Category: Shepard

On Sunday my sweet and silly Shepard turned seven! We had a full weekend of celebrations. Unfortunately, we had three days after that of sickness. Caden just felt icky on Monday and Tuesday, Shepard got sick all night long last night and today. And I’m maybe sick? Maybe not? At any rate, I was up all night long constantly changing his sheets and his clothes because he was so out of it he kept throwing up in his sleep. I’m basically a zombie today, but I thought I’d try and accomplish one thing after laying in bed all day and write this post! Hopefully it’s comprehensible.

Shepard had five of his friends over on Saturday for a party. It got pretty crazy! Why do kids get so insanely wild at parties?!

Annie was equally as wild, despite taking her to the dog park that morning.

I usually make a bunch of themed snacks for kid parties, but was trying to keep things REALLY simple this time around, especially after my ear infection and all the annoying stuff that happened last week. We did make green punch, though!

He got lots of cool gifts!

Shepard was getting a little partied out by cake time and not so much in the mood for cooperating with smiles.

Greg and I spent five hours on Friday getting these cakes together! It’s triple layers of chocolate fudge, funfetti, and white cakes cut out in circles and put back together to try and get a checkerboard (“minecraft brick”) look on the inside. Unfortunately the cake was falling apart, but maybe it still looked kind of cool? I thought it tasted good at least!

Apparently “talky hands” is what their gym teacher does and it’s hilarious. After cake everyone just ran around until they got picked up. It felt like a very long two hours to the adults (lol), but we made it through! Shepard enjoyed being the center of attention and showing off for his friends.

And Sunday was his birthday! (He’s wearing the same clothes as Saturday because he still has a massive stubborn streak and refuses to wear pajamas at night.) I was going to make him funfetti scones because I thought they would look festive, but he caught me in time and demanded they be chocolate chip instead. They were quite tasty! We took this picture the exact minute he turned seven.

After breakfast he opened the gifts from  us. He was so hard to buy for this year! I ended up just picking out all kinds of small and super random things I thought he might enjoy.

Like pizza themed clothing.

And cherry cola tic tacs which are his fav. (My kids informed me yesterday I’m never allowed to say “favorite” – it always has to be fav.)

The morning was pretty low key for the guys playing his new video game while I set up for the family party. I don’t really like having parties on my kids’ actual birthdays because I feel so absent from what they’re doing. I prefer making the day really be all about them and whatever they want to do. But February was so busy this year that having it on his birthday was really our only option. I don’t think he minded. I know it’s been an issue with Caden in the past, though, so I realllly try never to schedule them on the same day for him.

Our usual green punch because it’s tasty and it’s Minecraft colors.

When we asked him what kind of food he wanted at his party he answered with Ponderosa chicken wings. So wings we had! The in-law’s picked them up for us. They’re my favorite wings too, but such an odd choice!

The rest of the “meal” was just an improvised selection of snack type foods. I converted a recipe gone wrong into buffalo chicken dip which I’m pretty sure nobody actually ate lol.

I was so excited to realize I had all the ingredients to make these pizza sliders. Shepard didn’t actually have one, but pizza IS his favorite food, so it was a little more on brand for his party. I’ve been wanting to make these forever. They were delish! (If you refer to the recipe, I did not add the sausage.)

Veggie tray from Cindy. Gotta keep some healthy options!

Chinese salad from my parents. Unfortunately my mom came down with a flu bug too and couldn’t come to the party. 🙁 All but one aunt and uncle weren’t able to come either, so it was a small party this year.

And some chips and salsas because they’re Shepard’s favorite snack.

Annie begging for food because I’m standing in the cutting spot where I always hand her vegetables as I slice.

Facetiming with Aunt Sarah while he eats his salad.

The cake was a little worse for wear two days after making it. I really don’t like making it that early, but since I was basically making two of the same cake there was no other logistical way to do it. I think it still tasted pretty good.

A party isn’t complete without Hudson!

Shepard trying to entertain Hudson while he eats.

Present time!

Shepard thought it was just the most incredible and funny thing that Hudson drew him a picture on his birthday card!

Annie was being pretty naughty at this party too. I did NOT have time to take her to the dog park this time. She’s been super obnoxious lately. It’s frustrating to realize that she genuinely needs solid exercise 365 days a year no matter what the weather or what my schedule, or she’s going to turn into a psycho dog by the end of the day. It’s the one part of dog owning that weighs me down and I wish I didn’t have to be solely responsible for.

Cake time! Being silly.

We spent the rest of the afternoon trying out Shepard’s presents and relaxing. It was a pretty low key day.

