Emmy's Nemo party

Emmy's favorite movie to watch over the past year has been Finding Nemo, so when I asked her what kind of birthday party she wanted, she of course said, "A Nemo party!"

Emmy's grandparents, aunts, uncles and cousins came to celebrate with her. The first activity was a Finding Nemo obstacle course. First, they had to get past the sharks (ie. Nathan). Kyle was a fast little fishy and almost made it past the shark.

Then they had to bounce through the jellyfish!

Then they had to be turtles and carry fish across the yard on their backs.

And finally they had to get swallowed by the whale and get spit out to rescue Nemo and his friends. Emily didn't really "get" this obstacle course. Oh well.

Then we had a little fishing pond where everyone got to fish for some prizes.

And then the kids got to make their own aquariums by putting little toy fishies, fish confetti, glitter, and colored water into jars.

Then it was time for presents! Emmy got lots of fun things. She sure is a lucky girl to have such good cousins and aunts and uncles and grandparents.

Of course she had to try on her new shoes!

And then, of course, we had some birthday cake and homemade ice cream.

This was my best attempt at making her Nemo cake. I know it looks like a kindergartener drew this, but at least Emmy could tell it was Nemo! Ha!

I think she had a fun time though, and she was excited to have her cousins come over and play. Every few days she keeps asking if she can have another birthday party. Thank you to everyone who came and made Emmy's day special!

Emmy is 3!!!

My little Emmy girl turned 3 last week. I can't believe she's 3! For her birthday she requested to have a Nemo party with Nemo cake (which I will post about later). We did that the Saturday before her birthday. On her actual birthday we did lots of things that Emmy loves to do.

She loves to get ice cream so we went and got some froyo! We also went to feed the ducks and to the park in the morning.

She loves to swim in her little pool in the backyard, and she got this fun slip-n-slide from her cousins, so we set that up too. She didn't really get how to do it, but she had fun just scooting along the slide.

She got some fun presents from Mom and Dad and Zach and we had some birthday cake. She also loves balloons, so she got some of those to wake up to. She kept wanting to take them in the car and they kept flying away every time we would open the door. Ooops! We also took her to her first movie in the theater...Monsters U. She was very apprehensive about being in the big dark room, and she sat on Daddy's lap most of the time, but she watched the whole movie. We also took Zach since we could not find a babysitter, and he did pretty well. I had to stand with him part of the time, but at least I didn't have to leave!

At 3 years old, Emmy is a very independent girl. She wants to do everything herself and she wants to have things her way. I'm not exactly sure how to deal with this because she throws a fit when something is not done her way or in her timeframe. Obviously, this is not acceptable. Most of the time I just ignore her fits or she gets a time-out, but it doesn't seem to be working.

She is sometimes apprehensive about trying new things, but once you show her how, she exclaims, "I want to try!" She likes to dress herself, which can be very entertaining to see what she comes out wearing. Her clothes are often mismatched and on backwards, so she looks like a little ragamuffin half the time. Especially because she hates to get her hair done and tries to run away when I'm trying to fix it.


Although she is independent at home with her family, when she is around others, she is very shy. She often doesn't do well with other kids. For example, in nursery she will play just fine if I am there, but when I leave she goes and sits in a corner by herself. Or when other kids are at the park, she has a hard time going and playing like she usually does. Or she really doesn't like to go play at the neighbors and stuff. I'm also not sure what to do about this. I want to help her make friends.

She is also a very sweet, caring girl. She likes to give hugs to mom and dad. She takes such good care of her babies and stuffed animals. She is always feeding them and putting them down for naps, etc. She loves to go to Grandma Shepherd's house and jump on the trampoline and she loves to go to Grandma Lively's house and feed the dog and chase her around.

She is very protective of her things and we are trying to teach her how to share. (Not sure how to be successful at that one either.) She is also learning to say "I'm sorry" and will often come up to me and say she's sorry for some random thing. It's so cute.

She loves to see animals, and especially loves to go to the aquarium and Wheeler Farm. She loves to feed bread to the duckies. She loves to do crafts, especially ones that involve stickers. She is getting really good at saying her prayers and singing Primary songs. The last thing she always says in her prayers is to bless Uncle Kyle on his mission, and it's stinkin' cute.

She will walk around with a pretend phone and "talk" to people. Most of the time she "calls" Aunt Laurie and asks if she's changing Olivia's bum. Ha!

She loves to be silly and loves to be tickled and chased and wrestled. She loves mac-n-cheese and most fruits and cereal and yogurt. She also loves popsicles and French fries. I promise I do feed her real food!

