Video of Samantha and her funny faces

This won't be a long blog post. I just wanted to upload this video where Samantha was absolutely cracking me up (as you'll hear) because she was making such funny faces and scaring herself. Hope you enjoy as much as I obviously did...

11/06/2008
5 months old
42 seconds - 38.5 Mb

What has Samantha been up to lately?

Here are a few pics of some fun times with Sam over the past few weeks...





Before we headed over to our friend's birthday party, Sean decided to wear the latest accesory... a baby!! :-)

On a Sunny day at the beach, Sam showed how excited she was to sport her England hat imported from Grandma Broman a few months before she was born.

A few weeks before moving away from the Oregon Coast, we took Sam to the beach to stake her claim in the sand.









Charlie and Sam are starting to enjoy their time together. Samantha is learning about dog fur... Charlie is learning about patience! :-)

On a quick trip to the mall, Samantha and Lisa got a chance to meet Franco Sarto, Lisa's favorite shoe designer. Samantha slept through the whole thing, but we know that when she's a teenager, she'll be begging mom for some Franco Sarto shoes and reminding me that I'm the one who introduced the two!

Samantha was super excited to help mommy and daddy pack for our Family Reunion (a 3-night cruise up to Canada).

Samantha enjoyed her first visit to the Zoo with "Aunt" Stacey and "Uncle" Don.

This summer, the Oregon Zoo was excited to introduce Samudra, a baby elephant born in late summer. So while at the zoo, our baby Sam got to meet the elephant baby "Sam".

A quick portrait of the Shepards on the back deck in Oregon. We wanted to capture the three of us with the trees in the background so we could remember what all those leaves look like!







Sean and Lisa in beautiful Nanaimo, Canada. While on the family reunion cruise, we were able to venture out and spend a few hours on an exciting tree course.






Samantha's first Broman family portrait with Grandma Broman, Aunt Lorna and Uncle Justin, Cousins Channing & Charise and Dad (Sean) & Mom (Lisa)









The funny part about this photo is that Samantha was asleep in her car seat under the table while it was taken! :-)








Samantha saying her "night night" prayers.







Sean and his 3 girls [the 4th is behind the camera!] :-)








Mom takes good care of Samantha... although by the scared look on her face, you wouldn't know it! :-)








Samantha wants to drink from mom's water bottle. Mmmm... everybody loves baby backwash!










Samantha loved her very first halloween costume. She was (and is) our precious pumpkin!!!










Tennis anyone??

Getting Settled in Las Vegas

Well... we're here in Las Vegas, our computers are up and running and we're gradually getting settled in. Hopefully I can take the next few minutes to update you on how we're doing!

How was the move down here?
Lisa and Samantha flew in on Monday, Oct 27. Samantha wasn't a nightmare child on the plane (i.e. screaming the whole time) but I did have to walk a few laps up and down the aisle of the plane to keep her happy. We don't typically cater to her wants and wishes to keep her from crying, but for the sake of the other dear passengers on the plane, I was much more complient! :)
Meanwhile, Sean (and the dogs) drove the SUV down (pulling the boat) and our hero of a friend, Don, drove one of the cars down. They also left on Monday, but they didn't arrive until Tuesday evening. There was an unforseen adventure about 45 minutes outside of Portland when the desk that was in the boat managed to rip the boat cover, causing it to flap uncontrollably in the wind. Don raced back to the house in Portland, grabbing all the tarps, rope and duct tape we own, and headed back to where Sean was waiting. They then did a fabulous(ly ugly) repair job and continued on their way. Not exactly the start they were looking for, but fortunately, it was the only mishap of the trip. They stopped in Sacramento where they saw some of Sean's family and got a good night's rest. They were up early on Tuesday and arrived in Las Vegas tired and sore around 6pm. Overall, they made good time, but it took about 20 hours of driving (thanks to that heavy boat loaded with all our stuff!).

