Books are love

I finally got a bookcase for James's books. $10 on Craigslist! The basket and bin in the corner just weren't working anymore for the number of bargain books I keep buying.

 

These are books given to James by his Grammaw and Grampuh Shepard (Bebe and Cece), Aunt Emily W., Uncle Jacob, little friend Brooklyn, and Mommy and Daddy. These were all gifts of love to one of the sweetest boys who ever lived.

 

It is so fulfilling for me to share my love of reading with James. We read every day before naps and bedtime. He really likes learning his letters right now and can identify maybe eight of them when he sees them. I didn't know that kids this age could do that.

 

Also a great place for his soft animals.

 

Just wanted to get a pic of my organization before James takes over. He was trying to grab the camera from me during this photo.

 

I told him to stand by his books and he started clapping. "Yay, books! Hooray!" 

 

A room without books is like a body without a soul.

-Attributed to Cicero

Christmas Letter 2012

♪♪♫♫♪♪ We wish you a merry Christmas,

We wish you a merry Christmas, ♪♪♫♫♪♪

♪♪♫♫♪♪ We wish you a merry Christmas,

And a happy New Year! ♫♪♪♪♪

 

 

 

 

Dear family and friends,

We are glad to have this chance to fill you in on the good and bad things in our lives. This year, we faced a few difficult losses. Hannah’s Grandma Hubbard and Great-Aunt Edith passed away. And we had a miscarriage at 8 weeks. Even though 2012 was a hard year, we still had many things to be grateful for.

We were blessed to move to the Seattle area and it is starting to feel like home. Michael is rockin’ his job at Microsoft where he is a software engineer on the Windows Team. He is exceeding expectations and gets along with his managers and co-workers very well. Hannah loves teaching and caring for James, despite his constant acrobatics and disinterest in eating. We can hardly believe that he is 18 months old now! He does some speaking and sign language and he especially enjoys books, trucks, and books about trucks.

A big part of our spiritual and social life here is church. Michael’s church calling is teaching the 8 year olds in Primary, while Hannah plays the piano and helps plan activities for the women in Relief Society. Recently, James started attending Nursery at church and has fun playing with the kids his age. Hannah has made some wonderful friends at church who all get together for playdates and lunches each week.

Since we live so far from much of our family and friends, we treasured our trips to the Midwest, Kentucky, Oregon, and Florida this year. We were lucky enough to have a few visitors—  we want some more, we want some more! Seriously, we have a room for you and would love to show you around town.

As we celebrate and make our own Christmas traditions here in Redmond, we hope that you find peace and joy this holiday season wherever you are. We know that true happiness comes because of and through our Savior, Jesus Christ. May the New Year bring you all the good things in life!

 

 

 With love,

Hannah, Michael, and James

Halloween

I was planning on just staying home this year and giving out candy. We are recovering from our awesome Disney World trip and some sore throats. But at the last minute, I decided that I wanted to go to the church for Trunk or Treat. I'm so glad that we went.

 

James's devil costume made its second appearance. He wore it last year to Breanne and Michael's super fun party, but he was just a tiny baby then. It cracked me up to see our little devil running around in his costume. I had a dog costume (that looks more like a bear) for him, but ironically, it ended up being smaller that the already-worn devil suit.

 

We took a minute for photos with our buddies, Laura and Brooklyn. This first pic is a little fuzzy, but I love that we're laughing.

James: "Hey Brooklyn, one of my favorite songs is about a spider. Very fitting for Halloween."

Friends. And yes, I am wearing my Jacob the werewolf t-shirt.

We also saw our other playdate friends and lunch buddies. They looked great in their Curious George outfits.

To top it all off, some friends from church (who are also our neighbors) called and invited us over for a party. We are lucky to have found such nice families to be our friends.

Bonus cutie: James in his new shirt from Disney World. Disney blog post coming soon.

E-I-E-I-O

Here's a taste of we've been doing all day. He can't talk, but he can sing. ;)

Biking!

