Luke thought everyone's name ended with an O. Anyway, when Kyle was born, Ron's parents started calling him Kyle Preston Freeman-O. Which led to Kyle-O and then Kyle-Odie. One Sunday at church we were taking the boys to their nursery rooms and we had to put a nametag on them. Craig decided to put Kyle-Odie on Kyle's nametag. No big deal right? Wrong. About halfway through the service a message popped up on both of the big screens in church. "Will the parents of Kyle-Odie please come to the nursery." Yeah. I loved being the one who had to stand up and respond to that one. Thus we have Kyle-Odie!

So there you go. I could go into a few other things, but I'll save those for another time.
HAPPY BIRTHDAY, KYLE-ODIE!!!
Your mommy loves you!

Is this weird?

Oh hi! Bet you all thought I was gone for good, huh? Nope. Just been busy of course. After Christmas I had to go to Dallas for a check up on my heart thing and then I had a little girls trip to Colorado last week! My heart is doing great and I had an awesome time in CO! I'll fill you in on all those deets a little later. First here's this....

Before Christmas I was trying to get a good picture of the kids for cards. Of course Emma had a runny nose which made her look like a little Rudolph and since I haven't purchased photoshop or wouldn't even know how to use it if I had, I thought I would put the kids in the tub and maybe if Emma's face was really clean her nose wouldn't look so bad. That makes sense right??? So I ran a bath in our big tub and, wait for it, made all three kids get in!

So my question to you all is this. Do you think this will cause permanent emotional damage? Bad memories? Or is it just weird on several different levels? I somewhat regretted making them do this but at that point it was too late. Once they were in there the boys were having fun, but Emma was a little grumpy. Here are the shots I got. (Oh and her nose is still crazy red!)

She was umm, how shall I say this, taking her 20 month old red-headed anger out on her brothers. I don't know where she gets it?

I guess it's Luke's turn now. Yeesh!

Man look at that face! Those boys better thank their lucky stars they will be out of the house when she's a teenager!

So I rescued the boys from the demon and then their true colors started oozing out. I have so many shots of these faces. Don't worry, I'll spare you.

I hope everyone had a wonderful Christmas and New Year! Love you lots!

Okay really quickly...

So I'm still finishing my Christmas shopping, I've been baking cookies all evening and I just finished addressing my Christmas cards, but I thought I would pop in and say hello.  Just for a second anyway.  We've had a very busy weekend and I'm sure it's not going to get better before Thursday.  One of our really good friends from high school got married tonight, so we spent a good chunk of our weekend hanging out and catching up with our peeps.  I've been toting my new "baby" around with me everywhere and for those of you who want to know, this is what I've looked like for the past two or three weeks.

I've taken, and I'm not making this up, about six to seven hundred pictures since I got the new camera.  I really like it and I'm trying to learn as much about it as I can.  Here are a couple of my favorite shots I've taken so far.

This is my nephew Kohen.  He turned one last weekend and he's pretty stinkin cute!  We celebrated his party Freeman style at Buffalo Wild Wings.  It rocked.

This picture is from the wedding we went to tonight.  The cake was beautiful and very yummy! We had a really good time catching up with old friends and seeing our sweet Jason get married.  Anyway, I'd sure love to post all 732 pictures for you guys to admire, but let's face it, we've all got much more important tasks at hand.  I'm sure most of you are already done with all your Christmas activities but I'm the kind of crazy who likes to wait until the absolute very last second and then go "I'm going to be way more prepared next year."  Ha!  Yeah right!  Anyway, I hope you all have a Merry Christmas and I'll check in again soon!

I can't wait!!!!

Ok so Santa came a little early for me this year.  In my defense though, I've been really good and I've wanted this for a long, long time.  Does that count??  I think it does, so I finally got a new camera!!  Woo hoo!  It is a Canon Rebel XSI.  I'm really excited and can't wait to get some more pictures of the kids.  I'm not a pro or anything, I'd just like to get some clearer pictures instead of the blurriness I'd been getting in the past.  I thought I'd share a few of my first pics with you guys.  

I'm no Lauren Clark or anything but they are heck of a lot better than what I was getting out of my last camera.  I hope to learn more about what all this Rebel can do and get better.  I'm sure I'll fit all the learning into my schedule somewhere!!  Here are a few more of Emma.  (I promise she isn't my favorite child.  I don't have a favorite.  But she will pose and make cute faces for me.  The boys don't really care to do that anymore.  Plus they are usually dirty and need to comb their crazy hair or something.)

And here we are after the bath.  Checking out some ribbon I'm going to use to make hair bows for her.

And now we are going to brush our hair.

We take hair brushing very seriously at our house.  See...

Wow.  It was clearly bedtime.  ")