As Suzanne has mentioned previously, our neglecting to back up our hard drive has caused a fair amount of stress. Yesterday was day 11 since Gillware received the hard drive and we had received no word on its status. So yesterday, I made one of the most stressful calls in recent memory. The good news is that there is no news yet, and that the customer service rep thinks we will have a file list of what can be recovered in the next couple of days. So the hand wringing continues...

If you have an interest in backing up *your* data, and have bouts of laziness that keep you from driving to the store to pick up a ton of DVDs so you can get over 200GB of information all backed up, I recommend this little beauty. The windows home server software will back up every Windows based computer in your home every night so that you can completely recover your information should something go wrong. It is expandable to 4 internal hard drives and it has the ability to attach external hard drives too. You don't have to have a monitor, keyboard, etc. to get it running, just another computer in the home running Windows XP or better. And for the geeks out there, you can hack the heck out of it... www.homeserverhacks.com is a great start for just some of the stuff you can do.

Guess who got new sunglasses for the summer :)

She's now super glamorous

Auntie Andra just had her birthday. It was a lot of fun and there were a few other little girls there for Emma to play with.

waiting for cake

here comes the cake

sharing some off the top

a bit for Kevin

the happy couple

Emma wants to share some too

only the strawberries will do
a new little friend
sisters
all smiles

through the windowEmma's busy hands finally landed her outside with daddy watching the party through the window

Our Flower

Today when I was getting everything ready for Emma's nap, she wondered out onto the patio and started laughing and giggling and talking really excitedly. I knew she just had to be up to something so I hurried out to see what she had gotten "into". Apparently she is our flower. I had an empty flower pot on the patio and she planted herself right in it. Thought it was really cute so took a few pictures.

Messy Hair and All

A Perfect Fit

A Day at the Beach

Donald has been working about 6 days a week since October so it is really hard to find time for just the three of us. Usually when Donald finally gets a day off we have tons of errands to run and people who want to see Emma, that it is very rare for just a bit of family time. Last Sunday we decided to forget the errands and take the very much needed family time. We went to the beach even though it was cloudy, windy and very cold. We had a blast and it's a thrill to get to share this rare opportunity.

Emma Arrives At The Beach In Carlsbad

My Two Loves

Sand Hands
Splashing in the puddles


Rare Photo with Mommy

Beach Stroll

Finding our First Shell

Playing with Daddy

A Run for the Water

Tired Little One After A Day of Fun

Emma's outfit and Shoes were a gift from her Godfather Michael. He got the sweat suit from Baby Gap and the shoes (K Swiss) and socks from Nordstrom. The sweat suit has been wonderful and washes up great and is very soft and cuddly on our little Bean. I love Nordstrom socks!! My friend Nancy gave me my first pair when Emma was 4 months and have been thrilled with them ever since. And of course how can you go wrong with little girl K Swiss shoes! Thank you Michael.

Easter 2008

OK, so the hard drive is still out but I can at least get you updated on Easter. Here are a few of my favorites. Emma has learned to make some amazing faces that I think are wonderful. Hope you enjoy a bit of her Easter celebration.

Finding Eggs with Sassy

A Little Help From Daddy

After a Nap

Talking to Daddy

My big brown eyed girl


Funny Face

Sleepy Daddy

Emma

Fish Face

Busy Little Girl

Waking Daddy

The Best of Friends

Bad News for all our loyal blog Readers (all both of you)

It may be some few weeks before we are up and posting again. On Thursday I started having problems accessing the hard drive with all the pictures of Emma on it when I went to update her blog. So I decided to leave it until Donald got home to see why everything was running so slowly. At first we thought it was our network sever, but the worst has happened. We lost the hard drive with not only all my art work from the last 6 years, but all our photos too. Some good news is that I did a complete back up of everything about 6 months ago. But there is the fact that the last 6 months I did NO BACKUP. That means Emma's first Halloween, Thanksgiving, Christmas, Birthday, and any photos in between and after are GONE!! Donald and I have decieded that we are going to go ahead and see if we can't have a company retrieve our files for us. It may cost a lot, but we feel Emma is worth it. We just don't want to loose all those wonderful photos. It is completely my fault it has happened. After years of art school and knowing that you have to do backups weekly, because computers don't worn you that the are going to break down, I should have been more prepared for something like this. After talking to Donald, my Dad and reading a ton on the internet about what happened to the hard drive, it looks like we should get our files back, it just takes money, and a company that specializes in hard drive recovery and then we will be back up and blogging. Please, wish us the best in getting all those files back :)

Let Her Be Little

My good friend Julie has a wonderful children's boutique Called Let Her Be Little. Julie started making clothes for her little girl when she found it difficult to dress her like a little girl. As most of us mothers know, you walk into stores and they are full of clothes that belong on a 20 something tart. So finding clothes that are sweet and adorable can be hard to do especially as your little one goes from a size 18 month to a 4 or 5T. I actually get scared looking at what Emma could be wearing in a few years time. Then there are the shoes, right now there is a great selection of shoes for Emma to run and play in, but for some reason, the moment she is 3 you can't find a shoe with out a heal. Now tell me how she is suppose to look cute on the playground and still be able to play?? I am so fortunate that Julie has made some dresses especially for my little Emma. Below Emma is wearing a "Let Her Be Little" original. It is made of really soft fabric and is easy to wash and wear. Emma loves wearing this dress as it gives her plenty of room to move and play and she still gets to look cute on the playground. So if you have a little girl that needs a dress more age appropriate and fun to wear check out Julies shop at Let Her Be Little