1. four days. Normally I leave the countdown until somewhere in the middle of a Miscellaneous Ramblings post...but come on. When our trip to Germany is only four days away, how can it be left in the middle?! Really. 

2. airheads. This candy makes me happy. My brother was trying to steal a bite all through the taking of these photos. I gave him a little afterwards for being such a good red backdrop in the bottom photo ;)
What's your favorite kind of candy?

(Kudos to those of you who answer that question. Because I couldn't.)

3. i need your help. Yep, I do! What I need your help with - my friend mentioned to me that she couldn't see any of the photos in my post (due to me hosting them through Imgur). For this post, I uploaded them with Blogger. Here's where you come in: have you not been able to see my photos? Does a little red broken link box show instead? You can test on yesterday's post - those photos were uploaded through Imgur. If you could do this, I would be eternally grateful.

When I typed those last two words, I thought of Toy Story. "You have saved our lives. We are eternally grateful." You know, what the alien triplets say to Mr. Potato Head. I love those aliens. Especially in Toy Story 2, when they help drive the pizza delivery truck. If you haven't seen Toy Story, you should watch the series. Movies 2 and 3 were my favorite :)

Sorry, I'm digressing. Again.

4. i'm going to miss sarge. I will! I wish we could take him with us on our trip, but it's not really worth to go through all the fuss and expense. He'd probably hate it anyway. At least he has our house sitter to keep him company ;)

5. meme. I don't know what it is, but my siblings have been coming up with all this crazy stuff lately (particularly MeMe and Lilly). A few nights ago I was in the bathroom getting ready for bed, and I overheard MeMe talking to my mom. She said, "Mom, I really think I'm more of a lady now. I mean, come on! I don't laugh at disgusting things anymore and I'm really liking fashion lately."
I had to slap my hand over my mouth to keep from bursting into laughter.

But in all seriousness, I know where she's got that. She got it from me. She's always seeing me perfecting my hair, making sure my make up is just right. She's seen me discard clothing as "little girlish" countless times, whether it be at a store or at home.
Sometimes I think it must be really hard to have an older sister living with you all the time (I have two older sisters but they live in Germany...I've never lived with them). I know she's frustrated that she can't do the same things I do, dress the way I do. Her time will come, but for now? I feel sorry for her. Because I used to be that little girl. I used to practically idolize everyone over the age of 12. And I remember feeling desperate, just wanting to grow up. I want her to cherish being a little girl, though. After all, you're only six going on seven once in your life.

6. silhouettes. I've always loved them. They're so simple but beautiful at the same time. I realize I could have done better when it comes to this photo, but it's the best I've got right now :)

-carlotta

I just realized something. The next Happiness Is will be hosted from Germany! Dude. (Don't ask me why I said dude...It just felt right. Ha.) This is insane. Really. I can't believe it.

Today is also the first day of September! Um, excuse me summer, but where did you go? It seemed like school just let out for the year, and here we are, already going back.
Don't get me wrong, I love September - especially this year, since it brings going to Germany, plus Jeremiah's, MeMe's, and my birthdays - but I wouldn't have minded holding onto summer a bit longer.

Moving right along.

Playing along is simple. Just write a post with two things that made you happy this week, grab the button (or add a link to me, either way is fine), and come back here to link up! It doesn't get much easier than that.

Also, many of you asked for me to have the linky open longer. And since I aim to please, I'll have it open for another day. So it'll open sometime on Wednesday mornings and close at 11:59pm (CST) on Thursday. Sound fair? Maybe we can get more link ups this way :)

<div align="center"><a href="http://pastors-girl.blogspot.com"><img alt="Happiness Is..." src="http://farm2.static.flickr.com/1064/4732886685_1331802b43_m.jpg" /></a></div>

Happiness is...

...enjoying the little things in life. Sometimes we get so caught up in other, bigger things that we don't appreciate the small gifts God has left all around us. Recently I've been trying to slow down and savor these precious gifts.

...shooting in manual mode on my camera. Now that I've known how to do it for a few weeks, I've gotten so much more comfortable. I'm seriously loving how I can control the lighting a bit more and just make my photographs overall better. I can't believe I didn't make the jump before.

What has made you happy this week? Link up and let me know (or, if you'd prefer, let me know in the comment section of this post)!

-carlotta

(Raw(e) farther down)

Alternately titled: I take awful photos too.

...she'll probably find some scissors. 

Nearby the scissors, she'll probably also discover the comics, which no one except for her has read. 

With these tools in front of her, she's probably going to somehow make them work together. She'll slip on her safety goggles to "protect her from flying paper", grab the scissors and newspaper...

...and the end result will probably look something like this, with paper scattered about the table and floor. 

She'll probably act quite proud of herself when she sees her big brother run upstairs to tell the big sister to get her camera. Despite the gravity of the situation (no, seriously, morning comics are an important element of our household ;)), she'll probably feel even better about her work of art when she discovers that everyone is cracking up. It will seem that her family's futile efforts to hold back the laughter bubbling up in their throats was unsuccessful. 

Lilly has struck again - this time before 8am. 

And while I'm on the topic of Lilly, she was in the library (the one in our house) today with Jeremiah, chanting, "Praise God! He forgives! Otherwise you'd be fired from heaven!"

Where does the child GET this stuff?

Do you have any funny stories about your siblings/children? Do share! I'd love a laugh or two :)

EDIT: I'm throwing my yellow Raw(e) shot in here...because I'm too lazy to write a separate post. Heh. 

Oh, I wanted to edit this SO badly. But I was a good girl and didn't touch it. ;)

-carlotta

Like I mentioned in the video, I got a request a couple weeks ago to do a tour of my room...I just now got around to doing it, mainly because my room was a disaster before ;) 

I promise you I don't have a sunburn...I just used the video capability on my point and shoot camera (too bad I couldn't use my DSLR, huh? :)) and it likes to do weird things to my face. 

And I apologize about the shaky video...I'm not sure why my hands were so shaky.

Note: I'm trying Vimeo to host this video for the first time...let me know if it doesn't work. I just got sick of Blogger taking forever to upload the stinkin movie.

Okay, I'll stop trying to prolong the inevitable, bite the bullet, and let y'all watch the video. Eek. 

Before watching this video I didn't realize I moved my eyebrows so much when I talk! Upon asking MeMe, she said that I do it all the time. Well. You learn something new about yourself everyday ;) 

As you might have been able to see, my decorating style is sort of modern mixed with a bit of vintage. My room isn't perfectly decorated, but rooms are always a work in progress, aren't they? :) 

What does your room look like? 

-carlotta

PS I would have posted this earlier, but the video took so long to upload! Sorry :)