Adi's Boppy

As I mentioned earlier, one of the reasons for my blog absense is this:

The other reason may or may not be Pocket Frogs, an absolutely addictive iPad game.

Oh, and also Adi's boppy. That's Adispeak for baby.
She discovered that there is a cute baby living inside our new camera. The new camera has a flip-out LCD screen, which means that the lens and the screen can be facing Adi at the same time, and she can watch herself. And she LOVES it.
That also means that I am unable to take out the camera without her demanding the boppy, so I can never get cute videos of her doing her tricks. And if I want to record any other moments in any of the kids' lives, I have to put up with shrieks. Therefore, in the last month I have only taken a couple hundred photos. Don't roll your eyes. Because in December I took over 800. I edited them down to 600 something. I am hoping I will whet it down to 500, at most. But hey, that was the first month I had my new camera, so I was experimenting a lot.
so in light of this, having about 200 photos for the month of January seems pretty tame!
It turned out just fine, because I had time to edit old photos without an influx of new ones. So now I can put up new posts!

Well, here is Adi acting all silly and watching her boppy do the same:






(And two unrelated photos from that same session just for fun!)

And for a grand finale to this post...

 TA-DA!!!!

 

Camera News

I will not even check when my last post went up. I might get overwhelmed and decide never to post again.

Many, many things have been happening. Lots of changes in the last three or four months.
The changes began with a new camera that I got in November. I had my previous one for a couple of years already, and felt I was ready to move on to something more professional. Since my husband had gotten a bonus at work, we decided to go with a DSLR. I ordered a Canon XSi and waited for it with bated breath.

When it finally came, I was thrilled. Until I wasn't
First of all, the zoom was pitiful. I had 10x zoom on my old camera, and this one had only three. This conflicted with my style of photography, which is to be removed from my subjects and let them do their stuff while I photograph. With a 3x zoom, I am only able to take pictures when I am right in front of the subject. To add to the problem, the camera didn't focus properly when I had the LCD preview on. It only worked the right way with the viewfinder. Since my kids aren't used to seeing my face behind a large black box, I often got looks like these when I was photographing:

The older kids, who understood why there was a big black box in front of my face, didn't look perplexed as Adi did in the photo above. But they did have a look of, "Hey! A photo! Let's be artificially happy!"

 

 And then there was the issue of white balance. That's what makes your photo be true to color. As opposed to "aged-newspaper."

In the DSLR camera it was very hard to set the white balance. Actually, it was impossible, but I imagine that it would change to "very hard" once I kind of figured it out. Reading up on reviews, I saw I wasn't the only user that had this problem.
Not to say the aged-newspaper look isn't nice. But I would like to be able to choose for which pictures I want the effect.

The flash was okay. Not different from any other flash on any other camera. I knew I wanted to get some external flash eventually, but for the price I paid for the DSLR, I was hoping the flash would be at least slightly nicer than my old point-and-shoot.

 Now here is something I didn't understand at all. When switching to macro (that's the closeup mode) I lost all the ability for manual functions! Which means that if it's slightly dark, the flash popped up. I had no option to brighten the photo by raising ISO, opening the aperture, raising exposure compensation, or increasing the time the shutter stays open. Also, it didn't give me the option to use the LCD screen to preview. I had to use the viewfinder. Imagine trying to get a closeup shot of a flower close to the ground or an insect... or any small detail that's at an odd angle. Imagine twisting your head to keep your eye by the viewfinder in those situations.

This photo of my coffee was taken in macro, and the flash had gone off. I had no option to turn it off. It still came out nice, but... I don't think that's something I can live with long term.

One other thing about the very limited zoom that  annoyed me- no photos of kids at play. I'd have to catch them, tell them to stop, and snap a photo. I love to take running photos, but with a small zoom, I have to wait till they are practically on top of my head before I can take a photo. The lenses are interchangeable, but higher zoom lenses cost in the thousands (and their size and weight are in the same league as their price.)

I did get a few nice photos... but nothing to get a DSLR for.

I returned it and got a Canon SX30 IS. I'm very happy with it.

So I guess this post wasn't about all the many changes that took place recently... it was just about one of them. So I changed the title from "Brain Dump" to what it is now. But stay tuned for the actual brain dump post!

