Trying to Capture 2011, Better

Among my for my fun goals in 2011 is to take better pictures of the kids. It seems that the only pics I seem to take and also post are the grainy, blurry iPhone photos that always showcase my kitchen in it's 1990's glory.

Bill and I decided to combine our Christmas and Anniversary gift giving and replace our point and shoot with a Digital DSLR camera. Bill enjoyed the research and we settled on a Sony NEX-5

We've been playing around with it over the holidays. One of the features captures HD video, a big selling point for Bill. I'm still a little wary of learning all the features, but I love the anti-blur feature for getting the boys in motion.

Luckily since we bough it locally we are getting some classes to help us (mainly me) learn the settings and how to use it manually. I'm going to try and do some of the Sat am classes and Bill is going to the Wed night option near his work.

For the first time since we bought it I took the camera with us Monday and was pleased with these shots of the boys. I bribed Ben with gummi bears to get him to smile and not make silly faces.

Since Ben's school was closed, we packed it up and headed out to Durham Science and Life for a Camp Mommy day. On the drive over Ben picked his top 5 places to hit: the sailboats, the train, Dino Dig, the sandbox, and the dancing room (Ben's explanation.)

I added the Butterfly house for the bathrooms and the chance to warm up. We wound up staying almost 4 hours. Ian even held out and played along with Ben in the sand. Although I spent most of that time stopping him from eating it by the hand full.

When I took Ben to school yesterday morning, there were tears and clingy behavior I have rarely seen from him. When I asked him why he was sad, he thought we were going to have another fun day without him. Little did he know that loads of laundry and lots of work phone calls would be the only fun missed.