Not A Puppet Show

It's not the puppet show, but I did get some fun videos of Lily riding her bikes in front of the house a few days ago. Pure comedic gold this kid is sometimes.

This clip includes her first "spill". What a tough cookie!

I like to call this one "NASCAR practice" . . "Safety helmet's on!"

And the commentary in the last one is just classic Lily. A brief and reluctant appearance by Avery at the end is something of a novelty. She's a touch camera-shy.

As a bit of an aside, we were at Avery's soccer practice and a friend kept an eye on Lily for me while I coached. I heard from Lily from time to time throughout the hour, but really wasn't paying a lot of attention to what she was doing. When practice ended, I came toward the sideline and was informed that Lil was demonstrating her new favorite song to the parents, one that none other than her Meema taught her. The lyrics are approximately as follows:

I see your hiney
All white and shiney!
It makes me giggle
To see it wiggle!

Did I mention that practice was at 8am? What a great song to wake up to, eh?

Distance Shortener

Lily wanted to put on a little show for all of her non-local family this morning, and I've borrowed a friend's video camera for a while, so I decided to take advantage of it. It's in two parts . . enjoy!


Part I.



Part II.

Photography Practice

It seems like certain things just shouldn't be so difficult. Take, for instance, photographing a juvenile American Goldfinch on a tree limb no more than 20 feet away, at 8am on a cloudy morning. To the naked eye this bird was a very pretty golden color, midway on the spectrum between brown and the brilliant yellow of the adult male. I took 10 photos of him on any number of different camera settings, and none would produce the color I saw when I put the camera down. This photo seems to have the best color of the tree, but the bird just seems brown. Harumph.


Yesterday I was perusing my cherry tomato plant and I came across three separate caterpillars clinging to its stems. I thought this one would be a good subject upon which to practice my close-up skills. Let's just say I'm still very rough around the edges.



I always love those shots of dew-covered plants. Roses glistening with dew drops seem to win all the photography contests, don't they? Somehow green cherry tomatoes and a wilted dying leaf just don't give that same effect.

Oh well, at least they're digital and I'm not wasting film. Perhaps I should actually read the owner's manual and learn what all those different buttons I'm pushing are supposed to accomplish . .