And on Thursday for once in a very long while at that! :0)

While we were in Colorado, Seven’s interest in food hit an all-time high.  He was reaching for absolutely everything and since he was turning 6 months old the week we got home, we took the hint that he’s ready for real food.  We got the camera and video camera ready, put the high chair in nice light (because you know, what kind of photographer parents would we be if we didn’t stage our baby’s first moments in nice light?), and readied the rice cereal.  Seven was so excited for real food that he could eat his chair.

Bib on, spoonful of rice mush up, and he could NOT wait!

Then the rice cereal hit the lips and…

….

See that face?  That is how a baby says “Seriously, most anti-climactical moment of my life ya’ll. If this is real food, I’ll stay a boob-man forever thank you.”

Well, I can’t say I blame him.  I don’t really like the idea of rice mush either.  Maybe tomorrow we’ll try green peas and hey, if nothing else works, there’s always the 1-year prize of a great big cake all to his little baby self!  Now that’s what Mommy calls real food. :0)

Thanks for visiting!  Have a wonderful day!

– Mel

There hasn’t been a single part of Seven’s life that I haven’t absolutely loved, and he just keeps getting better! :0)  As we approach 6 months, there are lots of new tricks on the docket…

…rolling for one.  Rolling over is an old trick, but now he can roll anywhere and everywhere and we really have to be careful where we step – or roll

Poor Dirtball has been discovered and what a discovery he is!  Seven squeals every time he sees him and boy are the kitties ever in trouble when this kid starts walking!  As you can see, he’s already working on his evil grin – mwahaha

Oh and the faces!  I just love all the faces!

And then there’s the thing that is going to get me into so much trouble!  THE CLOTHES!  He has finally grown big enough that our options extend past puppy and bear themed items and I am so enamored with the completely adorable little man clothes!  A girl could really do some damage.  Here’s my current favorite outfit – you know, for this week….

So, there you have it.  A little slice of our world and what’s been going on in it lately.  What can I say?  I’m pretty taken with the little fella. ;0) — and by “the little fella”, I mean the one I am currently fighting with for control over the laptop keyboard so with that I will leave you for this week!  Thanks for visiting!  See you soon!

– Mel

As you know, we’ve been making a greater attempt to take personal photos since Seven came along.  The challenge however, is always having a camera on us!  Our DSLRs are huge and not practical for us on an everyday basis.  We’ve had the Canon G10 and tried to keep it in the diaper bag, but it gets taken out to download images and doesn’t always get put back in.  Besides, even the diaper bag is not always handy.  The most practical thing, as I’m sure you’ve all experienced, is to take photos with your cell phone because quite frankly, we’re attached at the hip to those things!  Here’s the thing though – I HATE cell phone photos!  The quality always sucks and then there they are – your memories – in awful little cell phone photo form.  Ugh!  This has always been the case, until the release of the iPhone 4.  I can finally say that I feel good about taking our family photos and videos with my cell phone!  Below are some examples of images taken with the iPhone 4.  So that it would be a true comparison to the images you normally see on our blog, I’ve brought them into photoshop and done what we normally do with minimal dodging, burning, and retouching.

This is in our room with large windows facing my sleeping subjects.

Still in our room but with the window light behind him.  There’s a little motion blur in this instance but no more than I would expect to see from the G10.

Outside it does tremendously! (Not feeling so positively about the pool unfortunately.)

This is in a bathroom with no windows and fairly dim light.  It took a few tries with a jerky, jumpy baby to get a capture that wasn’t blurry but it is possible, even in those conditions.  There’s quite a bit of “grain” to the image but not enough that I mind or feel it interferes.

The digital zoom is the only feature that I’m not fond of and I’ll probably just steer clear of using it.  The image quality just gets too poor for my taste.

In case you haven’t heard everyone else raving about it already, I will rave one more time – I’m loving the Hipstamatic app!  Lots of fun film and lens effects to play with!  Here’s an example:

The flash works just as well as you would expect a point-and-shoot flash to work.  However, I’m just not fond of direct flash photos, I hate red eye, and the flash is absolutely blinding and stays on forever, so I think I’m just going to avoid it unless absolutely necessary. (This is the waiting for 4th of July fireworks photo and as you can see, someone is very unenthused.)

We were sitting probably 10 feet from the window in medium lighting conditions here, but everything is still nice and sharp.  I’m not sure the G10 would have done so well.

Again, just natural light indoors.  You can see that Seven turned his head as it was taking so he’s a bit blurred but again, the results are on par or better than any point-and-shoot camera we’ve had.

Of course we will always prefer to have a nice DSLR camera on hand for family photos but in a pinch, I’m pretty pleased with these results!

I don’t have any of our home videos prepped to share but the following is a great side-by-side comparison of the iPhone 4’s video capability in relation to the Canon 7D if you’re interested.  We were impressed!

iPhone 4 Video Review

Hope this helped you if you’re trying to decide whether or not to upgrade your phone or are looking for a quick and easy solution for your personal photos and videos like us!  Have a wonderful week!

– Mel