How was our first week here?
BUSY! We can't believe that tomorrow will end our first week here. We have packed A LOT into this week.
On Tuesday night, we unloaded everything out of the two cars and boat. Man... we packed a lot in there!
On Wednesday, we got up early to say goodbye to Don and get him to the airport. Then, Sean drove the boat out to a storage facility near Lake Mead. About 10 minutes after returning from the storage facility, Sean got a call telling him that they had put him in the wrong spot and he needed to come back out and move the boat to the right spot. LOVELY!!! He told them they were out of luck for that day, but...
On Thursday, Sean, Samantha and I headed back out there to move the boat to the right spot. After moving it, we continued on down the road to check out Lake Mead, our new waterskiing/wakeboarding spot that we will be hopefully taking advantage of. Lake Mead is totally and completely different than the Willamette River in Oregon, so it will be interesting and exciting to get to know this new style of boating.
On Friday, Sean started his new job at LVGI. Yes, he had a 1-day work week! :-) Sean wanted to get in and get started at his new job, but one of the main advantages of starting on Oct 31 was that Sean's insurance benefits started on Nov 1. Phew... we're covered!
This weekend, we worked more on our unpacking and getting settled into the house. Although we have a little bit left to unpack in Sam's room, we're well on our way and should be all done unpacking by early this coming week.

How is Sean's job going?
Sean had a good first day with lots of paperwork and early training. Although he only worked 1 day last week, he was given plenty of "homework" to do over the weekend. He's been studying his new work computer (an Apple!) and iPhone and also doing a bunch of training/studying of the sales software that LVGI uses. He has a lot more training to do early this week and then will potentially be traveling for work at the end of the week. Needless to say, he's hitting the ground running!!

How is Lisa doing?
This week has been pretty good for me but tough as well. Leaving Portland broke my heart and I know I will miss it for a very long time. A lot of tears have been shed over the past week or two! One of my fellow passengers on the plane made the mistake of asking me if I was heading home and I bumbled some teary-eyed, stupid answer about it being my new home. I'm excited for this adventure... but sad all the same.
I haven't ventured out much this week (besides the trip to Lake Mead) because I'm focused on getting us all unpacked and organized. But this week, I'll hopefully be able to get out a bit more and start researching pediatricians, doctors, vets, dentists, swimming lessons, etc for the family. Sounds exciting, doesn't it!? :) Of course, my ability to get some of this done will depend on how well my little munchkin does. She had a mediocre fever all day today so we'll see if she's feeling better tomorrow.

Okay... I'm going to post this now or it will never get done. I'm going to do my ABSOLUTE best to get pictures uploaded here tomorrow. Fingers crossed!!!

Videos of 4-month-old Samantha

Okay... it has been a long while since I've posted pics and video of little Samantha... and it isn't due to lack of material. I haven't done an official count, but thanks to the age of digital cameras (and an extremely cute subject to shoot), I have approximately 2500 pictures and videos of our daughter. They aren't exactly all award winning pics, that's for sure, but since we don't have to get them developed, I just keep snapping pictures and shooting videos... and I'll just sort through them after she leaves for college! :) I know it's excessive, but digital memory is cheap and my memory is going, so it's safer to record her life on "film" rather than in my brain! :)





So without further ado, here are some of the most recent videos of Samantha so you can get a feel for what she's like right now.

In this clip, I'm sneaking in to video Sam while she is waking up from a nap.
If we're sure to let her sleep long enough, she wakes up so content and happy!

Samantha is experimenting with new sounds she can make.
Here, she is practicing her bird calls! :)

Bath times are JUST starting to become fun for Sam.
She still isn't 100% sure about how to play in the tub, but the kicking seems to be a hit.

Samantha is starting to develop her trunk strength more and more. A couple days before this video, if we put her in the BebePod chair, she would slump a little to the side. Now, if she's awake and full of energy, she can actually play sitting up a little bit on her own. In this video, we're trying not to laugh as she tries to pick up the circles that are part of the design on the placemat in the tray.

Of course, I have a bunch of other videos, but I'll keep it to these highlights. I'll post some pictures later (but I better publish this post now or who knows how long it might be before I remember to do so!)

The Shepards are on the move…

As you know, 2008 has been a crazy year for the Shepard family… most notably due to the amazing new addition of our daughter. Well… 2008 isn’t over yet, and as it turns out, we have one more very large change ahead of us.

A few weeks ago, Sean headed down to Las Vegas for a job interview. And thankfully, Sean “wowed” the interviewers, and in October, he will be one of the newest members of the sales crew at Las Vegas Gaming Incorporated (www.lvgi.com). Which means The Shepard Crew will be moving from beautiful Portland, Oregon down to a significantly drier Las Vegas, Nevada.

