Out Of The Mouth Of...Kelli

Today Kelli had me in stitches several times! She is getting so big and her vocabulary is expanding! Here are a couple of classics from today....

She was in one of those shopping carts that has the little car in the front. I was having a hard time steering it and I hear this..."Mom, I think you are having issues!"

I was upstairs putting Emily down and I hear her crying (this is nothing unusual, she is quite the drama queen). She comes running upstairs and into Emily's room holding her arm. "Andrew twisted my arm and scratched it and it was ABSOLUTELY on purpose!"

"Mom, I am going to feed my baby. I need you to sit over there, not by me. I am going to nurse her first and then give her a bottle."

Thanksgiving

Don't they look so cute! We had a little bit of snow Thanksgiving day and the kids were anxious to go outside and play! Brian had been watching a hunting show, so Andrew and Kelli decided to get all bundled up and go turkey hunting in the back yard!

I think Kelli is a little aprehensive about going outside with Andrew and his gun! He had already given her instructions to put balls all over the yard and he would pretend they were turkeys. After he shot them she was supposed to pick them up and put them back in to their toy storage bin. Sounds like she got the part of hunting dog!! They came in and proudly proclaimed that they had gotten 2 turkeys, as well as the one that is below that we ate for dinner (Andrew shot it as I was taking out of the oven!)

Thursday we were at our house with Brians sister and her fiance. We had a great time and lots of good eats! Friday we got our house all decorated for Christmas...these were the only pics I took that day...I missed alot of great photo opps!

Saturday we headed over to Brians other sisters house for homemade turkey noodle soup and fun and games. Here are some of pics from that day!

Brian actually snapped this photo of Dustin and Andrew admiring the fire...priceless, don't ya think!

Hope you all had a great Thanksgiving surrounded by those you love!!

Still Walking!

We didn't do quite as well last week because of the weather and some of us weren't feeling well! But we braved the weather this morning and I snapped a few pics before we left! I think bundled up kids are so cute!

Saturday Night Bathtime

Emily is doing SO good! She was 3 months old on Thursday of last week. I can't believe how quick the time has gone! She is sleeping through the night consistently and is on a pretty good routine during the day. She is still nursing a couple of times a day, and I am thankful for that! We switched her formula that we were using to suppliment her a few weeks ago and she has been much more content. She has started cooing more and has finally started warming up to Brian! He can get the biggest smiles out of her! The kids are still lovin' on her all the time and Andrew still asks to hold her several times a day. She seems most content when she knows her siblings are in the room with her. As soon as it gets quiet, she starts fussing!

"Green Juice"

Dr. Oz featured this drink on Oprah the other day. Andrew was watching it with me and he said he would really like to try this green juice. I think it was the fact that it was green that appealed to his 5 year old senses! So we made it up and here is a sip by sip photojournal of the whole thing....I think you will know if he liked it or not!

Bear With Me, I am Just Amazed!!

Figured out side by side!!

These ones of Andrew in the leaves...the first one is SOOC and the second is sharpened using the sofware! Subtle, but a big difference!

More Color Selecting! This is so much fun!!

These are a bit rough...I need lots of practice! I laid awake last night trying to figure out how to do this. I couldn't wait for Emily to go down for her nap so I could try it!

Photo Shop Elements 5.0

I asked a photographer several months ago what software I should get for editing my pictures and Photoshop Elements 5.0 is what she recommended. So I got it before Emily was born, installed it and messed around with it for a while and was TOTALLY overwhelmed, so I stopped using it and just worked with my trusty www.kodakgalleries.com. I was reading on the Pioneer Woman's blog the other day and she recommended Photoshop training books by Scott Kelby, so I used that Amazon gift card and ordered a book by Kelby called "Photoshop Elements For Digital Photographers" and it is awesome! Here is just a few of the things I did today...I have been trying to figure out how to get the before and afters side by side so you can see the differences more clearly, but to no avail. I will keep trying.

This first one Emily and Kelli are pretty dark and with lots of shadows...But no more, now they are in the light and the shadows have been minimized. Cool huh??
This is a drink that Dr Oz showed how to make on Oprah last week. It has 1 cup spinach, 4 stalks celery, a cucumber, an apple, and the juice of one lemon...I will post more about this later. But I wanted to do a color selection picture and this was the best one I could come up with. Not so noticible because the color selected item is the majority of the picture. But notice the background is black and white in the second pic and the juice is still in color.

This is going to be the hardest to see the difference, without them side by side. The first one is the SOOC (straight out of camera) picture. Don't you love all this cool lingo I am learning!

This one is just simply changing it to grayscale

This one is removing the color and then adjusting the red, green and blue in the picture...This will take some additional knowledge and practice. I don't have any idea what I am doing...I was just moving sliders around and having a blast!!

Sorry, this is probably totally boring for many of you! But I am stoked to be able to do some of these things and cant wait to learn more!!

A Few Pics

Walking!!

Well, my plan for post partum weight loss was to walk Andrew to and from school each day. Finally this past week Emily's schedule has permitted us to do just that! It is very chilly in the morning and we bundle up with gloves, hats and coats, but it has been beautiful in the afternoons! It is 1/2 a mile each way so it is 2 miles a day so 10 miles a week! I am pleased with that! Emily loves the stroller which also makes the walk more enjoyable! These pictures were taken early in October on a very warm day! I promised my dear Aunt I would send her a picture of us and the wonderful stroller she blessed us with! So Aunt Eileen, consider this the before picture! I am hoping to get a stroller coat/cover that is called "Warm as a Lamb" soon so we can keep walking even through the winter! We have befriended the grumpy old crossing guard and Kelli looks forward to see her (maybe more so her flashing stop sign) every day! We found out this week that this is her 40th year being a crossing gaurd in our district!! I am posting about this walking thing so that you all know I am doing it, that will help hold me accountable to keeping it up!! =)