Lego City

Emma created and photographed this lego city. She really enjoyed
creating all the details then playing with "the guys". They lived on our desk for weeks!

Life, Death and Music

This was our last winter with our 16 year old Jack Russell, PeeWee. He was with me from the time Ali was 6 years old until the time Emma was 6 years old. He was with me through my divorce, my single mom days and my remarriage to Emma's dad. And even with that in mind, I think he believed himself to be Emma's dog. We all felt him to be less than bright and basically untrainable, sweet and adorable, but not too sharp. Emma however never saw that and in the relatively short amount of time she had with him, she taught him to sit, stay catch treats she threw and they were experimenting with obstacle courses she created in the yard for him. He followed her everywhere and would valiantly guard the yard in which she played against all intruders.

He died in my arms during our deep freeze of a northern Ohio February. We had his remains cremated. I struggled to explain to Emma what exactly that meant without it seeming too horrifying. Then Emma became entranced by a song that Ali was listening to which had a long instrumental intro. which reminded her of a Tim Burton sound track. As we listened to the lyrics I found the inspiration I needed to explain it..."Water" by Cloud Cult

"...give you back to the water, from where we're all born

when they burn your body, all that's left is sand crystals,

two tiny handfuls, all the rest is water.

all you need to know is you were born of water,

you were made of water... " Thank God for music, dogs and kids.

Emma's Winter View

Emma has been taking a lot of photos lately. Usually they are of the pets, her toys or often unflattering shots of me going about my business...but this one i thought was exceptionally striking. I feel especially moved by the singularity of the icicle because of the way she framed it in the shot.