Wednesday, August 25, 2010

Dancing to Old MacDonald...Shep Style

And by Shep style, I mean, wearing a backpack, one shoe and no pants.

Enjoy.


Thursday, August 12, 2010

Can We Just Pretend...

that is hasn't been 5 months since the last post? Great.

Here's a quick recap of the top 8 things that you need to know to catch you up on months April-July:

1. Shepherd started walking at the end of May. Oh, and he turned 1 on April 16th (and, yes, I am pretty terrible for not posting a birthday post).

2. Dave got promoted at his job at NCI from a service connector to a lead service connector after only 6 months at his job! Needless to say, I was a proud wife.

3. We celebrated 5 years of marriage on June 25th! Marriage gets sweeter and sweeter with each anniversary.

4. In July, we finished our classes toward becoming licensed foster parents and are expecting to be ready to foster in later October. We are really excited and humbled at this opportunity to care for an orphan.

5. The Lord has been kind to Covenant Community Church (the church plant we are a part of). The church is growing and people are loving God and one another really well. We are blessed to be a part of such a wonderful group of people who know their need for Christ and each other.

6. Dave had his last day of work at Neighborhood Centers on July 28th and he started his first day of work as a high school Geometry teacher on August 11th! (He doesn't actually start teaching until the 23rd). We are SO thankful for this job change!

7. We had a wonderful trip to FL and visit with both our families last week. We even got to steal away from Shepherd and spend 2 days at the beach with just each other. It was so nice! Thanks to my mom and dad for hanging with Shep and for making the whole trip possible!

8. Shepherd is a talking machine these days. He will pretty much repeat anything we say and uses lots of words of his own. Some of my personal favorites are: "yeayow" (yellow); "poople" (purple); "bippo" (hippo); "neeze" (sneeze); "tuttle" (turtle). He also does a pretty mean lion's growl.


I think those are all the big ones. Hopefully, you feel slightly caught up and I will do a better job of updating the blog in the future:)

Friday, March 19, 2010

Pearland Has a Farmer's Market

It's true. Last Saturday was the first day of the Pearland Farmer's Market. We are really excited about this and went to check it out for ourselves. It's certainly no Bardstown Rd. Farmer's Market (complete with fresh omelets), but it has potential. It's still fairly small, but there was a great turnout of folks from the community and it seems like it will certainly grow.

Here's a picture of Shep and I on the way to the Farmer's Market:

He wore his new overalls from his Nanna in honor of the farmer's market :)

In other news, Shepherd is officially pulling up on things and has even stood solo for a few seconds by himself - without holding onto anything. That's big stuff around here. He also waves "bye-bye" and even says "bye-bye" although it sounds more like "diiieeee-diiieeee." And he doesn't just say it once. If we are leaving somewhere, it's not uncommon for him to still be waving and saying "diiieeee-diiieeee" while strapped in his carseat and driving away. We're working on that, but I guess I can't be too picky. At least he's trying :)

We also had one of our first "major" injuries just yesterday. Shepherd was crawling around playing with my keys (I know....shame on me) and basically did a face-plant on the keys, busting his upper lip. It looked worse than it was, but it was slightly traumatizing to see blood on my little man's face. He recovered by sucking on some frozen strawberries - much to his delight and my relief (since he wouldn't let me put ice on his lip). The end result was some minor swelling and a little crack in his lip. He's a pretty tough kid though and basically forgot all about it within a few minutes. That might be the end of playing with mom's keys though...but who am I kidding, those keys are a life-saver in the grocery store.

Thursday, February 4, 2010

Nanna & Daideo Visit!

My mom and dad, known to Shepherd as Nanna and Daideo ("Dah-doh") came to visit us for my mom's birthday at the end of January. We had a great time with them and, of course, were sad to see them go back home to Florida. Shep was especially sad for his constant (and I do mean constant) playmates to leave. It's just not the same around here without them!

And even though Nanna played with Shep the whole time, she didn't fail to work him hard too. In fact, all her training of Shep to work for his toys paid off and he started crawling today! Too bad Nanna and Daideo missed it by just a couple days :(

Here are some pictures of the fun we had:

Shep checking out Daideo's beard. He decided it is real.

Just playing with Nanna.

Eating a pickle at a New York style deli and not quite sure what to think about it.

Some fun floor time with daddy.

More playing with Nanna. Lots of that happened - to the delight of both Nanna and Shep.

Posing in front of the elephant habitat at the zoo. It was cold!

Lounging in PJs (from Aunt Nikki) on his lamb chair (from Nanna and Daideo).

And here is the breaking footage of Shepherd crawling for the first time. Pretty exciting stuff.

