Turkey Day Recap

There is nothing better than celebrating the holidays with our Eleanor! 

Last week we had the best time at E’s first Thanksgiving!!!! 

I am completely obsessed with holiday clothes for E….so I am super happy I was able to find her several Thanksgivingish clothes for the month! :) 

One of my favorites being her turkey butt jammies!

I got a little sad when I was shopping the other day because I realized that she is almost out of the sizes where they have animals or cute things on the butts of clothes!  Nooooooooo!  I love this so much.  I guess it would be wrong for an 8 year old to walking around with a turkey on her butt! ha!  I am enjoying my last little bit of  cute prints on E’s butt!

We all woke up on Thanksgiving morning to run the Turkey Trot in our city!  It was our first time….and we will definitely be making that a tradition.  There were so many people there.  It was nuts.  E seemed to really love it.  She kept trying to get out of her stroller to look at all the runners! 

I am just now getting back into exercise and I was totally feeling it after the race!  haha!  :/ 

The above pic is our family Thanksgiving pic.  E is wearing her turkey dress!  And yes she is sucking her thumb! :)  She has turned out to be a full blown thumb sucker.  We tried and tried to keep the paci, but she started refusing it.  We get LOTS of comments from people like….. “you better not let her do that….it will ruin her teeth!” We even get comments from strangers about it.  It is a tad frustrating.  (and annoying!)  I always keep my mouth shut.  But this is my personal blog, so I guess I can rant a little right?  What I want to tell those advice-givers….You try to stop a 7 month old from putting her thumb in her mouth!  :)  And rant over.  Plus, Eleanor is an extremely content and happy baby.  So thumb sucking isn’t all bad! 

Just another pic of E in a Thanksgiving shirt.  And our cute little Maddie! BFF!

That face makes me MELT!

My momma and I went out black friday shopping!  We had the best time as always…..but it was way more relaxed this year since I am still breastfeeding.  It wasn’t a marathon like it has been in years past. haha!  We can totally shop for a ridiculous amount of hours!  We made several pit stops so I could feed and cuddle with Eleanor. 

Just wanted to recap our Thanksgiving festivities!  And now the Christmas season is in full swing and I could not be more excited!!!!!! 

Did anyone go out shopping on Black Friday?  What did you shop for? 

Oh Christmas Tree!

This year Tim and I decided that we would go all out and get a REAL CHRISTMAS TREE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!  It was such a fun time!  I wasn’t sure how I would like it…..and how it would work out for us.  BUT…we have decided that we love it and it will be happening every year! :) 

We went out to the cutest tree farm!  On the way we stopped for a caramel mocha coffee.  Delightful!  We listened to Christmas music, Eleanor was talking away in the backseat, and we were talking about our first Christmas as a family of 4!  (we don’t forget little Maddie!) 

It was a perfect crisp morning for tree shopping! I loved all of the huge, fat trees.  Too bad we don’t have tall ceilings in our house. 

We chose a Nordman Fir tree!  It is beautiful!  I didn’t find this out until I googled it later….but Nordman’s are one of the best trees for families with children because they have great needle retention and they don’t have sharp needles! 

Here is my handsome hubby making a fresh cut on the bottom!

I was a little worried that we would have a Clark Griswald moment….but everything went well!  Merry Christmas to us! ha!

Ok….one little thing….when we set it up in the living room, it was much bigger than we thought and Tim had to do a little trimming so we could still have a star on top! :) 

I am in love with our tree and super happy that we went for the real deal!  I would definitely recommend it for a fun family outing!

We are in full Christmas mode now! I have been dressing E in all of her Christmas clothes, I got peppermint mocha creamer, Christmas candy on the coffee table and even a few gifts purchased.

Does anyone else get a real Christmas tree?

From Us to You!

The Shepard family wants to wish you a very happy Thanksgiving!!!!!

Our hearts are so full this Thanksgiving season.  We truly have so much more than we need and deserve.  We get to spend this holiday with our sweet Eleanor that we have prayed for during many holidays past.  We finally have our precious miracle! 

Sometimes I get to longing and wishing for the next new thing, or new clothes or home décor.  But when I stop to think about it, I have so much!  I might not consider myself wealthy, but compared to many parts of the world we are very very rich. 

Most of all I am thankful for my relationship with Jesus Christ!  Without Him, I am and have nothing.  He makes me rich! 

I hope each of you have a wonderful day!  (and be friendly if you go out shopping!) 

