Budding Photographer

Laura has a few new hobbies these days. Her first, is spending as much time online as she can building a lovely home for her Webkinz pets. If allowed, she would spend EVERY minute of her day online. (I now have a few of my own so that I may play interactive games with her during the day when the other kids are at school) The demand for computer time amongst all of my kids due to Webkinz has caused us to develop the timer rule. The timer is set for 20 or 30 minutes, and when it goes off, your turn is over. It is wonderful how this works. If I were to say the same thing, I would be met with whining and excuses...."But I am almost done!", or "I just got this cool thing!", or "Just one more minute?", etc. Everyone listens to the timer....no arguments, no questions, just "Switch!", and someone else gets a turn. If only everything were that easy!

Laura's second favorite thing to do is grab my camera and take pictures. She started this at Grandma's wedding, taking pictures of people dancing. She now has taken pictures of Tubby's birthday, Easter, and other random things. Many of her pictures are "artistic" in nature, some are quite good, and all of them really capture the essence of what is going on at the time because she snaps away without being noticed. My favorites are the ones she takes of herself...the close ups are pretty funny. And now there exist a few pictures with me in them, so that my kids may actually remember having a mom when they look back at photos. We do not have much in the way of artwork at our house. I like the idea of using the kids' creations to decorate our home~one of my favorites is a watercolor painting Jonny did in second grade that is framed and hanging on one of our entrance walls . With some of Laura's pictures, I think I could compile a rather neat photo collage. Now I just need some extra time!

Alex was pleased today to move into the "People with Glasses" club at our house. His eyesight is really quite good....one eye is perfect, and the other just has slight astigmatism. But it is that darned astigmatism that makes it difficult to see, so he is excited about trying his new glasses. Alex has wanted glasses for as long as I can remember, and was always disappointed when he would pass the annual vision screening tests at school, each year with 20/20 vision or better. He picked out a really trendy pair, and they look great on him. He has been happy with the results so far this afternoon, and school tomorrow should be even better. It would be really great if the number of his headaches would decrease too, but I fear that like I, he is also just a victim of the ever-changing barometer. Genetics is sometimes a bum rap...sorry, Alex!