Five-a-month

It may be shocking, but I'm going to try to add some variety to the blog by covering a few more topics than just Shepherd updates and pics. Don't worry, all you grandparents, I will still try to throw in a few pictures per post to keep you updated and to maintain the cuteness factor!

In order to have some public accountability and a way to track my goals, I'm going to start a monthly "Five-a-month" goal setting post that I have seen on other blogs. I will list 5 goals for the month and then at the end of the month, and maybe some throughout (if I get ambitious), I will review how I met/didn't meet each goal. The goals will be pretty simple and I will try to make sure they are measurable. Feel free to join me by commenting with a link or list of your own goals.

February Goals:

1 - Read the Bible and pray every day. This is something that I already do most days, but there are days that it doesn't happen. I usually do my quiet times at night, so praying usually starts out stronger than it ends due to falling asleep... I am currently reading in Matthew. My goal is to continue reading Matthew daily and to have more consistent and complete prayers.

2 - Exercise two times a week. This is a sad goal, but realistically, if I meet this goal, I will be doing much better than I have been in the past few months. This can include walking, elliptical, jogging, exercise video, whatever. Anything intentional for at least roughly 30 minutes. I'd also like to add to this walking the dog at least twice a week. She used to get walked daily, and sadly, with the addition of Shepherd, her walks are much less frequent. Ok, I better stop with this one before it becomes unattainable.

3 - Cook a "real" dinner at home 4-5 nights a week. By "real" I mean something from a recipe or at least something that I put some thought into. Leftovers from the night before also qualifies! We will go out to eat at least once per week to a fairly nice restaurant (Nice = not fast food). The other 1-2 nights can be either going out, take out, or throwing something together at home like frozen pizza, mac-n-cheese, or pancakes. I usually do pretty good at this goal already, but lately I have been trying to stretch the time before I return to the grocery store a little too much and we end up scrounging to figure out what we can eat the few days before I get more groceries. So, I either need to plan better or go to the grocery store sooner. I'm going to try to opt for the first option.

4 - Crochet 3 baby hats. I already have a head start on this one since I'm about halfway done with the first one. These are for friends/family with babies due SOON, so I better get going. Enough said because I don't want to ruin any surprises.

5 - Take more pictures of Shepherd. I don't want this precious time in our/his life to go without adequate documentation. I've been doing not-so-good on the picture-taking front. This isn't directly measurable, but hopefully by the end of the month I can share the proof that I've met this goal.

Lastly, here's a cute pic of the Shep. Taken about a month ago, but one of my favorites.



And here's a little video to give you an idea of what dinner time is like for Shepherd. I'll just call the video "Bea is Distracting."

Halfway There!

To one year that is! Shepherd turned 6 months on January 10th. We can't believe how fast time is going. I think I said this in my last post, but this age is such a fun stage! Some things he is doing right now:
-Sitting up. He will still fall over when he decides to reach for something or gets distracted, but he's getting the hang of it.
-Eating food. He eats baby cereal for breakfast, fruit for lunch, and a vegetable for dinner. He especially likes Yo-Baby yogurt that he gets for dessert sometimes.
-Sleeping through the night. It had gotten pretty rough for a while with all of our travel during the holidays. But now that we're back in a good routine he consistently sleeps from about 8:30-6:00. We are soaking up all the sleep we can get. We feel like real live human beings again!
-Loving Bea. Bea is the main attraction at our house these days, at least for Shepherd. She will come stand beside his chair at dinner and cry for food and he just stares at her and talks right back. Last night he was getting some good laughs just watching her play fetch around the house.
-Talking. Not really, but he is starting to string some syllables together. But, the only consonant he seems to know is "B," so everything is ba-ba-ba-ba. We're pretty sure is first word will be Bea because as soon as he sees her he starts up with the B's.

He isn't scooting or crawling yet, and I'm not really expecting it too soon. He seems pretty content to either lay still on his belly or use his arms to turn in circles, but there's no forward movement yet.

This past Sunday was his Baby Dedication at church and it was so sweet. When Pastor Jordan came to give Shep his blessing and pray over him, Shepherd stared up at his face the whole time. He was very interested! We hope he will always love to hear the word of the Lord.

Lastly, we had some professional pics taken of Shep for his 6 months bday, and you can see them at our photographer's website here.

And here are some much less professional pictures from the past few weeks. Sorry for the lack of blogging. I will try to be better at taking pics and at posting more regularly!

