Sweet 16 continued

I said I would post more pictures from Travis' birthday and I am finally getting around to it. Above is Travis with the Moody girls and their funny presents for him. He got those funny glasses with the nose and moustache attached, bubble wands, popcorn, hello kitty stuff, sparklers, candy, balloons, and Mike and Ikes (his favorite candy)

I know these layouts make more sense when they are side by side, but I think they are too small to see, so I'm putting them all on individually instead. The kids played volleyball with a beach ball, ate snacks, played on the tramp and opened presents. After it got dark they watched a movie outside in the yard while I ran in and out of the house popping popcorn for them. Sean had made a huge canvas screen mounted on a wood frame that he set up out in the yard. We had a few technical difficulties getting the picture to show on the projector, but my techie husband figured it out.

Here is the whole gang: Alex, Tyrel, Trevin, Travis, Devin, Dayan, Jacob, Morgan, Courtney, Kira, Courtney M, Ashley, Chelsea, Shelbi, Jalen, Maddie, Jerika, and Kaitlyn (I hope I got them all and I'm sure I spelled some wrong)

More Photo Editing Lessons (8-10)

You may think that I'm missing Day 7, but it was a review of days 1-6, so I'm not missing it. Day 8 - we added text to our photo, pretty basic, she also had us add texture overlays again, so nothing really new for me here but I thought the photo turned out cute so I'm posting it. I also ended up putting the photo in a layout, so here is the completed project.

Day 9 - adding a burned edge to a photo so that your focus is drawn to the center of the photo. The one on the left is the before photo and the one on the right is the after photo. I think I used too large of a brush because Tyrel looks like he is glowing, but you get the idea.

Lesson 10 - this is my last one for tonight. It was creating clipping masks, that was fun, adding the textures and overlays like in some of the previous lessons, adding text and burning the edge. So clipping masks was the new thing (that made it so it had the rounded edges) and then the rest was a review of our other stuff. I'm not totally sold on the photo I picked, but I'm too tired to go back and find a better one. Here is the before photo.

Here is the after photo. I think I should have picked something with more browns in it to start with instead of the blues and greens.

Sweet 16

Travis turned 16 a couple of weeks ago and I just got this layout done last night so I decided to post it. Isn't he cute, oops, I mean handsome? Just wanted to let him know how much we love him and that we think he is a great kid! Love you Trav! I'll post more about his party when I get the layouts done.

I wish I wish.......

I was a FISH!

Trevin is having a blast with swimming lessons this year. He has a new teacher and he is a guy teacher and Trevin thinks he is great! His name is Riley and he is wonderful with the kids. There are only 4 kids in his class, which I love because I think that is a great size for a class so you don't have to wait around for so many people to take their turn. I think Trevin is a year older than most of the kids in his class and what a difference a year makes. He is a much better swimmer this year and I think he will finally pass the class. For the first time, I'm not clenching my seat when he gets to the water over his head. I was always so nervous for him because he always inhaled underwater and then would come up spurting and spitting and I was always thinking he was going to sink and drown. He would always get nervous if the teacher wasn't holding on to him somehow but he is finally doing everything by himself and doing it pretty much correctly this year. Whew! Another hurdle crossed.

Photo Editing lessons

So, I signed up for the Jessica Sprague photo editing class . It was free and looked like fun. Well, Tyrel ended up having a soccer tournament 3 days this week, so I did the first lesson and then I got behind because I was the speed scrap hostess, had YW and the soccer tournament. So, today after the soccer game I sat down and completed the rest of the lessons so far (I'm glad that they are there forever and that we can work at our own pace). Here is my photo from lesson 1. We were supposed to add a frame and word art. I already knew how to do this but she taught a new way to save pictures for the web, so that was very beneficial. I also figured out how to change part of my word art to a different color so it showed up (not part of the lesson)

Here is lesson 2, she taught us how to load and use brushes and use the color picker to make our stuff match the colors in our photos. I already knew about the color picker but I had not used brushes before because I couldn't get them to load and now I know that it was because those brushes were not for my version of photoshop, so that is my lesson learned here.
Now the lessons are getting good. In lesson #3, we learned how to use adjustment layers to make a photo look vintage. Here is my before photo.

