Happy Birthday, Dad!

Today is my dad's birthday and I just want to take a second to wish him a happy birthday. He would have been 69 today... or as he liked to say, he would have been celebrating the 30th anniversary of his 39th birthday.

We love you, Dad... and miss you tons!

P.S. It is also my brother-in-law's birthday today, so we would also like to wish Justin a very happy birthday. We love you very much, too, Bro!

Look below for an onslought of blog postings...

I'm so ashamed... it has been over 2 months since our last post. The reason can be wrapped up into 3 short words: "Thanksgiving, Christmas, Baby". I won't spend forever telling you how busy we were... if you're like every other red-blooded American, you are probably well aware of the phenomenon! =)

However, we are drastically behind in getting you up to speed on our little munchkin, as well as how we are doing here in Las Vegas. So I'm going to do a few different blog posts all at once that hopefully get you caught up. Sorry for the massive brain (and picture) dump... rather than gradually keeping you posted!

Holiday Fun

Like the rest of you, we were very busy over the holidays. Here are a few pics from our holiday festivities:

While in Boise celebrating "Thanksmas" (our creative mix between Thanksgiving and Christmas), we were able to snap these pics of our little family (and, of course, Samantha's Christmas dress!).




And although Samantha was getting very tired (and therefore is staring with mouth wide), we snapped this precious photo of the three cousins, Charise, Samantha and Channing.

We attended a Christmas party at Spanish Trail Golf Club. Samantha was a little too young to join in all the activities they had for the kids, but she did get to meet Santa.


We also took advantage of a rare opportunity to get a photo of all five of us (Papa Bruce, Nana Liz, Sean, Lisa and Samantha)



The Christmas decorations around the house were definitely a source of enjoyment for Samantha. She loved the lights, the sparkle, and all the bright colors. The nutcrackers really intrigued her. We're guessing that they'll probably scare her more than amuse her next year!



After all the Christmas festivities, we were very excited to welcome our friends from Portland, Don and Stacey. We celebrated the New Year, of course, and were able to spend a few wonderful days playing and relaxing together.

Some of Samantha's Milestones

First and foremost, we can tell you that Sam is teething. As you can see... nothing is safe from the wrath of her mouth!

And just when we were starting to think that all this teething never resulted in anything, Samantha's first tooth emerged on Sunday (1/18). Even though there isn't anything she could have done to prevent it, we're still really proud of our beautiful, one-toothed little girl!


Let's see... what else is big in Samantha's life. She started eating solid foods about two months ago. That's a misnomer, by the way. There's nothing solid about these foods! I'm master of all that is pureed in our household and I make sure the foods are an excellent consistency for our little munchkin. We introduce all the different foods about 4-7 days apart to make sure we'd be able to detect an allergy if there was one. So far, Samantha has eaten rice, millet and oat cereals, mango, papaya, pear, banana, winter squash, green beans, avocado, and sweet potato. And don't forget the 5th food group... Gerber Puffs! :-) Yogurt is NOT one of Samantha's favorite foods... we'll try again in a few weeks to see if she finds it any more pleasing.

Samantha has been a wonderful (and entertaining) eater from the very beginning. She likes to help by grabbing the spoon and bringing it to her mouth which makes a mess, but is so important for her development. She is also very noisy... this girl likes to let everyone know that she is enjoying her food. I'll have to post some video one of these days of her mmmmm sounds (when I have a chance to sort through the hundreds of video clips we've taken so far).

In December, while most of the country was experiencing crazy snow storms, Las Vegas did too. Ours lasted all of 1 day, but it still was exciting to see inches of snow accumulate on the Vegas ground. And of course, we had to snap some pictures of Samantha in her first snow. Think about it... how many people in this world can say that the first time they EVER saw snow, it was in Las Vegas, Nevada!? =)





Another milestone is that Samantha is sitting so well! It's crazy how we barely noticed going from that "hovering" parent because Samantha falls over at the slightest imbalance to the parent that sits her down on the floor to play while you run to the bathroom. Please don't let me make it sound like I have no worries about her hitting her head. I'm amused to admit that we have a 4' x 8' blue gym mat downstairs so Samantha has a place to crash and tumble on the tile floor. It's not too great for the decor, but it's a life (and noggin) saver.

Samantha's first Presidential inauguration
In honor of the historic inauguration of President Obama today, here's a picture of Samantha declaring her ambitious future goals... :)

It reads: "President (some day)"

How is life in Las Vegas?

Justifiably so, we've had a lot of questions from friends asking how we're doing. Let's see if I can briefly answer some of them:

How is Sean liking his new job?
Although it's very different than Real Estate, Sean is really enjoying his job. LVGI is a very small company, which means Sean is wearing a lot of hats and staying very busy. This is extremely important to someone like Sean. If he was just crunching numbers and pushing papers, he would go insane in a matter of days.

