Family Vacation to Muskegon, MI

• A few photos from our trip.

Biddles 2005 Christmas Card

We've posted our 2005 family Christmas card, complete with some of our favorite photos and stories from the past year.

• Read our 2005 Update

Grace Kathryn Biddle

A quick post to announce the arrival of Grace Kathryn Biddle. She's a cute 7lb 14oz bundle of joy.

Here are a few photos for your viewing pleasure

Portfolio Update

Give the portfolio section a peak, as I just added my last three projects.

Project Zaadz

Usually I'm rather hesitant to accept a new job not knowing what time it will involve or what exactly the client will want. Yet, when Cameron e-mailed me to ask if I was interested in some freelance work, this is one job I'm glad I accepted!

The project was for a company called Zaadz. Their mission is to help small business owners, entrepreneurs, service providers, and non-profits easily establish a web presence and build profitable businesses.

The project seemed pretty simple. Create a one page template that can accommodate one, two, or three columns to allow the Zaadz site builder system to build secondary pages. The template would also need a sample left-bar nav for secondary navigation. Finally, each template was required to have four additional color themes, a title, and a short paragraph describing the inspiration behind the design.

This was exciting in the aspect that we were free to be creative in design (no existing logos, color schemes or info to work around) yet at the same time, it had to be kept generic enough to accommodate a variety of customers.

What I learned...

We were given some short deadlines to work with and this ultimately was good challenge for me. It forced me to finish the task at hand rather than waiting for inspiration to "hit."

I feel like I learned quite a bit on the organizational front as well. From the CSS to the XHTML code everything had to be as tight and concise as possible.

I'm really grateful to Cameron Moll for the opportunity to work with, as Jared Christensen put it, "some pretty cool designers." It was fun to see each one's style, talents and tastes come through in their own designs.

The people at Zaadz were kind enough to let us display our template designs. Take a look and let me know what you think.

• View my templates

Read what the other designers had to say.

• Cameron Moll—Zaadz and the Evanescent Design Crew
• Jason Santa Maria—Flourish for Zaadz
• Jared Christensen—Seeds of Inspiration
• Bryan Bell—Zaadz and the Evanescent Design Crew

People vs. Projects

I don't know about you, but I am often hard pressed to find enough time to do all that I need (or want) in a day. Currently I'm working on three different web projects, a "regular job" and (most importantly) spending quality time with my wife and two boys.

For me I have found that keeping the priorities straight (no matter how obvious they are) is not as easy as it seems. When I go to bed (an early night for me is 11:00 PM) I often reflect on the day...what I did or in most cases didn't do. I recieve the most satisfaction when I give of my time to play with my boys, or really listen to my wife, and actually give quality feedback.

The Test

Last night my wife was out running some errands, and I had the choice—play with the boys, or work on a project. I have to admit, I wanted to get some work done. However, I decided to sit on the couch and read books to Andrew and Stephen. It turned out to be an extremely relaxing time. The highlight of the night was when Stephen had his head on my lap and Andrew was leaning against my side, both excitedly telling me what Pig Will and Pig Won't say.

Web Standards Awards Silver Star

Web Standards Awards presented Lousco Labradors a Silver Star. Despite the listing I'll be the first to admit that I have much to learn and improve on.

You can also find Lousco.com featured in the October 2004 CSS Gallery on CSS Vault as well as this sites submission on CSS Beauty.

Biddlebugs.com Redesigns

Moving away from the one page family newsletter that I updated once a year (usually Christmas time) at my wife's kind bidding. I'm happy to announce that Biddlebugs.com is now a full-fledged web site.

Far from being done, I decided to make the site live and get the ball rolling on the rest of the pages as soon as time allows.

In the near future I would like to implement Movable Type or WordPress (not sure which one yet). Stay tuned...

I must be off.

Family Update 2003

Hi! If only we had a Kinko's near us… if only we hadn’t been sick with the flu… if only we hadn’t been organizing a Christmas program… if only we didn’t have two small children… then perhaps we might have gotten this greeting off before Christmas. However, we did try…

Our news from this year…

Brian is very kind to continually get up each morning and go to work to provide for us. He still takes various web design jobs when they come up. Though when Stephen would rather be played with he’ll push the reset button on the computer to remind him of his priorities.

Tracey still teaches piano and works on various music/church projects when time allows. She is not so good at decorating their new home (pictures are all still in a pile) but is pretty skilled with putting puzzles back together, cutting grapes in half, wiping up milk, quoting “Pat the Bunny” and usually gets the right spoon in the right mouth when feeding 3 people at once.

Andrew loves his daily “routine” of asking for Meena, (banana) toast and orange juice for breakfast, playing with “Steedee” and making “houses” (messes) all over. He loves playing “hide and seek,” getting “ticklies” from Daddy & is often seen in ladybug boots, dark glasses & a ladybug hat stalking the hallways.

Stephen is still known as “Steedee” and walks all over. He’s a very happy boy most of the time, and adds a few more words to his vocabulary each day. He sings “Holy, Holy, Holy” though it sounds more like “Holwah, Holwah…” The boys play really well together and they’re fun to watch. Andrew’s latest trick is to take Stephen’s toy, then give him kisses on his head while saying “It’s all right” then run off with it. Needless to say, they keep us amused.

We haven’t done very well at keeping in touch with our friends. We hope that things are going well with you and we’d love to hear from you! May your holidays be enjoyable, memorable and full of the realization of God’s blessings!