Me playing around and chores for the girls

For Mother's Day DH bought me Photo Shop Elements. I had been wanting something like it for a while but never knew which program would be easy enough, yet still do some of the "special" stuff that I was wanting it to. I haven't done a whole lot with it yet (just finally got it loaded on the computer about 2 weeks ago) but tonight I played around with it a bit. Here are some things I did.

This is the original picture

I just loved how "old fashioned" looking this water fountain looked so here are some things I did with the picture.... First turned it black and white then brought out the colors in the tiny flag and the fountain.

Then I really played around with the colors. I think I like this one best.

This one I didn't do tonight, I did it quite a while back when I had the free 30 day trial of PSE so I could see if it was for sure what I wanted. When I figured out how easy this was I was convinced. I had wanted to do this to my own photo's since Sears Portraits did this to a picture of Bethanie when she was 3. I think if I softened this picture a bit, it would make it even better. I just have to figure out how to do that now.

This one was really cool bringing the color out in it. To see it go from B&W to the bright colors of the rainbow and the girls skin and swim suits was like that one commercial on TV. This pic makes me think....Children bring color to our world :)

So the girls started doing chores tonight. I had wanted to start them at the beginning of summer but seemed like there was always something going on and the time never seemed right. So today Elianna put the clothes from the washer into the dryer. Both girls dried the dishes. And while I played with the pictures above, Bethanie washed the dishes from dinner. The funny thing about it...THEY LOVED IT...you would have thought they were given a new game to play. They even started to fight a little because they both wanted to dry the dishes :D I gave them both a towel and they went at it like it was the best game ever. WOO HOO, now if only their excitement for chores will last :) So why is it that all these years I have been doing it all????? Silly me, I could have been laying back, eating bonbons, watching my favorite tv shows instead, lol.