Loving the Presents

Better late than never... I had to post a couple pictures of Emersyn enjoying some of her Christmas presents. Right now, we're still in overload and our whole living room is pretty much trashed with the onslaught of so many new toys having to be explored. Still, when Emersyn's not climbing the table and chairs or eating her crayons - just once and she spit it out on her own, but yeah we're still very much in the mouth discovery phase - she really does love to color/draw. The day after Christmas (26th folks) Emersyn and Daddy spent quite a bit of the day coloring... especially with Maw Maw and Pop's dancing-color-tray-thing from crayola that plays music while you color; the music actually changes speed depending on how fast or slow you color, so needless to say Emersyn adores the thing. Coloring can be really hard work, especially when you're as dancetastic as Bird. A little rest to watch some football was definitely in order. :) http://www.theswaderfarmily.shutterfly.com

Better, but Not Normal

To say that I feel better today would be an understatement... I'm not back to normal by any stretch, but I no longer yearn for the feel of labor pains over the current discomfort, pain, nausea and general sickness that I felt yesterday. As you can see from the videos, I felt wonderful on Christmas Day. I mean, when I say I felt great, I mean that I felt great even compared to how I was feeling before I got pregnant... with Emersyn!! LOL! I really felt great. I chalked up the sicky, nastiness of Christmas Eve to normal pregnancy stuff and just prayed my heart out to feel good for Emersyn on Christmas day. I just wanted to enjoy the day and take in everything of the day with my gorgeous girl... I got my wish. Sunday I was beat, but after the excitment of Christmas that was kind of to be expected. Then Monday morning brought a little rough bit of morning sickness, but I thought I had gotten it under control by the time we got home from Emersyn's doctor appointment... I was horribly mistaken. I'll spare you the gory details, but I'm guessing that I've lost quite a few pounds and as I'm still not really able to eat, I don't see myself gaining them back too quickly. I feel like such a horrible mother - to Emersyn for not being around because I'm so sick and because I scared the crap out of her on a trip to the bathroom, and to Boo for not giving him/her the nurishment the poor baby needs so badly!! Chris assures me that since it was a short bout of illness, the baby is fine but I still feel bad. I never had anything like this with Emersyn so it's new and a little scary... Chris also promises that Emersyn will never know the difference of me being crashed out for a day or two, only having him for everything because she's so little. I'm just hoping he's right. On the plus side, I was able to keep down a few bites of noodles and a granola bar so far today... and I've been to the bathroom a couple times without getting sick... so hopefully I'm on the mend. I've already given up hope of having a single hour of vacation time left as of April, but it's nice to hope... =P

Sick Day with Videos

Well, you're getting the videos a little earlier than planned because I'm sick as anything and home miserable... Emersyn and Chris are here as well - we took her the doctor's this morning because of her cough - but I've been sick all day. It appears that I've managed to catch the cold that Emersyn and Chris both had, but either I got an extra bonus or the cold just really doesn't mix well with morning sickness... either way, I'd rather be in labor. I had the same "feeling" on Christmas Eve which made for a rough day and evening, but today it's much, much, much worse...

Anyways, on to not so icky things - first, Emersyn is basically over the cold but has ear infection number 8 which is causing the runny nose and the cough. Yeah. So we're on Cefdinir again and that won't interfer with her surgery for tubes on the 10th plus we can give her Benedryl to help dry up more of the fluids and help her sleep, as well as giving her Tylenol if she seems to be in pain. Again, all things that won't mess with the surgery. Seriously - 8 ear infections in half as many months. Poor kid.

Now, here's the part I know you've been waiting for - the videos!! The links are all on Shutterfly, so have fun watching them over and over again... all the pictures from Christmas (and before) are there too. Feel free to head over and leave us a little note to say hi (seriously, it's ok) while you watch the videos and check out all the pictures! Happy viewing!! www.theswaderfarmily.shutterfly.com (Don't forget to let me know if you're not "a member"! All my contacts didn't come up so I'm slowly finding out more and more people didn't get added who actually want to be. Just let me know, it only takes a minute.)

Christmas with the Swaders

First off, we really hope everyone had a wonderful Christmas! Once again, we are overwhelmed with the kindness and the generousity from our family... You all outdid yourselves and we're so lucky to have such amazing people who love and care for Emersyn!! We can't thank you enough for the thoughtful gifts!

