The Shepherd Family

Late Feb 2007 Update: Check Our Flickr Site

2007-02-28T11:31:00.000-06:00

Hi, everyone! I'm not very good at keeping this blog updated these days, but I am better at posting photos of our family on our Flickr site. If you haven't been there before or if you haven't been there in a while, go there.

All is well with our family. Ian is a busy 3-year-old likes to draw, can write his name, is taking gymnastics, likes to wrestle around with his father, and will be attending preschool in the fall. Noah is 18 months and has the best balance of anyone in the family. He is a daredevil and is starting to express himself a little more vocally. Tatum is also 18 months. She can say her ABC's up through 'G' (but she skips 'C' most of the time). She has a vocabulary of a couple of hundred words and can identify a plethora of body parts including eyes, ears, nose, mouth, and (as of today) the back.

oct - early dec 2006 photos

2006-12-10T21:39:00.000-06:00

There are more photos on my Flickr page. These include Halloween, football, a family carnival, and the kids playing around the house.

long time, no post

2006-10-04T22:24:00.000-05:00

Luckily, there's lots of new pictures on my Flickr account. The twins are 1 year old. Ian is 3 years old. All of them can walk. Happy happy joy joy! :-)

mid-summer update

2006-07-16T10:28:00.000-05:00

We made it through another battery of weddings. Two weekends ago was Curt's wedding in New York. This last weekend was my sister Betsy's wedding. Ian was the ringbearer in both. For Betsy's wedding, Ian somehow injured his knee the morning of the wedding and ended up limping down the aisle at the start of the service. I've posted photos from Curt's wedding and Betsy's wedding on Flickr.

There are a bunch of other photos that I've recently uploaded to my Flickr account (look at the tag 20060716). There are photos from Ian at Orange City's ArtFest (where he made popsicle-stick butterflies and paper-plate fish) as well as lots of general summertime playing photos.

This week, Lisa, Kylynn, and I (along with help from our neighbors Don and Joyce) assembled a wooden playset for the kids from Creative Playthings. Having assembled things that are "pre-cut" and "pre-drilled" in the past, I had very low expectations, but I was pleasantly surprised at the accuracy of the directions and the quality of the hardware and lumber. We only had a few minor problems (one board was too long and we had a few pieces of missing hardware). A lot of forethought went into this product; I think we'll be very pleased. Sometime this next week we need to finish installing the last swing and the rock-climbing wall and then we'll be ready to landscape the area. Yes, I know that sounds backwards, but that's how you do things sometimes with three kids under three years of age. :-) Here's a photo of the playset right now.

july update

2006-07-06T23:10:00.000-05:00

Here are photos of Ian in a tux, more photos from our nephew Curt's wedding, and photos of our water babies.

june update

2006-06-18T15:51:00.000-05:00

An update has been long overdue. Click here for the latest photos.

In the past two weeks, Noah has started crawling, crawling up stairs, standing up, and "cruising" around tables and couches (i.e. using one or two hands for support while walking).

Tatum has eight teeth now to Noah's two. She sometimes attempts crawling–I call her attempt a "one-armed man crawl stroke"–but she seems content to just sit.

Ian is the ever-present whirling dervish. He is constantly in motion while riding his new tricycle, kicking a soccer ball, or swimming at our in-ground pool. His vocabulary continues to amaze me. Ian also saw his first theater movie last weekend: Pixar's Cars. He was adorable watching the movie with his kid's pack resting on his lap. He had to sit on the front of the theater seat so it wouldn't fold him up due to his lack of weight.

may update

2006-05-13T10:23:00.000-05:00

Noah and Tatum are saying their first words (mama, dadda, baba, yaya, etc.). They are sitting up and sometimes they sleep through the night.

Ian is a chatterbox who loves trains, going to the library and the park, reciting the alphabet, and counting in both English and Spanish (he's better at counting in Spanish, oddly enough).

Enjoy the photos.

a quickr pickr post

march update

2006-03-18T12:27:00.000-06:00

Blogger's photo upload is slow and often doesn't work. I'm switching to Flickr and am using QuickrPickr to generate the thumbnail HTML for my posts. Yay!

Here are some of the latest photos. Enjoy!

a quickr pickr post

update double dose

2006-01-14T10:03:00.000-06:00

What?! Two updates in a row?! Now that's bang for your buck.

