Family Swimming Outing

After a very long week of many internship interviews (great job Seth!! You did it!), we took a family break and went to the OSU pool. 

John had a blast! He loved the waterfall and the slide. It was adorable when he would look over and wave at me :) 

John went under once, not on purpose. But he took it like a champ! He was having so much fun, but he was freezing, blue lips, shaking, so we had to take him out. We'll have to do this more often!

Fun in the kitchen

John helped me taste, I mean make, some delicious chocolate zucchini muffins as a surprise for Papa for all his hard work with networking, applying and interviewing for internships. Last one tomorrow! Prayers are appreciated ;) we know all his hard work will pay off and God is blessing us abundantly!

These were a huge hit! Thanks Oh She Glows Cookbook! And I was excited to make them because our oven got fixed today! I appreciate that oven more now!

Silliness

I have a picture somewhere of me doing this same thing as a toddler :)

Shepard Weekend Full of Family History

This was one packed weekend of Shepard Fun! My mom and dad (Terri and John Shepard), and my brothers, Jacob and Trey came to stay with us for the weekend. At a moments notice, all of my Dad's siblings and their spouses came for a visit and dinner on Saturday night. It was wonderful to see everyone!

From Left: my cousin, Josh Jackson holding John, Trey, Jacob, my Mom, Uncle Mike and Aunt Linda Rowley 

Josh holding John, Trey, Jacob

Jacob, Mom, Mike and Linda

Aunt Candi (my Aunt Laura's partner), Aunt Kim, (uncle Steve's wife), Aunt Diane, and dad

Uncle Scott Jackson (Diane's husband), Uncle Steve, me and Seth, Aunt Laura

We played our Shepard family game, Euker, which is so fun! and I also spent a lot of the night updating everyone's contact info, and showing some of my aunts and uncles how to use familysearch.org (one of my favorite things to do!) I helped my Aunt Kim Farmer Shepard get signed up, and we connected her to her family line that has been researched all the way back to the 1400's! She was really excited, and said that she was going to go straight home and get started!

www.familysearch.org is a free website and database that helps people get connected to their family tree! You don't need to have any religious affiliation, and it really is completely free! If you are interested in finding out more or starting your family history, I'd love to help you, just let me know! 

Then on Sunday, after church, my Grandpa Gene Shepard and his second wife, Pat came to visit us and have lunch. 

My grandpa has adopted a similar eating style to us, and it has helped his health a lot, and he's doing very well! I helped my Grandma Pat get her familysearch.org account up to date, and we added many pictures of her ancestors.

Then later that evening, we went to visit my Grandma Phyllis Paver Shepard. I found two huge collages of old pictures on her wall, and we spent the whole evening together, identifying relatives. I took pictures of all the pictures so that I could connect them to my family tree. My Grandma is the last living Paver, and she is the only one who would be able to identify these pictures. I am so grateful for her help! If you have living grandparents, ask them to get out their old pictures and write the names of the people in them down so that they will not all be lost.

I cut my brother Jacob's hair for him. He has some interviews coming up this week. He is working so hard to find a good job. Our prayers are with him.

We had lunch with my parents and brothers at Northstar Cafe in Columbus. It was SOOOO good! The northstar veggie burger was amazing, and huge! We'll definitely be going back!

Thanks for a wonderful weekend, Shepard's! We love you all!

My little helper

John loves it help me in the kitchen, and he's getting better at it. Yesterday he helped me make juice, measure and stir the ingredients for energy bites, and grind a whole lot of wheat into flour.

This is a fun stage! And since I'm in the kitchen so much, it will be great to be able to make many things toferher!

I hope I can instill in John a love for making healthy food and teach him how to do it by letting him help often.

Haircut #9

John's hair grows so fast! I just gave him his 8th haircut in November. And I usually cut it to be still kind of long, because he is so adorable! His hair was ready for another cut as you can see in this picture from earlier in the week (Poor kid was so sick)

Here are the results from tonight! I meant to keep it longer, but John jerked his head at one point, so he got a short haircut :-)

His hair is not easy to cut! Seth's hair was really curly and very forgiving as his mom always says, but John's hair shows every single cut. Thankfully girls very fast!

Cousins in Pajamas on Christmas Eve

John absolutely adores his cousin, James Dimond, my sister Hannah's oldest son! 