We have told some of our friends and family about this recent event… and have subsequently been asked a lot of questions. We figured we’d answer those questions here:
1. How long have you known about this?
Sean was approached about the open position in mid August, but didn’t interview for it until early September. We made the final decision some time around September 12th.
2. But what about your life here in Portland?
Although the time line leading up to this opportunity has been extremely short, the decision to make this move was not taken lightly. Sean has lived in Portland since he was nine years old and Lisa has called Oregon her home for over nine years. We met here, dated here, got married here, and our beautiful daughter was born here. We have extremely amazing friends, a great church, good jobs, and a wonderful life here. (Insert tears here) There are so many things we will miss.
3. Did Sean interview at other companies? Was he looking for a different job?
No, Sean was not actively looking for another job. He loves Real Estate and has taken so much pride in building his business over the last 7 or 8 years.
4. Then why are you moving? Why is he taking another job?
There are many benefits about our decision to move to Las Vegas. Although we weren’t proactively looking for another job for Sean, when this opportunity came up, we knew we had to consider it. Although there are some sacrifices that come with Sean rejoining the corporate world, there are a lot of positives with it, and he is excited to help an up-and-coming company develop their business and increase their sales. One notable benefit is that Lisa will be able to stay home with Samantha. As much as Lisa has enjoyed being a working woman and thriving in the professional world, we are very excited about this opportunity for her to be a full-time mom to Samantha.
Another significant perk to our move is that we will be close to Sean’s parents. Anyone who has a child will probably recognize what a value that is.
We also hope that living in a drier climate will allow us to squeeze in a bit more golfing and boating! And we are also aware that Las Vegas happens to be a pretty popular place to visit… so we hope that means we will get many visits from our family and friends across the country. Who doesn't want a place to stay in Las Vegas?! :-)
5. If Sean’s not available, who is going to help me when it comes time to buy/sell my house?
Sean will be working through some of his real estate deals straight up to the time we leave… and possibly even afterwards. Even after we move down there, if you are in the market to sell or buy a house, Sean knows a couple very qualified real estate brokers that he would refer you to. Sean always took great pride in making sure you got the best service he could possibly provide… and he would only refer you to someone who will do the same!
6. Isn’t Las Vegas just full of strippers and gamblers?
All our research we’ve done indicates that LIVING in Las Vegas is VERY different than VISITING Las Vegas… and we are banking on that. There are parks, hiking trails, farmers markets and all kinds of other activities for a family. We plan on spending much of our time in the suburbs and relatively little on The Strip.
7. Did you know that the summers are really hot in Las Vegas?
Hmmm… we weren’t aware of that. Gosh… I hope it doesn’t get too hot! JUST KIDDING!! We are very well aware that it gets scorching in the summer and we’ll just get used to it the same way we got used to the rain in Oregon. We’ll embrace the good parts about the weather (i.e. October – May), deal with the bad, and try to keep our complaints to a minimum. Of course… the dogs may not have the same attitude as us… but we hope they like getting shaved!! :)
8. When are you moving down? Where will you live?
Our plan is to live with Dad & Mom Shepard until our house up here in Oregon sells (or until we drive them nuts... whichever comes first! :-) ). This will give us plenty of time to learn more about the area and find the right place to get a house. We will move down in late October, although the exact date will be decided on shortly. Wow... there is a lot to get done in the next few weeks!!
9. Are you excited?
You bet! Are we nervous and scared? Of course! Is this one of the biggest decisions we've made in our lives? Undoubtedly! But we've prayed about it, pondered it, and talked it over a lot and we believe this is the right move for our family at this time. What an adventure!

We'll keep you posted on this crazy development in our lives, but until then... Viva Las Vegas!!!

Lots of Hugs,
Sean, Lisa, Samantha, Charlie & Sadie Shepard

Slideshow of Squishee growing

During Lisa's pregnancy, we had a slideshow of Lisa and Squishee growing on the right side of this blog. But "Squishee" is now Samantha and she's almost 3 months old. So it is time to move that slideshow to an "archive" post, rather than in its prominent position on the right hand side. Here it is...

Coming Soon: Updated Pics of Samantha

Check back Saturday evening (8/9/08) as I hope to have this post published by then.

In the meantime, check out Samantha's first photos in the July blog posting
http://theshepardcrew.blogspot.com/2008/07/portraits-of-our-newborn.html

Videos of Samantha: 4 - 7 weeks old

For those of you out-of-towners, here are some videos of our precious Samantha. Here's hoping these videos are playable on your computers... this is my first experience uploading videos to the blog!

When playing the videos, you need to click on the video to activate it. Then, you click on the "play button" (triangle button) in the bottom left of the video screen.

