Walk for Father's Day

We went on a walk from Hidden Falls to Crosby, then hit Dairy Queen for a cooldown treat!  A very happy Father's Day.

Robert Craig
Sent from my G1 Android phone

Heartbreakingly Proud

I have run behind my daughter, holding her wobbly bike only to have her pull away and ride ahead all by herself!  Such a strange feeling of pride, fear, hope and sadness at seeing my little girl grow up..

Free To Be You And Me

The audio is kinda low, but it's Eli singing a song -- and when I found out what song, I just knew we had to video it for Aunt Lisa. She and I spent some serious time listening to that whole album..

Eli the reader

As kids we read a lot.  No, really, I mean a LOT.  Some of my most vivid early memories are of libraries and reading:

• The Lexington library and how it seemed to have carpet everywhere
• The massive downtown library that smelled.. Historic (in a good way)
• The scary and official process of checking out a book (what was that caThunk or flashing light about anyway?  
• Mrs. Kane, the gradeschool librarian from whom you did NOT want to get the 'late book' chat regardless of her being one of your friend's mom.. 
• Discovering the Tintin series in the children's room downtown
• My sister "winning" a book for having read more than anyone else.  Guinness Book of Records.
• The fact that church and the library had many of the same rules was not lost on me.  Quiet, reverent, beautiful architecture.
• I remember how cool we thought Amy Carter (the president's daughter) was because whenever her parents dragged her along to an official event, she always seemed to be somewhere in the background reading a book.

So it thrills me to see Eli so completely engrossed.  In this picture he's taking those lost few milliseconds in the family morning routine to catch a few pages of his current book.

Robots get all the girls

Lily and Sophie at the Mall of America after Eli's Legoland birthday party.

Lily's super fantastic unicorn puzzle

This was originally cut, then painted white in order for the painting the be painted on it.  But when it was white it was truly the hardest puzzle I've ever had to put together.  Now it's just a fun puzzle.  I painted it, but it was commissioned by Lily.

Lily's Gymnastics

Final class today was something of a class and recital and graduation all rolled up into one!

The Bomb!

The remake of the original jmlb production has finally been released!

Gadget Guy 2: The House of Locks

Teaser for Gadget Guy 2: The House of Locks

Coming Soon - Gadget Guy 2: The House of Locks

Today we filmed the first set of scenes for Gadget Guy 2:  The House of Locks and hopefully we'll finish shooting tonight after dinner.  Then comes the long and laborious (actually fun) process of editing and composing.  I think this one is going to be great though, and the addition of Gadget Guy's sidekick Gadget Girl is sure to add to the story!

Home Fight Club Kit

Our own little fight club at Bear Lake. The kids are working on making soap from a kit.

Eli in his beepin' boat

He's about a year and a half old in this video? If you look carefully you can see I'm pushing him from behind, but it was so funny because he was so little and it looks like he's just a little old man driving his boat around.

This was a favorite video of many of my co-workers at the time, and we would try and get this into any demo we needed video on..

Cross Stitched Yoda!

This is the one.  It's the cross stitch I'm most proud of at the moment, and it's the one I most hope will be seen by someone out in the world.  Eli loves Star Wars (duh, who doesn't?) and as it was difficult finding good "boy" patterns I decided to try making an original.  I used the generator at Dark Lilac (which is sadly not online these days!) and a snippet from the cover of a Star Wars Adventures graphic novel.  It does appear a little "jaggy" but I'm cool with that.  It measures about 15" tall, so it's a substantial wallhanging.   The framers were pretty jazzed about it, as well.

When I went to my LNS for supplies the ladies there were suprised that the list of floss colors was for me, not my wife.  I get that a lot though.

So I still don't know how to take a picture of something that's been framed.  Anybody have any advice for me?

Chess Pillow

I had previously posted about Lily's rose pattern pillow, but this was the true original pillow.  I got the pattern from the book "Mini Cushions In Cross Stitch" and while I had actually finished it some time ago (just after Maker Faire*) I hadn't gotten it sewed and stuffed until just lately.  Again, I love it so much it's hard to part with it, even if it will still be in the house...

(* I was so thrilled at the Maker Faire because I figured if there was one place in the world a guy could cross stitch in public and not warrant a bunch of funny looks, it was at the Maker Faire.  Or maybe the Pith Helmet distracted folks...)

Blueberries for Lil

Picking blueberries in the wilds of northern Minnesota..

Eli is the coolest

I guess you'd have to know him, but this captures so many of the elements that make Eli the wonderful boy he is:

• His devotion to Frank and Big Red. 
• The lightsaber collection. 
• Messy hair. 
• Dinosaur shirt. 

And the fact that he's thrilled to be posing for this picture with all of his favorite things...  He just rules.

Tink

When I saw this kit I knew I had to get it for Lily. It uses a fair bit of the shiny floss, which was not easy to work with at first but turned out really nicely.

A Rose Pillow

This pattern was from a DMC floss and pattern book combo. I had previously stitched up a chess pattern from a book of mini-pillow paterns for Eli (It's actually for one of his "guys" / read: dolls) and I owed Lily one as well. So rather than do the pattern she picked, we decided on this one for the time being. It was a nice, quick, fun little pattern and came out nicely. Although it was hard to pull off the "Cross stitching is the manliest of the needle arts" line when stitching a pink rose...