How is Lisa liking her new job?
I always joked about the term "Domestic Engineer", but it's not really that far from reality. There is a LOT that goes into this job as a mom and homemaker. I actually find myself looking forward to the weekends just as much as the "working folks" because it means there are more hands around to help out with Samantha, etc. Even though I am busy each and every day, I *LOVE* this job. Samantha is such a treasure and I love spending so much time with her (most of the time! :) )

How is the Vegas weather?
I gotta tell you... this weather is absolutely awesome. Oh sure... December dips into the 30s in the evenings, so you still need things like jeans, coats, and mittens in December. Here are a couple of pics of Sam wrapped up for a walk in December...




Although this January has been warmer than the average, it's crazy to think that we're pretty much heading into Spring now. I took Samantha and the dogs for a walk the other day in shorts and a tank top... and later in the day heard a story on the radio that gas pumps were freezing in the midwest. I'm guessing in a few years, this will feel "normal", but for now, it's really hard to wrap my head around the fact that it's January. I've taken the dogs on about 50 walks in the past 3 months... which is about 48 more than I would have taken during the winter in Portland. That's both a testimony to the beautiful, dry weather as well as how much Samantha likes walks! :)






How is living with your parents/in-laws... seriously?
Yes, it's true that my in-laws can read this blog, so I have to speak favorably of living with them. :) But I gotta tell you... I'M NOT LYING!!! Sean and I feel very blessed to be able to live here with Samantha and the dogs while we wait for the Portland house to sell. Sean and I have our own room and Samantha has her own, so we're able to have our own space even though we all share the house. Mom Shepard and I are home the most and we have really developed a great routine together when it comes to taking care of Samantha and the house. And even though Sean and I wouldn't move down to Las Vegas SOLELY for the abundant parental babysitting, knowing what we know now, we'd probably consider it! :) Samantha will surely hear some funny stories about the months living with her Papa and Nana, but for the most part, the stories will show just how wonderful it is going!


Have you guys found friends there yet?
In all honesty, we have been so busy with holidays, new jobs, and just figuring our lives out, we haven't really had a chance to delve into meeting people. We did start going to Life Baptist church about 2 months ago. It's way smaller than any church we've ever gone to (and that threw us off guard for the first couple of visits) but we are definitely liking it. And Lisa is going to a MOPS (Mothers of Pre Schoolers) group that is held nearby every other week. But other than that, we have just been concentrating on surviving day by day and week by week!

So, Mrs. Optimistic... is everything sweet and rosy in Las Vegas?
Okay... so I'm painting a pretty glorious picture, aren't I? For the sake of honesty, I'll share a couple of things that are tainting this place called Las Vegas
- It is TOUGH to find good medical care here in Las Vegas. By looking at our Explanations of Benefits from the insurance company, I'm guessing it has something to do with how little the doctors get paid from the insurance companies, but that's just a guess. From family docs, to pediatricians, to dentists, to veterinarians, we have definitely had an interesting time finding good doctors around here. No wonder Dad and Mom Shepard still fly up to Portland to see our beloved dentist! :-)
Here's a picture I couldn't resist taking as I drove home one evening. It's dark, but hopefully you can see how interesting our medical care is down here! :-)



- A week or two before Christmas, Lisa got here car broken into. The thieves popped the lock through the driver's side door and stole Lisa's GPS Navigation unit that she had "hidden" in the middle console as well as a couple of gifts she had stupidly left on the passenger side floor. Fortunately, they didn't steal anything in the back seat (Sam's car seat, Lisa's jacket or all our Christmas cards that needed to get taken to the post office), but overall, it will still ring in at about $1000 in losses ($600 damage to the car, $400 value of stolen items). And yes... both of those categories are on different parts of your insurance coverage, so our $500 deductible for each does very little for us!

- All that dry weather means VERY little "beauty" down here. We love the sunny days, but boy, we miss the green! Thanks to dirt and dust, we wash our dogs and cars more than we EVER did in Portland. I'm sure we will miss the green even more the longer we are down here, but we're trying to see the beauty in rocks! :-)


Well, I hope this answers some of your questions about our life in Las Vegas. Does it cover everything? Heck, no! But I want to get this posted before January of 2010! :)

Another photo shoot

While our friends (Don and Stacey) were in town, we just HAD to commission Don to take some more pics of our little family. Don's the guy who took my maternity pics and Samantha's newborn pics. He obviously wasn't able to bring down his lights and other equipment on the plane, but he brought his fancy camera and excellent photography skills. We got a lot of fun photos (even though Samantha was getting pretty tired near the end!). Here are some of our favorites (you can click on them to bring up bigger versions of them):

















THANK YOU DON! We have such treasured memories on "film" because of you!

