Part of being a stay at home dad come with a lot of negative opinions from society.  There are a lot of things not to say to a stay at home dad.  Fathers can raise children just as well as mothers.  Children can be raised with manners, raised with love, and raised to be proper adults in society.

While out with my daughter I’ve heard many things that makes me cringe.  Most I believe are not ill intended, but I believe these comments are based on misconceptions of how things are suppose to be.  I’m not one to claim the victim card.  However, I know it is important to think about what we say.  These are my favorite 5.

Before Johanna was born we created her nursery room with a Alice in Wonderland inspired theme.  Our baby boy is expecting his arrival in the end of September.  As a boy I loved Star Wars.  The series were my favorite movies of all time.  So having a boy we were looking for newborn baby room decorating ideas.  I instantly thought of using a Star Wars theme.

Star Wars Nursery Theme

There are a lot of ideas out there for a Star Wars nursery theme.  However, not many of them were the way we liked.  So we’ve placed together a hodgepodge of elements.  Most of our elements were made from scratch.  We put our craft hats on and had fun.

First we began with painting the room in a neutral grey.  Near the ceiling we painted the room with a strip of navy blue.  We added a bunch of star decals as well as blackout star curtains.  We did place some other star wars decals that I hand made using a Silhouette Cameo.

Occasionally on this blog I’ll be posting about events that we go to.  We have lots of family that lives away from us and doesn’t get to see Johanna grow other than on Facebook.  So this blog will be another avenue for our family to see photos and videos.

A few years back I decided to do a photo project with my daughter.  I entitled it, “Stay at Home Dad.”  My passion for photography and my life of as a dad was blended together in one art form.

I created the project as a self portrait.  A self portrait in what it’s like to be a father and more specifically a portrait of one who is actively involved in raising my child.  At the time I thought I was complete with the photo series.  I documented the photos in my Wedding by Photo website.  A few years late I had wished I had continued with the series.  With another child on the way I decided I want to continue the series.  So as the time progresses I will add more photos to this website.

The original photos that I post below began with a photo I took with Jolene taking away my xbox.  That was the only staged photo in the series.  That photo sparked my idea for the series.  Each photo can be difficult to take, since my hands are in all the photos.  So it’s not very easy to get many photos, and often the photos I do attempt to get I never really get.  Although, hopefully soon I will have more.

In 2002 if you would have told me that I would be a stay at home dad, I would have thought you were joking. That year I was voted most likely to succeed in my highschool class. I excelled scholastically, I excelled at sports, I was thoroughly involved in school being class vice-president, president of national honor society, received the schools highest Presedent’s Award, and I was thoroughly involved in extra curricular activities. Looking to the future I thought I would become something far different than what I do now.

The problem with being good at everything, is that I’m not necessarily great at one thing. I’m a decent artist, a decent photographer, decent at multitasking, however I have a hard time narrowing down my concentration to one activity. Around 2007 I attended medical school. The problem with medical school is that you have to devote all your time to one thing. My mind does not work that way. I have to expand my knowledge to a broad variety of things and not just one. So I left school to find myself.