Dan and Emma are outside building a swingset. It is quite the family excitement. Dan, who is a carpenter, has been working on the project for three hours now. I can't imagine what your "average" man must go through to set one up. Although, I'm not sure dan is using the directions...Emma has been outside observing the progress from the beginning. She'll flutter off to the sandbox, come back and check in, or play with the boxes that the swing set arrived in. At one point, when she had propped the long narrow boxes on top of each other to make an impromptu slide/seesaw, she announced that we could return the other swingset because she liked the boxes better. If only....
I've been playing around with my camera lately and I took a few shots of flowers that Emma picked from my martha stewart-inspired cutting garden. It is mostly full of zinnias and cosmos, with a few renegade sunflowers pushing through the other flowers. I have about three blooms left out there, I think. Emma can't walk past the garden without ripping one off. They are scattered around the yard and in makeshift vases around the house. I'm finding zinnas everywhere. This is a shot of a few that showed up on my kitchen counter last night.
I've been playing around with the light settings on my camera, which explains the intensity of color. (although they are very brilliant). I'm also including a blurry shot of an American Goldfinch that was perched on my sunflowers eating seeds. When I got back from finding my camera, the female had arrived. But by the time I got the settings right to take the shot through my kitchen window they were both gone. In the meantime, this was the best shot I got. But I'm ready for next time they show up. 
