Pudding Pops and Pool Fun

Do you remember Jell-O pudding pops?  I think I read they stopped making them in 1992.  I was only 12 years old then, but I remember them!  And I loved them!!!!  I have no idea why they stopped making them.

Well, In the summer of 2011 the Family Fun magazine published a recipe for them and I've been making them since!  They are so yummy!!! And myself and the kids LOVE them!

Here's the recipe...

Chocolate Pudding Pops

With a wire whisk, blend together 1 package of instant chocolate pudding (the magazine didn't list the size, I just used the smaller box), 2 cups milk, 1/2 cup cream, and 1/2 cup sugar.  Pour mixture into popsicle molds.  Or, pour it into small plastic cups, cover each with aluminum foil, and insert a craft stick through the foil.  Freeze and eat!

 Tanner was so sweet sharing his pudding pop!!!

Trail Mix

For a few years now I've been making trail mix for us to snack on ave we just love it!  And the weird thing is, when I was pregnant with Mackenzie I could not eat it, I just didn't like it all.  That's how it was with a few things I normally loved to eat, I just didn't like them at all when I was pregnant.

Anyway, I recently got back into making some and thought I'd post what I like to put in my trail mix.

I like to put Quaker's Oatmeal Squares cereal, it has fiber and protein in it and I like to snack on it, Almonds, Cashews, M&M's, dried blueberries, cranberries and cherries and raisins.  When I took the picture of the trail mix below I had some golden raisins in it, I love the golden ones.  But when I made the batch that I actually took a picture of the stuff, I didn't have any more golden raisins.

I just throw in about how much I think I'd like of each thing or how much I have.  Occasionally I like to put in some honey wheat pretzel twists, but they tend to get soggy if they trail mix sits for a few days.

It's real our to make your own trail mix!

Tanner's Rash

Tanner had gotten bit by a teeny tiny tick the Thursday before we left for the beach.  The Saturday we came home Dave noticed a rash around the spot where he had gotten bit.  It also really itched Tanner.  Each day the rash got bigger.  So knowing he had gotten bit there we took him to the doctor on Monday night and he said it was most likely Lymes Disease, based on the rash and knowing he was bit there.  

It doesn't look like the bulls eye rash that I've seen pictures of, but I guess the little bit of white in the middle qualifies it to be a bulls eye rash.  So Tanner had to take antibiotics for 3 weeks.  And we had to watch for him to act funny, not want to do anything and just lay around, and complain of his joints hurting.  Luckily none of that happened, he just had an itchy rash for a few days.

Matt's Family

We had such a beautiful sunny day until we went down to the beach to take Matt's family pictures. The skies got all dark.  I was so bummed!  I didn't want to use the flash but I had to because it was so dark.  I don't like higher ISO settings because I don't like grainy looking pictures.

These were some of my favorites...

More of Our Family Photos

For whatever reason I had a brilliant idea to hurry and run down to the beach to try and get some better family pictures.  Mackenzie is normally really happy in the morning and just maybe she'd smile for some.  So we hurried and ran down to the beach to try and get some.  In our hurry Jayden ended up wearing a pair of Tanner's shorts instead of his.  They fit him just fine in the waist, they were just too short, oops!  Good thing he stood behind us.

But boy it was hot!!!  It was only 9:30 am and like a 100 degrees and humid out, a heat wave for June!

And that little Mackenzie, I don't know if it was too close to her nap time or what, but again, she was slightly miserable!!

Here were the best two...

 Well, so sorry to drag Liz out, but she did get some cute ones of Dave and I.  I still need to edit a few of my favorites.  (boy I am so behind, other things keep coming up that I want and need to do.  It's really July 26th that I'm posting these.  And if you think I'm far behind on the blog, I still need to do my blog book from 2010, yeah I'm behind!)

 I love the hand pictures did!  One day I will frame one and Hang it up!

 I saw a similar picture on Pinterest (after this one was taking) where their hands were against their hips and part of their hips were also in the picture, I think I really liked that one too!

 And maybe the holding hands would be cool if she could have stood on a ladder and gotten our whole body shadows or something, kissing maybe?  :)  But I still love it!  I love holding hands!!!!

