First Food!

This is baby Ben's first attempt at rice cereal at 4 months of age. Unfortunately he threw up so violently afterward that I decided to wait to try again at 6 months. The doctor told me to start him on solid food and he told me to potty train Alex. I think next time he tells me to do things so early I'll offer to let him come to my house and show me how it's done!

Serious Sillyness

Chris bought himself a camera as an early Christmas present and we had fun taking pictures. I think this is how he plans to answer the door on Halloween.
Me sporting my sunglasses.
Alex sporting my sunglasses wearing his BYU T-shirt that I found at a Walmart near Manti.
Another picture of Alex. I think he is asking daddy why so many pictures.
Ben is just serious cuteness! I love my boys and am so happy to be their mom.

Baby Ben Flipping over at 4 months old

Ben starting flipping over when he was 4 months 2 days old. The other day Chris took pictures while he did it! We adore our new baby boy and can't believe he is growing so fast.

Samsung HZ30W is a hater

Here are a few image samples that highlight the poor image quality of the Samsung HZ30W (aka WB600) camera. Sure, it has a 12-megapixel sensor, but in this case more pixels only means there are more pixels to look like garbage.

Samsung hates Winston Churchill:

Note the "jittery" noise clearly evident all around his face, hand, and medals. This same noise is also apparent along the capstone above the banner (meaning this noise is not in the banner itself, but rather from the Samsung that took this picture of the banner).

Samsung hates trees:

These trees look plastic. This appears to be the result of selective blur, which tends to make images look like plastic if done without regard to the subject. Also notice the "jittery" noise again in this image along otherwise straight lines.

Both of these images are unscaled crops from this review of the Samsung WB600. These same effects (or rather, defects) occur in nearly all of the images on that page, whether the images have a low or a high ISO rating (which affects sensor graininess), low or high shutter speed (which affects motion blur), and focal length/aperture width (which both affect focus). I was originally thinking that the jittery noise was due to the built-in Image Stabilization (IS), but that shouldn't cause any visible artifact in exposures with high shutter speeds, which would experience little to no motion blur anyway as a result of camera shake. That's not the case as it's present in images with shutter speeds up to 1/500 second.

Samsung also hates children and... water?

My son even looks like plastic. The water behind him has what I call "speckle" noise, where the water is relatively smooth except for a number of significantly brighter or darker small spots (most of them are very short horizontal or vertical lines). This is probably another result of indiscriminate selective blur performed on a fairly noisy (or "grainy") image. This image was taken at ISO 240, so that is likely the case.

This is an unscaled crop from a picture my mother took of my son with her HZ30W.


Can this image processing be disabled on the camera? Even if it can be disabled, a better question is, "Why does it process images this badly by default?" Do people really want jittery, plastic-looking images from their fancy cameras?

Ironically, my wife's 4-year old Nikon Coolpix E4600 produces consistently better images with its 4-megapixel sensor than this Samsung. Of course, you could simply blur or scale the Samsung's images by about 50% to get similar quality, but you would have only 3-megapixel images as a result. So much for technological progress.

I won't even go into a full comparison of this camera with my recently-acquired Canon EOS 10D DSLR camera, but suffice it to say that it blows this camera out of the water in terms of image quality with its 6.3-megapixel sensor. It even cost me almost the same as a new HZ30W—about $150 with shipping and handling. (If I wanted to buy a really high-end lens for the 10D, then yes, it would cost me a pretty penny, but that's not even an option available with the HZ30W. Just sayin'...).

NB: I saved the above crops as PNG images to avoid introducing any further noise. The original pictures were saved as JPEG in "Superfine" or "Fine" quality. The noise in these images are not characteristic of the noise introduced by JPEG compression (such as reduced color resolution and sharp edges along 8x8 pixel boundaries), especially at these high quality levels.

Ben's 2 month stats

Ben weighed in at 10 lbs 4 oz in the 20th percentile for weight. He is 22 1/2 inches long which is the 30th percentile for height and his head circumference is 39 cm which is the 24th percentile. My sweet little boy is growing so fast and this last month has just flown by. Part of me wants him to be little forever but I love every stage and he is so much fun.

Project Done!

Ben is 2 months old

This is Ben sleeping in our bed. Chris took these pictures this morning. He is now too long to wear newborn size anymore as of today and I will be putting him in 0-3 month size tomorrow.

Photo Shoot done by Marilee

There's always room for Jello!

I decided to strip Alex down to his diaper before giving him red jello with strawberries in it. He throughly enjoyed himself.

Ben at 6 weeks

No more wound vac!

Today I got the wound vac taken off and no longer need a home health care nurse. Yippee!! I also got to send my mom home and when she called my dad to tell him he said he didn't believe it. Me neither! Actually it was bittersweet sending her home because although we were close to begin with we are even closer and got very comfortable living with each other. She even hugged me twice! I so love my mom she is my angel here on earth and I know she would do anything for me (and has). I'm very grateful to my Heavenly Father for giving me such a special and wonderful person in my life.

Dare to Compare

Alex 1 month old.
Ben 1 month old

Water Fun!

