The low down

So here I am saying I am going to start posting again and I don't follow up on my word. It's hard to get things going again. You want to have the perfect post, with the perfect picture. So I put off and put off and nothing gets done. The point of this blog is to keep friends and family up to date with the Stecker household. So let's do just that...

Frank:

Frank the Tank is a big boy. He is just shy of 9 mo and already almost 24lbs. He has been crawling for a month or so. Has two bottom teeth. And just started eating some finger food by himself. Hi is all around a cutie patootie.

Evelyn:

This two and a half year old pistol is awesome. She is getting so big. She is sleeping in a big girl bed. She is officially potty trained (including pooping in the potty). Now if we can just get her off the gummy bears (the treat she gets for peeing in the potty).

Ev says she is ready to go to school. She is obsessed. However, she is not old enough yet. She needs to be 3 to start preschool. I am not ready for her to start school yet. But I know she will love it. I have her signed up for a toddler tumbling class this winter. She will love it as she is always bouncing and jumping off EVERYTHING!

Daddy Stecker:

Dan has been busy working as an electrician for a commercial electrical company. He is in his last year of apprenticeship and will finish in May 2011. In June, he has his big test that will make him an official Journeyman Electrician.

He is bartending very part time at the Bulldog N.E. It is a great bar with awesome food.

Dan has been spending his extra time skateboarding. Hanging out at old man skate night at the local skate park or when the weather was nice, at one of the awesome outdoor skateparks that the Twin Cities has to offer. Now that winter is here, he has brought the skatepark into our garage. Check this out,

Mamastecker:

I have been a busy bee. I absolutely have no regrets of leaving the corporate world. It is the best decision I ever made. I am enjoying being a birth advocate, birth doula, serving on the board of the wonderful Childbirth Collective, teaching BYOB (Bring Your Own Baby) yoga at Blooma, going to school for nursing pre-reqs, and waiting tables at Psycho Suzis. Life is good.

So that is the low down on the Stecker family. I hope to fulfill my obligations of a blogger and continue to update you all.

Be well.

I'm BAAAAACK

I decided to start blogging again...again. I have such a fantastic life and I want to share it. And the best way to share it is to tell the internet. I do have friends that follow me, so I am sorry if you hear this stuff too much. OR if I sound conceded. I am really just telling my story to an alternate universe. I don't care if anyone ever reads this. I just want to tell my thoughts and experience.

Update:

I have found true happiness. In July, I officially left the corporate software world. I was so unhappy at ESRI. I really want to be here for my kiddos, and and I found a true passion working with mamas as a doula, yoga instructor and eventual midwife. Life is grand.

So, I hope to share with blog world my experiences on this new journey, it's an awesome but bumpy ride.

Stay tuned.

Evi photo of the day

Big girl

Check out Evelyn's latest obsession. Playing with mama's shoes. She is such a girly girl.

Big kicking feet.

So I thought I would try and upload some video to share. What a fun way for all of you so far from MN to see how awesome she is. This is from about a month ago... I am amazed at how little she seems.

It is one of our favorite moments...bathtime.Evi loves to kick kick kick.

Evi Stones

I thought I would talk a bit about all the cool stuff that Evelyn is doing lately.

She is such a girly girl.

1. She loves purses. It is funny seeing her carry a purse half her size.

2. She also loves fingernail polish. She has this fake plastic fingernail polish bottle and brush that she carries around with her ALL day long. She walks up to you and pretends to paint your nails. Its so cute.

3. Evelyn has also become quite a little mama herself. She is finally into dolls. She loves feeding them bottles, holding them, kissing them, pushing them in her baby stroller. She will also cover them with a blanket and tell them "night night."

4. Singing. Evelyn loves to sing. One of her favorites is The Itsy Bitsy Spider. She does all the hand motions. It is to die for. She is only 14mo old. I am pretty sure she is a genius.

5. And finally, Evelyn loves....I mean LOVES books. This is such a relief to me. See, I didn't read to her much as a baby. I know you are suppose to start when they are in your womb, but I didn't. Then after she was born, I read to her some when she was a teeny tiny baby, but as she got older, she would push the books away. She didn't want to be rocked in the rocking chair or read to. But now, now she loves books. After her bottle at night, she will bring a book over to us, crawl into our lap and let us read her a book. Not only that, but she has to have a book in her bed and she will read to herself. I am so glad I didn't damage her by not reading to her every night.

Man she is so awesome!

Cut the Cord

This is Dan removing the cable from our house and roof. See, we got rid of cable (a.k.a. satalite cable) back in April.


WE LOVE IT!


I must admit, I had become pretty addicted to my DVR and would sometimes record up to 4 shows at once. 2 on the downstairs tv and 2 on the bedroom tv. I didn't want to be watching so much TV. Plus TV is bad for kids. I believe it is a factor in childhood obesity. So, we wanted to set a good example for Evelyn.


Also we made the decision to work really hard this year reducing our cost of living so that I can hopefully be a stay at home mom next year. Cable was one of the first things to go.


I gotta tell you, it feels great to not pay almost $100 a month to watch TV. Now we watch it for free. And we get great channels....in HD. So we are set. Plus, you can pretty much watch anythign you want on the computer. It really makes me feel like I am sticking it to the Man.

Cry face

I absolutely love Evelyn's cry face. When she was a teeny tiny baby, I sometimes would be staring in admiration at her face, before realizing "oh wait...she's crying."

Dan and I are always taking pictures of her crying, which makes Evelyn cry even harder. But she is so cute.

I thought I would share.

Man I love her to pieces.

Evelyn Picture of the Week

We had a very eventful weekend. Details will follow when I have some free time. In the meantime, I thought I would post this super cute picture of Evelyn.

13 mo.

What a difference a year makes

Brand new...
First Birthday...

Seriously. I can't believe Ev is not just a year old, but 13mo old. She is such a big girl. No longer a baby. And so much fun. She talks a ton now. She has quite the point of view. Alot of it we can't understand, but she still has a ton of words. For example - mama, daddy, puppy, kitty, baba, milk, num num (hungry), please, thank you, what's this, no, uh-oh, more, diggy, Weeee (swing), bathtub, and much much more :-)

First Artwork

Seriously, beams of proudness (is that a word) exploded from my chest. Peanuts little hands are AWESOME.