Hoppy Easter!

We've had quite the few busy days here around Easter! Shepard had a school party and egg hunt on Thursday, Friday we played at home, on Saturday we went strawberry picking with some friends and Grandma, and then today we went to church and soaked up some serious sunshine and lovely weather.
Whew!

Here are some highlights. {click on pics to see larger}

Who stole my baby and replaced him with this boy-bunny?

Bee!

Snacks for breakfast!

Easter Tux

Spring, spring, we love spring!

Gigi and Pops were able to visit for a few days back in March. We had beautiful warm weather...and took advantage of it! Here's a trip to the park (and a wee moment on memory lane).



Easter pics coming soon....getting caught up!!

Teasers

Here are some pics of when Gigi and Pops visited a few weeks ago. There will be a video coming soon as well. Shepard LOVES the playground. He's pretty fearless. I have to man the openings, or I think he'd try to jump from 6' up!

Here are some recent pics of Shepard eating chocolate pudding at home. MESSSSSYYYY! Pudding-beard.

He really likes to get stuff like this on his hands and then "wipe" them on his hair. That's my favorite, really. Sigh. Such a little boy!

March marched and other news

This morning, I had my work calendar open today to March and started to feel deflated. See, I color code my events by location, and March looked like a RAINBOW. For a moment, I thought I was looking at April and wanted to crawl under the desk and: A. nap; B. cry; C: whimper, D; all of the above. If you guessed D, you are correct!

So, many apologies for the lack of posts.Between work, a mini staycation, sinus funk, and an upcoming Starving Artist production, I am happy to find time to grocery shop, sleep and eat.

I have some photos I shared with family of Shepard's month-long fascination with teeth-brushing. He will run to the bathroom, saying "TEETH!" He has on occasion, tried to use the toothbrush as a hairbrush, at which point I try to explain the difference. He loves to stand on his little green stool and ask about everything in the bathroom--faucet, toothpaste, Mommy's toothbrush, sink, water, wash hands...etc.
We get new words every day. Saturday's word was "chickpeas!" as I was buying some at Target. I generally can't get him to greet folks with a Hi or Hello, but chickpeas we've got down. We are starting to get some sentences, though only intelligible by him. He will start them and end them with words we can understand..."Daddy schmee gah la go?" Things like that. And over the weekend, he seemed to be experimenting with some Forrest-Gump-sounding words like Mah-maaay instead of Mommy. Who knows?

We're looking forward to the next few weeks with Easter, a trip to GA, and Mommaaay and Daddaaay's date night at Les Mis in Greenville. Whew!
I will get some playtime at the park footage up soon. Soon, I say!

Aw, maaaaan!

Dora the Explorer has become a new fave for Shepard. He had been watching it on Saturday mornings, when my hubby was so sweet to let me sleep a bit and had some morning snuggles with the little guy. In the show, there's a sneaky fox named Swiper. Whenever the main characters foil Swiper's efforts, Swiper says, "Aw, maaaaan!" You can hear Swiper on this video and then Shepard. He spontaneously started saying this every time the fox came on the screen. It took us a few times to figure out what he was doing...it's our favorite new trick.

Family and Friends

We've gotten to visit with lots of family and friends this week. And little man is saying all kinds of new words. Just about anything he hears he'll give a try. So, let's all make sure he hears nice words. ;)

{remember to click on pictures to see larger size}

Cousin Jonathan, Uncle Carl and Aunt Debbie

Great Aunt Linda and Grandma talk to Great Aunt Jim on facetime

Grandma and Shepard share silly face time

Making raspberry sounds for about 30 minutes straight

More raspberries...what can you do?

I'm a silly little guy!

Th-bbbbbhhh-bbbbhhhh!!!

Everyone's looking a pictures

Look, my other cousins are on the screen!

Climbing while Scooby watches

Uncle Matt makes crazy eyes

Aunt Debbie gives me some love

My friend Sophie is playing at my house!

The finer points of triangle-playing

Here, Shepard, these are maracas.

Yay! Maracas!!!

19 months

Here's some video from a week or so ago. Shepard's "birthday" is on the 30th, and since February didn't have one of those, we'll call him 20 months today.  :)
Zoo and around the house. So much personality these days. Everything is a question. This week he is saying "beep beep beep" (like cheep cheep cheep) for birds. He even saw the twitter logo on my ipad this morning and said it! And if it rolls right now, it says "Choo choo." He moves up to the next class at school on Monday. Toddler 2. Sheesh. How does it all happen so fast? Feels like next week we might be taking prom pictures.