I really love being a dad. Here's some more pictures of me and the boys. Here are some more pictures from this Fall for friends & family to see... The boys tackle their dad (me). Ryan with the ball.   Ryan makes faces.. Me and Ryan.   And Alex.   The boys at Halloween.

Ah the Fall is here and here is me and my boys for this Winter. My son Alex. Turns 8 this week! Playing foot ball with my sons. Look at that spiral. THAT's MY BOY!   Ryan and his cousin Kellan   Ryan and Alex in front of our house at Halloween.

It appears I've broken my foot. I just got back from the hospital and have it all wrapped up. I have to go later this week to a specialist to determine precisely what they deal is. Right now, it's just so swollen that it's hard to tell exactly what the deal is. So how did I injure it? Football or some other sport? Nope.  Working on the house? Nope.  I broke my foot hitting a balloon. My 4 year old son and I were hitting a little white balloon we had in the house attempting to se...

I'm really frustrated with the 4 year old.  We have two children, a 7 year old and a 4 year old.  They couldn't be more different.  Both have traits that make them very lovable. But the 4 year old has been a real challenge to raise so far. The 7 year old is kind, gentle, and full of empathy.  The 4 year old, to put it mildly, is not.  He's cute and has his moments of sweetness.  But he will also seemingly go out of his way to break things. This morning he cam...

We went to South Padre Island on vacation for a week. It was a great time! Here's the hotel we stayed at. Ryan and I in the pool. Ryan on the beech collecting shells. We caught a lot of sand crabs at night.  We'd just catch them and then let them go once we finished.  We caught 34 in one evening without even trying very hard. The kids loved it. Debbie, Ryan and Alex trying to smile into the sun. The boys sleeping.

Good parenting theory is the first thing that gets thrown out the window when you have kids. When my boys do something wrong, I know I need to discipline them. But how much? How often? In what cases?  It's always very tough. I look at their sweet faces and it's so hard to discipline them when they do something wrong. But I know, deep down, that the most important factor for success in life is having personal discipline.  Talent and intelligence can take you some of the way but withou...

Today is the 10-year anniversary of the day Debbie and I got married. I can't believe it. It's been such a fun and wonderful time for us. Looking back on those 10 years.. Once upon a time… When I met Debbie, it was explosive. Literally. We were in EE 221 lab together at Western Michigan University. We were building a power supply. My power supply would have worked perfectly except for one crucial misstep: my circuit didn’t include a resistor which, coupled with 110 volts created a small fi...

I worry about my kids.  I want to teach the 7 year old how to ride his bike. But he just has no interest. His friends are all riding their bikes and yet my son just seems to have no interest at all. He'd rather draw or play. Or if we let him, watch TV or play video games. I'm not sure how much I should be pushing them. I don't want to be an ogre forcing them to go outside and play all the time but at the same time I don't want them just laying around the house on a beautiful warm da...

It's mother's day and my wife is out getting a dress for dinner tonight. So I'm at home with the boys. The boys are mirror images of one another. The 7 year old is gentle, kind, thoughtful. But also soft, fearful, and uncompetitive.  The 3 year old by contrast is strong, willful, adventurous but also disobedient, slow to learn, stubborn. I've been trying to teach the 7 year old how to ride his bike. It's been difficult because he has no interest in learning whatsoever and is afraid of...

One of the benefits of having been an only child is that there was always room to store all my stuff and I had no siblings to break them. I always told my mom that one day I'd give my children my toys. Well, sure enough I did. Here's Ryan with my matchbox cars all lined up.

So I'm working in my home office and the 3 year old comes up and says "I wove you, daddy." and hugs me. I melt onto the floor.

So the 3 year old is crying. He's been crying for awhile. His big brother is outside playing and he's not. Why? Because he wouldn't eat his dinner. And by eat I mean, he wouldn't even eat a single bite. Salmon. I remember when I was a kid objecting (but still eating) foods like spam. Is spam actually a food or are they using that now for insulation? So it's hard to take the 3 year old's crying very seriously for not taking a single bite of salmon. But he looks at me like I'm tor...

I am a very lucky guy. My wife is truly my partner in life. We share our lives together in ways that I could scarcely have ever hoped. We have very complementary roles in our home. She is the home maker as well as someone who helps with the company as time permits. But she makes home making into a true art. For example, when I come home from work, I never know what wonderful and new thing she'll have made for our family. Tonight was salmon with fresh strawberries (in January!), fresh bea...

When we got married my wife and I had put a great deal of thought into important issues to us long before we had gotten too serious. We didn't enter into marriage lightly. I think it is for that reason we have had such a splendid marriage over the years. We rarely bicker and have few significant arguments. When it comes to raising children, we bring very different life experiences to it. And boy are those life experiences different. Different to the point that it creates real conflict on what...