Cameron's First Lax Game

I have no idea where Thursday and Friday went... honestly... I seriously just sat here for like a solid five minutes trying to remember what we did, and I just draw a blank. I mean, I know that on Thursday Emersyn was at daycare. Friday, we went to Soccer Shots and she was a total star, but after that I have no idea what we did. So, I'll do a little recap of soccer and then just go right to Cameron's first lacrosse came of the season today.

So, soccer... Emersyn is totally awesome! She loves it and is surprisingly good at it, especially for her age. I kid you not, my little tiny two year old is showing up the bigger boys in her "class". It's unreal. Now, I'm not saying she's already capable of giving Beckham a run for his money, but given that she's more than 6 months younger than anyone else, and that she's not only keeping up with them but doing a little better, that's something to brag about. Last night, when I put her to sleep and told her that she had gymnastics in the morning, Emersyn asked if she could have soccer too. She just loves it and seems to get it. So cool!

Emersyn's also a little interested in "cross" after watching Cameron's first lacrosse game today. It was shockingly cold, especially since it was supposed to be mid-60's so she spent the majority of the game in my dad's truck with Maw Maw. Cameron was just incredible though. Emersyn liked cheering for him both in and out of the car, but she had a hard time getting which kid was Cameron. It's not exactly like watching his soccer games where you can actually see his face. But she was proud of her Cameron and so were we. He just did so great. I mean, he didn't back down from the bully on the other team and really took a beating... but it didn't slow him down. He knew when to get into the crowd and fight for the ball, but also knew when to stand back and wait for the ball to come out. He checked the players fearlessly and correctly, he cradled like a pro and was all over the field like a (very controlled) madman! Cameron even scored! Emersyn can't wait to go to his next game, but we'll definitely watch the weather much closer. Oh - and I have a video of Cameron's faceoff that I'll get uploaded soon too. :)I should also mention that there was an eight week old Boxer on the sidelines that Emersyn fell in love with. And it seems Sunny, the little pup, was sold on Emersyn too; she'd follow Emersyn around until a "big girl" picked her up again.After the game, we went over to my parents house for a hot minute. Emersyn was totally amazed with Cameron's new lego spinner thing. I have a little video of that too, but it was too cute watching Cameron explain to Emersyn how to do it... Although, not quite as cute as when Emersyn took Cameron's hand and led him into the house like he was her pride and joy!

New Look, New Craft

I can't even tell you how awesome Emersyn was today. Seriously. I have high expectations normally because I know how good she can be, and Emersyn definitely surpassed that today! It was a really simple morning, but surprisingly really productive.

After a slightly smaller than normal breakfast - only 2 bowls of Apple Dapples compared to the 4 bowls, 1 yogurt and 1 granola bar she had yesterday - Emersyn asked if she could play with her babies. I figured I could get another two videos downloaded, check my email, and then see how things were going from there. Only Emersyn was so content, I even got to do some extras like updating the pictures along the side bar (the little section to the left of the posts here) and picking out a new background... I kept asking if she wanted to do something else, have a snack, whatever, but Emersyn was happy to keep playing. The camera battery was charging, or else you'd have some super cute pictures of that.

After a while, Emersyn started getting a little tired and came to sit on my lap. I let her pick between two backgrounds for the blog and shutterfly, and then she even "helped" me make the banner at the top of the page on the blog. I have no idea why it's all pixel-ated looking since it's fine when I bring it up normally, but it's driving me crazy having it up there. I'll probably mess with it a little bit more, but I'm totally at a loss for that.

Anyway, Emersyn was starting to get a little cuddly, but wasn't interested in taking a nap yet. I offered lunch, early but still something, and she wasn't interested in that either. Chris had just brought up a ton of her clean clothes last night, so I convinced her to go upstairs with me so we could do a little of that. I didn't expect much, but I told her we could take the computer and turn some music on. I even gave her the option of helping, doing a "fashion show" (which is how I've slowly been getting her to try on the clothes from last year to see if and how they fit!), or just relaxing to the music in bed with her babies while I put some stuff away. That seemed to do the trick, so we lugged the laptop, the soft LaLaLoopsy Spot, the original Spot, Scribbles, and the dogs upstairs.