And now for the part that you're waiting for - the pictures! Of course there's a ton more on Shutterfly (www.theswaderfarmily.shutterfly.com) but here's a "few"... Hey, I just couldn't narrow them down any more than this! There are videos too, but I'm not a superhero and neither is our internet so that's another post...

Christmas Eve ::
Cameron openning his present from Uncle Jeff, Aunt Shannon, Kherington and Kennadi... It took a minute to explain the whole gift card thing, but he was really excited once he realized what it was! (Thank you guys so much for thinking of him!! You have no idea how much that meant... to all of us and to him!) Emersyn got to open a present from Aunt Denise and Uncle John... Her new thing is to make everything into a step or a seat, but once we got her to actually open the present she was about 7 shades of excited. Traditionally, we only open one present on Christmas Eve, but Maw Maw gave in to a little boy's questions and let the kids open their present from Molly. Emersyn opening her Christmas Pajamas
Christmas Day ::
Emersyn was excited for a second at the sight of new toys, but Animal Planet had a Puppy Bowl on so there were a few distractions to watch the puppies on tv... No, I'm not kidding. Emersyn's new table and chairs. There was actually an excited gasp when she saw them and instantly ran over! Then there was the "cleaning trolley"... Emersyn just couldn't get enough of the cleaning tools... No lie, when you go through the album, watch how often you can see a piece of the cleaning stuff in the frame because she was either still holding on to it or had just let go! Opening some of Grammy's presents... Back to the table, but this time we got her to take a present with her... Aunt Michelle, Uncle Ben, Gabrielle and Gianna got her a really awesome book and a gift card! I won't mention how much Emersyn liked the wrapping paper. ;) A "quick" unwrapping of one of the presents from Uncle Jeff, Aunt Shannon, Kherington and Kennadi... Seriously, the pile was huge and way overboard! Not that we don't love it all, but you guys did too much! One of the presents from the Grecos - the Little People Circus which Emersyn was super thrilled about. It was one of the few things that she recognized before it was "open" (because she's gotten so much LP stuff from us and sees it in the stores a lot) so that kind of made it more exciting for her... Mommy and Daddy got Emersyn some Aliens... And some Shake 'N Go cars too... I didn't get a picture of them, but Emersyn got Mommy a pair of diamond stud earrings just like she's always wanted. Emersyn got Daddy the new Scrabble game that he wanted... which was played a lot throughout the day! :) Checking out the stocking... Emersyn was a little confused by it at first, but figured it out pretty quickly. Finally - Emersyn has her own remote to play with! I mean, what more could a girl want - a remote, an iphone and a lizard!! Again, the cleaning stuff was really popular. That's a dustpan on her head if you can't quite tell! :) In the bath before getting dressed and going to Maw Maw and Pop's house... Emersyn got some new bath toys from Mommy and Daddy, so needless to say she was quite excited about them! She got these "tadoodles tub crayons" from crayola and they are seriously the greatest thing ever. Emersyn's always been a water Bird, but she would have happily spent the whole day in the bath with these crayons. This face just screams Christmas... I just need to figure out how to superimpose Emersyn into a more Christmas-esque scene! LOL! The score at Maw Maw and Pop's house...Emersyn got another baby and a little pram for the baby too... Luckily she responded much better to this baby than she normally does! :) Yeah, we were going to wear the fancy little dress, but changed our minds at the last minute. Emersyn's had a little cold that turned ugly with a rough cough early Christmas Eve, so we opted for the layered but still festive look over the dressed up Christmas outfit we originally had... good thing that I have a small problem with shopping so we had the outfit (which also came in handy for that extra set of pictures!)!! Emersyn's also rocking her new Dr. Seuss Chucks too! I chouldn't help it... it's two of my most favoritest things. =P Back to presents... More Little People! Three generations!!!! Our fab family... funny knowing that next year there's going to be an extra person in this picture... Emersyn and her puzzles - she's cheering and clapping for herself because she got a piece in. (We did this every time for every puzzle!) Coloring with Daddy. Finally Cameron got home... He was so sweet and really great about Emersyn "helping" him with his presents. As soon as Cameron started opening his, suddenly Emersyn took an interest in the whole unwrapping thing! Monkey see, monkey do... It's a little blurry, but it's still such a cute picture of the kids!! Like I said, there's a ton more on Shutterfly and I have videos coming too... they'll be on the Shutterfly page as well, but I'll post them as soon as I can get them uploaded as well. Happy viewing!!
www.theswaderfarmily.shutterfly.com

MERRY CHRISTMAS!!!!!

