The Sheppard's

Octoberfest!

2010-11-08T10:05:00.000-08:00

We have had so much fun this month with Garred deer hunting, celebrating our 6 yr anniversary (love ya hun!) and halloweening it up! The girls and I went down with Garred to Salina for the last days of the deer hunt so he wasn't by himself. We had fun and got to spend time with Great Grandma Sheppard which is always a bonus. Hailey played deer hunting for a couple of weeks after we got home :) I took the girls to Gardner Village with my folks to see the witches, Hailey loved it and Ellie didn't. Afterwards we went to a pumpkin patch and picked pumpkins and took pictures on a tractor, it was so fun we will be doing that again. We decorated a gingerbread haunted house. Ellie kept attacking the house so we had to throw it away right after we were done. We carved pumpkins..Ellie loved trying to eat them..this girl eats everything if you couldn't tell. We went to a trunk or treat at Contacts and with our neighborhood. Everyone loved Hailey and Ellie's costumes. They were Little Bo Peep and her lost lamb. I made the costumes and was quite surprised at how well they turned out. Everyone thought my mom made them so I take that as a huge compliment since my mom is a great seamstress. Here are our pictures for this month:

Hailey's 3rd Birthday

2010-11-08T09:01:00.001-08:00

I can't believe that it has already been 3 years since I had Hailey. She is a funny little girl and everyday I laugh because of her. I'm so grateful and thankful to have her in our family. I have been trying to become a good baker and I love to make big cool things (thanks food network). I have been asking Hailey since the beginning of the year what kind of cake she wanted for her birthday so I could find a cool one online and copy it....well she wanted a dinosaur cake. I was super excited to make that plus I was super excited it wasn't anything girly. I found this cool 3D cake and made it (I was quite impressed that it turned out as good as it did..even if the head fell off twice). We had a dinosaur party for her, we played pin the hold on the triceratops and had a t-rex pinata. Hailey, her cousins and friends had so much fun! On her birthday Garred and I took her to the dinosaur museum and then to dinner at Pizza Factory..it was fun and she had a blast seeing all the dinosaurs.

Projects, Canning and Cuteness

2010-11-08T08:36:00.000-08:00

I have been itching for a change with our furniture, watching too much HGTV and looking at peoples blogs I have decided to refinish some of my furniture pieces. I'm starting small...I refinished our coffee table (before and after picture below) and I eventually want to refinish our kitchen cabinets. I got this cool desk chair at yard sale and I'm planning on reupholstering it and putting it in our office. I love the green leather on the back of the chair, but that wouldn't look too good in our office so I might have to change that part too.

My mom came over and taught me how to can green beans, pears and peaches...I also canned some salsa too! Hailey had a fun time snapping the beans. I wish I would have taken a picture of all the canning because they all looks so nice in their bottles :)

So I have these two pictures that I just love, 1st: never in a million years would I ever say that Garred wears big pants, NEVER, but when Hailey wears some of his basketball shorts they look huge! 2nd: Ellie has some of the curliest hair when she gets out of tub and I just love how happy she is in this picture.. so cute!

Annual Contacts Bash!

2010-11-08T08:20:00.000-08:00

1-800 Contacts is one of the best companies to work for...the is were Garred and I met, I worked there for almost 5 years and Garred has been working there for the last 9 years. They are good to their employees, they give everyone an anniversary gift, they take everyone and their families to movies twice a year, they have a huge company party every summer (where they give out huge prizes-unfortunately we haven't won anything yet) and they have a cafeteria with excellent food for way cheap. This summer for their company party they did a party at Thanksgiving point. The day started out crappy with a down pour, but it cleared up and the girls got to have so much fun playing on the inflatable slides. I didn't get too many pictures of the party, but here are some :)

My Little Ballerina

2010-11-08T07:14:00.000-08:00

Over the summer I decided to put Hailey in a dance class. The dance studio right by our house had a little 3 yr old class that did ballet, tap and tumbling so I figured hey I will be a cool mom for once and get Hailey doing something then just hanging out at home watching TV while I work...well she loved it! She loved her teachers, she loved the girls in the class and she loved wearing her leotard. Here are pictures from her different classes.

Free Boat!!

