through the lens

I'm a big advocate of kids taking photos. With a real camera. (Not just a Fisher Price toy camera or my iPod camera or the camera on my phone.....) Its pretty amazing what kids come up with when you let them take photos. I can now honestly say that I am pretty comfortable with handing over my big bulky expensive nice camera to my two oldest kids, ages 6 and 3. I'm pretty sure they won't throw it. And its just about the cutest thing ever to see them holding a big digital SLR camera as they walk around taking photos at their level. Most of them turn out rather blurry, but that's ok with me. Tonight Jack and Macy each took turns taking photos around our family room. Very low lighting and the aperture was open as wide as could be, which tends to produce blurry photos if you don't hold the camera super still or if you don't have a good focal point. Taking those two points into consideration, I thought they did a great job!
Jack's:

Macy's:

Valentine's Day turned out to be pretty fun overall. Some highlights:
*My Valentine brought me a gas station donut AND hot chocolate this morning.
*There was chocolate candy everywhere we turned today. Although, those heart-shaped chocolate candy boxes usually disappoint me because I always take a big bite out of some nasty coconut-filled chocolate and then I have to scrape all the nasty coconut flavor off of my tongue. Ew.
*The kids had fun exchanging Valentines and there was one crazy 30 minute time period today where 11 little kids were all exchanging Valentine's and treats in our daycare room.
*Every time I tried to get Zoe to say "Happy Valentine's Day!" she would just say "diaper!"
*The snow is starting to melt (yay!) and it almost felt like a heat wave. It was somewhere above 30 degrees today, so at least it didn't hurt your lungs to go outside.
*Grocery shopping tonight was kinda fun because I got to see a bunch of last-minute shoppers running around buying cards, flowers, and stuffed animals.

Jack, wearing Star Wars PJs and reading a Star Wars book, of course....he's addicted right now:

Macy checking out her bag of Valentines:

Zoe just being squishy and sweet:

An attempt for one group photo of my littlest Valentines. Cute and uncooperative as always.