Photoshop and the second half of November

I know that you have been in such suspense waiting for me to finally post again and this is your lucky day! JK! This is going to be a long post with a lot of pictures since I haven't posted for so long.


I have been telling Nate for a little while now that I really wanted to get photoshop because there are so many fun things that you can use it for to edit pictures and I want to start doing digital scrapbooking. Nate was in his Microeconomics class one day and got so excited about a new computer that one of his friends in the class had and came home and told me all about. It's a little Acer, Aspire One laptop that has like an 8 in. screen. He got online and started looking at them as soon as he got home to learn more about it and find out where he could get it for the best price. He kept telling me how perfect it would be for school because it's so small and convenient and it has a 7 hour battery, yada yada yada. And then he pulled the old trick where they act like it's best for you as well and said that I really needed a laptop at home, so he could leave his home for me and take this little one to school with him. He wanted to buy it right away but didn't want to be an impulsive buyer, so we decided to wait for a few days and see how he felt about it. After about 3 days he wanted it even more and as we talked about it he told me that since he was getting a little "toy", then I could go and buy photoshop. I was more than okay with that and told him to go right ahead and buy the computer. :) I'm no dummy! Anyway, needless to say, I got my photoshop and am so excited about it. I really need to take a class because there are still soo many things that I don't know how to do. I have been playing around with it though and have figured out how to do a few things. It is kind of addicting, so I try to not use it very often. I put just two pictures that I played with to show those of you who don't have it how cool it is!

Before

After

(Isn't it cool how you can keep the color of something and make the rest black and white? Kelly taught me how to do that.)

Before

(This was taken during one of our photoshoots. Kayley loves them! Actually, she probably gets sick of them, I know Nate does, but she sure looks happy in this picture.)

After

After #2

(She's so sweet!)

The rest of these pictures were taken during the second half of November. It has been a fun month! Last Sunday I got to talk to the Beehives about how I feel about being a mother and the value of my daughter. As each day passes, I love being a mom more and more. Don't get me wrong, there are definite times of frustration and exhaustion, but it is such a blessing to have one of Heavenly Father's most precious daughters in our home. There have been so many times when I am nursing Kayley or just holding her or playing with her, that I look at her and am just overwhelmed with how much I love her and how precious she is to me.

Kayley loves her Daddy. Nate can always get her to smile.

These next two pictures were taken on Thanksgiving at Nate's parents house. It was the off year for everyone except us (we went to Tulsa last Thanksgiving), so it was going to be just Nate and me and his parents. Nate's parents were sweet enough to let my 4 brothers, Robb, Jonathan, Trevor and Colby join us at their house. It was really fun to have them with us and to add four more people to our numbers. We had a wonderful time and ate lots of tasty food. Nate's sister Kristel and her husband Dustin came over later on in the day. It was nice to be with family!

Uncle Trevor with Kayley

Kayley and Uncle Robb

We finally got to meet the sweet little twins Payton and Paige the Saturday after Thanksgiving. It was so fun to see the three little ones together and so nice to see Amanda, Cody and Ava too. I am so excited for when they are older. I'm sure they'll be really good friends. Kayley and Payton are about the same size and Paige is still quite a bit smaller. They are all so cute! It was funny because the twins are used to cuddling up to each other and being close to another baby, but Kayley is not used to that so at first she wasn't quite sure how to react when Payton cuddled up next to her as you can see in this picture. Kayley has those exact same pajamas and I wish that we would have taken them over there because these pictures would have been so cute if they were all wearing the same thing.

I love babies' hands! Kayley and Payton kind of linked arms for a little while as we were taking pictures.

Ava and the babies

Mark and Shannon had been in Arizona for one of Mark's rotations and Mark got the weekend off, so they decided to drive up for Thanksgiving to be with family. So the same day we met the twins, Kayley finally got to meet the Calders. We wish that they lived closer so that we could see them more.

Her beautiful Aunt Shannon is pregnant and due in January and you can't even tell. She's tiny!

Grant and me: Isn't he such a cute kid? I love the Calder kids!

Two cute little cousins

The oldest and youngest grandkids together. As you can see, Carston has started losing his teeth. It's so cute. I can't believe how fast he's growing up.

Mark and Shannon

This was at the twin's blessing.

Amanda and Cody with their 3 little girls. So cute!

Nate got to bless Paige. He did a wonderful job. The twins are so sweet!

Ava with her sisters

They looked so beautiful!