We love you Dad.

Here comes Santa Claus

Today when I went to drop a few things off at Kenzie's school the told me to hang around for a little bit because Santa was coming.  So Cam and I waited in Kenzie's classroom until they told us to go outside.  Shortly after we got outside we could hear the rumble of 8 tiny reindeer, well maybe not.  What we heard in the distance was  more like 18 big police motorcycles.  Down the road they roared being lead by no other than Santa.  As the kids stood and waved Santa and his entourage rode around the circle in front of the school a few times before stopping and getting off.  The cops were great they talked to all of the kids and answered any questions they had.  After the little kids headed back in doors Santa followed and the big kids went to their classrooms to wait for the concert to start.  One of the local middle schools had come with their choir, band, and orchestra.  The 4th and 5th graders were treated to a holiday concert featuring each one of the groups.











Sorry if the pictures are a little bit off.  The battery for the camera I keep in my purse was dead and I didn't know that I would need it so these pictures were taken from my Blackberry.

Safely Home

Yesterday was Christmas early for the Swanson house.  Last night about 6:10pm the door bell rang.  I was downstairs with Cameron cleaning the playroom so Kenzie ran to see who it was.  Much to her surprise standing on our doorstep was Rob.  I knew he was on his way home.  I thought it was better for the kids to be surprised then dissapointed so I told them that Rob wouldn't be home till next week.  It was a good thing since his original flight was pushed back 24 hours.  So now we are happily settling back in to the routine of a family of four. 

Fun with wildlife

The other day we saw a little squirrel out on our doormat on our deck.  I decided to put a little bit of the critter crunch squirrel food I had bought there to see if he would come back. All day he kept coming over and eating.  Cameron and Hefe found it very fascinating.  Hefe the genius that he is tried to attack the little squirrel three or four times.  Never once did he remember there was a glass door there and I would hear this loud bang as his head slammed into the door.  What an idiot. 

No Peace

Even the animals give me lip.  Hefe was sitting on my bed yelling at me for what ever reason.  I just thought that this picture was funny.

Santa Train

Today we surprised the kids with a trip on the Santa Train.  The Virgina VRE does a Santa train every year.  Last year we missed the tickets so I was watching out for them this year.  The kids had fun.  It is a hour long train ride (30 minutes there and 30 minutes back).  Santa comes through and sees all the kids and takes pictures and then the pass out coloring books and candy canes.  Nothing too spectacular but it was a fun little trip. 

One more

dec 021
Originally uploaded by jewele76

Another from Kenzie's concert.

Kenzie Violin

Kenzie Violin
Originally uploaded by jewele76

Yesterday MacKenzie had her first violin concert. She takes her lessons during school for free! The only thing we had to provide is the violin and accessories. Can't beat that. So here is a my favorite video of the evening. My big camcorder's battery died so I had to use my digital camera. I was really impressed with her. She was extremely focused and serious. And if you know MacKenzie focus is a huge problem with her right now. Enjoy.

New Cakes

I know that i am way behind on posting here. But with Rob gone the computer is the last thing I have time for.  I am lucky enough to be able to check my email and facebook from my Blackberry.  But for now check out my cake blog www.sweetestthingsbyjulie.blogspot.com I just added my latest three cakes.  And for happier news less than 2 weeks till Rob finally comes home.  It has been a long trip and we are very anxiously waiting for him to come back.  I am sure that when he does there will be a flood of posts since I won't have to worry what Cameron is up to.

5th Grader!

Sorry for taking so long to post a picture of MacKenzie's first day of 5th grade (mom!).  With Rob being away and missing out on things I wanted him to see the pictures first before I shared her day with anyone else. 





This year is going to new and exciting because they are changing classes.  They only have two teachers but it is still something new.  MacKenzie starts out in the morning with Ms. Stugill homeroom, Math and Science.  And then before lunch the switch to  Mrs. Prondzikski in the afternoon for Language Arts, Geography, and Specials.  MacKenzie will also still be attending the Gifted school once a week.  We are not sure what day that will be but the bus will pick her up at her home school and take her to SIGNET and return her to home school before the end of the day.  We will know more about the schedule for SIGNET later in the month since they don't start there until two weeks after regular school starts. 

 

Teaser

Here are a couple of pictures from our day down the shore in Jersey.  I will hopefully load more very soon.

Very cool discovery

Where do I start I am so behind it isn't funny. I guess the best thing is to start backward and keep going till I catch up. So here we go......