TIP: I have found that it is more enjoyable if you wait until a lot of the video has been buffered before starting to watch it. To do this, I click the "Play button" (triangle) and then immediately click the button again to pause the video. After a decent amount of the video has been buffered to your machine, click play, and you can watch the whole thing continuously (rather than having it stop and start while the video tries to catch up).

Samantha looking around - 4 weeks old
Video Details: 7/8/08 26 seconds 24 MB

Sam Loves Panda
Video Details: 7/20/08 15 seconds 14 MB
For the first few months, babies see Black/White and bold, contrasting patterns really well, which helped her develop a bond with Mr. Panda.

Say "Hi"
Video Details: 7/21/08 7 seconds 7 MB
A short clip of Samantha "saying hi". In the video, she is about 6 weeks old, and starting to experiment with her voice a little more.

More excited talking with Panda
Video Details: 7/21/08 11 seconds 10 MB

Coy Smile + Jabbering = Adorable
Video Details: 7/26/08 19 seconds 17 MB
Yes, we are currently in the process of getting wrapped around Samantha's little finger! :-) In this video, Sam is 7 weeks old, and well on her way to stealing our hearts.

Some of Sam's other visitors...

In the last post, we told you about all the helpers who have come from out of town to help take care of us over the last 2 months, but we've also had the pleasure of introducing Samantha to so many of our other friends and family. If you aren't pictured below, it's because we either haven't had the chance to see you... or the picture just didn't turn out! :-)

Here are pics of some of our wonderful visitors:

Stacey Hatch came to visit us in the hospital (with her husband, Don)

We also spent some time with the Hatches out on our back deck.

We don't know if Don made Samantha cry or if it's the other way around. Either way... they both look pretty scary.

Technically, they aren't visitors, but here are pictures of Samantha's 4-legged sisters, Charlie and Sadie. After 8 weeks, they still aren't 100% sure about this little being we brought into our house... we think they're waiting for the "owners" to come pick her up and take her home.



Soon after we got home, our friends Anne Marie and Dave Mills came over to visit. Not only did they meet Samantha, but they brought us a bottle of wine... and Lisa could finally have a glass!!! :-)

Great Grandma Shepard came up from Corvallis when Sam was about 5 days old. Samantha is her 6th great grandchild, so she's a veteran with these rascals.

We had a surprise visit from Lisa's second cousin, Bart, and his new wife, Holin. Samantha was about 8 days old... and the new Mr. and Mrs. Wilbanks were passing through town on the way to Seattle to attend a friend's wedding. Sean and Lisa hadn't seen Bart for about 6 years, so it was a treat to get to introduce them both to Sam so early on in her life.

Our former next-door-neighbors, Rob & Teresa came by to bring us food and meet the new Shepard. Their sons, Brayden and Noah, also came to visit, but we didn't manage to capture a picture of them. Give it a few years, and we're sure Samantha will have a crush on their adorable sons. :-)

When John and Julie Kinney came by to meet Samantha, we snapped this picture of them. John is 6' 5" and Julie is Thai, so we think they should send this picture in their Christmas cards next year... and spend the next year explaining how they wound up with a tiny, non-Asian baby. :-)

The Scott family came by to visit and Samantha was more than happy to share her pack 'n play with their daughter Lucy. Lucy is exactly 4 weeks older than Samantha, so she's our constant "preview" of what's to come! Jake and Sarah's son, Finn, was too excited with Samantha's toys to catch a shot of him with her!

A few weeks later, we captured this adorable pic of Sarah and Samantha over at Jake & Sarah's house.



When Papa and Nana came up from Las Vegas for the PWC golf tournament, they brought family friends, Russ and Robbie with them. It was fun to watch Robbie and Nana wrestle each other for the next turn at holding Samantha! Meanwhile, we had to talk Russ into holding such a small baby, but he did a wonderful job and Samantha was instantly smitten with him. Sam is very lucky to have "surrogate" grandparents like Russ and Robbie.

Our friends, Warren and Toni, brought us yummy food and wonderful company when Samantha was about a month old. We call Toni "The Baby Whisperer" because she just has a way with babies that calms them right down.

Samantha also got to meet Warren and Toni's gorgeous daughter, Emma, who was about 6 months old. We are smitten with our daughter, of course, but when you hear little Emma giggle (something Samantha isn't doing quite yet), your heart just absolutely melts. We know Emma is going to be a wonderful friend to Samantha as they grow up together.