More blabbing about Samantha

Okay, this blog post is for those that want a little more detail about our little munchkin (and it's also a place to put some pictures that don't really fit into any blog category... they're just cute photos of our little girl).

At this writing, here are some little facts about Samantha:


- Sam turned 7 months old on January 10th.
- Yes... we usually call her Sam. Sometimes Samantha. Rarely Sammy at this point, but I think that's because we figure if you're going to shorten her name, you might as well go with one syllable. I'm sure it will change later!
- Samantha is looking more and more like her dad, but she's definitely still keeping some mom characteristics. The most notable is her chin (she has mommy's chin). Her eyes are pretty big (so everyone thinks she has mom's eyes) but if you look closely, the shape actually looks more like dad's. Her eyelashes are exactly like dad's and they're growing every day. And her face is definitely more round (like dad's) and not oval (like mom's). Of course, this could all change as time goes by (they have a way of doing that!) but these are our observations at this time.
- Samantha's hair is growing beautifully, although this is one area where she appears to be a mix between dad and mom. Sean was born with a head full of hair (and kept it all) whereas Lisa was bald until she was about 2 1/2 years old! Looks like Samantha is trying the middle of the road on this one.
- At her last appointment, Samantha weighed 15 lbs 11 oz (which was about 25th percentile, I think).
- Her last doctor appointment was actually an unplanned one. We were worried about this weird twitching thing she was doing. Lisa noticed it first while feeding her and changing her diaper. It was like involuntary muscle spasms... mostly in her arms, but a little in her legs and head. It definitely didn't look like seizures, but anything involving twitching scares the poop out of new parents (and maybe even veteran parents, I don't know). Anyway, the pediatrician wasn't too concerned based on other indicators and our description of what was going on, and we decided to observe her for the next week. Within a couple days of the appointment, the twitches had decreased dramatically and we stopped seeing them. Every now and then, we see twitches again, but we're thinking it may be in response to sharp teething pains or just a fun thing she likes to do to get attention. Babies do so many weird things that are cute and we don't take them to the doctor for them... but a weird thing that involves twitching or muscle spasms freaks us out. Go figure!
- Samantha just learned the art of blowing raspberries a couple of days ago. Because they're sweet little raspberries at this time, we still think they're cute... but we can certainly see the potential for disaster later on! :)
- We JUST stopped swaddling Samantha at night last week. Yeah, that's a pretty long time for swaddling for a baby, but the pediatrician said if she was still sleeping through the night, then we didn't need to stop swaddling her. No matter when we stopped, we knew she'd be grown out of it by kindergarten! :) At the time that we quit swaddling her, she still didn't mind it, but we wanted her to have her arms free so she could get her little chew toy when she woke up in the morning (no... we don't think she's a dog, but there are some similarities when it comes to chew toys!) :) So far, it hasn't disrupted her sleep too much. She goes to bed around 7:30 pm, wakes up around 6:30 am and "plays" in her crib until about 7:15. Of course, as soon as I tell anyone that she's sleeping through the night well, she pulls a week of "oh yeah... I'll show you" just to keep us guessing, so we'll see if she holds to that pattern tonight! :)

Okay... those are all the "facts" I can think of off the top of my head. To reward you for reading this far, here are some more fun pics:

Samantha is wearing her "Horton Hears a Who" shirt
while chewing on poor Horton's trunk.

You can see it better if you click on the picture to make it bigger,
but the shirt says "Sam I Am".
(We should put something on the back that says "No... really. Sam I Am.")


Momma's Helper Numero Uno


Momma's Helper Number Dos



Should we send this in to Apple to see if they want to use it in their advertisements?


What a precious little face... and she puts up with us so much!

Shameless Photo Ops

We don't have recent pictures of Samantha with all the people she has seen recently, but here are a few photos of Sam with friends and family:

With Grandma Broman, Aunt Lorna and Cousins Channing and Charise at the airport in Boise

With Papa checking out his dental work

With Mom, sporting Samantha's "Peace" outfit

With Nana

Claiming the best seat in the house... on Dad's shoulder!

With Grandma Broman

With Aunt Lorna

With her 4-legged sisters: Charlie and Sadie

With Great Aunt Barb in Boise

In Boise, with Sean's Cousin Jeff and Coco
(the daughter of one of Sean's other cousins, Jamie)

With "Aunt" Robbie and "Uncle" Russ

Giving Robbie a workout by jumping in her arms

Lots of love and attention from "Aunt" Stacey and "Uncle" Don