a balmy day at the beach

like mother like daughter

a rare glimpse of jarrod and francesca.

jessie and i run away from our feelings.

what is that? a tiny, palm-sized person you can fit in your pocket and take with you to your favorite places, like the doll supply store or the crematorium? no silly, it's just jarrod experimenting with a little thing called perspective.

can you believe someone discarded this perfectly good human-sized picture frame?

neither could we.

winter finally got the memo

jarrod, ethan jessie and i went to seidman park after the bountiful snowfall we received recently. it was stunning, to say the least. we forgot the good camera, so jarrod's phone took all of these photos. here ethan and i sing each other's praises.

ethan "accidently" falls down again yet still insists the photo shoot goes on.

off we go.

who's the ventriloquist and who's the dummy?

ethan and cecca settle down for a nap.

ethan insisted this pose would make us look more viable. whatever that means.

fried chicken!

i decided to tackle fried chicken, a dish i have never made before, simply because my food magazine declared they had the best recipe for it. thanks dad and maria for loaning us your cast iron skillet! 

take that, pioneer woman. it was heavenly. if anyone wants the recipe, please let me know.

ethan and ruby

jarrod's grandma gene recently hosted elliot's first birthday party at her home. we brought ethan along because he likes birthdays, grandma gene, ruby and elliot. the scene observed in the above photo was not set up. i swear.

ruby demands all distractions leave the living room at once.

these two will have that piece down in no time.

aw, shoot!

what sort of gift, you may be asking yourself, could be given that is possibly better than a personalized woven photo blanket? shooting guns, of course! mike and shana took us out to mike's parent's property for a good, old-fashioned duel. no parrots were injured intentionally during the shoot-off.

this is hilarious

cecca takes aim.

jarrod practices for a role he will never have.

merry cat-mas!

sage loves this time of year.

the sweater sage is so elegantly wearing was originally intended for a bottle of maker's mark. sage is considerably larger than a bottle of maker's mark but we thought we would give it a try in the spirit of christmas. sure enough, it "fit", and a photo shoot was thusly deemed necessary. 

jarrod tries to convince sage that she does not look "chubby" in her new sweater.

"meow"

photo blankets: yet another way to make guests uncomfortable

jarrod and i got our friends mike and shana this tasteful woven photo blanket for christmas. thanks groupon!

here is the photo the blanket is woven after.

uica holiday market

jarrod spent nearly as much time on crafting this awesome display as he did on making earrings for the holiday market which proved to be worthwhile in that he won best display! cecca helped too, but who wouldn't when the payback is awesome jewelry?!

is that a model dropping by the ol' earring stand? no, it's just tubs takin' it easy.

in yo' face!

imagineering a car

try as she might, lucia cannot seem to find the "goddam 3/4 bit for the socket wrench" that ethan has requested.

lucia calls it a day

jarrod made this "car" for the kids in literally 5 minutes. as you can see, they loved it while i apparently, was indifferent.

trip the traverse fantastic part two.

spot the corpse, get a free fingernail.

always the casanova, jarrod eats a young tree.

my photo was way better than jerd's stupid photo.

jerd tries to not wake the polar bear.

like usual, cecca dances quietly to creed playing in her head.

this photo was made into a blanket... a woven blanket.

band photo #73. "but, where's the drummer?"

trip the traverse fantastic.

we recently traveled to traverse city with our two good friends, tim and tina(or maybe it was mike and shana, it's hard to tell the difference). This is the view from our penthouse suite. 

at tandem ciders, jerd sang his orders aloud to the delight of everyone.

tina (or shana? who knows...) judges you.

band photo #58. leelanau: just the tip.

see if you can spot the corpse.

children: you don't need to pay them.

ethan shows jarrod how to mix cement... again.

here's arne patching up some of the cracks in our driveway. arne, a regular at founders, is a retired school teacher as well as an experienced mason so he helped jarrod fix our front steps and also taught us a thing or two about friendship.

the finished product.

i nearly vomited at the sight of such romantic sentimentality. seriously, what a guy.