2010-11-04T14:52:00.000-07:00

Garred and I have been lucky enough to receive two boats for free! We got our first boat when we were first married and living in our apartment in Sandy. The lady I use to visit teach said we could have her boat..it was a big boat and could have been an awesome boat, but after getting the boat and letting it sit in my folks circle for over a month we decided we just needed to get rid of it since it needed a lot of TLC and we couldn't afford it then, so we took it to the dump. Now our current free boat is a beauty..she is a 1958 (or 1957) Glass Magic. A lady in our neighborhood was trying to sell some of her dad's things and she had the boat listed as one of the items. Garred was joking around with her saying that if her dad needed someone to just haul it away for him for free he would do it..about a month later I get a call saying that if we still want to haul it away we can have it. Garred was so excited! I love the boat too because it is so retro with it's fins (Love them!!) The girls love playing in the boat and Hailey is so excited to take it out fishing. The boat needs some TLC too, but we have been able to do all of the repairs our self so far.. here are some pictures of the boat when we got it and after some repairs (We had to remove a piece of wood at the back (transom) of the boat, removed the seats and carpet and then had to remove the flooring since the wood below the fiberglass had rotted away (that was pretty gross)). We will keep everyone updated on the progress.. Garred is hoping to have the boat water ready by the spring :)

Snapshot of the Week!

2010-11-04T14:22:00.000-07:00

When Garred and I were dating his roommates use to call him Mr. Sportsman or the Ultimate Sportsman and I always thought it was kind of funny, but now that we have been married for a while it's not that funny anymore. Reasons why: one of the two main topics always talked about around his brothers is hunting/fishing, Half of the shows set to record on our DVR is hunting shows, fall use to be my favorite season, but now that it's the hunting season I like it less and less each year and either Halloween/my birthday or our anniversary had to be moved because of a hunt.

One thing that has redeemed Garred from this is he entered a couple of pictures of the girls into a photo contests on a local hunting show called "Roughin' it Outdoors" and the girls won the snapshot of the week! I know I have dang cute girls, but I was so shocked when the pictures won. We had gone to Cascade Springs over Memorial Day weekend and stopped in Midway to fish a little on the Provo River and I took the pictures on my camera phone. The girls won us a two burner camping stove and a lantern (unfortunately we already had both of those, but heck we can have two of each!). Here is the link for the snapshot of the week: http://connect2utah.com/roughin-it-story?nxd_id=98785 and here are the pictures:

July

2010-11-04T13:13:00.000-07:00

The day of Ellie's birthday party Garred got a call from the Stake President wanting to meet with Garred. We just laughed because he knew a call was coming, but didn't think it would be so soon. So after Ellie's party we went to meet with the stake and Garred was called to be the 2nd counselor in the bishopric. I just laughed- Garred thought he was being called as the Elders Quorum President (the previous one was moving). The Stake President thought it was so funny that I was just laughing and not shocked or overwhelmed by the calling. I told him I knew Garred would do a fantastic job in that calling and I wasn't worried about it. Since his calling Sunday's, Tuesday's and Wednesday's have been a little lonely without him, but we have been so blessed since he accepted the calling that it's worth it. Garred is over the YM/scouts and was able to go with them on a hike for "Operation on Target" they hiked up above Y mountain and they had to signal other YM/Scouts across the valley/county/state with mirrored panels they had to build. The boys were able to sign a group all the way down by Mt. Nebo, up to Lone Peak and across the valley to Tooele.

I took the girls to Tracy Aviary with my mom and nephews. Hailey and Ellie loved seeing all the birds and being with Grandma, Spencer and Zach. Hailey loves her cousins so much and would love it if she could play with them everyday!

We went to the Lehi Rodeo with my family at the end of June (forgot to put that down for June). Hailey and Ellie just love horses. Then we went down to Salina to celebrate the 4th with Grandma Shep. We stayed up at in a cabin at Fish Lake one night with Devin and Ashlee. Hailey and Parker slept out in the family room. During the night We all heard Hailey crying and we went out to see what was wrong...Parker got cold and got in her sleeping bag with her and she didn't want him there with her and her blanket. It was the funniest thing. We went to Cold Springs were Hailey and Parker out fished everyone. Hailey loves spending time with her Great Grandma Sheppard and Ellie loves to give Great Grandma Sheppard lots of kisses (which Grandma Shep doesn't mind in the least). After fishing we came back into town and went to the Salina parade and the the Stubbs family reunion. Hailey and Ellie got to play with their cousins and ride horses. Hailey loved riding the horse, but Ellie not so much. She would rather look at them from afar.

