My New Toy

I got my birthday present a whole month early on Friday.  It is a new lens for my camera--a 50mm prime 1.8 for those that are interested.  It costs about $175 more than our usual birthday presents.  My husband even paid the extra $8 shipping so I could have the whole weekend to play with it and that is exactly what I did.

I played with it at dinner:

I played with it outside:

I played with it at bedtime:

Not bad given there was no light in the hall and I didn't use my flash.  They are reading "The Horse and His Boy." They like it a whole lot more than they appear to in this photo!

 I even got the camera out at breakfast:

Then the children had to paint so I could capture an image for my Scavenger Hunt Sunday post (at my other blog).

She has never been so focused and still!  Maybe I should let them paint more often.

A Hot Air Balloon

I needed to take a lot of pictures to capture just the right image, after all it is a new lens and takes some getting used to.

SnapDragon even painted his fake name so I could show his painting on the blog.

The Pie as his last name came from Huckleberry being Huckleberry Pie in a post a few weeks ago.  It doesn't work quite as well with SnapDragon...or Cedar...or Sunflower...or Oak.

Huckleberry wanted to share his painting, also.

Then I took my camera to a friend's baby shower and played some more.  It was a wonderful time with terrific chicken salad sandwiches:

Lots of presents:

And that game where you have to name the baby food...Yuck!

Then I came home eager to check out my photos only to discover all of the computers in the house busy with my husband and boys playing StarCraft and Sunflower "napping."  So I went outside and played some more to capture some more flowers...

 And some more bees:

Finally I skipped dinner to put my pictures on the computer and play with the pictures themselves.  Tomorrow I'll have even more pictures with a trip to a farm and a church leadership BBQ in the plans.  I'd better go eat some dinner and go to bed so I'll have the energy to make it through the day.