Emersyn had a blast dancing to all the music from pandora. I had a mix going today so it went from Classic Rock to 80's hair bands to Country to Jam Bands to Jazz... and she loved every bit of it. I managed to get everything put away and Emersyn even helped a lot; from putting her underwear or socks in the dresser, to helping Mommy get a stubborn shirt on a hanger, she was actually helping. I wish I had a video running the whole time because it was seriously amusing watching Emerysn go from helping me to playing with her dolls to checking on the dogs to dancing with her doll(s) to helping me to trying on a random item from last year to talking to her doll(s) about how hard it is to put laundry away... so funny!

After all the work, Emersyn was more than ready for a little rest. I offered lunch but she declined, saying "not right now". Without me asking twice, she dressed and climbed right into bed. I took the laptop downstairs and got a new pacifier to replace the one Cuya had eaten (literally) while we were busy with the laundry. Seriously, I hadn't even kissed her before Emersyn was sound asleep!

She woke up super happy after a little more than two hours, and we had a late lunch. I'm pretty sure Emersyn was making up for the lack of appetite before her nap because she ate almost a whole can of Spagetti O's... then a granola bar and a mini chocolate bunny. The list probably would have went on, but she was very excited to do a new aft/craft project. We'd been talking about doing the egg carton caterpillar for a few days, but just haven't had time to do it before today. And, okay, I'll admit I was a little nervous about how it would go with the whole painting thing. I was wrong in my messy expectations... So this is another one of the crafts that I had found at www.sproutonline.com. Luckily, I prepped a bit before hand, so there was no waiting for anything but the paint to dry. It's really simple too. Just cut an egg carton to whatever size you want and decorate. After the paint dries, just put on some googly eyes and use a pipe cleaner to make some antenae. Super simple! I will say that I had to help a little bit, just spreading some of the big globs of paint around a little so Emersyn didn't mix the paint up too much when she changed colors. I also helped a little with the glitter, but since I put some in the cap for Emersyn to pour herself that wasn't much either. Other than that, it was all her! Our timing was great too, because we only had a little time to waste before dinner, which meant there wasn't a lot of waiting around for the paint to dry so we could finish the last two details on the caterpillar - the eyes and antenae. Emersyn's caterpillar turned out fantastic and she couldn't help but proudly show off her work to Chris!

★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ★

★ Happy 7th Birthday Cameron ★

You are such a wonderful boy and we love you so much! You're an amazing big cousin and big brother. We're all just so lucky to have you in our lives. We love you!!

Two for One

Lucky you, this is like two posts in one. Yay...

After gymnastics on Saturday, Emersyn played photographer again. I put those pictures in the Bird's Eye Photography page, under a new album so you can check those out. I was finally able to snatch up the camera when she became distracted with Caliliou, snuggling up to watch with Boo Bear and, her latest obsession, (LaLaLoopsy Littles) Scribbles. My mom found Scribbles one day when she was out, thought it was cute and picked it up for Emersyn. After the movie on Friday, I brought it home and Emersyn has been inseperable ever since... well, until yesterday when we found Scribbles' sister, Spot (the "original" and 12" LaLaLoopsy doll). We all thought she'd like the ragdoll looking baby, but this morning I literally had to pry Scribbles from her fingers... as well as the soft Spot that I got for her to sleep with instead of listening to her try to cuddle up to the dolls, only to hit her head on the not-so-soft dolls and wake up fussing. After getting the vulture claws off those two, I had no choice but to allow Spot to go to daycare.

Anyways, Emersyn was in a great mood on Sunday too. Chris ran over to get a hair cut, so I let Emersyn pick a little craft to do before lunch and nap. Saturday we went to Michael's to get a frame for the little collage of Cameron, and we checked out the paint pens for the little stained glass things. If you remember, we tried one of the little kits before and it was miserable. Emersyn was totally into it, but it was darn near impossible for even me to do. So I promised her we'd try the pens next time we were out. Well, the pens are a huge success! Not only does she like, Emersyn can actually do it by herself with just me supervising. Some of the pens come out really fast (you'll see that in the turtle) so I had to help a little, but it really was very little. Needless to say, we'll be going back to pick up some more of those $0.59 "glass" pieces! After doing our craft, we had a little snack ("I no hungry right now Mama") and took a nap. Emersyn was bright eyed and bushy tailed after a little nap, so we went over to my parents' house where she got to play with Cameron. It wasn't nearly as nice as it had been weather wise, so there wasn't much outside play. Emersyn and Cameron were both a little disappointed about that since it meant no soccer, but they did walk to the "pond" (a super marshy area a street over) for a bit with Chris and my dad, who was draining the water from the pool cover. Emersyn was totally facinated by the water, but also liked walking with Cameron and really liked the Canadian Goose they saw..Now, the "two" part of the post...

