New Camera, Better Photos

I mentioned in an earlier post that I admired the wonderful photos that Greg's brother took with his digital SLR (35mm type) camera. Greg was nice enough to get me one for my birthday and we've been having fun with it for the past week (he made it an early gift). Honestly, I think the camera has more capabilities than I could even begin to explain and it makes me realize that I really don't remember much from my two semesters of photography back in high school. Of course, back then we spent half the time learning how to properly develop the photos--does this start to make me sound old?

I am probably going to take a class or get a book and learn to do more with it. In the meantime, I thought I'd share some of the photos we've taken. Sarah really likes the camera as well and wants to pose when we turn it on.

Right now Sarah's favorite game is to play hide and seek with us. She can play for a while-whether she's just gotten up in the morning or we're just getting home from a long day. She's also into building blocks and will just sit on the floor and 'build towers.' Maybe my brother's obsession with Lego's when he was younger wore off on her.

Happy Sarah (practicing on the potty-but we edited the lower part out)

Sarah jumps up and down next to her tower of blocks

Happy Birthday Pop-pop

My father's birthday is the 17th, so Sarah wanted to make a video for him. She sang happy birthday, she was a bit camera shy, but this is her best effort.

Go Dog Go!

This weekend we had the remnants of hurricane Hanna pass by. We received lots of rain on Saturday, so we mostly stayed in. Greg was working, so Sarah and I hung around the house. Sarah was nice enough to read Go Dog Go! to me several times. While I couldn't understand exactly what she was saying (other than Go Dog Go), she was very proud of herself.

In addition, Sarah practiced her acrobat moves off the arm of the couch. Yes, for you safety-first readers, this may cause some concern for you that we let her jump off the arm of the coach and onto the cushions. I am sure we'll rethink that when we bring her to the hospital for stitches one day. In the meantime, she likes to do it and it keeps her entertained.

Sarah has started making several transitions now that she is two. This week, she started in the two year old room. She really likes it there. They are working on potty training (thank you daycare!) and she's already gone a few times! We just need to be good about getting her to use it more at home. In addition to the potty training, I decided to start moving her out of her crib over the weekend. She does fairly well at night, but struggles to stay in her bed to take a nap during the day. The picture below was after she refused to nap in the afternoon and finally fell asleep on the coach while eating her snack at 5pm. What was absolutely heavenly was Sunday night, when she actually slept through the night, and then at 7am came to my room to see how I was. When she didn't want to come into bed with me, she went back to her room to play with her blocks. This is something I definitely could get used to, but know that those days are still the exception to the rule. Dare to 'dream!'

Sarah also decided to help out Greg while he was washing dishes from breakfast. I think it took a bit longer than normal, but she didn't think so.