And that was his birthday! I totally passed out both days after the parties. My ear infection didn’t start feeling remotely better until Monday night. I wish for once I felt healthy and energetic on Shepard’s birthday party weekend! Oh well, I’m not sure he even noticed the difference. 🙂 He was so busy playing with his new gifts and enjoying feeling like the special little boy he is! He continues to bring so much joy and happiness into my every day and I have no idea what I would do without him. Love that kid!!

Yesterday was my baby’s 6th birthday! It’s hard to believe he’s already six years old. But it’s also hard to believe that he’s only six! Hasn’t he been in my life forever? It certainly feels like it! I don’t know how I managed before I got to see his silly smile every day. He’s definitely the life of our family and I’m thankful every day that he belongs to us.

Purple is still his favorite color, for two or three years running. He also loves flowers, so I bought him some purple flowers for his birthday.

Caden still pretty obsessed with my new laptop… (And passports out because ours expire in the next month and I need to do something about that.)

Shepard wanted donuts for his birthday breakfast. But…I bought donuts for Friday’s breakfast and he brought homemade donuts for his treat at school on Friday, and I just didn’t feel like going to another store just to buy more donuts. So he was happy to eat a toaster strudel instead.

Pretty early on Saturday morning we let him open the presents from us.

I was most excited to give him this northern lights simulator for his room, but we are apparently out of batteries, so haven’t been able to try it yet.

He got a lot of new underwear this birthday!

Face timing with Aunt Melissa and Andrew in Columbia!

Painting his new butterfly house for the garden.

The packaging said butterflies like asters, so that’s what he painted.

Taking another break to talk to Grandma and Grandpa Noe on the phone.

I bought a couple last minute boomerangs for a gift. He said they were his favorite! Of course we had to immediately go try them out.

Like father, like son.

Of course he had to have pizza for lunch. I made frozen pepperoni pizza on Friday night to try and give myself a bit of a break after prepping all day. Well…meltdown city because apparently pepperoni is no longer an acceptable pizza topping. So for his birthday he made himself his own bbq bacon pizza and I made a garlic honey pizza for myself. Greg was out of luck because neither of our doughs would stretch big enough to share! Caden was out to lunch and a movie with Grandma Braatz because he was having a hard time letting Shepard get the spotlight. He basically spent the entire day screaming about how unfair it is that Shepard gets to pick what he wants to do because “I NEVER get to pick things on my birthday!!!” Grossly untrue, except that his last few birthdays have fallen on school days, so it was extraordinarily unfair Shepard’s was on a Saturday. Well, wait for it buddy because all of our birthdays are on weekends this year.

Enjoying his pizza, despite the fact all the toppings sunk to the middle!

This was the first year Shepard was allowed to have a friend birthday party. I scheduled it on his actual birthday since it landed on a Saturday and February weekends always get tricky around Valentine’s Day and such. I’ll probably never do that again because it did make the day feel a lot more high pressure and stressful. But, it happened, we survived. 🙂

The weather has been crazy these last few days. So warm!! Which was fortunate for the party because those kids were insanely wild. It helped that they could spend most of the party just running around outside. I felt kind of bad for Shepard because he had all these plans that he wanted to do in a certain order with his friends, but then they came and everything just turned into two hours of mass chaos. I think he was pretty overwhelmed.

I wasn’t going to serve any snacks, but then I saw a new brand of soft pretzels at Costco, so decided to pick them up since it’s one of Shepard’s favorite treat foods. Most of the kids took one bite and then ran off again. Probably should have skipped the pretzels!!

Pin the star. Shepard most definitely cheated!

A real smile!

I think she’s the only one who didn’t cheat.

The kids noticed Caden’s bubblegum stashes all over the family room. There was a whole lot of gum chewing going on! The gum machine was very fascinating. 🙂

I thought for sure I could get everyone to stand still for ten seconds for a nice picture with Mario! Nope! Parties are way too exciting for standing still. 🙂

Present time. He was very happy with all of his gifts!

Sweet giggles.

I love all the homemade cards.

Shepard didn’t want cake, so we had a sundae bar for dessert. I think this is the first time in my kids’ lives that I actually served ice cream at parties! I think they all had a good time loading up on the candies!

Shepard REALLY wanted trick candles. Pretty funny stuff. 🙂

And that was the party!

We spent the rest of the day just playing with the new toys, watching a movie, playing video games, and getting measured. He grew three inches in the last year. For dinner we had “Ponderosa chicken” and french fries. He was pretty wiped out by the end of the night, but I think he had a good birthday.

Today we celebrated again with family. He wanted ice cream sundaes again, but I decided to make a skillet cookie to go with it, mostly so I’d have a better place to put the candles.

