Sadly we’ve got multiple things not quite functioning right around here. All us ladies have a cold to varying degrees and Celia has an icky rash covering her entire body. The doc says it’s not serious and it will all go away on it’s own, and it doesn’t really even seem to bother Celia, but I find it really disturbing. I’d better get used to it though as it may take up to two months to go away and  so far it’s still getting worse two weeks into it.

Also not working quite right, my camera. I figured out it was back-focusing, I was missing a lot of shots that were slightly out of focus but I knew I had the focus point right. It was driving me insane because nothing was quite sharp unless I got lucky, but the things behind the person were sharp. It’s back at Nikon right now being tested and hopefully fixed soon for way too much money. I feel like someone’s chopped off my toes without it, just a little off balance.

Nevertheless, as I am always behind with photos, I still have some pretty shots of Celia without the dots that are currently everywhere.

Celia LOVES to read now. She has a number of favorite books including Sheep In A Jeep and Moo Baa La La La among other classics. She’ll look at them herself, she’ll drag us over to read them to her and can even get Josie to read them to her sometimes.

In Sheep In A Jeep she loves to point out the bird, as shown below. She also laughs at the poor sheep who ends up head first in the mud. I love that she can now get interested and participate in our bedtime routine of reading even though she doesn’t have the patience for Josie’s long books yet.

I caught Celia in this pose this morning playing with her (wooden) iPod in her pajamas. The second I got up to look at her she stopped and got up. But when I grabbed the camera, she hopped back up onto the couch and resumed the position. I think I’ve got a good little model going here! Every time I took a picture she says ‘eeee… eeee’! Meaning she wants to see the picture. She’s suddenly understood in the last few days that different people have different names, not everyone is ‘mama’. So she’s been studying books of animals and even can be quizzed on which animal is which by pointing to the ones I name!

She also likes to help Jordi pack his lunch in his bag every week, she only digs around in it a little bit.

“Mama sit” while pointing at my chair for breakfast.

What’s better than a mask and a cape? Running through the woods with them.

Next door to us is a little girl named Scarlett, she’s one month older than Celia. She has this green dragon thing that hangs out on her porch. Most days Celia walks over and points at it, because she wants it. It must seem like it’s always sitting there to Celia, but once we actually caught Scarlett out with her toy and got to enjoy it with her. Or you know, cram in on top of her and squeeze the poor girl.

Today’s photoshoot, down near Alewife and Magnolia park.Using my zoom lens from wide angle to major zoom!

Sunday we drove down to Rhode Island to have a visit with our friends and the Providence Children’s Museum. Using our nice shiny new Boston museum membership we enjoyed a free trip (except for the gas) and a new place for the kids to play while the grown ups catch up. Very different from the parties of yesteryear but we had fun and kept the kids busy and tired with new activities. Here’s a few photos from our fun! Josie liked the over-sized light-bright best. Celia loved the water tables and had to be dragged away kicking and screaming for lunch, she’s going to be happy in the summer with the water table.

The light was different all over the museum, so it gave me a real run for my money adjusting settings to try to get usable pictures.

Shortly after this picture was taken Xander turned the pipe and sent the water direction out of the table onto the floor (right near the drain thankfully).

I now spend too much time chasing my children (and other people’s) around the park and everywhere with my camera trying to get better at exposure and white balance. I feel like I’m getting the technical bits down ok mostly (even if I want a full frame camera so I can do better in low light), but my composition is often more a matter of luck at times other than finding light to shine in the right direction. Of course that luck also has a lot to do with the fact that my subjects move around constantly, almost never listen to direction and don’t much care what I’m trying to do. When I get adults to photograph though I hardly ever know what to do with them, so I should study up on that.

You might also notice it is February and they are wearing spring coats. It is incredibly unseasonably warm this year which has been really nice for avoiding being stuck in the house. We try to get out every time it is nice, much to the dismay of anyone who wants my house to be clean and dinner to be fancy.