Happy Birthday Angela!!!

(a day early, but now it's not too clumped up with Christmas!)

Happy Birthday Kherington!!!

Present Delivery & Baby Belly

Firstly, as promised since Emersyn went to sleep incredibly well last night, here are some belly pictures... I tried to take a picture of my belly from my perspective where it definitely appears to have "popped", but it really just wasn't working. Chris meanwhile found humor in my reaction that you couldn't even see my little baby bump in the picture, especially since he's been saying that since I announced that I've popped. He's not right - he just sees a different angle where the "popping" isn't as noticible! ;)
Also, Grammy's presents arrived yesterday and Emersyn was super interested. We opened the big box to put all the presents under the tree, but Grammy sent a better present than we could have anticipated... the packing peanuts!! I moved the gate to let Emersyn get close to the tree so that she could put the presents under, but she took the opportunity to fix Mommy's decorations by adding some of her own... No lie, she seriously just took one peanut out, squeezed it to pieces, very gently placed a piece on the tree, grabbed another peanut out of the box and repeated the process for a good 20 minutes. I'm not sure how to even describe how much Emersyn enjoyed this other than to say that she actually had to stop and think about it when we asked if she was ready to eat dinner! I don't think either of us has ever said the word "eat" without getting an instant run to the table from Emersyn, so that's kind of a big deal! (More pictures on http://www.theswaderfarmily.shutterfly.com so check it out!)

12 Weeks!

So our appointment went really great yesterday! We were lucky enough to hear Boo's heartbeat without having to do another internal exam (a small miracle) much to my happiness. Not that I wouldn't have enjoyed "seeing" Boo, but that's not exactly comfortable so I'll take the nice little belly rub to hear the "swoosh, swoosh, swoosh".

I've have somehow managed to only gain 2 lbs since my last appointment! Yeah, if you remember anything about my pregnancy with Emersyn, you know that this is almost as exciting for me as hearing Boo's heartbeat is! At this point with Emerysn, I was already very much looking pregnant, out of my real clothes and damn close to the 'normal weight gain' for an entire pregnancy. So far, I'm still wearing my normal clothes - albeit not my pre-Emersyn normal clothes but I won't complain about the 100+ pound weight loss to get "here". With my work boots on (oh yeah, I'm making a point to add that) I hit 122 lbs... at home it's only about 118-120 depending on what time I weigh myself, but still that's itty bitty compared to what I was with Emersyn at this point... not even counting that I started out about 15-20 lbs heavier this time.

Anyways, I'll have to try and get a belly picture later. Emersyn got to spend time with Maw Maw and Pop while Chris and I went to the doctors', but was apparently too busy with everything to really eat dinner. My mom warned us that she didn't really want anything to do with dinner even though she seemed hungry and it was "that time"... but Emersyn was up until almost 11 last night and, after exhausting all our ideas, made two trips downstairs for a 'snack' before finally going to sleep. We thought it was her ears since that's normally the culprit, but it was just a simple case of being hungry because she was a busybody at dinner with Maw Maw. So that put a little damper on the simple thing of getting a belly picture. (I already feel bad that Boo is neglected, having no belly pictures where Emersyn already had 3 - one when we found out, one at 8 weeks and one at 12 weeks.) Hopefully tonight will go smoother and we can sneak in a quick pick of the belly.

Surgery Date

Well, we finally got a date for Emersyn's surgery to get tubes in her ears... Emersyn will need to have a pre-op exam and hearing test, as well as another one post-op, and we'll get all the specific details for the surgery at the pre-op appointment. January is going to be nothing but doctor's appointments it appears...
4th - Emersyn's Pre-Op Check & Hearing Test
(7th - We'll get the time of the surgery since it's based on age, youngest goes earliest)
10th - Emersyn's Surgery
20th - Boo Baby 16 Week Check Up
31st - Emersyn's Post-Op Check & Hearing Test

And that's if we don't get another ear infection (knock on wood) once this one is done and if we make it all month without getting any colds or Winter bugs. Poor Bird is going to dread the doctor's after this... She even has to get her flu booster on 28 December, so in barely 5 weeks' time she'll have gone to at least 4 appointments. At least the tubes should put a drastic decrease on the ear infection scene. Fingers crossed.