This last week I made a very cool discovery. Don't ask me why it took me so long to figure this out but it did. Since January MacKenzie has been taking ice skating lessons. She has taken four sessions the last that just ended this week. I was looking at the schedule to see when it would start up again and what time the classes would be. While on the website I went over to the coaches page to see what it said about the three coaches that MacKenzie had, when I got a very plesant suprise. Below is the blurb from the rinks site:

Tatyana Malinina U.S. Junior National Coach, 25 years skating experience, 2 time Olympic and 10 time world competitor. 3rd place in World Championship free skating.

Then I did a little more searching and found out even more on her. Tatyana is a very serious coach. Not mean but you can see that she is out there to teach the kids and wants to see them succeed. This makes so much more sense now. She is a really good coach and we liked her alot. After googleing her name I found some stuff on Youtube of her. It isn't the best quiality but it is from 1999. You can also see more about here and here.

tatiana malinina montage

And the coach that MacKenzie had the session before was her husband Roman Skorniakov. We really liked him too. Below is video of him at the 2002 Winter Olympics in Salt Lake. He also skated in the 1998 Olympics in Nagano. You can read more about him here and here. Here is the description the rinks site of Roman:Roman Skornyakov Figure Skating and Hockey Skating Coach. U.S. Junior National Coach, 2 time Olympic and 7 time World Competitor, numerous International competitions, Coaching degree in Physical Education in Figure Skating.

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Roman Skorniakov 02 Olympics LP UZB

We have been very very happy with all of the coaches that MacKenzie has had at the rink and plan to keep her going there for as long as she is interested. This just makes us realized that we are definitely getting the best training around.

Jersey

Hello from New Jersey. I know that I haven't posted in a while but with everything happening in our house the blog got a little neglected. So I thought I would do a little bit while I was here in New Jersey. Last Saturday that kids and I hit the road for the drive to Jersey. I figured they could use a little time away from home and that they would enjoy a few fun adventures. So after a little bit of a late start and four hours we arrived in New Egypt. It really isn't that bad of a drive only about 4 hours. Kenzie usually reads or messes with her Ipod and Cameron will usually sleep for a couple of hours and then watches a movie on the portable DVD player. Once we got up here the only thing we had to do was run to PetsMart to get crickets for Fred. Yes I brought the frog with me. I figured that my neighbor already had her hands full with two cats and the fish so bringing Fred was the best choice. Things here have been good. We have been trying to fit in as much fun as we can. Each kid got to have their own day with something special for them. Kenzie even got two days because Poppie made arrangements for a very fun surprise just for her. I took Kenzie to Six Flags and Cameron to Elmo's House (aka Sesame Place). We got to go swimming in two big pools first with my sister Meg's best friend Kelly and then with my Aunt Kate. We were lucky because we also got to see Aunt Mary and Maryanne while at Aunt Kate's. Maryanne and I had our first "Great Cousin Cake Swap" and the kids swam thier little hearts out. There was also a trip to Columbus Farmers Market where we got some great candles (thanks for the tip Kelly) and had Pete's Pizza (the best Siciallian pizza you will ever have) And right before we went home I took the kids to one of my all time favorite places in New Jersey, the Jersey Shore. I have so many great memories there that it is great to be able to share them with the kids. To my suprise neither of the kids were afaraid of the the ocean and waves. I really should have taken another adult with me because both kids contiunally ran into the ocean in different directions. I finally had to just hold Cam so I could keep an eye on MacKenzie. I am glad that they enjoyed it as much as I do. I promise to post pictures later.

(I am home now and just forgot to add this post. I am trying to get stuff up here. Things are hectic and we are trying to find out grove minus one very important person. I promise to start getting things up here very soon. It is just that right now the computer is not where I am spending my time. I am trying to figure out how to post from my Blackberry since that is the main way I see the Internet these days. Hang in there and I will soon catch up. *~*~Julie*~*~)

Double Digits!!!

Today my first born baby girl turned 10!!!
Happy Birthday MacKenzie Dianne.  We all love you!

Sisters

Mini Vacation

We are currently on vacation in New Jersey for my mom's 60th birthday. We have been having tons of fun. Especially because my sister and niece flew in from Wyoming just for the party. It has been fun being Aunt JuJu for the first time. I have a million pictures to post and will do that after we head back to VA. Tonight it is packing and getting ready for the drive home tomorrow. I am posting one picture of me and my sisters. I love them and love the picture. More soon.

