Thinking and drawing

I am doing a lot of sketching right now of a piece I am going to do with children for the Saint Paul library which got me looking at some older work. This one is about my daughters, I was never very satisfied with the way it came out but I like it better from afar, I find I like my work better in photos then in real life I am not sure why this is and I am not sure that it's a good thing either. I am a pretty harsh critic of my own work but I find distance often helps my feelings towards a piece.