Since I had nothing better to do and Emersyn asked really nicely, I stayed around for a little bit at daycare to watch her dance class again. I'm hoping any day now I'll get the start date for the one job that I have an offer for, or that one of the bazillion other people I've talked to will come up with something. But, right now I'm basically just waiting. And I figured I might as well take advantage of the time to watch her since I won't be able to do it much longer... hopefully... So, you get a few pictures of Emersyn's forth dance class. Now, there's one girl who is just horrible. I mean, they're all two so of course you don't expect perfection in the listening department. But still, there's one girl who is just so disruptive we're actually talking about trying to have Emersyn move classes or stop all together until she can be in a class without this girl. Yes, Emersyn does need to learn to listen and pay attention no matter what, but she's still two. She gets distracted at gymnastics and we deal with it. This girl is seriously taking away from the class though. Today, the other girls did almost nothing because the teacher was so busy talking with "K" (we'll call her) and trying to get "K" to participate or just be a good listener. At least from what I've seen, when Ms. Nicole tells a girl that's getting a little too carried away to pay attention, they normally do even if it's only a short while. And Ms. Nicole is incredible at being patient with these girls, allowing them to get a little rowdy and then reigning them back in, praising them when they do good. I couldn't ask for a better teacher at this stage... minus "K" still being in the class. It's really overwhelming the whole group and it's sad for the other girls who do (mostly) pat attention.

Still, Emersyn is doing well. She has her moments, like a two year old, but is getting much better at following her teacher and ignoring "K" for the most part. It's already surprising to me how she's "improved" with the little things. Like, they do this thing where they stand on one foot while tapping the other foot in front of them with a pointed toe; Emersyn tried her best, but just didn't seem to get the pointed toe part and then all of a sudden last week she did it almost every time. It's small, I know, but it still shows she's actually learning. It's also reassuring to see the ginormous smiles on Emersyn's face while she's in class.

I guess as a parent, you always wonder if it's really your young child's interest to do something like this or if you just want him/her to do it. At least I worry about that. We agreed that we would start Emersyn in anything that we could and that she showed an interest in, and that we'd stop if she wanted to. But it's still nice to know that she really does enjoy it, that she does want to be there. Every morning, Emersyn asks what we're going to do and whenever I say "we're going to school" the first response for a few weeks has been "I do dance today" with a big smile!

Although, I'll admit, after Friday Emersyn asks every day when she's going to soccer again. Today I felt so bad because she said "I do dance today and I do soccer too". But, truth be told, that was kind of nice since it shows how into Soccer Shots she is already...

So Long, We'll Miss You

Dear Memories -

We are so very sad to see you go. It really is a tragedy to lose you. We hope you know how deeply treasured you were and, although gone from our lives, that you will continue to be.

You were supposed to be taken care of, we thought you were safe. We thought we had taken the proper precautions to back up all our files, so that we would never lose you. Obviously, we were wrong and the unthinkable happened.

If you were still with us, you'd be happy to know that we found the virus, glitch, issue, problem, whatever that forced us to part with you. Wonderful memories, you were not the only loss we suffered. Although none of the other files were as important as you, where ever you are our music files will all be with you too.

For what it's worth, we have learned a valuable lesson in your causality, sweet memories. Now that we have the computer back up and running, albeit in the most bare and "brand new" form possible, we have made sure you will be in multiple places.

We're still suffering, as the pain of trying to regain pieces of you, dear memories, is overwhelming. Luckily, your pictures are all safe and easily accessable to get again. We owe shutterfly so much for saving that aspect of you. Our friend, youtube, is also helping to put you back together slightly. We know there was upwards of 200 videos that weren't on youtube and are gone forever, making you, lovley memories, never entirely whole again. But, the 102 videos whose files were lost with you but were uploaded to youtube, are slowly downloading back to our files... two per hour...

It's a tragedy, a deeply saddening loss that you are gone. We wish we would have treated you better, backed you up to the desktop upstairs, copied everything onto external harddrives besides the pictures and some videos. We thought we did what we were supposed to do. We trusted our security to keep the bad stuff away from you. We wanted to keep you safe. We were wrong and now pay the price.

