Nursery 2011

I'm a nursery teacher at church. That means for the 2 hours after our main church meeting I hang with the 18 month-to-3 year olds. We start by welcoming each child with a hello activity, we have singing time, and I give a two minute lesson. Then we get on the floor and play with toys, read books, clean up, eat Goldfish, roll out some Play-Doh, and send them home. I've got the most fun job at church ... though I seem to say that each time I get a new calling.

In December our 3-year-olds turning 4 were getting ready to graduate to their new class. Our Nursery leader asked me if we could do a portrait with all the kids. I must have been temporarily insane to say yes. It's difficult to get 16 adults to all look the same direction for a group shot. Imagine trying it with a bunch of preschoolers.

This photo hangs on the bulletin board at church. My friend James asked if I took it. He suggested it was statistically impossible to get this many children to look in the same direction at the same time for 1/100 second — there must be trickery involved.

James absolutely got it right — this one was faked. As people get better at covering their tracks in Photoshop, you have to use common sense to spot a fake.

I used a tripod to take a few dozen of the same pose. Picking the best shot where I had most of the kids looking my way, I used Photoshop to paint in different takes of kids from 5 other photos.

• The entire right side of the photo, including clump of three girls on the far right, along with their background and most of their reflection on the floor came from a completely different photo. I didn't get the floor reflection completely right, see if you can spot it.
• The boy in front of them (far right) would not hold still for anything, and he was completely dropped in over the top of the girls.

The Lights Go Down

I took our Christmas lights down a couple weekends ago. It took me a couple times flipping on the porch lights at dusk to remember I could no longer plug in the house lights ... and it made me sad!

Maybe I should have left them up longer?

Here's a nicer photo of nicer lights at the Washington DC Temple last month, much better than the cell phone photo I shared before. I'd hate to have to take these down.

Resolute

I don't feel compelled to do it exactly on January 1, but sometime during the month I usually make a list of what I'd like to work on for the next year.

First a report on 2011. Last year I had two main resolutions: to take the stairs at work, and to not swear. I did take the stairs to my 6th floor office every single day, and I said 18 bad words (most in frustration to myself), which is an improvement over my 2010 count. As a note, if I resolved to avoid all home repairs, this would probably take care of all rated-PG language.

This year I've got my longest set ever, I listed 31 resolutions for 2012, and I typed them all up tonight so I can have them wherever I go. These long lists usually thin out to focus on some key goals — that's OK, I usually go back and review from time to time to remember all I should be doing. And it's fun to stumble into these lists down the road to remember where I was at, and recognize how far I've come.

My 2012 list is too personal to drop online, but I'll say I've got major work ahead this year. Wish me luck. And good luck to you.