Little Angels Rock

Little Angels Rock, originally uploaded by hezro.

I'm a smidge critical of my photography. I don't think I'm supposed to admit this but if I'm being perfectly honestly, I never really like ANY of my pictures. *sigh* For example, today I took a few shots of Little K which I think are just okay. I am suspicious that I might like them better if I could see them minus Heather-the-Photographer filter...but I don't know.  Perhaps I would dislike them even more!  Ha!  

I think the most frustrating thing is that I'm not even sure what I'm unhappy about. I just look at my pictures and think they're not good enough.  The white balance is off, the focus isn't sharp, the color isn't fully saturated, the background is distracting...and so on and so forth.

Little Angels Rock, originally uploaded by hezro.

I've even started thinking my camera is messed up...maybe it *is* messed up.  I should look carefully at my camera settings and just make sure I didn't accidentally change something.  But I have a feeling it's just this weird funk I've been in.


I'm also suspicious that I might be a bit of a perfectionist.  But it needs to stop.  I just want to go back to taking pictures and enjoying it.  I'm getting too caught up worrying about silly stuff that doesn't matter.  The important thing is that I'm recording my adorable little children being their wonderful little selves...right?!

Update twenty minutes later:

So here I was, wallowing in this pit of self-loathing.  And then I saw this video my cousin posted on Facebook and it made me laugh and realize that I am taking myself WAY TOO SERIOUSLY.  She could not have posted this at a more perfect time.  Thank you Hilary for giving me some perspective. Ha! 

Go Bezerk

This weekend my sister-in-law and I were talking about this being little K's favorite book. My sister-in-law said, "Yeah, and then one time she told me 'Daddy goes bezerk'." Of course I realized that what little K really meant was that Daddy goes to work!

 

Tooth Fairy

Puddles

I love my daughter's fashion sense. It takes a special person to pull off fire engine rain boots with a glittery, frilly, girlie skirt. Fortunately she *is* a very special person.



She started off on the scooter with these very chic flats, before she wisely switched to the more sensible fire engine rain boots.



At some point she switched from the fire engine rain boots to the equally fashionable striped, green, frog rain boots.

This girl could definitely work the runway...or at least she'd have no trouble with the speedy behind-the-scenes wardrobe changes!

Tasmania

O Boy's class is studying Australia right now. This works out well because O Boy is currently obsessed with his World Atlas and he already happened to be reading up on Australia on his own.

Why has he been reading up on Australia, you ask?  Well, his favorite country is actually Indonesia. Though, to say that Indonesia is his favorite country doesn't accurately depict his current enthusiasm for Indonesia. He's reading everything he can about Indonesia. He googled "how to speak Indonesian" in hopes that he really would learn. He's been checking out books out from the library. He spends hours studying Indonesia on Google Earth.  He wants to know everything about Indonesia and he actually does know quite a bit. He can tell you about Indonesian economy, vegetation, agriculture, et cetera. At some point someone mentioned to him that Indonesia is dangerous so, since he plans to live in Indonesia when he's an adult, he has also carefully researched several escape routes. And seeing as how Australia is fairly close to Indonesia, naturally he's checked into Australia as a potential destination, should there be any natural disasters while he's living in Indonesia.

The other day he came home from school upset because ALLEGEDLY his teacher had told them that Tasmania is a territory, not a state. We looked it up online and sure enough, Tasmania is one of Australia's six states (and there are two territories: Northern Territory and Australian Capital Territory).

Part of me suspected that he might have misunderstood what the teacher said since they *are* studying Australia in class, after all. But I said, "Well, O Boy, if you get marked wrong for putting that on the test, Mommy will fight for you. But otherwise, don't worry about it." And that was that. Or so I thought until this morning when I looked over the homework O Boy is returning to school today.

(And let me just say right up front, yes, yes, I see that there are quite a few mistakes. This week I've been a bit out of commission so the kids were left to fend for themselves on a lot of fronts. Oops!)

In australia, I would see kangaroos. I can also see koalas, too. I could see wambats or seals. I could go to antartican territory. I can study an australian map. I would learn tasmania is a state. I would learn northern territory is a territory.

May Flowers

Today I downloaded...*ahem*...a couple week's worth of photos off my camera, plus I perused about a month's worth of photos that I haven't really looked at.  I've been so stinking busy.  It's sad.  So going through these photos was just like the old days when you'd drop a roll of film off to get processed and then you'd have so much fun flipping through them when you'd get them back.  Fortunately for me, I rarely post process photos so I didn't have the anxiety of "being behind" that flipping through a month's worth of ignored photos might have caused some people.  I just enjoyed looking through them and seeing what we had been up to.  I uploaded a few to my Facebook photography page.

It was nice to look back through these photos because I think it helped rekindle a bit of my love affair with photography.  Lately I just haven't been feeling it.  I've not taken a lot of photos.  Of course, my version of not taking a lot of photos means I don't have two dozen photos every single day.  *hehe*  And there are even several days with no photo at all.  *GASP*  But looking back through these photos made me feel like pulling the camera out again.

While I perusing some more photos this evening, it occurred to me to go check out the Focus 52 prompt for this week and see if I had any that fit the bill.  And well...what do you know...the prompt was May flowers.  And probably my two favorite series of shots from this week actually had a flower connection.

Last weekend we did a bunch of landscaping so all this week we've been watering like crazy.  My kids like to help water. Well let's be real, they want access to the hose and if that means aiming it at some crazy plants their parents planted around the house, so be it.  So here's my daughter watering some of our new flowering shrubs.



(And then after I said that I don't post process, I went right to Photoshop and adjusted the curves on this.  *hehe*)

The second photo is actually of a cake...but there is a flower connection, I promise.  A few weeks ago my mom turned 60.  That's a pretty big deal, right?  I wanted to do something special for her so I started planning to present her with a birthday cake at a little soiree that I would be hosting.  Plus my brother and his wife and my husband and I DID take her out to dinner on her birthday but that actually turned into a big fiasco.  I got super light-headed and had to leave dinner early.  But anyway, back to her birthday.  I ordered a special cake for her and yesterday evening, at my little soiree, I presented her with the birthday/mother's day cake.  And then today I took the bottom layer to my mother-in-law's house and we got to enjoy the mother's day cake with her as well.



See, I told you there was a flower tie-in!

So there you go...my two flower photos for this week.

Crayola Markers

On New Years Eve, we went to the Crayola Factory at Two Rivers Landing with Dwight's aunt and uncle. We had a ton of fun and I definitely would recommend this museum, if you happen to be in the area.  BUT...there's one thing that I walked away with that I MUST share. They told us how to save markers that have been left without the lid. You put them in water for like 20-30 seconds, recap them and then let them sit overnight tip-down.  It works like a charm.

Mavericks

I'm sitting here on the couch watching my beloved Dallas Mavericks take on the Lakers. Dwight is sitting here watching with me. It's hard to describe how much I love these guys, to someone who is not a sports fan. But I'm pretty sure any sports fan gets it.

So I'm wishing my guys lots of luck and hoping for the best!