Oh, memories how you'll be missed. You're already thought of often, even though it's only been one day since we lost you. Where ever you are, sweet memories, we hope that you're in a better place. From what we understand, that mysterious world of lost files is quite filled, so hopefully you're in good company. If nothing else, our music will keep you surrounded by friends.

We love you memories. We miss you so much!

♥ The Swader Family

Easter & Cameron's Birthday Pictures

A few weeks ago, we made really good use of the $50 coupon things that JCP Portraits had as a promotion from around Christmas. It was perfect timing for those things to be valid since normally we do Cameron's birthday pictures and Easter pictures of him and Emersyn. This year, i was a little worried we wouldn't be able to do it since our income has been cut nearly in half. But luckily, we did have those things...

Anyways, since we had two of the coupons that couldn't be combined, we decided to do two outfits for Cameron in his very own photoshoot. Normally, because of money and when we can actually have him, Cameron's birthday pictures get combined with the Easter pictures. Not this time though!! He did great too, probably the best he's done yet... I will say that he was dissappointed JCP didn't have anything to use for his number. They don't carry numbers past 5 and, despite their website "ideas", didn't even have the letters to spell out "seven" for him. Since he was a little upset about not having anything "7" for his pictures, we decided to do a quick shoot at Sears where we know they always have plenty of each number just for this purpose. Cameron was a lot more relaxed in that session, laughing along with the (new) photographer there and we were really impressed with the ideas they had for the pictures. Normally with Cameron, people will do like 3 poses and be done with him since he's older and does so well. This time, there were plety of different poses even though I told them right up front I was only getting one pose picture, of one pose for each of the two outfits.The Easter pictures of Emersyn and Cameron went surprisingly well too. Despite the fact that we had the 3rd appointment of the day, JCP was already more than an hour behind schedule. Part of that is because we had to wait for over 20 minutes for the very first appointment, but it's also because they try to do pictures every 10 minutes even though that never, ever works out. So, needless to say, Emersyn had been waiting for a while before it was her turn. Cameron was pretty restless, but being older at least he understood. The really nice thing was that Cameron really helped Emersyn. He tried to keep her busy while we waited, helped keep her focused while she was getting her pictures done, and even reminded her about the lollipop they were going to get after the pictures were done. The end result was great!I don't know if we'll be going to back to JCP... The pictures might be good, but we're really not sure they're good enough to brave the drama that comes with doing pictures there. I mean, really, with these kids it's hard not to take a good picture of them. (If I do say so myself!!) But when I have to tell the photographers some ideas, poses, or that yes, I do want pictures of the both kids dressed exactly alike and pictures of either one of the kids by themselves, is it really worth it? I'm not getting paid to tell them how to do their job. If I have to do that, why not just let me actually take the pictures myself? I mean, that's basically what I'm doing almost every time we go to JCP. They'll do one, maybe two poses and then be all like "is there anything else you want" and I have to suggest doing more, or remind them that there's another outfit they still have to shoot. They're never prepared for any session that we've ever done there - and you know that's been a good amount of sessions - so that just adds to how long we have to wait no matter if we're the very first appointment or not. So, yeah, I think was probably our last time there.

★ Little Gymnast ★

I'll be the first to admit, I don't often go to gymnastics with Emersyn. I know it's been almost a year, but it's still hard for me to go just because it reminds of Brinley. After all, Emersyn started while I was pregnant with her little sister and that is the reason that Chris had to do the class with Emersyn instead of me. It's just hard. Today, however, I braved the memories and was able to get some new pictures of our little gymnast!

The whole "class" is set up the same way each week. They start with a warm up, go through three different stations that are kind of obsticle courses and then have a cool down to "the teddy bear song" before getting stamps and a sticker. Forever ago, Chris decided that Emersyn only gets one stamp for each station that she completes, and a sticker for the cool down. There are some days when she doesn't get anything, some where she gets all four stamps and a sticker, and many days where she gets something inbetween. Today, Emersyn did great and has a stamp on each hand and foot, as well as a shiny green sticker to prove it!This was the last station today... All the stations change each week to incorporate different skills that the kids will build on as they grow throughout gymnastics training. The stations will use a lot of the same "tricks" but in a different order or through different equipment.

All of these pictures are under the very large March 2012 album if you want to see more. I will warn you they're not very good though... for some reason the camera was really slow so it missed most of the things I was trying to catch, making the pictures looks somewhat odd. Still you get the idea of Emersyn in action at gymnastics.