Pizza party! We made buffalo, pepperoni, and bbq. Our standard three!

Apparently holding your head like you’re in pain is the new way to smile for pictures.

Finally a nicer one!

Shepard wanted pizza and doritos for his party food. So that’s all I provided!! Definitely going for the minimal effort this year.

Grandma Noe brought veggies and Shepard’s favorite “carrot dip.” Grandma Braatz brought her amazing Chinese salad. Lots of good food!

Lots of awesome presents!

I can’t believe that on February 19th in Wisconsin my kids are wearing shorts and flip flops and playing outdoor floor hockey. I know that winter weather is surely going to come back, but this is awesome while it lasts!

Always such natural smiles.

Shepard’s rain boots were too small and Caden’s had holes in them, so they both picked out some new pairs on amazon the other day. Shepard LOVES his Batman ones.

Today’s ice cream spread. I added a few extra toppings, including a homemade butterscotch sauce that was super simple to make and sooo delicious.

My sweet and sometimes shy boy.

Split second later, my silly class clown boy.

I sure do love this kid!

The rest of the party the women played Shepard’s new Emoji Uno, the men talked or slept on the couches, and the boys played outside by themselves.

Overall, it was a really good birthday weekend! Shepard is one loved little boy!

On Wednesday, my baby turned four! It’s hard to believe four entire years have passed since this little guy has come into our lives. Though I really can’t remember a time without him. He brings so much laughter and joy to our family with his silliness and never-ending energy.

His birthday itself didn’t turn out to be super exciting, but I think he was okay with that. I had an unexpected emergency medical procedure done last Saturday that pretty much rendered me useless this entire week. It was very frustrating to want to do so many things and not be able to accomplish practically anything. 🙁 At any rate, I did make a special chocolate peanut butter banana bread for his breakfast, which he thoroughly enjoyed. And then he was off to school with his special birthday treat of homemade mini donuts. He really wanted to bring pancakes, but I wasn’t sure how that would work. 🙂

I think Caden was more excited about Shepard’s birthday then he was. Caden was bouncing off the walls and being incredibly obnoxious, trying to get Shepard to open all his presents first thing in the morning. I “let him” (couldn’t stop him) open his presents from Caden which were a big tractor sticker book and a game for his 2DS called Olaf’s Quest. He then spent pretty much the entire afternoon playing while I was napping/resting and Greg was working. Then later in the afternoon I recruited his help to make brownies and pizza dough. He definitely still loves to help bake!

After getting Caden, Shepard was able to open the rest of his gifts. This was a super bouncy ball that Caden also picked out.

For awhile there I was having a hard time coming up with gift ideas for Shepard since I really didn’t want to just get a bunch of toys for the sake of buying something. So I asked Greg for help and he picked out this bat and a matching glove and ball. Shepard loved it, but was really disappointed we couldn’t go outside and play with it yet in the below zero weather.

I gave Shepard a cookbook and his own recipe box. I figured since it’s the only thing I really have in common with either of my kids I better nurture that interest before it disappears!

He also got an activity watch that is supposed to promote more physical activity. Though I’m not sure why he needs it when he spends every minute of the day bouncing back and forth between the couches and doing flips and somersaults everywhere he goes. Caden, being the technology OBSESSED kid that he is, had a hard time letting this toy get out of his sight.

Shepard requested pepperoni pizza for his birthday dinner. Of course he refused to take a nice picture with it. Apparently four is the age you stop wanting your picture taken because pretty much every slightly posed shot I tried to get he’d cover his face or run away.

After dinner they went back to the tub of kinetic sand. I was excited about this gift since Shepard points it out every time we go to Joann’s or Walmart and was sure it was something he’d actually like. He said it’s his favorite present, so I was happy!

And finally time for his birthday brownies! Shepard doesn’t particularly like cake, so I talked him into something different for his real birthday and his party this weekend. Makes my life a lot easier!!

One happy four year old! He’s been carrying this candle around for a week telling me how fun it is to look at. He was very excited to finally use it. 🙂

Side note – he’s wearing underwear! It took four years, but he’s finally on his way to being potty trained. He won’t willingly go on his own, but he does wear underwear most of the time and once he starts dancing around uncontrollably we physically set him on the potty chair and he’ll go right away. So hopefully that means he’ll start going on his own free will sooner rather than later and we can finally be done with diapers!

Anyway, it turned out to be a very simple, but I think good birthday for him. I had to go to the doctor yesterday, so we tried to make it kind of a continued birthday celebration and took him out to lunch, just the three of us. That kind of made up for what I wasn’t able to do on Wednesday. Now we’re just looking forward to his family party on Sunday! More photos on that to come. 🙂

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Yesterday was Shepard’s third birthday! I can’t believe my sweet little baby is now a three year old!

