Cayman's 1st Lottery Ticket

*From the Gift Grab at the Sommers Family's After Christmas, Christmas Party*

*The Winnings: $1*

Rifton Gait Tranier

At her physical therapy sessions, Cayman has been getting familiar with this mobility device called the Rifton Gait Trainer.

While at first it looks a bit monstrous, it's actually quite amazing and I think Cayman looks so cool in it, like a big girl ready to discover her independence. It has been fun watching her experience an upright standing position.

She hasn't gained the understanding yet of how to push with her feet to propel it forward but already in the second week she appeared more calm and comfortable within its embracing harness. Progress is always in steps and already showing ease with such a new apparatus is a great accomplishment for Cayman from her usual reluctant, untrusting ways.

I think Cayman's most favorite part about the Gait Trainer is when she discovered it puts her in a better position and angle for grabbing Miss Jodi's hair. She has a terrible love for touching hair and I do believe I say the word "No" about 5,000 times a day, trying to break her habit of it because rarely is she gentle about it.

I have no idea why the sound is completely messed up but here is a little cell phone video snippet of Cayman taking the gait trainer for a spin.

IPod Pop Art

Cayman's silhouette is so cute, she could do ads for the Apple's Ipod.

Broken Tambourine

Somebody (I'm not going to name names), broke their tambourine that Grandma and Grandpa got her for Christmas, when she beat it hard with a stick.

I guess we should have gotten her a drum.

Dreaming of Cayman Islands

I pulled up pictures of Cayman Islands on my computer last week and showed them to my little darling Cayman.

I told her all about what a beach is like. The sound of the waves crashing on the shore. The warm air that gently blows over your skin cooling it off under the blazing sun. The feel of the gritty sand between your toes. The most amazing blue sky and water your eyes have ever seen. Children running and laughing as the high tides chase them back to the beach's edge.

Then I told her about how Mommy and Daddy have dreampt of taking her to Cayman Islands for a long time!

Several years ago, as Mike and I carried on through many longing months of waiting and hoping to have a baby, we did the typical name picking task. All around the house we wrote down names in various places...the grocery list, the mail pile, a notepad, magazine...whatever was close by when a name came to mind that sparked our liking.

Then when we were finally expecting, we took our gathered list of names and narrowed it down. We had one name picked out for a boy and one chosen if it was a girl.

At the 20 week ultrasound we learned, it's a girl!!

Cayman, that would be her name, just as we had planned!

When we chose that name, we had thought it would be a dreamy and fun excuse to vacation at Cayman Islands someday. We'd take our daughter to that beautiful, tropic place and let her go crazy picking out souvenirs with her unique name on it.

Then we learned that our baby girl might not live. Those were some sad days full of lots of different conversations as we processed and tried to prepare ourselves for the unknown. One of our discussions was pondering our chosen name for our little girl. We discussed picking a different name in hopes to still preserve our dream vacation idea with our next daughter that we might have.

That conversation between Mike and I did not take off too far before it sounded completely ridiculous. Our baby was already Cayman to us. No other daughter of ours could ever be called that. So when she was born, upon signing her birth certificate, it became official:

Cayman Cindy Stamm

How beautiful life has been to us thanks to God's amazing miracles! Imagine my excitement as I told Cayman all about the planning and work Mommy and Daddy are doing to make this dream vacation come true for us since God allowed us to keep her on this side of Heaven.

We feel giddy with delight picturing Cayman experiencing a beautiful sandy beach, palm trees, the ocean. All those gorgeous things on the very island that bears her beautiful name.

If she thinks I take a lot of pictures of her now, wait until we get there!

**The Goal: Dream to come true hopefully next Winter.

Such cute little hands...

that love to play Peek-a-Boo all the time.

Happy Birthday today, to my little sister, Madison!

Madison's Birthday

Madison turned
5

well technically tomorrow she will,
but it worked out best for the party to take place over the weekend.

As you can tell by the blue theme in the pictures below, that is Madison's favorite color.