She loves when Daddy comes home and when she hears the garage door opening, she runs to open the door to the house for him. She also likes to watch "shows". Her favorites are Dora, Finding Nemo, Monsters Inc, and Little Mermaid. She loves to read books too.

She got this cute little scooter for her birthday from Grandma Lively, and she loves to ride it around!

She also likes to open and close the doors on the new van. She loves baths and stays in there until the water is cold and we make her get out. She also loves to go potty everywhere we go. I think she just likes to see all the different bathrooms! Ha! She has her Daddy wrapped around her little finger.

Anyway, we are grateful to have this cute, silly girl in our family. Happy Birthday Emmy! We sure do love you!

9 months

 Mr. Zach-man is 9 months! That is crazy! You'd think by now he would be a better sleeper, but don't let this picture fool you...

Even though he look adorable sleeping, he is still not a good sleeper (sigh). I am wondering if I'll ever get a decent night sleep again. He is doing slightly better, but he still often wakes up in the night and wakes up VERY early (the last few days at 5:30 a.m....uggh!)

Anyway, despite his poor ability to sleep, he still is a pretty cute little bugger. He loves to eat anything he can get his hands on. Seriously, he would eat all day if I'd keep feeding him. He loves to make a very loud screeching sound. We joked and said that we should have named him Screech instead of Zach with his loud screeching noise and his curly dark hair! Ha!

He can sit up and roll over both ways, but has no interest in crawling or standing. That's ok with me...I don't really want him to be mobile yet. He is very grabby and will grab at anything set in front of him. This has resulted in several plates/bowls of spilled food that I have put too close to his reach.

He loves his sister, although she doesn't really like him very much. (Notice the big scratch on his head...courtesy of Emmy.) But Zach loves to watch her and try to do what she is doing.

He is also very grunty. He gets really red in the face trying to push stuff out. I don't know if he's constipated or what, but sometimes he seems really uncomfortable.

People always tell me what a beautiful boy he is. He's gonna be a heartbreaker someday with that curly, dark hair and big blue eyes! We love you Zach!

My big fat Shepherd family pool party

Every year my Grandma throws a big birthday bash for all the grandkids. This year she rented out a swimming pool for us all. It was great!

Emmy loved swimming!

Especially because Rivers was there!

And what is a Shepherd family pool party without a synchronized swimming routine?

Yeah, we are dorks.

Festivities of the 4th

This year I had big plans to do all the fun stuff for the 4th, like do sparklers, go to the carnival, have a BBQ, and go tot e fireworks. Well, Emily decided to get sick that day, so my plans backfired. Luckily we were still able to do most of the stuff...it was just spread out throughout the week.

A couple days before the 4th we were tending my cousin's kids and so we broke out the sparklers. They had a ball! 

Azilyn fell asleep before we thought of doing the sparklers, but Emmy and Tolson LOVED them!

They kept wanting more.

It was so fun to watch them enjoy the sparklers.

We did make it to the carnival and we let Emmy pick one ride to go on. She chose the carousel. She would wave at me every time it came around.

We had  BBQ with some of my family on the 4th, but left early since Emmy wasn't feeling too well. She was doing better the next day so my parents wanted to take their grandkids to the zoo. Emily had a fit for a few minutes about Olivia riding in her stroller, but other than that they all had fun.

The tiger came right up to the window!

They sure do love their grandma and grandpa!

Happy 4th of July!

Getting old

So I just turned 33. That just seems really old to me. I don't know why, but it seems so much older than 32. My dad just retired. I'm not old enough to have a retired dad??!! And I just bought one of these...

Yep. Now I'm officially old. I own a minivan. You know you're old and responsible and all that when you spend all your money on a minivan instead of a vacation. But I am excited to have it. We got a really great deal on it and I am LOVING the extra space. Now we can fit our stroller! Yay! And I don't have to sit with my knees up to my chest in the front seat! Double yay! (We had to scoot the front seat all the way up to fit Zach's rear-facing carseat in the Civic.)

Speaking of the Civic, although I'm glad to have the van, I'm sad about getting rid of my little blue Civic (Chester). It's been a great car and I have loved it....we've had a good 6 years together.

So long, Chester....you've been great! (Anyone wanna buy him?) Now we just need to figure out what new van's name is.

Heel clicks

Zach takes after me in loving heel clicks! It cracks me up how he claps his feet together like this!

I also love how much he loves playing toys these days.

That's my boy!