We started the day with funfetti birthday pancakes. Shepard was kind of in denial that it was his birthday at that point. When he woke up he asked what we were going to do today. I said, “It’s your birthday! Happy birthday!” And he yelled, “NO IT NOT!!!” and ran back to his room whimpering. He seems to be in a stage right now where he’s strongly against change. At any rate, he was happy to have some candles to blow out at breakfast.

For fun, here’s a picture of the day he was born, his first birthday, and his second birthday.

And just for a little comparison, here’s a picture of Caden on his third birthday.

The last few times we’ve gone grocery shopping the boys have been asking me to buy limes. They’re weird. But I figured Shepard’s birthday was a good excuse to finally buy some. By the way, if you’re wondering, Shepard has a black eye because he had a head on collision with Caden when they were jumping on the bed while I was in California. This happened three days after Shepard got a mild concussion from running into the tv stand. This kid has had a really rough few weeks with head injuries.

He seemed to like it. Both boys definitely got Daddy’s sour loving taste buds. I LOATHE sour things.

Greg blew up a package of balloons the night before to surprise Shepard. We all spent a good hour playing with them in the morning. I wanted so badly to get a nice picture of Shepard surrounded with balloons, but he kept insisting on holding a balloon in front of his face instead.

Finally got a nice one!

Shepard has been really grabby with my phone lately. I don’t think he has that same instilled sense of technology usage that Caden has, and I’m always so sure he’s going to destroy something. Mostly he just takes pictures. Tons and tons of pictures.

During this balloon shoot I decided it was time I learned how to use the manual settings on my camera. I’ve had a DSLR for five years now and I’ve been using auto settings this entire time. Kind of ridiculous considering how many photography classes I took in college. While I was in CA I was greatly inspired by my brother’s photos and camera. When I told Greg I wanted to get a new camera he said that no way, not when I don’t even know how to use a camera manually. So…I was determined to learn. Yesterday. Probably not the best day for it!! I did get some great shots, but I got about four times more terrible shots. Literally. I took around 500 pictures yesterday and at least 400 of them are out of focus duds. The main thing I learned yesterday – manual focus is not for wild little boys! Anyway….back to the birthday…

Chicken nuggets are Shepard’s favorite food, so I let him decide where he wanted to go for lunch. He picked Burger King.

While Caden was at school Shepard helped me make his birthday dessert. We decided to go with brownies because Shepard doesn’t like cake.

He LOVES helping me in the kitchen. Usually way more than I’d like. But I try to let him since Caden was the same way and now wants nothing to do with helping me. 🙁

Proud of his sprinkle work.

I wanted to get some shots of the two of us, but Shepard was continuing his independent streak by insisting on pushing the shutter button. Which his arms are way too short for if we’re both going to be in the picture. This is the only one we managed without a struggle!

After school it was WARM out! 45 degrees! For the first time in MONTHS, yes months, we were able to go play outside. Shepard picked “the park with no slides.”

This winter has taught me to never take for granted the days that we can play outside. Even in the death heat of summer, which I absolutely hate, I plan on going outside this year. Boys need to run and I’m so sick of that running happening inside!

After an hour and a half of playing at the park we came home for hot cocoa. Soon after, Daddy came home. Which meant presents! I don’t think Shepard even cared, but Caden was thrilled after begging me to let Shepard open them early all day long.

I thought I did pretty good with my gift giving this year. I normally have a really hard time with Shepard for some reason. We gave him a big Playmobil swimming pool, a small indoor sandbox, a shower stream bath toy, a Lightning McQueen keyboard game thingy, a board game, and a few books. Caden gave Shepard a Hot Wheels bath race track that he picked out completely on his own. Shepard opened that early during our snow day on Monday.

Finally time for birthday dinner. I had a hard time deciding what to make, but settled on steak. This was my first time making “real” thicker cut steaks inside.

Steak, chips and salsa (his favorite), and fruit.

After dinner the guys set up the swimming pool while I cleaned and got ready for dessert.

Time for brownies!

I think Shepard had a great third birthday! It was a fun and relaxed day for everybody. I’m so proud of my baby.

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Today was Shepard’s birthday party! I’m so glad we unknowingly didn’t do it last weekend when he turned out to be so sick. We found out on Thursday that he actually has a really bad double ear infection, but after a couple days of antibiotics he was back to his super smiley and fun self for his party today!