With love,

Amanda

Eleanor & Sweet Potatoes

Eleanor has officially started food!!! :)

We waited until 6 months to give her the first taste of it.  No real reason….we just waited.  Her doctor said we were welcome to start earlier if we wanted as Eleanor seemed ready. 

Oh and we had a gift card left from one of her showers, and we were able to get this highchair!  It is the cutest thing! We decided to go with the kind that sits in your dining room chair.  We don’t have a huge house, so we didn’t really want a free standing one hanging around.  It has worked out great!  When we have people over and need the chair, we just take it off the chair and sit peanut in her excersaucer! 

This was E’s first bite of food!  We decided to skip rice cereal and go straight for the sweet potatoes! :) nom nom.  We toyed around with trying Baby Led Weaning and I just couldn’t get over the fear of choking.  (even though they say it hardly happens)  It just bothered me.  Though….she already has 3 teeth so I think we will start letting her explore soft finger foods in the near future! 

E’s first food experience was funny.  I think she enjoyed the taste of the sweet potatoes…..but she kept trying to grab the spoon and put it in her mouth herself!  Oh boy it was a challenge.  She wanted that spoon by golly!  haha!  (another reason I think we will start finger foods soon! ha! girlfriend wants to help!)  Since that feeding, she has gotten soooooo much better at allowing us to feed her!  And she has finally started figuring out how to eat rather than pushing the food out with her tongue. 

Here she is trying to help! Precious thing.

So what kind of food did we feed her?

I really wanted to make her food for several reasons.  (Though I’m not against jar food at all….she has already had some!)  I wanted to make her food because it is cheaper, I’m at home most of the time, and I can control what goes in it!  We started out with just a blender.  It did the job but it was not easy!  We really had to work on getting the sweet potato smooth.  One sweet potato made a ton of servings!!!!  We froze them in ice cube trays, then popped them out and put them in freezer bags.  Then we just thaw however many cubes she needs for that day!  It is awesome. 

My mom surprised us with the Baby Bullet this week!!!!! yay!!!! I can’t wait to try it out!  I know it is going to work much better than my blender. 

So far our little peanut has tried:  sweet potatoes, applesauce, pears, oatmeal and peas!  We have had success with all of them except the oatmeal.  But thanks to several of you ladies….you suggested mixing it with fruit and I know she will like that much better. 

I’m still doing a ton of research about baby food stuff.  It is kind of just figuring things out as you go right?  If anyone has a favorite website or book on this topic….I will love to know!!!! 

Well, that is the latest on Eleanor! 

Oh and I have a song on my heart….so I thought I would share.  No video of me singing it! haha!  Just the lyrics….

In Christ alone my hope is found, He is my light, my strength, my song.

This Cornerstone, this solid ground, firm through the fiercest drought or storm.

What heights of love, what depths of peace

When fears are stilled, when strivings cease

My comforter, my all in all

Here in the love of Christ I STAND!

Hugs!

AMANDA

Eleanor’s first Halloween!

Happy Halloween from the Shepard Fam!!!!! 

Little Eleanor was a punkin! :)

She got to go trick or treating for the first time at my mom’s work!  It was the cutest thing ever. 

I was so impressed by her treating abilities!  She knew how to reach in the bowl….she grabbed the candy….and then she dropped it in her bucket!  I know all mommas think this, but I was convinced she was genius! haha! 

I couldn’t find a black shirt for her to wear under her costume….so she ended up wearing a Christmas shirt! She was celebrating two holidays at once! 

And Eleanor’s mommy & daddy were hipsters for Halloween this year!!!! hahaha! 

Mr. Tim is wearing my scarf! :) 

We had a costume & chili party for the college students at church and it was so much fun!  I tried a chili recipe from allrecipes.com and I was so not impressed! I am so bad about trying new recipes for people, when I should always try new recipes at home first! haha!  Does anyone else do that? 

I was thinking….I will be sad for the first Halloween that Eleanor won’t let me pick out her costume for her.  I guess I will enjoy it while it lasts! 

On the same note, today I am packing away her itty bitty clothes and it is BREAKING MY HEART!!!!!  ahhhhh.  Goodness….her preemie clothes were so small.  How is it that I can hardly remember holding her when she was that small? 

Oh and guess what?  I just ordered her a precious Thanksgiving dress, jammies and shirt! I so love dressing her for holidays!

Happy Saturday friends!!!!!! 

xo,

Amanda