what we've been up to

Just trying to catch up from the past week or so...

I found this sweet face smiling at me before work last week. I had about 20 minutes to finish getting ready including now giving him a bath! Apparently he found some red clay (that I didn't even know we had!) in the the backyard!

Aggie Athletics has a rewards program and you get scans with each sporting event you go to. I finally got my scan card this year and have assumed my new identity...

I've had my name spelled maaany different ways, but this is a first!

Last Wednesday we went and saw Cirque Du Soleil. It was INCREDIBLE!

One of my co-workers had a baby about a month ago so I took them dinner last week.

I found a fun use for my new washi tape (that I found at pick your plum!). Love love!

Chris plays the bass guitar at church about once a month. I just love watching him lead/worship. Love this man. :)

Speaking of Chris...

He's playing in a 49 hour Guinness World Record baseball game this weekend! It kicks off tonight at 5pm and goes until Sunday at 6pm. If you've been following a while, you'll remember he played 24hrs of flag football last year and 50 hours of kickball the year before.

The game benefits Mercy Project and ending child slavery in Ghana.

I'm off work all weekend, so I'm looking forward to hanging out at the ball park!

new mom - hospital survival kit

I recently came across Suzy's adorable blog.  I love the hospital survival kit she did, so I decided to try it out for a friend who is due soon with their first baby! 

I used my Silhouette to cut the vinyl letters for the container and hand sanitizer.

For the sanitizer, I tore the labels off the bottle and used some goo-gone to get the sticky residue off. It was still a little sticky, but worked okay. Next time I'd probably leave the back sticker on to give it a white background. It's hard to read the letters when it's not up against something light. (like in the picture above)

I love how it turned out!!

What else would you add in a survival kit like this?

have you heard?

I have some not-so-big big-to-me news!

via

Instagram is coming to Android!!!!

Maybe you'd already heard this, but I just heard this week and I am soo stinkin excited.

If I'm honest...I often feel left out when people say "follow me on Instagram" or tweet/facebook their Instagram pictures. I have an awesome phone, but I can't be a part of the instagram club. But soon I won't feel left out any more!! Yesss!

TIME reports that the the app is nearing completion. It was briefly flashed at SXSW this past weekend by the co-founder. They've been working on it since last August. You can read the article here.

It says the Apple app now has 27 million registered users. It also has the highest possible average user rating of five stars across nearly 400,000 reviews. WOAH!

I knooow this is so trivial, but surely some other Android-ers will be excited with me!

Anyone???

no-reply comment {tutorial}

The "no-reply commenter" is a bad epidemic here in blog land.

I've gotten an increasingly amount of comments lately and it makes me so sad when I can't respond to them because they don't have their email address enabled through blogger. Especially when I've typed up a response and go to hit send...and...noreply-comment. Whomp whomp.

Today, I'd like to make my mark on humanity blogworld and help some people understand why no one ever responds to their comments.

Here we go.

When you set up blogger, your profile defaults to NOT allow your email address to be shown in your profile and when you comment. If that is you, then this is what I see when you leave me a comment...

(If you have no idea if this is you, PLEASE follow this tutorial and double-check. The blog gods will thank you!)

So I'm going to show you how to fix that so I can respond to your comments!

Note: These screenshots/tutorial is shown using the UPDATED blogger interface. If you're still using the old interface, UPDATE. For real...the newer one is so much better.

{Step 1}

Go to your blogger profile from the dashboard

 {Step 2}

Edit your profile

{Step 3}

Click "Show my email address" and make sure your email shows up next to it

Then scroll all the way to the bottom and hit save profile.
That's ALL you have to do, really! If you enabled your email address and want to see if it worked, leave a comment letting me know and I will be happy, excited actually, to email you back! :)

friday's letters

Dear husband, thank you for doing the dishes this week and making me dinner before work last night. You're the bestest. :) Dear face, we aren't a teenager anymore, so please stop acting like it and make these zits go away! Dear work, thank you for not being crazy busy this week. I needed a few days to remember why I like being a nurse. Dear Scout, you are cute and you make me smile...but not when you bark while I'm sleeping. Dear weather, you're amazing. Please don't change. Dear Brooklynn, your Aunt Lei misses you. Please don't grow up yet. Dear Sunday night, I'm ready for you since I am off that night. Then I'm back to work for three more nights. Woo. Dear paycheck, thank you for making it possible for us to PAY OFF our first credit card yesterday!!! We have a ways to go with bunches of student loans...but we've got the snowball started now.

 

Linking up with Ashley...