After things had settled down a bit, and we were ready for more visitors, our friend Darci came by to meet Samantha. Darci and Lisa have been friends since 4th grade and she introduced Sean and Lisa, so of course, she takes full credit for the arrival of this little munchkin! :-) Darci is studying to be a nurse and had just completed her rotation in Labor and Delivery, so she had first hand experience with some of the hilarity we call "giving birth".

Lisa's coworker, Jake, stopped by to meet Samantha. Of course, as soon as Samantha was fussy, Lisa made him hold her. He looks like a natural, doesn't he! :-)

Samantha's Helpers

Sean and I want to send out a huge "Thank You" to all the helpers that came to stay with us over the last couple of months. Sean and I made a pact before Sam was born that we would only allow people to come visit if they didn't expect to be waited on or entertained since we knew we'd have plenty of other new duties to keep us busy... and we got "visits" from some of the best helpers around. Look below for pictures and highlights of our "Supporting Cast"...

Papa & Nana Shepard came to Portland soon after Samantha was born. Nana was en route as Samantha was entering into the world... Papa flew in a few days later. This timing worked out wonderfully since it gave Lisa a few days in the hospital to try to get breastfeeding under control before she had to even attempt to be discrete! :)

Papa stayed for 4-5 days and Nana stayed for about 10 days total. We really took advantage of all the help!




When Samantha was 2 weeks old, Nana and Papa came up for a second visit. They came to play in the 21st annual PWC Children's Charity golf tournament with Sean and family friends, Russ and Robbie Roth. THEIR TEAM TOOK FIRST PLACE, so we got the pleasure of hearing Dad and Russ sing "We Are The Champions" for a day or two. Samantha and Lisa were able to go to the dinner after the tournament to show how proud we were of our family of golfers.


















Grandma Broman came to help at the end of June (Samantha was about 2 1/2 weeks old) and stayed for a week. Grandma Broman helped us with the cooking, laundry, and even managed to navigate around the area while doing errands! Even though we were 3 weeks into this new job of ours, we were still very much in need of plenty of help! This was a great transition week for us as we started to feel a little more confident in our parenting skills and started to get a little bit of a handle on how to accomplish things during Samantha's naps! :-)



















At the tail end of Grandma Broman's visit, The Mitson family drove into town for a couple of days. Channing and Charise were very excited to meet their first human cousin! Unfortunately, Samantha slept most of the time (when she wasn't eating or crying), so she wasn't quite as much fun to play with as her cousins had hoped. Channing and Charise were excellent helpers though, and went they weren't swimming/playing with our next door neighbor, Sarah, they helped out a lot with changing diapers and getting Aunt Lisa baby supplies while her hands were full.

Aunt Lorna (Lisa's sister) and Uncle Justin were instantly smitten with their niece... but who can blame them? In these pictures, they're holding her before we headed off to an Independence Day party and our next-door-neighbor's house. It was Samantha's first holiday celebration!!




















The very next weekend, Sean's cousin, Cristy came to help for about 5 days (Samantha was around 4-5 weeks old). Cristy showed up and started scooting around... running to the grocery store, tackling laundry, and cooking us yummy food. She even made a scrumptious appetizer for a party that we all went to. The running joke throughout her stay was that Cristy was Lisa's personal assistant since Lisa couldn't remember anything if it wasn't written on a note right in front of her. And we were only partially kidding... Lisa is really missing her assistant... why do you think these blog updates haven't been getting done?! :-)


A few days after Cristy left, Lisa and Sean's friend from Florida showed up for a 5 day "shift" with the Shepard family. Just like with Cristy, Vera showed up and started cruising around the house getting to work. She even came with a pre-planned menu for her stay here!!! Since Lisa had already deemed Cristy her personal assistant, Vera became known as our fabulous Asian chef and nanny! We really know how to find good help, don't we!! :-)




















Papa and Nana Shepard managed to visit a third time by coming to Portland at the end of a month-long road trip they went on. They arrived the last weekend in July and Papa stayed for a week before flying back to Las Vegas the next Sunday to get back to the real world (i.e. work!) and Nana is heading out tomorrow (Friday, Aug 8). During this visit, they watched Samantha grow from a tiny 6 week old to a big girl (8 weeks old!). Samantha is mastering the art of smiling and cooing... which has enabled her to start the process of getting Papa wrapped around her tiny little finger! :-)

As you can tell by the impressive list of people in this cast of characters, we had a lot of wonderful helpers during this transition into parenthood. We probably would have gotten by without all this help... but we would have been crazy to try! :-)

THANK YOU TO YOU ALL!!!!