OK, I promise this is the last “family” post for a while, but I could not resist sharing this one. As most of you know we have 1 girl and 3 boys. However, if you had to guess our girl count based off of the number of barbies in the house, you would probably say at least 7 girls lived here. Sara LOVES her dolls and every time we turn around it seems we are tripping over one. That’s all fine and good, but the thing that freaks me out are the naked Barbies. They give me the heebie-jeebies. They are creepy and they weird me out. (Jo feels the same way and I’m sure Luke will be complaining soon enough.)

Anyway, Danielle convinced Sara that it would be great if they all had “swimsuits” on. Sara loved the idea because she too is not a fan of naked Barbies and Jo and Luke even got in on the project.

A few before and after shots of our Sharpie Swimsuit collection for your enjoyment.



Here is the whole set. We even did two of them to match Sara’s swimsuits.

Anyway who better to comment on this recent development in our house then my all knowing blog stalkers!

Brides, did your brothers get freaked out by your Barbies growing up?

Moms did you ever have your boys come screaming and running out of a room because it was full of naked Barbies?

Let me know in the comments.

In keeping with the whole thankful/family/vacation theme for the weekend I thought I’d turn the blog over to the kids.

A few months ago they got a camera of their own. Joseph and Sara, ages 6 and 4, are the only ones that really use it and I try my very hardest to not “coach” them in any way. It’s been fun to see what they come up with. Here are a few that jump out from the past few months.

It took Sara all of about 15 seconds to master the “Jr. High girl on a school bus” self portrait.

Jo shot this. He did not know there was a bug in the tree when he took the photo but was really excited to find it there later.

Sara’s second favorite subject is our TV. Of the 1,500 or so shots they have taken about 1400 of them are of our TV.

Alex: “Why did you take this one?”
Jo: “Because I wanted to see what my toothbrush looked like.”



NOT one of the toothbrushes photographed earlier.

Alex: “Why did you take this one?”
Jo: “Because roaches are my favorite!”


Remember how I said that the TV was Sara’s second favorite subject? Guess her first?

Jo: “You can see my buggers!”

Sara snapped this one of us on a family vacation. It gives me hope that I will soon start showing up more and more in the family photos albums. :)

To see more, take a look back at our fake vow renewal we did in our backyard with Jo as the photographer.
After looking back on theses I’ve decided to add Jo or Sara as a second shooter exclusively in my top package. What do you think? ;)

Seriously, for a much more interesting story about kids with cameras you should watch Born into Brothels. It’s a crazy good movie about a group of kids in Calcutta and how their life is changed by being taught a bit of photography.

A little bit of background….  Our house LOVES Christmas.  We always have.  Even before we had kids.  Way back in 2002 right after we were married, Danielle and I bought our first tree together.  We were broke and could really only afford one from the Dollar Store.  We splurged and spent 10 bucks and brought home the saddest little tree you had ever seen.  We kept it all these years and passed it down to the kids a couple years ago.  It’s now their tree and they love getting to decorate it.  Putting lights on it is one of their favorite parts.  So, this year we tried to make it even more fun by answering this question:

Does a tree HAVE to be still when the lights go on?

We made our annual trip out to the pumpkin patch a few days ago and I just know all my blog readers are dying to see some pictures…. right…. right?

We have scooters at home, but for some reason they are never as cool as the ones at the patch.

Hay Fight!

Sara continuing on her lifelong quest to find a sister.

Batman, Heart, Blue’s Clue, & E. (My first time ever to carve a pumpkin.)

Also in the spirit of Halloween, I have a super cool, slightly gross photo of one of my wisdom teeth that was pulled next to one of Jo’s 1st teeth that fell out. Danielle told me I could not show it, but a “Click here to see it” was allowed. :)

It’s been a while since I posted family photos, so what better time than today. :) These next two images were done by my friend and rock star photographer Matt Hogan. He shoots lots of bands, models, and sometimes the occasional MMA fighter. That pretty much covers the gamut of my family so he seemed like a great fit.



Most of you know this, but we homeschool out kids. (by “we” I mean Danielle) Anyway, she has managed to teach Jo how to read and do 2 digit addition and subtraction and Sara is pretty close to having her whole alphabet down. I am amazed at how great she is at teaching them and she could not image doing anything else. She’s an incredible mom and the kids are super lucky to have her.

Jo is slowly turning “cool”. The only way I could convince him to model for me when the carnival came to town was to promise him he could just play on his iPhone AND I had to give him 5 bucks.

Luke has discovered the art of dressing up.

We have also decided that 4 kids is probably it for us. I mean, come on, it would just be rude for a kid to not have their own swing right?

And what about Sara? Well, Sara is proving to me that girls spend WAY too much time thinking about their wedding.
(I’m already trying to talk her into having a First Look.)