We had a tractor themed party. I made tacos for the main food and then my mother-in-law made this awesome vegetable “field” and my mom brought tons of delicious fruit. As usual, we had WAY more food than we needed. It was all so good, though!!

Caden decided to help make the punch by sneaking fingerfuls of sherbet.

I was really excited to find these chocolate rocks and green seeds for party favors. I forgot to actually tell people to bring them home, though, so now we have a huge bag filled with the extras. 🙂

Happy kid!

Taking a reading break.

The present pile!

Shepard shows excitement over everything, which is why it’s so fun to watch him all the time. He was thrilled over his first few pieces of tissue paper!

Tractor! (And both cats managing to sneak into the photo.)

He doesn’t even know what this is, but he’s pretty excited about it!

Getting some help from Liz.

He even holds up all the clothes he gets. Later he held up a new pajama shirt, pronounced it too big, and threw it across the room. Always, so funny. 🙂

Cards that make music are apparently the greatest thing on earth to a two year old.

Very excited about a trailer to attach to his new tractor!

He loved his new Donkey Kong.

Baby Ethan and his beautiful eyes!

We all had some good laughs over this. 🙂

Shepard was pretty nervous, but after Caden and Donkey Kong had a turn, Shepard loved jumping on his new Rody Horse!

Caden definitely provided Ethan with some fantastic entertainment!

Finally time for cake!

I had a really hard time coming up with a cake idea for this theme. It seems like with all of Caden’s birthday parties I know exactly what I want to do, but Shepard so far is proving to be quite difficult. I wanted to try and do something tastier (versus visual). I’m not a huge cake person (maker or eater), so I wanted to challenge myself a bit. I ended up combining old fashioned chocolate cake, peanut butter cake, toasted marshmallow frosting, and chocolate malt frosting all together to get this. And then because I didn’t want to make a third batch of chocolate malt frosting, I threw together a vanilla buttercream for the smaller cake. I was very excited about how the layers turned out. Not perfect, but more elaborate than I’ve ever done before!

I think he’s getting tired.

Layers in the bigger cake. This chocolate frosting was sooo good. I pretty much ate an entire bowl of it last night while I was making it.

The big “rocks” around the cake are actually chocolate boulders. Grandma tasted one – and Shepard’s expression in this is hilarious!

The chocolate frosting had an entire container of black gel food coloring in it so it turned everyone’s teeth black. I think this picture is sweet, though. Caden looks so old! Like a ten year old or something. My baby is growing up.

Not an attractive picture, but still funny. It was a perfect birthday party! Thanks to everyone that helped out and came and made it such a special day for our beautiful little boy!

Today is my baby’s second birthday. Two years doesn’t seem like a very long time, but I can barely remember what life was like without him in our lives. Every day he brings us so much laughter and joy. He’s truly the brightest part of our family and I can’t imagine where we’d be without him. I love this little boy more than anything. 

Despite all my good intentions, the big day was kind of a waste. Shepard has been sick since Valentine’s Day and it only seems to be getting worse. He’s not throwing up anymore, but he has a horrible hacking cough and his nose and eyes are just draining nonstop. He’s been pretty miserable. But he pulled himself together today and smiled through it all. He was even happy about his donut breakfast, even though he didn’t take a single bite.

Mornings seem to be the worst. He just wants me to hold him and do nothing else. Which was kind of hard today when we needed to get ready and bring Caden to school. Poor baby, he looks so sad. 🙁

While Caden was at school he decided he wanted a waffle. He always has to sit there while it’s toasting and get the cinnamon sugar out himself.

Back to his donut and being goofy. Even this sick he can still be funny.

The bulk of our day was uneventful. I wanted to bring him to an indoor playground, but he was coughing too much. I wanted to take him out to lunch, but I figured he wouldn’t even eat anything. Hopefully later this week or even next week we can have sort of a redo birthday celebration. Today was very boring. Shepard was really excited when Greg got home, though, because he knew he could finally open his presents!

All day long Caden was talking about how Shepard was going to be too sick to open his presents so he’d have to “help.” I think Caden was pretty disappointed Shepard happily opened them all on his own.

Shepard was enthralled with this light up, music playing card from his Great Aunt Sandy.

Caden gave Shepard a sticker book and stickers. And one of those popular turtle nightlights. Which he’s been trying to take for himself ever since the box was opened. Caden wasn’t handling all the attention on Shepard very well today.

Snuggles.

I bought him this baby and stroller for $3 on clearance. He loved it! So did Caden…

He wanted an orange while I was making dinner. He took every single slice and sunk his teeth into it, but didn’t eat any of them.

And finally his birthday “cake.”

Such a funny little angel. 🙂

Happy birthday sweet Shepard!