Wraslin'

  If it's one thing my two youngest love to do together, it's wrestling!

I guess it's their universal language.

The Amazing Adibaby!

Adi has been growing and accomplishing new feats at breakneck speed! She is really awesome.
First of all, take a look at this:




Is this cool, or what? At only two years old, Adel is drinking from a cup on her own with little or no spilling. I can't take credit for teaching this to her, though. I'm not too keen on having to change her clothes each time she creates a shower. But the boys have no such reservations, so they casually leave their cups of water at the table's edge. And since height is one thing Adel isn't delayed in, she gets lots of drinking practice.

Let's study this photo from three months ago for illustration:

This was one of the first times Adel got up on a step stool... but certainly not the last! It is now a daily occurrence at our house. But as you can tell by her face in this photo, this was an exciting novelty! (Also note the mess on my dresser which I tried to make less noticeable by changing the photo to black and white. And the fluffy cloth-covered tushie. Aww.)

Adel's vocabulary has been growing exponentially.
First she learned how to say "no." Actually, she says, "Uh-uh." This was a big breakthrough, because before she'd answer yeah to everything, even if she meant no. Now "uh-uh" is a large part of her vocabulary. One time I asked her if she wants Randi to come (her physical therapist). Adi said, "Yeah!" Then I asked her if she wants Randi to make her walk. "Uh-uh!!" was the answer I got in return.

Recently Adi started saying, "Up." Old news, right? Wrong.
She'd say up. I'd give her something from "up" that I imagine she wants. No dice. I'd pick her up. More screaming ensued. I would exhaust all possibilities of  "up" until we were both in tears. To calm her, I'd offer something to eat and drink, and she would take the offering. This went on a bunch of times, until I'd just offer her a calming snack before the "up" escalated (pun intended.)
Eventually it began to click in my mind. Could up mean "cup"?? Yes! Yes it does! I taught her a sign for "drink." So now it goes like this:

Adi: Uuuup! UUUUPPP!
Me: Adi, do you want a drink?
Adi: Yeah!
Me: So don't scream. Tell me "drink."
Adi: makes sign for drink or more, depending on her mood
Mama: provides drink

There is lots more to tell you about this Amazing Adi, but I'll save some for later.
I'll leave you with this photo montage of Adi's incredible reach and all it entails:







Notice anything different about Adi in these photos?
She's wearing PINK! Not a little, but ALL PINK. This was probably the first time I dressed Adi in pinkpinkpink... down to the very socks.

Dolly House

One of the presents Adel got on Chanuka was this sweet little doll house. I got it for just over $20 in a local store. I had my eye on it online, but the cheapest I found was $30 after factoring in shipping and all.

I love to watch Adel pretend play. She was putting the babies to sleep, so she took a blanket...


Lied down with it...


And tried to cover herself and the baby with it. Awww.
 
 Of course, in Adi's life, Mama lying down with the baby is an integral part of the bedtime process. What a good Mama Adi makes!

City of Snow

Ever since our gigantic snow storm 2-3 weeks ago, we have been snow logged. Occasionally some new snow falls to cover the old mountains that still haven't been cleared or melted. Thankfully we are able to get around now, but everything was at a standstill that first week.


It all started when we woke up and looked out, er, at our window.

Well, truthfully it started the day before, when we were all outside, carriage and all, trudging home through the blizzard. But that's not as picturesque as waking up to find the view above. So, I'll stick to that story.

Nothing more classic than footie-pajama clad kiddies enjoying the snowy view out the window.

And what a view it was! Notice the fence. It was still visible in some places, but not in all. We have a broken jeep kiddie car in the front yard. One of those huge electronic ones. Can you see it? Neither can I!

I mean, it's not that mind-boggling once you see what a REAL car looked like!

And our back yard! That's a patio in the corner on the left. It's level with the ground now!

We like to throw grains for the birds out the window. The grains stick in the snow, which makes it easier for us to watch the birds.

Although this time, the birds didn't stick around for long...

Coming up soon in a new post: Playing outside!

(PS: A link I put in the previous post didn't work. You can check out a new post I backdated: October Boys.)