There's that special bear adorning the birthday girl's place setting.
The juice was even blue, how cool is that?

Madison was in charge of the party's menu. She wanted Spaghetti with meatballs.

Madison is a full-blown girly girl. She's all about princesses, crowns, and glitter. That is why it was quite entertaining when she opened this present revealing a Tonka toy and ecstatically proclaimed, "I've been wanting this!"

A Victoria's Secret box was reused to wrap one of Madison's gifts. I'm not sure if she really knew what that was but I'm guessing by all of our silly snickering she had to put on a show like she was less than amused about it.

But once she found a new paint set inside, then she was quite happy!

Grandma Cindy showed Cayman how to dip her hand in a jar of lotion and then smear it between her hands. Cayman was willing to give it a try which completely touched me since for so long she's been tactile defensive.

Cayman signing "eat".

I love this adorable look on Cayman's face as she eagerly watches Grandma opened a piece of candy for her.

Live to Shoot, Shoot to Live -Is What I Do

It's no secret that I take a lot of pictures and have so much fun doing it!

But what many might not realize about me is that taking pictures is more than just fun; it's way more than just a hobby even. It's been a catharsis for me, an ever present therapist right in the palm of my hand.

Since Cayman has been born I have taken, oh somewhere around a zillion pictures of her! I want to never forget the miracle of each milestone. The beauty of each smile. And especially the kicks of her spunky personality. The pictures I take and the stories I write along with them, have the power to sharpen my memory greater than any other tool.

The photos Mike took of Cayman just minutes after she was born and all the photos during her 3 week stay in the NICU have been groundbreaking for me. You see, my heart aches that I missed Cayman's birth. We did not get to experience her first cries or watch her move and wiggle when they pulled her out into this world. I didn't get to see the look on Mike's face when he saw his first born child, for the first time.

My entrance into motherhood was far from what I dreampt it would be. The hour I finally met my daughter face to face, I was just coming off of General Anaesthesia and pumped full of morphine. The drugs had me feeling loopy and I can not recall much from those first precious hours of Cayman's life. But the pictures that Mike took of our brand new baby Cayman, they have given me the chance to feel like I was there, apart of her arrival. I have looked at them about a thousand times. I have watched the videos over and over again of us holding her and sitting next to her side while she rested in the NICU.

All of those saved files are so precious to me. Without those images all I would have is an unclear memory fogged up from so many unprocessed emotions at the time. Those pictures have brought comfort and healing to my heart. They have pulled those precious memories out from the dim corners of my mind so I can hold them even closer to my heart. They allow me to have another chance to take it all in again but this time with a clearer mind.

I wish I could do the same for the months I was pregnant with Cayman. I find myself searching for those captured memories. Pictures or videos that would help bring my fuzzy memories to the surface. But at last, my heart sinks as I realize, I let that valued span of time in my life go by without capturing much of it. I had no idea how greatly that would hurt me today.

I have sat and tried to make sense of why I let that happen. I guess it was a time when I was not working on remembering life but just getting through each day. But I have gone through enough events of grief in my life to know that the reminding memories that make the pain feel worse at the present time are sometimes the very ones we end up holding the dearest to our hearts later on. That is why I am so surprised that I let those precious months slip by uncaptured. Even in my grief, I should have known better. Those pictures would have always been precious to me.

I find myself ohhing and ahhing over the images of an expecting daddy kissing and loving on his wife's preggo belly. My eyes sparkle at the captured moment of them embracing each other.

You know, there is not a single picture I have of Mike and I together when I was pregnant with Cayman. That stings my heart terribly. Especially since I will never have that opportunity again. It makes me want to run out, start my own photography studio and take pictures for every pregnant mama out there so she can forever have a sharp memory of that precious time in her life.

My mistake was not experienced in vain though. It has taught me to soak in the mundane, capture the day-to-day stuff, record the thoughts and emotions along with it because you never know when even the most ordinary pictures you take might someday be groundbreaking to you.