The other day we went on an outing to Tempe Marketplace to visit a friend working. Alex got to play in the water area and had a wonderful time getting soaked. It was so nice to be out and about enjoying the hot hot sun.

Ben is 1 Month Old

Our baby Ben is 1 month old as of yesterday and he weighs 8 lbs and is 20.5" long at the 10th percentile for both height and weight. The pediatrician said that he is doing very well and is right where he should be. He is eating about 3 and 1/2 ounces of formula every 4-6 hours and has filled out more in the face. We feel so blessed to have a healthy child.

Chris Birthday June 14, 2010

Make a wish!
For Chris Birthday his parents came over and took us out to dinner. He got a rice cooker (for me to use him to enjoy)some shorts and shirts and a stapler/nailer from his parents.

Ben!!!

This picture was taken Sunday May 30th in the special care nursery nesting room of Chandler Regional Hospital. This was his last night in the hospital before we got to take him home. Benjamin Michael Williams was born May 23rd 2010 at 2:41pm. He was 5lbs 14oz and 19inches long. He was 4 weeks premature and stayed in the special care nursery 1 week. He is very healthy and doing just great now.
Pat, Ana Paula and Joshua came to visit on Tuesday June 1, 2010. I was so happy to see them and had a lot of fun visiting. Shortly after they left my mom and I discovered I was hemoraging and I went back to the hospital.
In the hospital for the second time holding my little sleeping babe.
Here is a closer up picture of him.
My dad holding my little bundle of joy.

Hospital Round 2

I have some pictures to post but before I do I would like to write down some thoughts on this whole experience. This experience has been the hardest thing I've ever gone through in my life and has really shown me how precious and fragile life really is.

I was in the hospital for a total of 10 days and it was really scary. The first admittance was tests for preeclampsia which I found out that I had a severe case that was affecting my kidneys. The only way to get better from it was to have the baby. So Benjamin Michael Williams was born four weeks early. The consequence of waiting any longer could have been seizures for me and death for my infant. Benjamin had trouble breathing on his own and had to have an oxygen mask while his lungs developed. When he was born my first thought was his cry isn't loud enough and I felt really upset because I wasn't well enough to hold my baby until he was three days old. I was realeased from the hospital 4 days before him. He wasn't eating at first and therefore was losing weight. I was terrified and depressed because I couldn't be with my baby.

Meanwhile, I had an internal infection that was getting worse and a hematoma 17 inches in length. I brought Ben home Monday morning. By Tuesday night I had to go to the hospital because of the amount I bled. I passed out in the hospital and was found to be anemic. I was given 2 units of blood during my stay and the infection got bad enough that the wound opened up in 5 different places. My doctor ordered a wound vac for me and a home health nurse 3 times per week. I feel blessed to be alive. I was there an additional 4 days.

I love my children and would not trade them for anything in the world and if I had known prior to this all of the pain I still would have gone through with it. As for having more children let me just say that I want to be alive for the two that I've got. My husband and children mean the world to me and I'm so happy to be a wife and a mother.

Pregnancy news flash!

I am in the hospital doing a 24-hour test with preeclampsia. They will either send me home on bed-rest or deliver my baby depending on the severity of the illness.

Baby Boy soon to Be Born!

I had my final ultrasound today and the baby is healthy and normal and currently weighs around 5 lbs. My c-section surgery is scheduled at Chandler Regional Hospital for Thursday June 10th at 10:30 am and most likely I'll be at the hospital for 3 days. Visitors are welcome to come to the hospital for a short visit or to my home afterward for longer visits. It will take 6 weeks to heal from the surgery so please feel welcome to come visit. Feel free to call my mom, sister, or husband or the house phone if you'd like to come visit.

Emma's Cheerleading Awards!

Emma's last day of cheerleading for the season was last night where families are invited and they perform and then receive awards. Emma got a teal colored pom and a medal. She had a competition last Saturday and received a 3rd place trophy. This picture is of her preforming her cheer. She is the 3rd girl on the right in the very back.
Here she is afterward with her medal. Emma loves cheerleading and plans to continue in the fall.

Celebrating 31!

We celebrated my birthday a little early with the in-laws. They took our family out to dinner to Sweet Tomatoes, then we did a little shopping, and here I am opening presents. I always look forward to my birthday celebrations because hey I like presents like everybody else. Also it's fun to get new quilting gadgets. Valeree always picks out very thoughtful gifts that I can use while pursuing my hobbies. I feel very spoiled and loved.

Scoochie Boochie--Our Fur Kid

We got Sammy groomed at a new place (new to us) called Aardbark grooming! They did an excellent job and he was the happiest I'd ever seen him after a grooming.

Joe's BBQ!

These are pictures of last Friday night! We decided to go to Joe's BBQ and Alex got the most gigantic cookie with his kids meal. As you can see he throughly enjoyed it.

Scripture Bags!

I made a couple more bags especially for carrying scriptures and I actually made one for myself! These are so fun and easy to make I just might have to make some more.

Coloring Fun!

Daddy is teaching me how to color!
I'm coloring now!
Emma and I love to color together!