My younger brother Mark tells me I have no business being behind a camera because I take too many pictures.  In his opinion, too many unnecessary photos.  Perhaps he's partially right.  Not every picture I take is a gem. 

Sunday afternoon we helped my nephew Josh finish his homework -- a project that consisted of making a replica of the "Little House in the Big Woods" from the Laura Ingalls Wilder classic book.  Since we had very little time to do a great job, Mark and I ended up gathering up bits of cardboard for Josh.  Josh was totally not into the project, so, naturally, his father and aunt (Mark and I) get into it.  I try to make the house more elaborate, suggesting Josh color the house with crayons or paint, but Mark bellows, "that would be TOO MESSY."  So the little cardboard house is half crayoned by Josh and he only cuts out one little shrubbery for the front lawn.  Then he gets discouraged by everything, complaining that all the other kids will have much better houses to show and tell when he goes back to school on Monday.  Again, it was done last minute with little materials to work with, so Mark tries to make the house as close to the drawing in the book as much as possible.  The illustration clearly shows a bear skin hung on a little shanty on the outside of the little house.  Mark makes the shanty too small, but again, we are pressed for time because the kids gotta get back home within hours of us finishing this thing, it's all we can do.  But it's not finished until Mark draws a replica of the bear skin, except he makes it much, much too small.  His drawing resembles a splattered carcass of a hamster.  For some reason this has the whole family giggling hysterically.

This is a close up of the "hamster shanty" -- for some reason it gives me a smile I can't get rid of and then, as I look at it close up, I giggle so hard I'm almost breathless!

If you examine the photos above, you'll notice that it seems like my brother gets "red eye" everytime I take a picture of him. We figured out that it's because his eyes are too blue and don't absorb enough light quick enough.  I'm not sure.  I just think that my brother is EVIL -- bwahahahahhhhaa!

Can you tell we're related?  One of the things we as brother and sister do is try to take the ugliest, silliest photos of each other when the other is not aware that a photo is about to be taken.  Notice the horror and crazy grimace of my brother when I caught him trying to take a nap... and then he catches me chilling out on the leather chair.  I'm without make-up and my hair is a ratty mess.  Thanks, Mark.

My nephews LOVE to be the center of attention, so of course they play up to their Auntie Val's camera as much as they can.  We eat supper at Taco Bell and Josh doesn't look very enthused about his meal, whereas Nick can't help but pull a weird grin.

At the end of the weekend, I'm exhausted.  My brother makes me wait for four hours while he sets up his new big screen television.  At least he bought me a pizza later.