For the 24th we got to stay home and celebrate the holiday with just us. It was nice to just spend time together as a family.

Ellie's 1st Birthday

2010-11-04T13:00:00.000-07:00

I can't believe my baby is already 1..it's amazing how fast time goes by with even one extra kid. I made Ellie's cake and flower cookie's. All the kids loved the cookies and I will have to make them more often, they are so fun to have since they are on a stick!

New Family Pictures

2010-11-04T12:37:00.000-07:00

We had our family pictures taken at the begining of June by Nicole Baldwin (my sister-in-law's friend) and here were my favorites:

Pictures Jan-May

2010-11-04T10:47:00.000-07:00

So it has been way to long since my last post. I will be adding a lot of posts for the months that I missed and maybe for once I can stay caught up :) I hope you enjoy the multiple posts!

Pictures

2010-06-10T21:11:00.000-07:00

Here are some pictures from October-December. I know I have more current pictures, but of course I can't find them so as soon as I do then I will post soem more. In the meantime please enjoy!

Also, Ellie will be turning 1 next week...crazy how fast time flies! Here is the birthday invitation I made for her.

Long time no post...

2010-06-09T13:33:00.000-07:00

So I am a huge slacker when it comes to blogging. I get so caught up in work and the girls that when I have a free moment I would rather do nothing and relax then spend more time on the computer..so selfish I know...I figure I better catch everyone up as to how we are and what we've been up to since the last time I posted.

October: Garred and I celebrated our 5 yr anniversary…I am more in love with him than the first time we met. Ellie had her first Halloween..she was a monkey and Hailey actually got to do a little trick or treating.. she was a ladybug (I was so proud of myself I made her costume (with very little help from my mom))they both looked so stinking cute!
November: I turned another year older and hopefully wiser. We got to spend Thanksgiving down in Salina with Grandma Shep. We got a Christmas tree tag (finally after talking about getting one for 4 yrs) and cut one down by Salina somewhere-it was so fun! Hailey got croup for the first time.
December: Hailey finally got her first official haircut (her hair grows as slow as mine-poor kid). The girls got to see Santa at the Jensen family Christmas party- Hailey is still a little unsure about him and Ellie did care at all. We had a great Christmas all together!
January: We redecorated our family room...Hailey got sick again with some kind of bug and Ellie just keeps growing.
February: Hailey and Ellie both got RSV...of course since my girls are so tough and never act differently when their sick I had no idea...I thought they had a cold and I thought Ellie was teething. After finally being tired of the runny noses I took them to the doctor. Hailey's RSV had turned into pneumonia (Hailey thought the x-ray machine was cool) and Ellie's RSV turned into bronchiolitis. They were such troopers and got better really fast once they were on medication. I started to babysit my neighbor kids. Hailey likes to have people over to play with even if they don't want to play with her some times.
March: We started to really try potty training with Hailey...it worked a little bit, but I don't think I was totally ready to train her so we stopped.
April: Easter came around too fast so the girls didn't get new dresses...we did dye eggs though and they had three Easter egg hunts (Garred's folks did one, My folks did one and then we did one on Easter.
May: We finally built a fire pit area in our backyard. I really worked with Hailey this time around to get her potty trained...so far so good! She has had only a few peeing accidents-Ya for not buying as many diapers!

I will add some pictures shortly...

Hailey Randomness

2009-09-25T14:49:00.000-07:00

Since Hailey is getting older and getting such a funny little personality I thought I would share some funny pictures we have of her.

When we first brought Ellie home we had to put her in front of the window to help stop her jaundice from getting worse...well Hailey thought it would be fun to lay in the bassinet.

Hailey is learning to play the Harmonica. She really likes it because Scout sings(howls) when she/we play it. (I will have to post a video of it...it's pretty funny)

Hailey sat inside Courtney's purse/bag and we all thought she looked like one of those little dogs people carry around in their purse.

Hailey loves putting on mine and Garred's socks

Hailey has turned into a little artist...unfortunately her art is usually on herself or the walls.

Hailey likes to crawl under Ellie's crib and play with her old jumping playset.

