Better Late Then Never… Cape Cod 2011

As I’ve been reminded by more then a few of my family members, I usually get my Cape Cod  photos up right before Thanksgiving.  But as I was working on getting the images processed and uploaded I had a catastrophic hard drive failure.  Not only did I lose all of the work I had completed, but I thought I had lost over 3 years of files from my computer… including the photos of Camryn’s first 3 months.  I was devestated.

Luckily, after some forensic magic that would make the folks over at CSI a little jealous, we were able to restore many of my files.  The only problem is the data and details from the images were lost.  So I have tens of thousands of files I need to sort through, but at least I was able to get back these memories.

It’s going to take me a while to get the entire trip uploaded and sorted, but I was able to cherry pick some of the best pics of the bunch to help warm you up this winter.  Enjoy!

The Great Pumpkin Patch Adventure 2011

Last month, Laney and her friend Lia hit the local pumpkin farm to make their all important pumpkin selections for Halloween and take their first pony rides.

Editor’s Note: Sorry I haven’t posted any new photos lately.   Until a couple of days ago, I thought I had lost these and thousands of images forever after I had a catastrophic hard drive crash.  Luckily, thanks to a little bit of human sacrifice and some other things I rather not speak of, we were able to rescue them.  Enjoy!

The Schragers (and Giasis) Take Manhattan

Although we only spent 1 1/2 days in New York City, we packed 2 1/3 days worth of goodness into the trip.  To kick off the festivities, we were greeted at the hotel by our long-lost friends the Giasis who arrived just in time to help us avoid paying a bellman to lug our 3 tons of luggage to the hotel room.

After Lily, Lucy and Bill had a chance to meet Camryn and reacquaint themselves with Laney, we headed off to Central Park for an afternoon of adventure and horse poop. (Seriously.  There were horses everywhere.  You couldn’t throw a pretzel without hitting a horse.  It was like they hadn’t sprayed for horses in years.  You get the picture.)

First stop was the Central Park Zoo where the only thing more plentiful than horse poop was the delightful pleading of “… can we see more animals?” every time we stopped to see a new animal.  We saw everything from the more exotic seals, polar bears, snow leopards and monkeys to the native squirrels, pigeons and sewer rats.

But nothing seemed to excite the kids more than the penguins.  You should have seen Delaney’s joy as she pressed her face against the glass and stole her first look at an animal she had only read about in books.  As a majestic emperor penguin came gliding by gracefully, seemingly turning at just the right time so as to wave to use, Delaney pointed into the tank, looked up at me with her big blue eyes filled with wonderment and exclaimed with pride, “PENGUIN POOP!”

That’s my girl!

After Kristin joined us, we continued to the kid’s zoo where the girls could wreck havoc on smaller, more unprotected animals and climb on more dangerous objects before we all trekked for what seemed like 20 minutes across town to eat at the famous Serendipity.  Unfortunately the wait was over an hour and they didn’t allow strollers, so we had Italian food on the corner.

At the end of the day, we were all exhausted and ready to collapse… right after we went to Crumbs for cupcakes to replenish all of the calories we had walked off that day.

It was a great time for everyone and the perfect introduction to NYC for the girls.  Next stop… Yankee Stadium!

A Bronx Tale

It was an historic day in New York on Monday, Sept. 22, 2011.  Not just because it was the day that Mariano Rivera threw his 602nd save, becoming baseball’s best reliever of all-time, but it was also the day that the Schrager Family visited the new Yankee Stadium for the first time.

It was quite an experience for everyone involved.  From the long trek across Central Park to catch the only subway line running to the stadium that day, to Laney’s first Nathan’s corn dog and Carvel helmet treat,  to realizing we could be witnesses to history as Metallica’s “Enter Sandman” started blaring over the stadium speakers, it wan an exhausting and memorable adventure.

I hope Fenway Park is ready to provide an equally memorable experience when we take the girls there in the future.

 

 

(That’s Mariano Rivera over Laney’s shoulder!)

 

 

Camryn’s Anticlimactic First Bath

We’re still a tad traumatized from Delaney’s first bath 3 years after the fact, but it had to be done. Things had started sticking to Camryn, like papers, socks and lots of Bailey fluff.  According to most parenting books and a few blogs, that was completely unacceptable.  She needed to be bathed.

To our complete and utter amazement Camryn loved it.  She just leaned back and enjoyed the experience. We’re not convinced that she’s not setting us up for something terrible down the road though, so we’re not letting our guard down.

