Zoe Got Her Ear's Pierced!

It was an eventful weekend ...

Miss Zoe got her ears pierced!

She had been asking for several weeks, and we kept bringing it up, without any pressure of course. She would say no, get scared, and back down but this weekend she finally worked up the nerve to get it done.

Here's a cute little video of the happenings.

p.s. if you YouTube "Zoe Gets her Ears Pierced" there are like a thousand videos like this! Cra-cra. Who knew I was so unoriginal...

-marc

Sick Days

As a Stay At Home Dad (SAHD) and a self employed photographer, there is no such thing as a sick day. Last Wednesday(?) I came down with a little bug. No biggie, there is laundry to do, people to photograph, kids to feed - can't let it get me down.

Thursday it kicked my ass. The morning was slower, the shower was longer, the chills were stronger and I really felt like hell. But - again - there were butts to wipe, photos to edit, e-mails to respond to.

There is no such thing as a sick day.

I'm not complaining, however - I can still put on an old Disney movie, curl up on the couch, and get cute hugs and kisses from my little nurses. It could be a lot worse ... I could have to actually go to work in a little cubicle and suffer through a 9-5.

Which, unfortunately, is what Stacey is having to do. I finally feel a little better and guess who catches what I had? Even the girls got a little sicky last week. Bummer.

Raise your tea to a healthy, productive week!

I Can Do Everything

**EDIT** I wrote this in January 2013... still holds true today. Guess I can do everything but publish a 3 sentence blog... ;) **EDIT**




Lately I feel unstoppable. Like I can do anything.

Everything.

Cheers,
-marc

Preschool Mural

I had the cool opportunity to paint a white shed at my daughter's preschool this week. For those of you who know me, I love to paint and the bigger the better!

This large 40' by 18' storage shed was the original furnishings of our Co-Op, a school ran by the parents of the students. It remained white for 16+ years until I showed up. I'd been begging to paint it all year, but finally had gotten approval to purchase the paints and go at it!

As the art teacher of the school, I wanted to get the kiddos involved and knew just the trick. Let them go at it! They had a blast painting the grass for our mural. They did an awesome job too!

I meant to take more timelapse type photos - and I know a few moms snapped a few pics I'll try to grab those but this whole thing was done in 2 days!

I like it. And everyone else seems to as well, so I'm happy. I could do this all the time! :)

Cheers,

-marc

EDIT** - I think it only fair to show the original artwork, as the people and trees are not my own original creation. I'm not sure who drew this, so if you do - leave a comment letting me know!

4 Years of Marriage Bliss

Four years ago today I married my best friend. In exactly 365 days I may say "Four years ago I married my best friend" because that sound so good.

Now I titled this blog "Marriage Bliss" but it hasn't always been blissful. And over the past month I've been photographing a lot of weddings, hearing a lot of wedding talk, and spoken to many grooms. The advice I give them is to tough it out. Work it out w/ your partner and become stronger as individuals and couples through each up and each down. In the end - you've made the commitment to spend your lives together - you might as well know what the hell you're doing and make it a lot more enjoyable for everyone. And that takes arguments, compromise, good times and bad times. But it's worth it. To fall asleep next to someone who loves you as much if not more than you love them, every night, is priceless. To create babies with a life partner, and raise those babies together, is what living is all about. To create a family that is your own, to share the awesome times together and experience the difficult - it's what makes life worth living.

I love you Stacey Nicole Blackwell, you are my best friend and I don't know what I would do without you. I don't want to know. Ever. I'll die before you, ok? Wait - no ... Shit, um... Let's just die together. Like you always say... :) Cool?

Love you.

-marc

The Burger King Commercial

Did you know Indie and I are famous? That's right - little celebs right here in your midst and you didn't even know!

Last summer Zoe had an audition for a commercial. The 3 of us went and Zoe nailed it. She was so cute during the audition, answering all the questions asked, giggling, and stealing the show. She got a call back.

At the call back, she froze up. "What's your name?" Nada. "How old are you?" Nada. The directors and people were confused - where was the first audition Zoe? But no worries, she was two, I wasn't too concerned. We thanked everyone and started to leave.

Before we could make it to our car however, a producer ran out and ask if Indie was available to work. I said she was, and they wanted her to audition. Granted, this is an audition where I was playing her father so it came naturally to both of us. Indie KILLED it during her audition and she got the part.

A few months later, a couple fittings here and there, and Indie and I have our own trailer on a multi-million dollar national commercial. :) It was a really fun day, exciting to be on the other side of the camera for a change, and we're still seeing residual checks for it. Indie's got her own little can't touch til she's 18 bank account and we're still beaming from ear to ear over the experience.

Can you find us in the video? You gotta look close!

Cheers,
-marc

Minecraft

During the holidays while my family and I were in Oklahoma my nephew introduced me to a game I had heard of many times before. Minecraft explained by a 7 year old is the only way to learn Minecraft.

And ever since, whenever I have an hour to spare, I love to play me some Minecraft. Not that creative mode y'all easy go-ers like to play, I dig the challenge of survival mode.

And thanks to the power of the interent, and my nephew, I've got a pretty good little farm going on my site of the server.

Still figuring out how I can connect to my nephew's server and vise versa so we can play in each other's world - but that's the fun of the game; there's always something more to learn!

Do you play video games? Which games do you play? Do you know how to connect to a server on Minecraft? LMK - I'd love to hear about it.

 Really wanna geek out? Alright - here's a video I made for my nephew;

Cheers!

-marc