Time to eat!

Cameron enjoys some quiet time before beginning his lunch at my mom's. We're quite pleased that the baby is turning out to have quite an appetite. He's eating beans, rice, little bits of chicken, and (we must confess) ice cream. I think Colin was well over two before we let him have any. Ah, the perils of being one of the smaller children... 

Slightly better example

Here's a slightly better example of where the blurred backgrounds help focus you in the main subject. Alas, Colin's not perfectly in focus in this shot, but the background is softly out of focus which is useful in this shot. (Note that "cape" Colin is wearing -- it's his favorite blanket which he calls binkit and is now part of his Super-Colin super-hero costume.) 

Yum....Oreo's!

I'm not sure what you call this look: mischevious? maniacal? delighted? Anyway, Colin was sure enjoying his Oreos at my parents' over the weekend.

For the digital photo buffs, we took this picture with a Canon Digital Rebel XT (experimenting again to see if the 2nd generation is worth keeping). The colors are balanced, we think, and you get much more interesting effects given the shallow depth of field (not a great example, but note how the chair is blurrier than if we had used our regular little camera which usually shoots pics with a long depth of field). For pics of people close up like this, shots like this focus your attention on the person, not their surroundings. 

Something for nothing?

I'm a big skeptic of the free lunch. You gotta work out to build muscles. You gotta eat right and exercise to lose weight. You gotta discipline yourself to grow spiritually.

Consequently, I've always been mildly nervous about artificial sweetners like Equal and Splenda and Nutrasweet. Not enough to abstain, mind you, but enough to feel a twinge of uncertainty every time I reached for a diet soda. How did you get the tasty sweet sensation with NO calories? Could you really be getting something for nothing?

Well, the National Cancer Institute announced yesterday that it studied over half a million people without finding any link between typical aspartame consumption (less than 600 mg/day) and cancer or brain tumors. (Aspartame is the stuff in Equal packets and sweetens most diet sodas except for some of the new-fangled ones like Pepsi ONE.)

• Of course, the American Beverage Association is delighted.
• Of course, they would finish this study right after we switched to Splenda, which is not aspartame. Sigh.
• And of course, the Internet is not convinced about Splenda (or any artificial sweetener) safety. Check out the skeptics here or here or here.

So I guess the jury is still out, but it sure looks more settled than it did before they tested those half million retirees for 2 years.

Is this an April Fool's joke?

OK, I'm not sure if this is an April Fool's joke or not. It might not be, but if it isn't, I'm still not sure the world is ready for Lasik @ Home, the world's first DIY LASIK appliance. Even if I thought I'd be qualified to do this myself, the diagram showing you how to do the thing looks terrifying: you really just grab the thing and aim it at your eye without any sort of support?

My hands shake when I've trying to take pictures with a digital camera; imagine how much they'd be shaking if I thought I was shooting lasers into my own eyeball!

Maybe one day this will be routine, and oh happy day when that arrives. I wonder if it will be by the time the kids need their procedures?

What time is it, Mr. Fox?

It's amazing watching the kids get more sophisticated with their play every year. This year, they managed to spontaneously organize themselves into playing "what time is it, Mr. Fox?" -- one of the games made popular by birthday parties at Junior Gym. Here are Colin and Tyler racing towards the Fox. 

Pretty in pink

We didn't color coordinate them in advance, honest. The pink-and-purple explosion just happened this way.

On a related note, we've noticed our two kids getting more boy-y and girl-y recently.

Case in point: we switched from Netflix to Blockbuster's DVD-by-mail program last year, mostly because you can get a free video at the store once a week. Our last trip, I told them that they would have to agree on a video to rent. If they coudln't, I would get a video for mommy and daddy to watch. As little as 3 months ago, this would have been a trivial negotiation.

But this time, we were in the store for at least 15 minutes, with My Little Pony slugging it out with Charlie Brown, Hello Kitty with Mega Machines. Even old standbys like The Little Einsteins or Clifford the Big Red Dog didn't make the mutual nod. Sigh... I suppose this will only get worse before it gets better. :-)

Having fun at Easter Retreat

The entire family had a great time at Easter Retreat, even the newest member of the family. Here Cameron demonstrates with his signature Michael Jordan tongue-hanging-out-of-his-mouth look.

For lots more pictures, check out the pastor's Yahoo album.