things are really falling into place

I am feeling so grateful today! Church was wonderful! I am so thankful that I can be a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, and I can go every Sunday to church and worship freely. I am thankful to live in a country where we have freedom to worship.

And what a great support group we have a church! It is really miraculous how many wonderful people we know and who are willing to help us in our lives, and be are friends! I am just feeling so much gratitude.

In relief society, our women's organization, I was asked to share an experience that I had last year, and how I have been able to learn and grow since then. It was a great blessing to be able to reflect on how far i've come and how well I am doing. I hope to share more about that this week.

We took a very nice nap this afternoon, and then have a great dinner as a family. It is such a blessing to be able to eat together every day. 

We also enjoyed family home evening together. John loved playing some instruments as we sang, and we taught him a lesson about learning. We also started incorporating the pledge in our family home evening's. John loved to see the flag!

After John was in bed, Seth and I were able to spend some quality time together, and also do some planning. We planned out our whole week and looked at the next couple months. Things are very busy, but under control. I'm thankful that we are learning how to do this kind of life, being in graduate school. it's working for us now.

We also had our budget committee meeting. It was very successful, and we even found out that we have a couple more hundred dollars than we anticipated, and we will be just fine this month and throughout the semester as we stick to our budget. I know God is blessing us so abundantly! He cares about the details of our lives. I know that he honors his promises to us, and that as we keep his commandments he blesses us.

Although my workload and home has significantly increased since Seth has so much work to do at school and interviewing, I really feel like I am able to do it. I was even able to plan out our meals for the entire month this week! I feel so much less anxious because I know what to make for dinner! And I can switch out the days depending on how busy we are, but I know that I will have plenty of options of dinners that I can make in my fridge as I follow my plan. What a blessing! 

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!