Tuesday, January 5, 2010

Lots of Travels

Since I last posted (way too long ago) we have traveled quite a bit. We had the privilege of seeing our dear friend Scott Daniel get married to a beautiful girl, Maria, in Louisville. It was so sweet to be a part of this wedding. Scott was one of our first friends in Louisville and we have grown to love him so much over the 4 years we've known him. We have also spent much time in prayer for a wife for Scott and the Lord heard our prayers! We couldn't be happier for him. While in Louisville, Shep and I got to spend some time visiting with our friends Shelly and Atticus. Atticus is just 2 weeks older than Shep and was his first "friend." We have missed our weekly playdates with them!


The picture above is Shep (left) and Att (right) in August right before we moved to Pearland. And the one below is of them during our visit in November. These boys are growing up so quick!



From Louisville we headed straight to St. George Island, FL for Thanksgiving. This place is very dear to me since it's been a tradition since I was a kid for my extended family to go there every Thanksgiving for a week. We had a great time. Shepherd got lots of fun grandparent and Aunt Nikki time, and he also got to meet lots of extended family who love him. Dave's parents came up to the beach for a day, so Shep got to see them as well. It's pretty much not an option for us to be anywhere in Florida anymore without seeing both sets of our parents. It's funny how having a baby changes that :) Here are a few pics from the trip:

Shep and dad after a sunset walk on the beach.

Shep, his Nanna and me. Me and mom don't look anything alike, do we? :)

Shep and dad at an ice cream shop in Appalachicola. Dave's mom made sure to give Shep a few bites of ice cream and fulfill her role as Grandma.

Ainsworth family picture


We headed back to Florida for Shepherd's first Christmas and stayed in Keystone Heights with Dave's family. My parents came up on Christmas Day and stayed overnight, so Shepherd had a great time being constantly played with and loved on by both sets of grandparents. He also made out good with toys (of course) and only a few of them are loud, noise-making toys :)

Shepherd got to meet Jenny, a very dear friend of mine, while we were in Florida. Jenny and I met for lunch and I loved on her new puppy Riley while she loved on Shep. It was a sweet time. Jenny has been a faithful friend since freshman year of high school and the Lord used her friendship to bring me to himself. I am eternally grateful for that!


Jenny, Shep, me and Riley. Riley got far more attention from passers-by than Shep did. Funny for the most part, but the mom in me wanted to be like "Seriously people, I know the puppy is cute, but look how incredibly cute this baby is!" :)


Some more pictures of our Christmas fun...

Shep and his cousin Caleb in their matching Christmas PJs from Aunt Courtney. So cute.

Showing off his loot. And pretty excited about it.

Resting with Daideo (my dad, pronounced Dah-doh) after a tiring morning of opening gifts (i.e., playing with wrapping paper and bows).


We had a great time in Florida, but we are very glad to be back home to Pearland, where it is truly feeling like home! We are glad too to have no future overnight drives planned for quite some time!

Monday, October 26, 2009

Pumpkin Patch Fun

My good friends Sarah and Joy and myself took our brood of little ones to a local pumpkin patch last week. It was actually pretty cool out (for Texas) and felt very Fall-ish which, if you know me well, you know made me very happy. I also got to dress Shep in his first sweater which also made me very happy. He looked pretty darn handsome as you can see for yourself in the pictures below.

Shep planting a big wet one on mom. Joy was careful not to get my shoulders in this picture due to the fact that they were covered in slober, snot, and who knows what else. Oh, the joys of motherhood:)
Such a big sweet smile!


I love this one of Reid and Shepherd smiling together. I know this sounds a little sappy, but I hope they will grow to treasure this picture as a glimpse of the beginning of a life-long frienship.
(Of course, well before that happens there will be a lot of Shep rolling his eyes at me when I tell him he will treasure this picture when he grows up).

Reid is making his not-so-subtle move on baby Eliza. Well played, Reid.

This is about the best we could do with all of them together. Shep only looks slightly confused in this one, which is better than bewildered and downright angry as in many of the others shots.

Thought I'd leave you all with my favorite shot. Is it possible for this kid to be any cuter? I mean, seriously! I don't think so.

Tuesday, October 20, 2009

What's New in Shep's World

I figured it was about time for me to post some recent pictures of Shepherd. He is officially 6 months old now, which is crazy to think about! The time has truly flown by. Here is what he's been up to recently...

Eating yummy baby food like a big boy!

Playing with his B.F.F Eliza.

Hanging out with dad and his favorite stuffed doggy.

Showing off his sitting up skills. He is really getting to be a very sturdy little sitter-upper!

In other news, Shep's first tooth starting coming in last week and the second one followed just a few days later. He now has his front two bottom teeth coming up, and he's starting to look like such a big boy!