Spring is here. The snow has melted, and flowers are blooming all over the front and back yards.

It won’t be here until next month, but I have to start early: Birthday Week. The first week of May in our house is a whirlwind of cakes and themed paper goods. The twins are turning 6 on May 3rd. On May 7th, Will turns 3, and I turn 30. If that isn’t overwhelming enough, I will be headed to the hospital about 3 weeks later to deliver Lily… Another May baby. Poor Micah. He must feel so left out, having a September birthday.

We decided to bring the twins to Build-A-Bear and Cold Stone Creamery, in lieu of a party. Of course, we will follow our cake-and-decorations party at home. We just couldn’t have a party with kids this year. Molly and Mia are in separate classes, which have a total of almost 45 kids. Their school discourages having parties that exclude certain classmates, so it became apparent that we’d have to wait until next year. They’ll be moving on to first grade in September, and we decided to have them together in the classroom. Things will be a lot less complicated next year!

I certainly can’t complain, or feel left out. Micah’s “early present” to me was a 3D ultrasound that we did sort of on a whim. He also let me buy a JVC Everio. I’ve owned 4 camcorders in 10 years, all of which either broke or became outdated too soon. My family didn’t have a camcorder when I was a kid (just a Super 8 camera, and those reels are scarce), so I’m sort of obsessed when it comes to documenting my own children. Back to the Everio… I just wanted something cheap (but good quality) that would let me easily record and archive videos of the kids. That needed to include getting video onto the computer easily. Here’s what I had to do with my last camcorder:

- Charge the battery again (because it never holds a charge, and often dies while filming). Low battery = choppy, useless footage.
- Spend way too much money on compact DVDs, which are quickly becoming antiquated.
- Shoot video, spend 15 minutes or so “finalizing” each full disc (which had to be done on AC).
- Use 10-year-old video wires to import low-quality video into 7-year-old computer with XP (no USB option, didn’t work on newer computers).
- Spend 15-20 minutes cutting, arranging, and rendering videos in Movie Maker.
- Copy finished video to Flash Drive.
- Copy from Flash Drive to newer computer.
- Watch depleted quality video on computer, or attempt to find a DVD player that actually recognized the compact DVDs.

That process is pretty frustrating when you’re trying to upload, say, a 45 second video of your kid singing a song or pointing out shapes and colors. I would always have to go through this after the kids were in bed. Otherwise, it took twice as long with all the interruptions.

But my Everio. Oh, how I love you, Everio. The quality is at least as good as it is on the aforementioned DVD monster. It’s adorably tiny, and saves magnificently formatted video files onto an SDHC card. I have been editing video content for the internet for over 10 years, and I never imagined something this simple could exist. Happy Birthday to me. Someday, the kids will thank me… or so I like to think.