We recently got a bike for me and a bike trailer for James. Lucky us! We've taken a couple of family trips to a nearby park and I am building up some courage to take James out by myself. It is a little scary being right next to the cars in the bike lane. Today, I bought a mirror for my handlebars to help with my nervousness. Fortunately, our city is the "bicycle capital of the Northwest," so it's not like I'm the lone biker on the road.

 

James does not like wearing his helmet...

...but, he's so cute and safe!

 I didn't like any of the pics of me, but here's me with my bike and James in the trailer.

 The helmet was pulled off. We're working on it.

Michael rides his bike to the bus stop almost every morning and he bikes home from work at the end of the day. He is eagerly anticipating the day we get a second car. On the upside, he's definitely rocking some impressive leg muscles.

 

These photos were all from a day Michael came home early from work. On our last ride, I could hear James happily squealing, "Eeeee! Eeeee!" I think that is similar to an excited "Weeee! Weeee!" This is going to be a great way for James and me (and Michael, sometimes) to get outside and explore.

Wagner Week in Cleveland

James and I had the pleasure to go help out Emily and baby John last week. We had a great time with the Wagner family.

Before we left, my dearest friend in Redmond gave James a book to read on the plane. It was the perfect gift. We got it out the night before we left and James knew just what to do with push and pull tabs.

Emily and I did a fashion photo shoot with John one day. He usually doesn't wear clothes because it is so hot and muggy in Cleveland.

"Headlines don't sell papes. Newsies sell papes."

Blue eyes like James when he was little

James and I went to play at the really fun Cleveland Heights library one day. They have the best kids area that I have seen at a library.

Running and yelling in delight

New skill/interest in sitting

On Saturday, we got to visit most of our Shepard relatives in Columbus. It was a lot of fun to visit and eat yummy picnic food. Michael fit right in by playing Euchre with the fam. James enjoyed drinking out of a dog bowl- how embarrassing.

We called him Puppy Joe when he would carry things in his mouth and crawl around.

And now... there's this, I guess. 

It wouldn't be a Shepard gathering without some posed pictures.

I love these Shepard women

 Check out James smiling as he escapes the photo shoot

Sunday was John's baby blessing. Here's Emily's post about the blessing day: John's Baby Blessing

Chicago Shepards minus Claire and Martha in Utah and napping James

Sisters

The oldest Shepard girls

Gene, Patricia, Laura (below) and Candi and Diane came from Columbus for the blessing

 

James was trying to lay down back-to-back with Uncle Trey to show us he wanted to nap, too

 

Baby Fun Times

I thought I'd share with you what James likes to do in his free time.

He likes to go to the nearby children's museum. They don't have exhibits or artifacts like other museums, but they do have different play areas with some explanations about how things work. James was so excited to be there that he stomped and yelled which is how he expresses his joy. He also likes to "fly" by running with his arms held backward. He kept climbing up on this one area that Michael removed him from several times.

James enjoys eating foods that are not on the approved list of foods to fatten up babies. He loves eating fruit, but is supposed to eat fruit only with whipped cream or heavy cream. Since he got his fifth tooth in this week, I let him chew on an apple. He's gotten pretty good at eating apples except for the skin--he digs the skin out of his mouth and hands it to me. Thank you, baby. It's pretty cute to watch him walking around holding the apple in his little hands.

We went to the mall yesterday to buy Michael some new pants and shorts. He is losing weight, so he needed some new clothes. By the way, this mall has a food court with any kind of delicious ethnic food you could want. They have sushi, boba juice, Korean, BBQ, burgers, Mediterranean, Chinese, Indian, seafood, Thai, Vietnamese, pizza, Russian, Japanese, soup, tacos, and Italian. Amazing! Back to the point... in the mall, there were these cars and I had some quarters. We thought we'd see if James liked riding in them. Did he ever! He did some low riding, happy yelling, and adorable smiling. He must love cars just like his dad does. (You can see his new tooth if you click on the smiling photo.)

Last but not least, James loves seeing other kids and babies. We love our playdates with our friends and we've had a few other visits with people from church and their little ones. James is starting to interact a little bit more with the other babies instead of just pulling hair and taking toys. This is a good thing.