John sees him as such a big boy and wants to be just like him

John followed him around kind of like a puppy all holiday. James got a little tired of it after a while :-) "But I don't want to share with John!" He would say sometimes

 From the left is James, then Abram shepard Dimond (just two months old), and John

John loves babies! And he was very gentle with Abram. He asked often "where's baby Abram?" And was very good at telling me when abram was sleeping or crying :-)

These boys are so sweet! They had such a blast on Christmas eve, as did we :-)

OSU National Champions!

Go Buckeyes!!! National Champions 2015! 42-20 vs Oregon

Wow that was an exciting game!! So fun to watch :) and with good friends. Thanks Lybberts, Johnsons, Hansons, Biggerstaffs, Henricksons, and Romneys. Glad we were there!

And it's awesome that John did so well during the game! He didn't cry until just after we won ;)

Cuddle mama?

John is sick with some kind of congestion/cold thing. Poor guy. He is so sweet though. He asks me "cuddle mama?" And wants lots of hugs and kisses and he strokes my face or my arm while we cuddle. We sure love him. And this good little boy got his appetite back, and drank all his fruit and veggie juice, and ate oranges, cucumber, tomatoes, avocado, olives, broccoli, strawberries, grapes, lentils, and beans! What a miracle! He'll be better in no time!

Happy 30th Birthday Hannah!!

Happy birthday to my very favorite older sister, Hannah! We are just 21 months apart, and I have always felt very close to Hannah. She is a wonderful and supportive friend. She is an excellent mother, and I have loved sharing the wonderful experience of motherhood with her. It is great to have a sister that I can talk to who is at a similar stage of life. James and Abram are two lucky boys! And Michael is a lucky husband!

Hannah is great listener, and she is so fun to spend time with. I love you Hannah, happy birthday!

I love my siblings!

Hannah - my only older sibling, lives in Seattle Washington (Redmond). wife of Michael Dimond. and wonderful mother of two little boys, James Michael Dimond 3 yrs. and Abram Shepard Dimond 2 mo.

Claire - lives in Provo Utah, just graduated with her bachelors degree from Utah Valley University in sociology, (congrats!!!) and is working in her first full-time job with benefits! She works at a lockdown center for girls with mental and emotional challenges in Provo.

Martha - also lives in Seattle Washington with Hannah and Michael. She works as a caregiver for an autistic teenager, and is preparing to serve as a missionary for our church! Whohoo!

Jacob - lives at home again, just returned from Teresina, Brazil, where he has been serving as a full-time missionary for our church. He is on the ball with an awesome resume, applying for jobs, and will start school this semester at Harper community college

Trey - lives at home, and graduated from high school this past year. He is working at Dick's Sporting Goods, and is preparing for college and a mission.

Ashley - also lives at home, is a senior at Palatine high school. She is a drum major in the band, and she just got her first job, at Panda Express!

I am proud of all of you! It was wonderful to be all together for Christmas.

Happy 32nd Birthday Seth!

There are too many things to list that I love about Seth! Here are just a couple. Seth is such a gentle and loving husband. He is humble and forgiving, he is supportive and comforting. He is so wise. Seth is an excellent father. He shares all of the parenting responsibilities equally, and he helps John have so much fun! He is a very hard worker and he does so much to care for our family. I love how supportive Seth is about healthy eating, and he is willing to eat everything I make! It is wonderful that he is also interested in learning about nutrition and keeping our family healthy. He has been such a strength to me through very hard times. I could never have chosen a better companion. I love you Seth!

Happy birthday!

Since Seth's birthday fell on a Sunday, we went to church of course! We really enjoyed all the meetings, and learned about charity, the pure love of Christ. Seth is one of the best examples of this attribute that I know.

We have had fun catching up with family on the phone and on Skype today, and just being together as a family.

Seth requested a couple dishes to est on his birthday and wanted to be surprised for the rest. 

I worked on making a really yummy 3 course dinner, all from scratch.

Caesar salad, with homemade croutons and homemade vegan Caesar dressing

Crispy home baked fries (seth's favorite food)

Empowered noodle bowl with Thai peanut sauce

And homemade whole wheat cinnamon rolls topped off the night of deliciousness. 

Unfortunately, I didn't think of the fact that the candles would melt if I put them right in the cinnamon rolls when they came out of the oven :-) so I just held seth's birthday candle, and we sang to Seth. John even helped sing, he really loves the happy birthday song. And Seth let John help him blow out the candle. John was overjoyed, and he probably would have eaten two cinnamon rolls if we would have let him.

Seth loved all the food, so it was a success!

Seth got new dress pants, and some dumb bell grips to use when he works out at the gym, and there will certainly be more birthday celebration to come!