Many, many months ago, I shared this video of Cayman's first minutes of life. I hope you don't mind that it's a repeat. But then again, some things are worth repeating especially when they're this beautiful. :)

Christmas Wreaths

Looking back through my pictures I realized I forgot to share the final arrangement of my Christmas wreaths I made.



The wreaths added just a touch of something pretty to the terribly rugged, stark appearance of our 'Home Sweet Home'.

Speaking of its worn appearance, see our one little dead bush? Poor little guy didn't make it. I do not have a green thumb but this is one plant that is not on my record. It was dead before we even bought the house.

And here's a little story that I get a chuckle out of:

I suggested to Mike this past summer, we tear out that dead bush. To which he replied, "That would look terrible because then there would be a gap."

Haha.

So the dead bush remains. But hey, our landscaping is even.

:)

Trouble with Socks

Have you noticed, lately in many of the pictures, Cayman is always wearing footie jammies?

There's a reason for that.

One, it could be because I take a lot of pictures in the early morning. That's when the best sunlight shines through our lovely family room.

Well, that is true, but it's actually not the reason.

It is because I have a little girl that will not leave her socks on.

And oh those little piggys get so cold!! That upsets Grandpa Mark terribly. So Cayman has been wearing a lot of footie jammies lately.

And tights.

She can't get those off yet.

I do believe Cayman has something against socks.

I have found socks stuffed inside of her Gum Ball toy...

Or when Cayman wakes up from her nap and I peak in to find the bare footed little darling but no socks to be seen, I can usually find them so brutally tossed behind her crib, lying on the floor.

That little mind just astounds me!

Mimicking

Washing the window.

Cayman seems to have made another leap in development lately. Cognitively she is taking in things with a greater understanding.

Even though she doesn't toddle, she really does seem like a toddler to me and I catch myself when I call her a baby still. I know she'll always be my baby but in true light, she really is no longer a baby. She is my little toddler and I have to say I am enjoying this stage a lot.

Cayman is in a mimicking phase right now. It is hilarious watching her repeat actions that we did not even realize she was observing. For example, when I'm on the floor folding a pile of laundry, she'll make her way over, pick up a towel, shirt, or whatever was in that load, shake it out and then crumple it up, trying to mimic the folding action. So cute! And so smart!

She also wipes the tray on her high chair clean with sweeping movements of the washcloth back and forth.

She even scooted her way over to the patio doors one day where I was busy cleaning the windows. Cayman picked up a paper towel and started to wipe it across the window just as she saw me doing.

But I think my absolute favorite is when she picks up my chapstick, with the cap still intact, she touches it to her mouth, and then blots her lips together.

So cute. So smart.

My little toddler.

From Tummy to Sitting Position

She can do it!

Completely by herself!


Watch Cayman use her new moves...

Silly Faces, Part 5

Silly Faces, Part 4

Silly Faces, Part 3

Silly Faces, Part 2

Silly Faces, Part 1

A week's worth of silly faces.

Here's One...

Snow Baby

We got dumped with several inches of snow this past week. I have been waiting and watching for it, so I was happy when all that snow finally came! I had been longing to get outside to introduce Cayman to this winter experience.

Plus, I have spent many hours studying and learning my camera settings so I could get the exposure correct for winter shots so the snow's appearance comes out white and not gray in the photos. I was dieing to put all my head knowledge into practice and see if I could out smart my camera's metering system and accomplish this tricky challenge.

It thrilled me all the way to my fingertips when I got back inside of the house and put my pictures on the computer and I saw that I had captured white snow!

But what I am most proud of is how well these pictures tell the story of a Daddy and his little girl, and their beautiful world together!

Cayman's first snow angel.

Cayman did not like being sat down in the snow...unless...

she was buried in it.
For some reason, that was pretty fun to her.

Cayman found the snow to be quite delectable.
That's her Daddy's DNA coming out in her. Mike loves himself a good slushie!

Teaching Cayman how to make snowballs.