August in Review

2009-09-25T13:06:00.000-07:00

August 1st: We went to the 1-800 Contacts backyard bash. Hailey had fun going down the huge inflatable slides and playing in their little swimming pools. Unfortunately, Garred didn’t win anything....we were hoping for a tv or a trip.

Mid August: I took the girls to the county fair with my mom and sister. Hailey had a blast seeing all the cows, pigs and lambs. On our way to the petting zoo area she saw the pony ride and wanted to go (she loves her neighs!), so we let her go. She really liked it even though you wouldn’t have been able to tell since she wouldn’t smile.

August 15th: Ellie is now 2 months old…it’s amazing how fast she is growing! She is now 11.5 lbs (40th percentile) and 23 in long (70th percentile). She already weighs half as much as Hailey. I have a feeling that Ellie will pass Hailey up in weight and height pretty soon. My little baby isn’t so little anymore.

August 16th: We celebrated Ellie’s blessing. My mom made her a beautiful dress. The day was great, Garred gave Ellie a wonderful blessing and we had a bunch of family over to celebrate. It was just a great day!

August 19th: Garred turned the big 30!! We were able to ditch the girls and go out… we went to see GI Joe and ate dinner at Tucano’s. I felt bad that I didn’t do more to celebrate his birthday, but I will totally do more next year.

August 31st: Hailey turned 2!! I can’t believe it was just two years ago that I had my sweet Hailey. Currently Hailey weighs a whopping 21 lbs (3rd percentile) and is 33 in (20th percentile). Even though Hailey isn’t that big now she has come a long way from being born at 3 lbs 10 oz and 16 in. I still can’t believe how small and perfect she came into this world. I’m so glad that all the problems I had during my pregnancy only affected me and not Hailey. We are so happy to have Hailey in our family…she brings so much joy into lives!
Hailey loves Nemo right now so I did a Nemo cake for her birthday and we took her to the Aquarium to see Nemo and all the other fish. It was a lot of fun.

July in Review..

2009-08-17T15:19:00.000-07:00

So since I'm not the best at keeping our blog up to date I figured I will try to do at least one entry every month and hopefully I will get better. So here we go! We did a lot during July..
Garred and I took Hailey to the Real soccer game on the 3rd- she loves trying to find Leo the lion. They also let off fireworks after the game, Hailey thought that was the best thing.

On the 4th we went to the Murray parade with Grandma and Grandpa D. Hailey wasn't too thrilled with being up so early, but she finally liked the parade. After the parade we killed sometime before my family bbq and feed some ducks. Hailey loved throwing bread at the ducks and loved that the ducks would follow her around.

July 11th we went to the horse parade. It was a fun 25 minutes-it took us longer to get to there then it took to watch the parade, but Hailey loved the horses. After the parade my brother's boys came ready to play in the water... I didn't bring Hailey's swimming suit, but we improvised and she had fun!

Garred decided to take Hailey camping in the backyard. We bought her a cute pink camo sleeping bag...they had a lot of fun (Ellie and I had fun in the house on our soft beds) and Garred said Hailey is now ready offically to go camping.

I took the girls to the Herriman splash park with my mom and nephews. Hailey wasn't too excited to run through the water, but I got Spencer to drag her out a few times.

We went to Parker's (Garred's brothers little boy) birthay party..Hailey once again didn't really like the water... we need to work on the water thing :)

And the last thing that was exciting was going to Jason's house for the 24th. Garred took some cool pictures of Hailey and the boys with their glow sticks.

Sorry for the long post!

Ellie Sheppard

2009-07-10T15:33:00.001-07:00

This poor blog has been negleted, but we are happy to announce that Ellie Sheppard was born on June 15th at 5:31pm. She weighed 6 lbs 14 oz. It was quite interesting to go into the hospital Monday afternoon knowing that we were going to be having a baby that day, instead of waiting at home for Lindsay to go into labor. We arrived and had to wait for about an extra hour since they had some emergency c-sections come up. Well they got Lindsay all prepped and away we went with the surgery. Everything went by so fast, we were in and out of the operating room in about 45 minutes. That night Hailey came by to see us and saw her little sister for the first time. At first she wanted to give her a kiss, and then she wanted me to hold her instead of holding the baby.

Well the next day Hailey came back and visited again, and this time all she wanted to do was hold and kiss Ellie, and show us where Ellie's eyes, ears, nose, toes, etc. were at. We were able to go home Thursday afternoon and have had a wonderful time with our family all home now.

