Heavyweight

Shepherd is now 3 1/2 weeks old! He had his 2 week check up last week and here are his stats:

Weight 8lb 6oz (42%)

Height 21.5 in (87%)

Head 36.5 cm (49%)

He gained a whole pound from his birth weight and we were so proud!

He is starting to be more alert when he is awake and is tracking objects with his eyes. He still has a lot to learn in the sleep department (i.e. that he should do more of it at night than during the day) but we'll give him a little longer to figure it out! My pictures are taking forever to download so there are only a few un-edited pics here - hopefully more to come soon! Check out this cuteness:

Time flies!

It's hard to believe but Shepherd has been with us for 12 days now and we love our new little guy! We couldn't ask for a sweeter baby! He is a very sleepy guy and has only given us one sleepless night so far - how wonderful! We were blessed to have visitors from both sides of the family to stay with us during Shep's first week. We are especially grateful for my mom - Gigi - for her help around the house that first week. Tim has returned to work now and it's just me, Shep, and Bea holding down the fort during the days. Well, I'm sure that's enough talking for now and I'll get to the real reason that people are reading this: pictures!

Going home from the hospital

First car ride

Bath time!

Wehadababyitsaboy!

Hey! This is Tim.

I'm writing this update because Megan is busy feeding our brand new baby boy! We had quite an eventful past few days for sure. Shepherd decided to wake Megan up at 3am on Friday morning with some intense contractions. We headed to the hospital at about 10 am and were sent back home in shame by noon. We headed over to my office where my wonderful co-workers threw us a beautiful baby shower that we almost didn't get to attend. After the shower, we went home and at 3pm, Megan's contractions shortened to about every 7-10 minutes and got much more painful. We didn't want to jump the gun again, so we waited at home till 8pm, when we headed back to the hospital. This time they kept us and after a long night of labor, Shepherd David Kempe was born at 7:44 am on 7/10/2010. He weighs 7 pounds, 7 ounces, and is 21 inches long. Take a look at some pictures!

first pic!

happy dad!

beautiful mom

the fam!

beaming gigi!

Aunt Rach, the baby whisperer

close up

Showin' off his new threads

More to come. Stay tuned...

34 Weeks and Updates

Well, it's been a while since my last post, but I can't say that there's been a lot of blog-worthy news going on in the Kempe house over the past month. I did an elective in Pathology last month and plan on applying for a Pathology residency in the fall with interviews (hopefully) in the winter. Please keep us in your prayers! I also took half of Step 2 of my boards at the end of May and will be taking the other half this week in Atlanta. We're flying there pretty late in my pregnancy, so let's just hope that Shepherd can hold his horses for the 24 hours or so that we'll be in Atlanta. I'm now doing a junior internship in Medicine which pretty much means long days and lots of time on my feet - not fun. I guess my 70-something year old attending figures that if he can do walking rounds for 3 hours straight I should be able to too... As for Tim, he is busy working to meet some project deadlines in late July. I think we're both looking forward to a change of pace when Shepherd comes, even though I'm sure it won't really be a slower pace-but it will definitely be great to spend time at home with our sweet boy! Last but certainly not least, Bea is trying to adjust to the Memphis summer once again by spending most of her time laid out on the floor like a beached whale. Maybe she is also mentally preparing to be de-throned as the reigning baby of the house, but something tells me that's not really a thought in her mind at this point.

Here are some pics of my growing belly, the nursery, and of course the Bea:

Memorial Day Weekend at the Lake

Changing station/armoire

Reading/nursing corner

The Bea

27 Weeks

It's hard to believe that we're already 27 weeks along! This past weekend we went to Tupelo and my parents took us to get a 3D ultrasound. It was so much fun to get to see our little guy's face. I know we might be biased, but from what we can tell he sure is cute. He has a turned up button nose and some big, pouty lips. I'm sure he will be a heartbreaker! He also seems to have fairly big feet, measuring in at 2.5 inches already! Hopefully this isn't a sign that he'll be getting too big before July comes... Tim is very excited about the prospect of big feet because they will come in handy for Shepherd's future swimming endeavors. I'm mostly concerned that he won't be able to fit into the cowboy booties that I'm crocheting for him. I guess his mother and father have very different interests! Here are some pics from the ultrasound.

Cute boy!

Giving us some attitude with a wrinkled brow...

Feet!

Where's Bea?

Is she playing with her toys in her nice dog bed?

Is she sleeping on her soft purple blanket?

Is she chewing her bone on the couch?

There she is - sleeping on a nice soft pillow. A spoiled dog at her best!

Unlike Where's Waldo, it's never difficult for me to find Bea in our living room. As you can see, I go to great lengths to protect our furniture from her constant sleeping/sitting on it throughout the day. I try to cover every possible furniture surface with blankets or towels. But Bea does not respect my efforts... She always picks the one spot in the room that happens to be uncovered. Is a fleece blanket really that uncomfortable to sleep on?? On this particular night there was one pillow uncovered that must have been calling her name. Oh well... At least she's so cute!

Nursery Progress + Big Mistake

This past weekend Tim and I made some major progress on the nursery. The nursery was previously our guest room, so we had to clear it of all the old furniture. We kept some and sold some on Craigslist, which by the way is super easy and convenient. Furniture sold the same day and someone came buy to pick it up for us! On Saturday, Tim re-painted the room because there were several areas where the paint had chipped from our previous paint job. We decided to keep the color as chocolate brown. I like that it's neutral and will let us do whatever we want with the colors in the room. We bought all of the nursery furniture (crib, armoire, changing table, other cabinets) at Ikea on two separate trips, one to Chicago for Christmas and one more recently to Atlanta. All Ikea furniture comes in flat cardboard boxes and requires a good bit of assembly. At the store, you find the boxes yourself in a warehouse-like room based on the location on the display tag. Enter our big mistake... We were so excited to get the boxes out and start assembling on Saturday only to find that the two boxes that we thought were the changing table were actually a chest of drawers from the same collection. This was soooo bad because we had driven twice to buy all of the furniture and shipping from Ikea usually costs twice the amount of the piece of furniture that you want. So, now we are changing crib-less and have one extra chest of drawers that cost $250. If you want to buy it from us, let us know! It is in brand-new condition. Maybe this will be our second Craigslist sell. Anyways, the rest of the furniture looks great and we can't wait to arrange it all and start working on decor, etc. Here are some pics of the furniture so far.

Armoire

Cabinet

Armoire and Cabinet with empty space for missing changing table :(

Sheepskin Rug

Crib