life, liberty, and the pursuit of a big "bang"

this year for the 4th, we did what we normally do. we blew some junk up. except we got a little more creative this time. instead of investing our hard earned "dollas" at the fireworks stand on those cheap cardboard thingamagigs with firecrackers sticking out the back, we took a little trip to the local dollar general. we bought some toy boats, some orange plastic cones, and a few other things:


then we headed to val's for some homemade slip'n slide fun and what else.... that's right, you guessed it (well, some of you probably did anyway)... crawfish. i mean.. 4th of july without crawfish is like bread without butta'

here's some photos from the day:

brandi and taylor acting silly


let the sliding commence-






taylor thought i was a surfboard, apparently


mmmm... crawfish


icky fingers


benji sucking the heads (eeeewww)


val getting ready to bust into that capri sun


dad's still hungry


..... and now... onto the blowing stuff up section of this post..

taylor and her sparkler


fireworks that explode underwater??? um... heck yeah!


matt hopping around in front of a firework that acts like a strobe light


.... and what happens when you strap an artillery shell to a plastic boat??


that's right. ... "kaboom"

you can visit here for more fireworks photos.

and in the words of daffy duck-
"goodbye folkttthhh"

that poor dog

i've been playing around with some lighting techniques lately... now, why would i do this do you ask. (okay, maybe some of you didn't ask.. okay okay.. nobody asked alright! but that's okay because there's no need to ask. i'll just tell you..)

because it's fun, that's why.

well, taylor decided to bust out the slip'n slide the other day and i decided to bust out my flashes -strapped them to the swingset with bungee cords.. attached some remotes, and *voila*.. we had a grand ol' time. until she brought out the dog (that poor dog)... yeah, mackenzie (the dog) was NOT having a grand ol' time. she doesn't like being bathed in the bathtub standing still... i seriously doubt that flying down a strip of plastic at the speed of a galloping pregnant elephant, covered in strawberry soap being held in taylor's death grip thrilled her at all.

anyway- here's a few photos. enjoy.














just 9 more months 'till girl scout cookie season... woohooh.

-4th of july photos on my next post :)

that girl of mine

nothing very interesting happened today, so here's a few shots i grabbed of taylor acting silly yesterday. it's what she does best, and i haven't a clue where she gets it.


this is a shot of her sitting in the backseat of my car, decked out in her soccer gear with her snowball in hand.


here she's trying to make the same face as the partially earless chocolate rabbit.... one eye and all..


and then she chomped out another piece of its ears

oh, and i'd like to thank the academy, my adoring fans for staying up to date with my life by reading my blogs, and my dear friend lauren for coming shopping with me to buy my "girlie" clothes which i was sporting at the french quarter festival. thanks bertha!

mother of all worms

saturday morning i was scheduled to go with a group of high school kids up in a plane for their world geography class. but my retarded self left my trunk popped all night and couldn't start my car (killed my battery)... good thing matt was at my house. he offered to bring me to the airport and drop taylor off at my mom's for me (thanks matt). oh, and on a side note... he and taylor apparently had a discussion about how they were going to plan a trip to chuck e. cheese without me "no mom's allowed" is what i was told she said. the plane ride was awesome... a great way to spend a saturday morning (i'll post photos from the flight in my next blog).

when i got back, since i was car-less, i hung out at my mom & dad's house for a good part of the day. they were working out in the yard, so taylor killed some time by digging in the dirt for creatures. i went inside and got her a cup of water mixed with laundry detergent and poured it on some piles of dirt for her... to try to draw up some bugs and worms. (this is one of those things where i have no clue the science behind it, but this is what we did when i was a kid, so this is what i know to do). in fact, my mom even said "i don't remember the kids ever doing that, but if she remembers doing it, i guess they did". um.. yeah, that's definitely one thing i've learned being a parent is that kids remember EVERYTHING. it's quite a thing.

here's a photo of taylor holding one of her (in her words) "mother of all worms". the red ice chest was full of worms and snails and junk... she later made me take the ice chest home and free the creatures in our yard. so that was interesting. oh, and while taylor was digging for worms, i helped my dad put up that white fence behind taylor. i'm quite handy if i do say so myself.


on tuesday we had our third soccer practice. taylor fell down more times than i have fingers, and came to us fussing that people keep pushing her... so, i told her that's what you're supposed to do and to just not push with her hands. of everything i told her during soccer practice, THAT is what she remembered. she got on the field and started knocking other kids out of the way with every part of her body she could think of..... even used her hands a couple times (well, i really didn't expect her to pick up on everything i said).. i felt a little bad about telling her to push the other kids.. but seriously, that IS what you're supposed to do..... sort of. but i was expecting her to be more "five year old girl" about it and not all "grown woman with pms" about it. here's a photo i grabbed while out there... no clue if taylor caused this, but from the fact that she's on the ground too, i'd say there's a pretty good chance...


oh, and i finally got my sportsshooter page up and running so if you'd like to check it out, you can click this link www.sportsshooter.com/mistymac