 And Liz took these cute silhouette shops that I enhanced in Photoshop, although I'm thinking of going back and making my hips smaller.

 I can't decide which crop I like best, one's an 8x10 and the other is what I used for my facebook timeline.  And I love the picture so I put them both on.  However, besides making my hips and love-handles smaller I may go back and lighten us a little bit more, so you can see a little more detail in the clothes.  I did make it so it wasn't totally all black, but I think it's still a little too black... hmmm... I need to think about that one...

Stephen, Cheryl and Kalaela Pictures

Each night at the beach house each family took a different night to cook.  The night we did the group picture was Stephen and Cheryl's night, so after the picture they went back to cook.  So this day, we went down to the beach to attempt to get some family pictures of them.

While they were getting ready I just snapped some pictures of Kalaela just sitting in the hallway of the house and this is one of them...

 There are some more pictures, one's of their feet and such, I was waiting for Cheryl to tell me her favorites before I just edited away, it takes time to edit pictures and I have lots and lots of crafts and other things I'd like to do.  So I thought I'd just edit the ones she really liked.  However, I got tired of waiting (after she was busy getting her house ready to sell because they are moving) so I chose a few to edit, but there are more that I will do later.  Some cute ones of their feet and more.  Anyway, here are a couple...

 Now... I see all these cool edits other people do to photos, and I love them!  And I do have a few actions downloaded for Photoshop that will do them, but for some reason I don't like them when I do them.  I like nice clean, clear, crisp edits.  However, I do just love the way other people edit photos.  I guess it will just take time for me to like them when I do them.  Anyway, Cheryl really liked this, it's called the "Nashville Effect" and so I just thought I'd post it in case anyone else did.  I know I'm posting the same picture twice, but it's not just black and white, it's the Nashville Effect.  :)

 We saw this cute idea on Pinterest with the picture frame.  So we tried it...

 Notice how in the photo below the frame and them are both in focus?  Yup, that's Photoshop, I had to combine 2 different pictures to do that.  They were actually so far away from me I don't know how you would actually get them both in focus.

I took so many pictures in this pose. They were dancing and I just held the shutter down on continuous shoot.  When I played them back on the camera and held the arrow down to scroll through the pictures you could see them dance, it was so cute!

 It would be fun to do this frame idea again, but pay more attention to the little details, like the angel of the frame to the horizon and them, and so much more.  Looking at it after the fact, I can see so many things I should have paid attention too.  I guess I'm in such of a hurry to get the shot, I feel bad making the people wait that I don't take the time to pay attention to the small stuff.  Hopefully one day I will learn to slow down and that it's okay if they have to wait a minute.

Aww!  I love holding hand shots from the back!!!!  If only my butt were as cute and little!

Family Pictures

Becky originally hoping all her children would be at the beach this summer.  But Andrew had school and Scott was over seas with the Army.  So then she was hoping at least all of her grandchildren would be there because Scott's wife was originally planning on coming for half the week with the boys.  But she ended up not coming, however we took some pictures anyway. 

The little babies were not being so cooperative so we didn't try too many at all...

Becky and Ralph with all but 2 of their grandchildren

The Staus group minus Andrew and Scott, his wife and 2 boys.

 And some of the families hung around to attempt some individual family shots... Yup by me, that's why they aren't so good...  Sorry!!!!

The McKinney's...

 One day I hope to learn to take and edit better photos!!!!  One day... until then, I just keep practicing and practicing and reading and reading...

 These 2 pictures (the ones above and below) I also put in black and white, I think I like them best that way, but I'm sorry I didn't want to be repetitive and put the same picture up twice, so I didn't post the black and white ones.

 Liz used my camera and took these pictures of my family for me.  That little Mackenzie can smile so cute, but never when I want a decent family picture to blow up and hang...

 Mackenzie was in a mood (or not feeling so well) and the only thing to keep her semi happy was to give her a sea shell to chew on.

I wonder if I have 10 inches of hair to donate yet... and still have medium length hair.

Becky and Ralph...

 Matt and his family...

 We did more pictures of them later in the week.

And Polly's family...

Don't they have cute butts?

There will be more of them later too, I didn't edit theirs yet, except the one above.