Piglet is Pink.

Original title, eh?

Sometimes the hardest part of writing this blog for me is coming up with a title. It's ridiculous.

I don't know about you, but this has been a strange sort of week for us. We haven't really had much going on, but it has felt so busy and rushed. To top things off, I am officially out of room on the laptop. That either means I need to start deleted some things off, or fork over some bucks and invest in an external hard drive. Or both. Oy.

Not helping my space issue is my addiction to fonts. I recently found Dafont and I.am.hooked! It has a ton of free fonts for you to download. If you are into fonts, check it out, but be warned...it's hard to leave the site!

Without further ado, here is this week's edit:

I honestly can't remember all I did, but I do know I duplicated my layer, set it to multiply, created a layer mask and filled it black and then painted back on with a 25% white brush (thanks, Ashley!). I also adjusted the levels to make the colors pop.

Then, just because I can (well, at least I think I can), I created some water drops, just for fun!

I just wanted to have some fun with it, but still keep it simple. Incidentally, I also gave Piglet a tattoo, but then I removed it. Poor little Piglet just doesn't seem like the tattoo type.

Here is the before and after. As always, your comments and suggestions are welcome. I really do appreciate them!

As usual, I'm linking up here:

  

Joyful.

For the Lord your God is living among you. 
He is a mighty savior.
He will take delight in you with gladness. 
With his love, he will calm all your fears.
He will rejoice over you with joyful songs.

                                                                                                         -Zephaniah 3:17

Linking up here:

  

A Man Named Fred

We read books. A lot. Usually when we read, B-Man will finish the sentences for me if I give a pause. It's cute and it makes my heart happy.

Today we were reading about Noah. There was a line in the book that read "God asked one man to build the ark. That man's name was...." I thought it was an appropriate place for a pause and Brady, quickly recognizing his queue, finished the sentence with "Fred". Awesome.

Linking up with I Heart Faces and Phonography.

  

Ten on Tuesday

1. Happy belated President's Day. Did you celebrate by learning all our past presidents? If not, you can get your education on here. 
2. I wished Brady a happy Presidents Day, to which he immediately replied "I want to open it!". Poor kid, he thought I said presents day. 
3. I actually did scroll through #1's link and came to a picture of our 11th president. Is it just me, or does he have a slight resemblance to Mel Gibson?

   

   Photo Credit / Photo Credit

4. I've come to the realization that every family with small children has a special name for passing gas, as if somehow calling it by a nicer name makes it less icky. The "f" word wasn't allowed in our house, so growing up, my brother and I had to call it a "puff". Here in the Butler household we call it a toot. What words do you use? I know you've got some good ones!
5. I may have mentioned this before, but it bears repeating. Brady has a particular ball he plays with and every time he does, he always says "I do not care for so much reason". Where does he come up with this stuff?!
6. Thanks to some cool new apps on the iPhone, the little guy now knows a rhombus, ellipse, parallelogram, equilateral triangle, right triangle, scalene triangle, pentagon, heptagon, hexagon, as well as star, semicircle, rectangle, square, and circle. Technology is a beautiful thing.
7. Our city had an indoor garage sale this past weekend. I scored some good deals, but my favorite was a huge black frame. It is kind of distressed looking and I love it and it only cost $1. I got it to fame a family picture (assuming we ever take one), but it came with a framed Twilight poster. I'm not going to lie: I was embarrassed carrying it around. 
8. You know who wasn't? The hubster. Yet another reason I love that man.
9. I know I've mentioned this before, but my friend is raising money for adopting. I'm having an online party for Tastefully Simple and all the proceeds go towards her adoption. I am selling products through March 1 and so far have $0 sales. That's right. That number is zero. I feel like the biggest loser of a friend ever. Please buy something, for my friend and for my ego (but more for my friend). The food really is super yummy and you will be helping a great cause.
   
10. I am also linking up with Forever n Always Shoot and Edit. I missed last week's theme of romance. I was uninspired (photographically), so I'm jumping back in with this weeks' theme of pink. Not an easy color to find in our household, but I did what I could. Be sure to check back later in the week for the edit!

Planting Towpers

A person will harvest what they plant.-Galatians 6:7

I've heard it said before that if you want to know what is important to you, then you should look at how you spend your time. It's so true, isn't it? Our time really is our most valuable gift. It's fleeting and in high demand. There is a reason we are told to "stop and smell the roses", it's because some day we'll be too old to bend over and we'll have lost our sense of smell. Or, maybe it's because time passes so quickly that if you don't take time to appreciate the simple joys of life, they will simply pass you by. Could be either one, right?

There are days when I'm in the kitchen and I have to send my son out so I can get something done (it is nearly impossible to accomplish any task with a two year old playing drums on your bum, afterall). He'll hang is head down and slowly (sloooowly) inch his way out of the kitchen, until he's just barely in the living room. He will put his toe on the invisible line that divides the two rooms and ask to "pleeease" come back in the kitchen. Because I'm in there. I can never resist and, between you and me, I don't want to. I know there will be a day when he won't want to be in the kitchen, hanging out with me. I know there will be a day, coming sooner than I care to admit, when he won't want to be my special helper.

But that day's not today.

It may look like we're planting strawberry seeds and lovely forget-me-nots, but if you look closer, you will see we're planting memories. Memories I will always treasure. 

There used to be a time, not so long ago, when he used to ask to pick "towpers". Today we're planting them, only now they're "flowers".

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

On a completely unrelated note, my friend is raising money to adopt a baby. Because I love babies, and adoption, and my friend, I am hosting an online party to help her raise some funds. If you live in the continental United Staes, please check it out, order something yummy, and help my friend adopt. I can personally attest the almond pound cake is to.die.for. I would love for this to be her biggest selling party ever, so I need your help (especially since right now I have zero sales).

 

Also, don't forget to check out the other camera embracers at Emily's blog.



My Husband

We don't celebrate Valentine's Day in the traditional sense. Well, we don't celebrate it in any sense, really. There are a number of reasons (I'll spare you), but in all our years of dating and being married, we have never bought each other one Valentine's Day gift. I joke and tell my husband he gets it easy, but that's truly how I want it. I don't believe in celebrating Valentine's Day. 

I have always loved and appreciated my husband for reasons too long to list. But, when he became a father that love took on a whole new level. There is something so extraordinary about watching the two men in my life: the big man and the little man. I am so grateful for them, for the way they are with me, and for the way they are with each other, and for a God who gave them to me.  

So, while I do not believe in celebrating Valentine's Day; I do, however, believe in celebrating love. I *love* love. 

And, I love these two.

Out of the Box: Apricot

ap·ri·cot

[ap-ri-kot, ey-pri-]

I joined this project a little late (started on gray), so I have a little list of colors I need to capture. I knew all week that apricot was coming up and I had no idea what I was going to do! Then, I found it. It's my glasses case. I only wear these bad boys when I work on the computer (I would just like to point out that I need them for eye strain--not because my eyes are 30 years old). The inside of the glasses is a dark shade of apricot, and the case itself is a light shade. I almost missed it and I seriously use these every.single.day!

I'm loving this project. It's forcing me to take pictures of things I normally would overlook and I've been shooting on manual (it's helpful the objects don't move).