The Canon Capers -- A "Rebel" Fairytale

Once upon a time, there was a beeeeaaaauuuutiful queen (What? It's a fairytale, OKAY?!?) who received a Canon Rebel Digital SLR camera from her dear husband, King Ricardo. She knew she had deeply desired this camera for a long, long time, for those around her who had one like it took very excellent photos. She knew that in order to use one of these fancy cameras to its fullest extent, she would have to practice a great amount of time. Lucky for her, she had the perfect little Princess right in her own castle to pose as the most interesting subject in all the land. And although Queen Danielle missed her very simple and tiny "point 'n' shoot", she was determined to learn what all of the bells and whistles on her new giant camera were all about. She knew that with hard work and dedication, she would not only be the fairest queen to rule the kingdom of Torresia, but also the most accomplished photographer for all to admire. THE END

WOW. Now that was an amazing story. I will only answer to "Moms Christian Danielson" (Get it?!? Hans Christian Anderson? Oh forget it.) from now on. As with any folkloric tale, the interpretation of its value as an art form is relative to the eye of the beholder. And so without further ado, I would like to present my latest attempt at an art form with my new cool camera. Things that my point and shoot could never do. Things like this:

And this:

Poor Alessandra, trying to eat while Mamarrazzi is hovering over her, practically blinding her with the flash. Oh, and P.S., ask anyone in Photography 101, the law is that all awesome photos (ahem..."Portraits"), have to be in black and white to be taken seriously. Okay, I made that up, but they are still pretty awesome, aren't they?!? Of course, I am the beholder of my own eye.

What else have we been doing with our spare time, you might ask, while not taking photos? Oh, climbing. Why would you need this?:

When you have this:

This:


This:


Or this?:
The world IS Alessandra's jungle gym!! And you might ask why oh why do we let her climb on all of our furniture, and Eli too? Because if we scold her and pull her down from wherever she is, we have just made it that much more interesting to her. So we sit and wait for her to maybe fall and crack her head open, or maybe not. All the while pretending we don't have a care in the world that she's 3 feet above the hard wooden floor. All of my parenting books tell me better to ignore these mountaineering sessions now and let the novelty wear off at 3 feet off of the floor as opposed to later when she's stronger and bigger and using stools to climb onto countertops and countertops to climb onto refrigerators and refrigerators to climb onto...Oh wait, she's not a cat, but you get the idea.

When we're not climbing, we're DANCING! Ricardo's dad left a CD of traditional Mexican music in our CD player and Alessandra LOVES it! She stomps her feet and dances around and around in circles until she gets dizzy. Normally, hearing this music over and over again would drive me crazy, but even I found one that I really like! I play song #1 and dance with Ali every night when I get home from work. KUMBIA!!! Ricardo likes to dance with her every night to the slow love songs. He says that all of his tias and tios dance like this if they are REALLY in love:

Senorita Ali Pants looks head over heels...(Insert facetious font here.)

Well, that's it for now! Hope you have a wonderful Thanksgiving!!!! Ali will enjoy her first one where she actually gets to eat grownup food. Man, does my girl like to throw down! Her permanent station is in her high chair!

I give thanks for Alessandra, Ricardo, my family and friends, good food, lots of love and even more good fortune. Thank you God!!

Love, RAD