And here is my after photo along with an added frame. LOVE IT!!!

Lesson 4 was on how to use masks, already knew this one so it was just a good review for me. This picture was taken down at the lavender farms, not quite in full bloom yet but really pretty. The mask gave the grungy edge look.

Lesson 5 had us add texture to our photos. I have done this with making paper for kits, but never with a photo. Love IT! This is my wonderful bishop out at the dairy on a ward service project. He was showing us his roping skills.

This is my after photo!!! There were actually 3 different texture overlays used on this and the lesson used a B&W photo, but I used the color one and just desaturated it slightly before doing the textures. There was a frame to add to this one too, but it was kinda girly, so I didn't add the frame.

Lesson 6 (are you bored yet) This lesson had us add a layer that makes photos look like you are looking through an old camera viewfinder and use blending modes to give it that old look, then we had to add a technique from one of the previous lessons. So, here is my before photo taken at the demolition derby over the 4th of July

And here is my after photo after cropping it square, making it vintage, adding viewfinder layer, blending and then adding texture. LOOOVVVE these classes! Hope you enjoyed my photos.

Happy Birthday Jaron!

OK, so I'm a few weeks late, but I'm still in the same month! I don't even have Travis' birthday scrapped and it was before Jaron's. We celebrated a little early because we were all getting together for the 4th. We had dinner at Mom and Dad's and then we had this adorable cake that Andrea made. The little bears on top were so cute and the paw prints were just too cute! I can't believe that he is 1 already. Happy Birthday Jaron, we love you.

Herbie at the Derby

We had a blast on the 4th of July! We went down to Leamington for visiting with the fam, had an early dinner, celebrated Jaron's birthday (I'll post pictures of that later) and then went to Delta to the Derby. It was so much fun! Tyrel went last year with Greg but Sean, Travis and I hadn't been since Travis was 1 and Trevin had never been. I forgot how much fun it is! Funny thing happened, out of all the thousands of people there, we ended up sitting right next to our next door neighbor from here! LOL. Anyway, we only got sprinkled on a little bit until it was over, then the heavens opened and we got drenched on the way to the car. Sean's favorite was the mini car races. Trevin loved Greg's friend's truck. Travis liked the truck destruction. Tyrel hated the car that was painted like a tiger because it reminded him of the Bengals, but he loved the derby. I think we will have to go more often than every 16 years because it was a lot of fun. It was pretty dusty at the beginning, but Greg went and told them to spray it down because we were all choking and then it was much better.

Everyone's favorite was the little VW that was painted like Herbie. It was in the lead and then got hit right at the end and died and couldn't get restarted. I think it was only 2 laps short of being the winner. Oh the moaning and the disgruntled fans! LOL.

We all decided that the key to winning was to have a Cadillac or an Imperial and to force your opponents up into the berm so that they got stuck.

The fireworks were pretty lame. I guess we have been spoiled by going to the Stadium of Fire every year up here. Actually Greg thought they were lame too. Anyway, it was fun.

I just want to add how glad I am to live here in America and to have the gospel in my life. We have been so blessed in so many ways. I can't imagine living anywhere else. I was really struck when we were singing today in church by the line "O beautiful for heroes proved In liberating strife, Who more than self their country loved, And mercy more than life!" I'm so proud and thankful for those who love this country more than themselves and are willing to fight and give their lives so that I can live in the land of the free and have the rights that I have, especially the freedom to live the gospel that has blessed us so much in our lives. I know that our Heavenly Father guided our forefathers to prepare this land and grant us the rights that we have so that this land was prepared for the restoration of the gospel and so we might be able to have those blessings along with many others.