 

For more screaming and crying, be sure to check out this classic video of Delaney’s first bath:

 

Camryn Goes Home

After a couple of days at Presbyterian Hospital under the watchful eye of “The Tiger Nurse” the Schragers were more then ready to head home on Saturday.

Flashback: Delaney Goes Home – Part 1 | Part 2

The Schrager Sisters… Together Again For The First Time

Delaney couldn’t wait to meet Baby Sister.  She’d been practicing with Molly the Dolly for weeks after taking her Big Sister Class.  She showed us how you hold the baby, change the baby, feed the baby and push the baby around in the stroller.  She had her Big Sister shirt and her “magic soap” to make sure the baby didn’t get any germs.  She was ready for everything!

…except the crying.  See, Laney’s dolls don’t cry like real babies.

Nana and Uncle Jason brought Laney to the hospital to meet Camryn for the first time.  She wasn’t expecting to see Mommy in a hospital bed with all of the equipment around, but once she saw Camryn she came running over to say hi.

She sat next to me and couldn’t wait to hold her.  Laney talked to her a bit and rubbed her head asking, “why doesn’t she have girl hair!?”

I placed Camryn in Delaney’s lap as per her instructions.  A few seconds later Delaney heard something she hadn’t heard before, but will be hearing for years to come… her sister cried.  That was enough for her.  “I don’t like it when she cries!”

I held Camryn for Laney the rest of the visit, but it was obvious that she loved having her baby sister here.  She also loved the Disney Princess Scooter Camryn got for her as well.  Bribery will get you everywhere.

Introducing Camryn Josephine Schrager

On June 2, 2011 at 9:04 PM ET Camryn Josephine Schrager was born.  She was 8 lbs. 6 oz. and measured 21 3/4 inches and as you might well expect, she was born with a full head of hair.

Camryn is named after Samantha’s grandfather Charlie and my Aunt Judy and shares a birthday with Cousin Julia!  Our girls love to steal the thunder away from other people’s birthdays.  I’m sorry for that.

Samantha made it look easy.  The only way I ever knew she was having a contraction was to look at the monitor.  At one point, she was smiling for a picture and didn’t tell me she was having a contraction until after I was done!  I’m really going to have to get her trained for mixed martial arts.  We could make a killing in the UFC with her pain tolerance.  Obviously being married to me prepared her for this sort of pain.

Like Delaney, Camryn loves the drama and couldn’t just pop herself out and enjoy the moment.  She had to make it all about her.  It was a tense few minutes when the nurses had to take her away to get her color from blue to pink because the cord was around her neck.  Thankfully, she composed herself quickly and rejoined us for a few hours of intense snugglin’.

Mother’s Day 2011

With only weeks left until Samantha becomes a mommy again, Laney was kind enough to take us out to the Morehead Inn in Charlotte to celebrate Mother’s Day.  She wanted Sam to have a nice brunch so there would be no mistake as to who the older sister was when that new baby showed up.

(She also informed us that she had embarrassing Photoshopped pictures of Sam wearing a Yankees hat which she would hate to post, but that’s between Sam and Laney.)

– Delaney Flashback to Mother’s Day 2010…

– Delaney Flashback to Mother’s Day 2009…

Laney’s First Baseball Game Is A Good Knight

The flowers are blooming, the pollen is floating and the baseball bats are cracking.  It must be Spring!  Time for Laney to experience her first professional baseball game.

Because Laney is the product of a mixed marriage – Yankees and Red Sox fans – baseball season can be tricky.  Luckily Charlotte is home to the Knights, a Triple-A Minor League team that we can all cheer for.  Sure, they’re affiliated with the White Sox, but they’re mostly harmless.

This Sunday, Laney’s friend Ben invited us to join him and his family at one of the Knight’s first games of the year.  It was also Laney’s first real baseball game so we had to make sure she had the full experience.

After hitting the team store to purchase the requisite hats, balls and bats we took in the last few pitches of the first game of a double header before hitting the kid’s park.  That’s where Laney and Ben enjoyed the traditional riding of the merry-go-round.

Then, as the second game started, we all found a nice spot on the hill in right field to eat peanuts, bunny cookies and ice cream from a helmet.  Later, Laney met the Knights’ mascots and got her first autograph from Sweet Caroline the dragon.  It was a very emotional moment for me.

All-in-all, the day was a big success.  Good weather, good friends, good peanuts and the Knights won both games.

Later that night when I asked Laney what her favorite part of the day was, she responded, “I think today my favorite part was sitting next to Ben.”

Thank you and good Knights!