Learning the speedlight

I have been working on my lighting in pictures. I hate when I take a picture and it just looks yucky because it is too dark, and in my quest to capture every moment I can, I decided I needed to learn how to really use my speedlight, which is my on camera flash but not the pop up flash. I took an online class this last month, you know, in my spare time, through ClickinMoms.com. I loved it. Do I have lots more practice to do? Yes. But I really feel it is helping me take even better pictures of my kids. Well and my dog too..... :)

And yes, even this last one is with the speedlight. We were practicing using it outside, but the clouds got in the way.