Introductions

Hello everyone. My name is Talan Joshua Shepherd. I was born on November 26th, at 12:59 pm. I am 8 lbs 1 oz and 19 &3/4 inches tall.

This was Mommy on Monday, still with two and a half weeks to go. But little did she know I had other plans.

So this getting born stuff was hard. Daddy talked me into coming 2 weeks early so we could go ahead and get started on play time. I picked a cold time of year to be born, so right now jammies and hats are my general wardrobe selections.

Mommy is a little camera happy right now. If I'm awake for more than 5 minutes, she's generally got the ipod n my face snapping pictures. Not the most professional photos, but then she can look at them over and over.

I get lots of play time with Daddy in between sleeping, eating, and getting changed. He's super excited for me to be here and hasn't stopped smiling since Thanksgiving night, when I started to break loose!

The hospital part wasn't my favorite, but everyone was really nice and took good care of me and mommy. Check out my cool hairdo. It's a lot like mommy's hair.

But maybe I'll have Daddy"s blue eyes. They're still pretty dark, but seem blueish-gray. I'm very alert and even though everything just looks like blurry shapes right now, I'm still busy checking everything out whenever I'm awake

I was pretty tired after the big debut.

I know Grandma Michele was excited for me to come.

And Grammy and Papa drove hours and hours in bad weather to come meet me.

Mommy and Daddy are pretty awe struck with me and amazed at how cool I am. (Don't tell anyone, but I think they're still a little nervous to be official parents.) But overall, I think they're pretty excited to have me in the family.

I mean...look how cute I am. How could they not be excited?

Heavenly Father uses bubble wrap

This post started out on Facebook, but was simply too long. I had what I would call my most precarious drive home, ever, this afternoon and I seriously think the Heavens have put a protective bubble around the baby and I today.

20 minutes from home: I hear squealing tires and see a car in the lane next to me swerving toward me. It comes literally within a couple of inches of side-swipping me, corrects, over-corrects, and comes even closer, over-corrects again and smashes into the curb opposite from where I am and hits 3 other cars. I miss the entire fray by inches.

15 minutes from home: A pickup truck behind me speeds up, and changes lanes a second before rear-ending me and starts jockeying with another bonehead, obviously locked in a road rage standoff, both of them jumping in and out of my lane, nearly clipping me over and over. Again, I continue without incident, but just barely.

10 minutes from home: I'm stopped in first position at a stop light. I hear a siren and look everywhere to find where it's coming from. Looking left, right, forward, backward--nothing. Light turns green so I cautiously proceed through the intersection with my blinker on to merge to the right and suddenly the cop jumps out of oncoming traffic directly in my lane. Luckily I was able to merge to the right and get out of the way, but my heart was already pacing from the first 2 episodes and this didn't help.

5 minutes from home: I'm stopped at the drive-through window waiting for some tater-tots. (Not because I like them, I just needed change for a $50- obviously.) Suddenly a 15 foot ladder propped up on the awning ahead of me blows down and comes within about 6 inches from crashing directly on the hood of my car.

Have you ever seen that movie, Final Destination? I seriously was wondering if I would make it the last 2 miles home without choking to death on a tater tot. I found myself chanting my thanks for some seriously divine protection the rest of the way home.

It's my birthday

It's been a while since I've blogged. It's not that there haven't been events worth the time and effort. On the contrary, it's been a marvelous year full of daily adventures. Unfortunately there isn't always time to organize my thoughts about them. But today, I'm taking time for me...because well...it's my birthday.

The day began with our son dancing on my bladder to the tune of "Happy birthday to you." At least that's what it felt like. Don't worry son. Soon it will be your big day and we can't wait to celebrate you.

Joshua had to work tonight, so we went out to dinner last night with some good friends. Sadly, there are no pictures to mark the gathering, but rest assured we thoroughly enjoyed Jeremy, Sherrie, Stephanie and Sydney's company and some yummy grub at Texas Roadhouse.

This morning, we enjoyed a delicious breakfast while we watched the LDS General Conference and played with my birthday gift-- a new Ipod touch.

I've had an Ipod shuffle for about 5 years and it's still kickin' but Joshua wanted to spoil me a little with a new gadget. I told him it will be perfect for when I'm out on maternity leave. I can shut off the work blackberry completely but still have access to the internet and other handy apps when away from the house--as I'm sure I will be quite often after just having the baby. Haha. I do love it though.

Then Joshua threw on an apron (figuratively) and made me a Reeses-Oreo birthday pie. He made it for me when we were dating and with one bite today, I literally fell in love with him all over again. Wow it's good. Don't you wish you were here to share it?

Thanks for a great day babe. Love you.

Vids from Montana

I love my valentine. He loves me enough to remember I don't prefer roses.

San Antonio

Joshua and I went to San Antonio this weekend and spent a very warm, relaxing weekend with April and Antonio (picture below). It was warm and sunny, which was a welcomed reprieve from the cold and smog back home.

You know you have great friends when they'll come pick you up at the airport at 12:30 AM. You know you have great friends when you wake up to homemade french toast with raspberries, scrambled eggs, and turkey sausage. You know you have great friends when you can spend the entire weekend just chillin' and laughing.

On Saturday afternoon, we went to the Alamo. I'd seen it before, but figured Joshua needed it in his repetoire-- given the history buff that he is. You expect it to be bigger than it is, and the self guided tour goes pretty quickly; it literally it took us 10 minutes to get our fill. But there it is. The last tragic stand against Santa Anna by Jim Bowie, Davey Crockett, and many many others.

The day was so nice, we took a riverboat tour around the river walk in downtown. Sadly I didn't really take any pictures, but it was a great way to spend the afternoon and see the architecture of the buildings.

We ate great food, napped, watched movies, laughed at their pets, played video games, laughed at each other and just thoroughly enjoyed being with April and Antonio. See how happy we look.

.

Thanks for a great weekend guys. We can't wait until we can host you here in SLC.