Our lovely neighborhood.

I really love our neighborhood! It's secluded and is really only traveled by the people who live here. There's a pond, open fields, tall trees and an undeveloped culdesac - a prime area for bike/scooter riding.

This evening, in the cool spring air, we took a little journey down to the culdesac for some after dinner play time. The sun was setting, the weather - a little chilly, yet enjoyable. The children had been playing a while when I had the idea to try and snap a few pictures of them together. They had a different idea.

This is what happened when I directed Jackson to put his arm around his sister.

I quickly abandoned my idea for fear of injury. I'm sure they were thankful. They went back to their scooter and bike riding and I thought of a challenge I read about online as I stood there, iphone camera in hand, feeling rejected by my children. I stumbled upon a blog the other day that challenged it's readers to take more self portraits. It's so easy to shoot a million pictures of other people, but when it comes time to turn the camera on myself, I cringe. However, this evening I thought, "Why not? If they stink, I'll be the only one to ever see them." I'm breaking tradition here.

Then I quickly went back to capturing something that made me feel comfortable.

Our lovely neighborhood.

I wish I were as comfortable in front of the camera as that tree is.