Thankful for...Our Church

This is a little out of order chronologically, but since this is November, the thankful month I am including it here.  I am thankful for our church and our church family.  Sam is our youth pastor and Brooke is one of Samantha's best friends.  Our church is an extension of who we are, and we would be lost without them.  These pics were taken on "Roundup" Sunday.  Hence the bandanna around Sam's neck.  I thank God often for the family he has provided for us in Blackwell through our church. 

Growing up...

Our baby girl turned 16 today!
It's a local tradition to go to the Mexican restaurant in town to get whipped creamed for your birthday.  Samantha has always...always said NO! to this tradition until this year.  So we invited some friends and Samantha got creamed! 

Go Pokes!!

Samantha didn't want to take a group picture. So this is as good as I got! 'Nuff Said

Batgirl!!

Samantha participated in the costume day at school today! This was her first time in high school to do that, and I was so proud that she did, and she just looked so cute!!! Love you girl!

And here's another

Digital Scrapbooking

How can I even get started with this when I have a whole scrapbook room of stuff???
I have no clue, but here I am...digitally scrapbooking my pictures. Well at least 2 pages today. Here is one of them!

Overdone and picture perfect.

So, Sunday Samantha decided she looked too good to just change after church, so we went outside and took some pictures.  I am considering these her school pictures since she has decided not to order school pictures anymore I guess.  Since I took them and I am learning my Elements program, I merged the 2 and tried some new techniques to enhance the pics.  A few may be overdone, but that is all the process of discovery, and I like them, so I kept them.  Don't worry, I have an original copy, so nothing is ruined. 

I love this picture, and am still deciding on the text box, or font.  It is still in psd format so I can change anything about it. But also have the original.  Should have posted the before and after.  May do that later. 

This one I layered 2 pics, blurred the bottom pic and cut samantha out of the top pic and kind of sat her back onto the bottom picture.  I love it.  Samantha think it looks fake!

This one I saturated quite a bit to bring out the greens of the trees since they were in shadow, but I left her face pretty untouched, because she is just beautiful in her own right and doesn't need saturated!  That's a mommy talking though!