Here are more photos. Since the gap between the previous two posts includes Halloween, I should probably mention that Ian was a lion ("The Lion King") for trick-or-treating. He was fearless and loved going door to door saying "treat-oh-treat" and "thank you." Enjoy.

update long overdue

2006-01-13T22:14:00.000-06:00

Life has been a blur, so it's not hard to believe it's been three months since the last blog post. The twins were baptized on December 11th. Tatum is finally sleeping through the night. It will probably be a while before Noah follows suit. Both of the twins are over 12 pounds. Noah has rolled over from his stomach to his back a few times. Both of them started eating rice cereal a few weeks ago, but illness has put a stop to that for the time being.

I'll be merging Ian's blog into the family blog here shortly (I hope). He has been doing great. We are astounded at his vocabulary. He can count to 13 and loves playing with his new train set and numerous other Christmas presents. At Christmas time he went uptown to the Orange City city hall to meet Sinterklaas (Dutch Santa) and see a puppet show, as seen in some of the pictures below. Ian loves to read and be read to before night time. Ian loves to build things with his MegaBloks. Ian and Dad make it over to the Sioux Center All Seasons Center on occasion for night time swimming from time to time (Ian sometimes asks "Dada... Ian's swimming trunks... indoor pool?").

Here are a few more recent photos.

growin' and cryin' but no sleepin'

2005-10-06T14:53:00.000-05:00

Noah and Tatum continue to grow. Each of them is around 5.5 lbs. We are weening them off their caffeine (given to them in the NICU to combat apnias and bradycardias) so that hopefully sometime soon we can also take them off their apnia monitors. As it is with infants, neither of the twins seem to like to sleep at night. :-) There are more pictures of Noah and Tatum at the end of this post.

Ian continues to do well in the presence of his siblings. When he hears them crying, he's sure to alert us to that very fact. Ian is off to a flying start as a two-year-old, and you can read about his adventures on his own blog.

the twins are home

2005-09-23T10:31:00.000-05:00

We got to bring the twins home on 17-Sep-2005 after they demonstrated that they could wake up and eat on demand. Kylynn brought Ian to Omaha so that we could go home as a family. Ian loves them (so far) and loves to say their names and give them hugs and kisses. He's even held and fed them a couple of times.

one step forward, one step back

2005-09-06T13:30:00.000-05:00

For a brief period of time, Noah and Tatum were in a crib co-bedded together. They couldn't regulate their body temperatures well enough, so they ended up back in an isolette together. Then, they were moved to separate isolettes since Tatum was doing better temperature-wise than Noah. Just yesterday, they moved Tatum back to a crib and Noah is still in the isolette.

Tatum and Noah were starting to grow but they put them on vitamins and the vitamins made them sick. It's hard to grow when you're refluxing and vomitting all the time. Neither Noah nor Tatum have made it back to their birth weight, but at least they're gaining weight again.

Here are the latest pictures of Noah and Tatum.

Noah

Tatum

Snug as bugs in a rug (well, in an isolette)

Noah

Noah visits Tatum in the crib

Noah visits Tatum in the crib (2)

Noah visits Tatum in the crib (3)

back to growing and out of the lights

2005-09-01T08:56:00.000-05:00

After the initial weight drop, Noah and Tatum are starting to gain weight again. Both are eating well from a bottle now, though the nurses still gavage them sometimes. Noah and Tatum spent a couple of days under the lights for jaundice, but they're out now. Tatum is eating more and has spent a lot more time out of the isolette. She should be in a crib soon. Noah's had a rougher road (had some IV troubles yesterday) but they expect him to be in a crib not too long after.

Under the lights

Still under the lights

Tatum

Noah

Mom and Tatum

Dad and Tatum

3 days later

2005-08-29T22:39:00.000-05:00

Tatum is feeding from a bottle. The NICU staff is slowly trying to ween her from her heated isolette to a room temperature crib.

Noah's had a more challenging road. He's had quite a few apnias and bradycardias and is now on caffeine to help stimulate him.

The photos below are from the first time we bottle-fed the twins.

the twins have arrived

2005-08-28T12:26:00.000-05:00

The twins have arrived! Noah Michael Shepherd and Tatum Jean Shepherd were born Friday, 26-Aug-2005, at 10:36 AM and 10:40 AM respectively. Noah weighed 4 pounds even. Tatum weighed 4 pounds 4 ounces. They were 7 weeks early according to their due date (33 weeks gestation).

They are in the NICU right now. Both are off oxygen as of Friday evening, but they still have feeding tubes. NICU staff estimates they'll be there for 2 weeks before we'll get to take them home to Orange City.

Lisa is doing much better. Ian (our almost 2-year-old) won't get to see his siblings 'til they come home.

Here are some photos. The first is Noah, the second is Tatum, and the third is both of them together after their oxygen masks had been removed.