What I'm Loving Wednesday

I'm {loving} my new phone!

Chris and I decided to switch to Verizon and both got new phones this week. I got the Nexus Galaxy, which is pretty similar to my previous phone, but since we changed providers I actually have service in my house! WIN!

I'm {loving} playing Draw Something!

It was kind of getting old after a day or two because I kept getting the same words over and over...but then some new words started appearing and I got some new games started. If you want to play me my username is leishashep!

Here's my husband showing off his DS skills! 

I'm {loving} technology!

I'm sure this seems redundant from me loving my phone...but I just love that I'm able to get pictures from my sis of my niece that's 2 weeks old today!! 

I'm {loving} my precious husband! :)

{pic taken at my college graduation-May '09}

Happy Wednesday!!

the story of Brooklynn Maycie...

{disclaimer: this is (my) aunt lei's version of brooklynn's birth story. it's kind of long and if you want to skip to the adorable pictures at the end, I'll understand ;) }

Last week I worked Sunday, Monday, Tuesday nights. After going to bed around 9:30am on Tuesday morning, Chris came in and woke me up about 11:30am and told me Katy (my pregnant sister) had been trying to call me because she was in labor!

After only sleeping 2 hours, I was pretty disoriented but I knew I needed to get on the road since she was 3 1/2 hours away! I flew around the house and my sweet husband helped me throw some things in a bag. I was out the door in less than 20 minutes. {side note: I really should have had a bag packed and ready...just like the pregnant lady should. For clothes, I ended up with 2 tshirts and a button up shirt I only wear with an undershirt..and no undershirt! haha}
Katy had gone in to her 39 week appointment that morning thinking it was just a routine check. She actually hadn't been checked internally yet because she'd shown no signs of labor up to this point.

She had voiced NOT wanting a leap day baby, so her doc said he would be careful not to upset Brooklynn and make her come that day. ...so he checked...and said he felt Brooklynn's head! She was already 4-5cm and didn't even know she was in labor! They sent her over to the hospital to get ready to have a leap day baby! ;)

My mom kept me updated on my way and I got there with time to spare! When I arrived Katy was 6cm and had already gotten her epidural. She was tired but in great spirits.

The next couple hours passed quickly. (for me at least!) Katy was getting really uncomfortable because the epidural wasn't working well on her right side. After about an hour, she let the nurse know and she came and checked her. She was at a 9! She was uncomfortable because she went from a 6 to a 9 in an HOUR! Woah!

She started pushing at about 6pm and we had a baby at 6:21pm! She was a ROCK STAR. Seriously. I was honored that she let me be in the room for the delivery. I was so proud of her! :)

The new parents holding their baby girl for the first time!

My parents

(remember: she's the first grandbaby on this side!)

You can see in the picture on the right that it was love at first sight for both of us. ;)

left: sleeping on my chest  right: holding the lovie we got her

my favorite picture of momma and baby

little angel

top right: am I mean for messing with her wrinkles?? i LOVE this :)

mean muggin.

top: my dad (grumps) loving on his grandbaby
bottom: brooklynn watching the a&m softball game (gotta start her young!)

Ahhh it's crazy how this girl has stolen my heart! Look at those pretty brown eyes!

I am soo blessed that I got to be with my family for a whole week and be a part of Brooklynn's first week of life! It's hard living 3.5hrs away, but will just make our time together that much sweeter. My sister is keeping me quiet right now with updated pictures of her every day. :)

Before I left to come back home, I pretended to be a photographer and me and my mom had a photoshoot with Brooklynn. I'll be back with some of those pictures soon!

phone photo fun

I was going to post my week in phone pictures, like the linkup is for...but then I realized I have a bajillion pictures of Brooklynn and decided I should come back with those in a separate post!

So here are my pictures from this week...minus Brooklynn!

Found these super adorable Sock Monkeys and Lambchops at Hobby Lobby 

{Pleease tell me someone reading remembers Lambchops?!}

a canvas I made with the help of my Silhouette for my sweet friend Megan

we have some color in our front flowerbed again!! we spent a lot of time making it pretty last spring and I was just sure everything died with our hot HOT dry summer! I was glad to see them come back to life this week!

my car riding buddy when I got the call Wednesday that my sister was in labor, we made the 3 1/2 hr drive together

working on another bow holder

cookie jar with freshly homemade chocolate chip cookies that my mom made. yumm and dangerous ;)

and another one of Scout :) 

passed out while I'm laying in bed working on my laptop

vinyl I made for Brooklynn's nursery. love how it turned out!