Cruise Trip Photos

2008-12-22T21:32:00.001-08:00

Babies, Bahamas and Everything Else.....

2008-12-18T20:11:00.000-08:00

So many things have happened since the last time I posted..... I know I say I will be better at posting, but so far that hasn't happened so maybe I will try for at least once a month :)

Garred took Scout out chuckar hunting last month and I told him not to take him since he hadn't been out since he had his knee surgery and I didn't want him to over work him and ruin his knee. Well Garred took him anyways and Scout tore up his paws so bad...they all were bleeding and he could barely walk. I felt so bad for him when he got home we had to bandage up all his feet....poor little guy!

Hailey has discovered how much fun it is to dance!

We found out that we will be adding another addition to our family on June 26th.... we're hoping that the baby will come closer to it's due date then Hailey did to hers. We should find out what we're having at the end of January. We are pretty excited that our family is growing so fast!

Garred and I had a chance to go on a belated 4 yr anniversary trip. We went on a cruise to the Bahamas and Key West, Florida. It was a nice getaway from work, but I missed Hailey a lot while we were gone. Our favorite part of the trip was our visit to the Everglades. It was so much fun going on the airboat and seeing all the alligators. I was chosen to wrestle a big alligator....I almost pulled the pregnancy card when our guide said I had to jump on the alligators back, but after he showed me that I was going to put the alligators snout under my chin I knew he was teasing. Garred and I got to hold a small alligator which was still about 35 lbs. It was pretty cool.

Happy Belated Halloween!!

2008-11-10T14:37:00.000-08:00

So I'm still trying to be better about posting everything that is going on, but well I forget a lot :) So here is pictures of our halloween fun last month~

Earlier in October Hailey and I went to Engh Gardens to their pirate party with Grandma Kay, Spencer and Zach. It was a lot of fun! We got to see and play on a big pirate ship, hear a fun halloween story and get tattoos. Hailey had a lot of fun!

We carved pumpkins for the first time with Hailey. She loved grabbing, squeezing and trying to eat the seeds from the pumpkin.

We played in the leaves before we got dressed to go trick or treating

My mom helped me make this flower fairy costume for Hailey... I personally think she is the

cutest flower fairy ever!

Hailey and Scout

2008-10-16T11:45:00.000-07:00

Since Hailey has been able to crawl around she loves playing with Scout. Hailey loves Scout so much she even tries to be him. Here are some of my favorite Hailey and Scout moments...enjoy!

Fun Times

2008-10-15T22:02:00.000-07:00

A lot has gone on in the last couple of weeks and I didn't want to forget them...

Hailey is already learning how to please both parents when it comes to cheering for our favorite football teams.

Hailey has discovered how fun it is to climb in our kitchen island and play.

I love her little belly in this picture.

Hailey is finally starting to walk on her own!!

Day in the Canyon

2008-10-15T21:49:00.000-07:00

So my folks decided to drive up to Silver Lake a few Sunday's ago to have dinner as a family. It was so fun watching Hailey as she was watching all the fish and ducks. Right now Hailey thinks every animal sounds like a dog so she was barking at all the ducks...it was so cute! We then went down to Dogwood campsite to have dinner....that was the first time Hailey had a s'more and loved it!

Hailey's 1st Birthday!!

2008-10-10T15:31:00.000-07:00

Hailey turned 1 on August 31st....so we are posting this a little late :) Hailey has grown so much since she first came to our family. Hailey was only 3 lbs 10 oz when she was born and now a year later she is 17 lbs and 10 oz. She is talking like crazy and almost walking. Hailey had two fun filled days of birthday celebration.

Hailey getting ready to blow out her candles. She loved it when Garred's family started singing to her in Portuguese and clapping. She started clapping along.

Hailey in her birthday dress.

Hailey loves sharing her food with Scout.

Gold Medal Champions

2008-09-03T09:25:00.000-07:00

Devin and I went fishing on August 16th for the Corporate Games for 1-800 CONTACTS. Devin caught the biggest fish of the tournament a 3 lb 21" Brown Trout. We caught a total of 11 rainbows, 1 brown trout, and 5 chubs at Jordanelle. We ended up winning the gold medal for the fishing event.