Cheap Date

Today I am flying solo with the kids like we usually do every once in a while. So after skating lessons this morning we headed home for a little lunch when I remembered that today there is a Kidgits activity at the mall. For those of you that don't know Kidgits is a kids club through our local mall. Actually they have it a bunch of malls own by the same group that owns our mall. I signed both kids up though MacKenzie rarely gets to reap the benefits. What I like about it is that the membership fee is $5 for a full year. When you sign up they give you a t-shirt and at every event there are premiums for members. Then once a month on the third Thursday at 10am they have some kind of activity. Usually it is a story time, but every once in a while it is something really fun like Gymboree. And then there are special activities like today that happen on the weekend. So I packed the kids up and headed to the mall. Once there we hit the sign in desk to collect our goodies. Today the premium was a canvas apron, lollipop, cellophane cone, and a cool little baking set. the first station that we hit was the lollipop bouquet table. This table had flowers that you could color then you poked your lollipop in the middle to make it a flower. Next we made candy bracelets out of shoestring licorice and fruit loops and then "trail mix" out of raisins, fruit loops, and Cheerios to put in our cellophane cone. Final stop on our activity list was the painting station. I was smart to keep that last because I didn't bring the stroller and I knew I would have to carry two aprons withe wet fabric paint so keeping that last was good. After we painted our aprons (I help Cam if you couldn't tell) we got our treat which was a sample of Rita's Italian water ice. Best part of that was they were giving out a coupon for buy one get one free, which we very quickly took advantage of. So all told we have a very nice outing that the kids enjoyed and in the end it only cost me a total of $2.64 (the price of the Rita's I had to buy to get one free). I get so jazzed when we can come up with something cheap and easy (no clean up on my part) for the kids to do. To add to our cheap date we will be heading off to one of Kenzie's friends softball game (also free).

Splish Splash

We don't have a flat back yard or much grass so last year I bought a small round hard plastic pool to put on the deck for Cameron to play in.  We do take the kids in the front every once in a while to play in the sprinkler but I wanted something he could play in while I was cooking dinner or sitting on the deck.  Well this year we upgraded to a bigger pool.  The little one was just fine for Cam but Kenzie expressed interest in playing in the pool and the little one just didn't fit both kids.  So Kenzie and I headed off to Kmart a few weeks ago and picked up a bigger pool.  That was fun fitting it in my car.  It barely made it.  Matter of fact Kenzie rode home with the pool over top her head.  Lucky for us Kmart is only a 10 minute trip from our house.  The kids love the pool.  Kenzie likes when Cameron takes his naps and she can take all the toys out and just float on the ring.  The love it.  I hate that it take up so much room on the deck but if it makes the kids happy and cool in the summer than I will deal with it.

This is my favorite picture so far. He had a blast torturing her.

Happy 3rd Birthday Cameron Douglas

Our baby isn't a baby anymore.  It is hard to believe that 3 years ago we were just saying welcome to the world to this tiny (well sorta) baby boy and now he is anonstop, on the go, curious, fearless, funny, loving little boy.  

Little People

I love little people speak. We just got done dropping Kenzie off at school and when we got home and I was getting Cam out of his car seat I asked him why he took his shoes off. He didn't answer but I told him that he was just going to have to carry them into the house. I got him out of the car and handed him his shoes. He turned to me and said "I love my toes outside". Translation I love being barefoot. He is my kid.

At the circus

The family and I are at the circus and I wanted to see if I could post from Robs phone tons of pictures to come!!!

The many faces of Cameron Douglas

Last week it was in the 90's so I took Cameron out to play in the sprinkler. While he was running I was playing with the settings on my camera. After he was done we were sitting on the front porch and I started shooting close ups of Cam. While I was doing it he decided to make a ton of funny faces. I thought they would make a great slide show. So here they are, the million faces of Cameron Douglas you never know which one of his personalities will show up.

RING RING Here comes the firetruck

Here are a few pictures from our regular trip to the fire house.  Whenever we go to New Egypt we usually take a quick walk down the street to the firehouse so that the kids can see the firetrucks.  What better time for a little boy (or his mom) then to get the chance to climb on some super cool giant fire trucks. 

Poppie what does this do??



The kids on the front of one of the firetrucks



This is what you get when you ask Cam to make a nice face

Next few steps...

So I have a big cake for one of Cam's friends due on Thursday morning.  I have been doing all of the prep work trying to make it as easy as possible for myself.  The cake is going to have a fondant bow on the top so the bow loops need to be made ahead of time so that they will try before it is time to assemble.  I figured that while I had all the fondant rolled out that I might as well cut out most of the flowers that will adore tiers one and three.  Tier two will be covered with stripes so they can't be done until I am ready to put them on the cake since they need to conform to the shape of the cake.  I also completed the large number three that will stick out of the top of the bow on the top a few days ago.  Tomorrow evening will be cake baking and maybe the butter cream making.  Tuesday I will make the chocolate ganache and fill and crumb coat the layers.  Wednesday I will fondant them and put most of the decorations on.  That will leave final assembly and finishing touches for Thursday morning when I arrive at thier home with the cake.  Wish me luck this is the biggest most involved cake yet to date.

Start with this

 

End with this



Some of the millions (ok not really millions) of flowers I made