As for Boo - we hit 12 weeks this month (Wednesday) and things have been going great. At about 9 weeks, I got the joy of experiencing morning sickness and all it's misery. I think I've gotten a decent handle on it, but it really wipes me out for the day. If I haven't said it before, I hate ginger ale. It works miracles, but I hate it. I'll more of a Boo update after our appointment and I'll try to to remember a picture of the newly-popped belly. :)

Just Have to Say...

... that I effin love Shutterfly!

So last year I made a calendar on snapfish and really liked it. The whole creating process wasn't the easiest thing since it took a long time and would freeze for a few seconds every time I made any changes, but the end result was awesome. Naturally, we wanted to do it again for 2011 so I tried to start one on snapfish again and just had even more problems with the new site... Although I don't have anywhere close to all our pictures on Shutterfly yet, I figured I'd give it a try there.

OMG - so easy and quick! It was awesome. I mean, it was nice that with snapfish they had these "magic" layouts so you could just put as many pictures as you wanted and they also had some sort of sensor so that the layout went with the background; Shutterfly only has set layouts and a few of the backgrounds that I really liked just didn't work with the layouts I would have liked to use. That was a small sacrifice for the end result though. I was totally amazed how quickly I was able to create it and how easy it was to do everything.

It arrived, and I was again just even happier with the result! It looks incredible, better than I could have hoped for... The pictures are vibrant and the backgrounds are just so happy looking! I cannot wait to hang it up on the 1st so we can totally start enjoying it! Yeah, it's just that awesome.

So, I just had to share. You know I'm like a walking advertisement when I like something!! :) I just wish I could figure out how to post the project to show off... it's an option, but I'm not really techonologically handy so I don't think that's happening.

Tubes

Yup, we'll be scheduling Emersyn's surgery tomorrow for her to get tubes in her ears. The doctor was wonderful - Dr. Pardo at Annapolis Ears, Nose and Throat - and really explained everything to us. He was honest about the possible side effects and what the procedure is, how she'll be after and all that. I personally was impressed with how he handled Emersyn during the whole examination; despite that Chris had to pin her down and the nurse had to hold her head while I tried to say nice things, the doctor just kept saying "good girl" and "you're doing great Emersyn" and things like that. It's a small thing, but that little gesture was just nice being that she really is just a baby. Dr. Pardo bascially just told us that our options were to either have the surgery or to wait it out, which would probably lead to another dozed ear infections before "ear infection season" was over and who knows how many antibiotics and sleepless nights. Our decision was further sealed when Emersyn woke up twice last night just crying. This is after 4 doses of the new anitbiotic Augmintin (sp?) or Clavamox (sp?) which are apparently the same thing and totally interchangable... so if anything, her newest ear infection is bothering her more now than it was before being prescribed the medicine. So now, we just have to figure out when the surgery is and what all to do about getting another new antibiotic for this infection. Emersyn's still pretty happy most of the time, so we're curious to see how over-the-top-happy-girl-ish she'll be when she's not basically in pain 24-7...

On an unrelated note - well, two unrelated notes, actually - we got her daycare pictures today and they turned out surprisingly well. I wouldn't quite call them Ali-esque, but the one is kind of close. LOL! We also (finally) got our Christmas cards in so they'll be in the mail tomorrow morning... hopefully getting to everyone before Christmas, but they won't be too horribly late if not. I know I'm a little bias, but I have to say that this card is by far some of my best work! ;) Anyways, here's the pictures from daycare... these and all the other December pictures and videos are on shutterfly :: www.theswaderfarmily.shutterfly.com so go check them out and leave us nice notes.

Going to a Specialist

So, the good news is that when Emersyn went in for her follow up about the ear infection in her right ear, they found it clear and infection free. The bad news is that they also found an infection in her left ear. Yeah. This makes 7 ear infections in 4 months which means we have to see a specialist to talk about tubes... Luckily we were able to get an appointment with the specialist the peditrician referred us to first thing tomorrow. Our appointment is at 9:00 in Annapolis so we'll know then what our next step is towards tubes. Poor girl just can't catch a break.

On a happier note, here's the Santa picture from the weekend. Emersyn was all over giving Santa high-fives and waving like crazy to him, but wanted nothing to do with sitting with him alone. Maybe next year... :) www.theswaderfarmily.shutterfly.com