Santa visit

I took Cameron to see the mall Santa today. We'd already done the whole Santa thing at her schools breakfast with Santa earlier this month but I needed a do-over. Turns out the only thing she asked him for (Barbie & the Diamond Castle playset) isn't available for under $250 anywhere! Being the good mother that I am, I carefully brainwashed her in to thinking she needed to ask him for something else. Luckily for me, she decided that what she really wants is an Easy Bake Oven. Joy of joys! I have that already carefully stashed in my secret hiding place! I love it when things go my way! ha ha.

Anyway, this year they were handing out photos care of Shutterfly on a little thumb drive. For $32 I got a jpg of her picture and a $25 shutterfly gift card. Wow cool. I can print out the picture at Walmart and make coffee mugs at shutterfly for free! Sweeeeet!

Beautiful Jordan

I picked up Jordan's senior pictures today. I opted to get the photo CD so I could get more poses and have the .jpgs to play with. Here are a few of the shots.

Kindergarten picture

I got Cameron's pictures while I was at the school working in the library today. This was taken on her 6th birthday. We argued a bit about the dress she was wearing (I wanted her to wear something else) but all & all, I'm pretty happy with how it turned out .

Does this look like a blink to you?

She says she was just blinking.
I say most people don't blink with their eyes shut quite so tightly
Either way, it's clear she's having fun.

New class!

I signed up for a digital scrapbooking class over at www.jessicasprague.com. I was unsure if I wanted to take the class as I'd been muddling around with Photoshop Elements for a few years now and I was afraid the class wouldn't teach me much. Now that I'm up & running with my brand spanking new copy of CS3, (THANKS TOM!) the class couldn't have been better timed. It's really helping me learn the differences and some tricks I didn't know about in CS3. And that's only day 1! My love afair with CS3 continues to grow...

Meet the newest member of our family!!

That's right, it's official! The paperwork was signed by a judge on September 3rd and Jordan legally became Dave's daughter. How cool is that?!? We are all very happy and Jordan is busy changing all of her records and documents to reflect her change of parentage. I was very touched by the gesture when Dave suggested it a few months ago. I mean, we've felt like a family the whole time, Jordan has called Dave "dad" since the day we got married - but it was always there, the subtle difference in that he was not her official father, and her name didn't match the rest of ours. Now it does and she couldn't be more pleased, but underneath the name is where the real significance lies. To Jordan, it's a father who actually wants her. It brings tears to my eyes every time I think of it. I'm very happy for her.

I'm in love

I downloaded photoshop CS3 today. I only have the 30 day trial but wowzer. If I had an extra $600 laying around, this puppy would be mine! It's not so much that I can't do some of these things with my copy of Elements but it's just so much easier with CS3. I took a mediocre picture of Jordan and turned it in to a photo that I really love.


before

after
Nice, huh?