Wonderment Accidentally Captured!

This morning while the girls slept I was taking advantage of the tripod my sister recently gave me and played around with my camera's shutter speed settings. I am constantly trying to figure out how to take a good indoor picture without using the flash as I am motivated by my crazy no editing till I can take a picture that doesn't need to be edited goal for self (cropping doesn't count :-) Having a tripod now means I can lower the shutter speed if the subject is still- the Christmas tree seemed like a good first experiment on this (it was still dark out so ISO 1600, F 1.8, and shutter speed 1/20 with tripod)

L got up as the sun was coming up and joined the tree.

With the sunlight coming in, oh yes, there has been many a sunny day recently-frigidly cold but oh so blessedly sunny, and my new subject not as still as the tree things weren't working out as well.

EEK Washed out and blurry! L was just doing her thing and I was thinking camera numbers and being a great parent not really paying attention to what she was doing although "watching her" through the lens.

I upped the shutter speed to 320 cause the sun was pouring in brightly, changed the ISO to 800, kept f at 1.8 and clicked. "Hmm, that kind of works," I thought to self.
L continued happily playing and signing to her self. I think it was a song about a Christmas train.

 I continue to click away in that hearing but not registering way until I hear, "I can't seem to catch it, but it is here." I shake my head, think "What?", set down the camera and see my NW child raptured in wonderment at the beauty of the sunbeams coming through our window. Her face in utter amazement as she tries to catch a sunbeam. And by complete accident the special moment was captured.