His new Jumperoo

Looking in the mirror

Looking cute

Trying on cousin William's birthday hat

Baby Dedication

A video of some cute giggles:

Time Keeps on Ticking

As always, it's been a long time. But things have been busy at the Kempe house! I've been back at school full time, residency interviews are in process, and holiday events and travel are taking up the rest of our time. The little man turned 5 months old on December 10. I think this is my favorite stage so far. Shepherd's personality is really starting to show. He is such a happy baby. He loves to talk (more like yell) all of the time. He has discovered his feet and seems to have either hands or feet in his mouth at all times. He is sleeping through the night regularly unless there are unforeseen interruptions (pooping, peeing, traveling, being sick...) - which seem to be too frequent! He loves to spend time on his belly and rolls over immediately when we put him down. He is starting to eat some solid foods, but - surprise, surprise - he is not very interested in them! He eats rice cereal in the morning and a fruit or vegetable at dinner. He has made some pretty aweful faces when we've fed him bananas and peaches. He acts like we're giving him lemon juice or something! He is also starting to pay more attention to Bea although I can't say the reverse is true of Bea paying attention to him. Maybe some day they will be friends...

Well, here are some pics of what's been going on in the past month.

The first feeding

First time in the booster seat

Thanksgiving in New Jersey

First bites of sweet potatoes on Thanksgiving

First snow in New Jersey (I promise it was snowing - it's just hard to see it)

Breakfast with Santa at school. Our attempt to get a cousins picture with Santa. Ha!

Christmas tree shopping. Shep was thrilled!

Peaches!!

Merry Christmas from Bea. She got her present early: a very fancy dog bed from Costco!

Happy Halloween!

Since Shep is a little too young for trick-or-treating we decided to let Bea represent the family in the way of costumes. Shepherd is also somewhat dressed up if you count his New York Yankees PJs - thanks to our sweet friends the Sawyers! Tim just wishes we could be cheering the Yankees on in the World Series tonight. Maybe next year...

In other news, Shepherd is well on his way to being 4 months on November 10. He is learning to roll over from front to back and back to front. Since we found him on his belly one morning in his crib, we've had to let go of the beloved swaddle, but Shep has done great and continues to make it through most nights without having to wake up to eat. Here are some pics from the bouncy this morning. As you can see, it always brings tons of smiles!

Giggles

Shepherd got a big time case of the giggles today and we actually caught some of it on camera!

Firsts

Shepherd will be 3 months old this Sunday! It is amazing to see how much he has changed in such a short time. Over the past month he has experienced many "firsts." The last weekend of September we went to the Chicago area for Tim's cousin's wedding. Shep went on his first plane ride and did great! As you can see, he spent most of the time sleeping. Let me tell you, it is hard to get comfortable holding a baby in a tiny tiny airplane! He also had his first trip to Wheaton - our alma mater - where he met some of our friends, visited swim practice, and are at our old fave, Egglectic for breakfast (ok-he really just slept there).

Snoozing on the plane

Chicago-style pizza at Lou Malnati's

Breakfast at Egglectic with his new lamb - courtesy of Rob and Kate Noll!

Tim with his cinnamon roll french toast - breakfast of champions!

Shep's wedding outfit, a joint effort made by Gigi and me

Family shot at the wedding

Another big first was Shepherd's first day of daycare! Here he his in his first ever "first day of school" pic! He was very excited! Along with school came Shep's first cold. So sad, but he recovered pretty quickly and this will probably just be the first of many.


Lastly, here are just a couple cute pics for all of you who can't get enough!

Gearing up for fall in his awesome sweater made by Aunt Em

Tummy time

The post wouldn't be complete without a Bea update. She is struggling to adjust to the new cool temps by spending her mornings on this very small pillow on our couch. Just so you know, she has 3 beds around our house but insists on trying to fit onto this pillow. Must make her feel cozy to act like she's small...

Happenings

There have been several requests, so I'm finally giving in and posting an update of what's been going on with the Kempes! Shepherd turned 9 weeks on Saturday and had his 8 week doctor's appointment last week. Sadly, that meant his first shots. All in all he did very well, but the screaming after the shots and sore legs at home were so so sad! He weighed in at 12lb 5 oz and was 23.75 in long! He is around the 75th percentile for weight and height. He's already having to wear 6 month size onesies because his torso is so long! How he is growing so well beats me because he is definitely not an all star in the eating department, but we trust that he'll get better with time. As far as sleeping goes he has slept through the night about three times and is going 5-6 hours before waking up on most nights. Yay! He is getting stronger and stronger and can hold himself up pretty well during tummy time. Especially if there's something fun to look at, like a mirror! He can also roll over from front to back if he gets really ambitious! He is smiling a lot - it's amazing the things that 2 grown adults will do to get a baby to smile! We are loving time with our new little guy. He is certainly a blessing from the Lord!

Snuggle time with Bea

Sleeping on the bed (with supervision, of course!)

Bubble bath!

Couch time with Daddy

Loving his AmeriSpec onesie

Tummy time

Loving his activity center

So much fun stuff to play with!

Snuggled into the moby wrap

So necessary.