Steffen Family Fun Days

I am sure most of you have already seen my flood of photos I posted last night from our eventful weekend :) I wanted to offer a little commentary to go along with them as some of these have now become my favorites!!!

The Steffen family loves the weekends!! We have come to terms with the idea that the weekdays revolve around Nick's work but on the weekends, we are blessed that Nick devotes his complete and undivided attention to his two girls.(other than the one hour I allow him to do reports from home on Saturdays, lol) During the typical weekday daddy is awake at 5:15 and out the door by 6 a.m. and we usually don't see him again until about 6:30 p.m. Once he is home, we have just enough time to eat a quick dinner, take a family walk and then do our bath time fun and put Nora to bed.

So needless to say, we soak up all the togetherness time we can on the weekends! Lately since we haven't had a yard to care for and other responsibilities that go along with home ownership, we have been enjoying exploring the sights and sounds of Albuquerque. We have already seen the zoo, aquarium, botanical gardens, Santa Fe, Pork and Brew BBQ Festival, and checked out several of the local restaurants. This past weekend we attended the Los Ranchos Lavender Festival and were able to ride the amazing Sandia Peak Tramway to get some great views of the mountains.

The Lavender Festival was quite the neat little family friendly outing. It started off with a Pet Parade which Nora absolutely loved. She has become quite found of dogs lately and can even say "ddooo" when she sees one! It is absolutely darling as usually she spots the furry creature before we do and she will point and start shouting, DDOOO!! She was also quite the crowd favorite as she usually is. She was entertaining all those sitting around us with her flashy grin and cute waves. We call her our little flirt! She loves getting attention and especially from people other than her mom and dad! After the parade, we were also able to browse at some booths with local goods for sale, walk through a deliciously smelling lavender field and even go through a petting zoo. We like to begin our outings early in the mornings here as it gets very warm in the afternoons so those are the perfect times for afternoon naps in the AC. Before we left, we were even able to taste some Lavender Ice Cream, which Nick seemed to like the best. I thought it was ok, but prefer chocolate type flavors. lol

Sunday was filled with church in the morning, which let me tell you, has become quite the circus show for Nora...it takes about everything both Nick and I have to keep the little one entertained and sitting still for that hour.lol. Then after a quick nap and lunch, we headed just about a mile down the road to Sandia Peak. I will have to admit that I was a bit nervous about this adventure as I am scared of heights and wasn't sure I wanted to take my baby on something that high in the air, but we decided to go for it! Boy am I glad we did too!! It was absolutely breathtaking being at the top of the mountain and looking down at the whole city of Albuquerque. It was also about 20 degrees cooler up there so we were able to enjoy some hiking  as a family! We have decided that this is a must do activity for any of our visitors that my come and visit us :)

Speaking of visitors, we should be moving into our new four bedroom house next weekend and once we get all settled, we would love to have visitors! So if you are considering a family vacay, be sure to think of us as there is so much to do and see in this area (hint hint...family)

We have sure experience a lot in just a month's time. We still look forward to more family outings in the near future so stay tuned for some more Steffen Family Fun Days!

Here are some of my favorite pics from the weekend...

Being a Stay at Home Mommy

Let me first start off by saying that I am really not too fond of the term, Stay at Home Mom.. To me that sounds like all I do is stay at home all day, sit on the couch and watch my child(ren) run around all day. My daily routine is far from that!

Although Nora graced us with her presence sooner than we had planned, I have been so extremely fortunate to be able to put my career on hold to take care of my most prized possession. I am so wonderfully blessed to have such a hard working and understanding husband that made this all possible for our family. I will admit that before taking the plunge into full time mommy-hood, we had to sit down (several times) and put a pen and paper to it on to weather we could make this fly. Although our lifestyle had to be adjusted a bit, we were willing to make that compromise so that I could be the one raising our baby instead of someone else.

Aside from telling you how grateful I am to have this opportunity, I wanted to share a bit about what it is that Nora and I do day to day since most of the time we are not "staying at home" lol. Most of you that know me, know that I am not good with idle time. So, since the day Nora came home from the hospital she has been on the go! I was never one of those moms that believed in keeping your child quarantined for the first 6 weeks to prevent the spread of germs. On the contrary, I think exposing Nora to germs actually helps build up her little immune system. With that being said, I can remember taking her to get ice cream and to Target with us when she was just three days old!

Since about the age of 4 months, Nora and I become quite the social butterflies. As soon as she became more alert (aside from sleeping all the time as newborns do) I was on the search for activities to do daily. Going shopping every day got too expensive (so daddy told us) so we had to find alternatives. I signed Nora up for a class at The Little Gym and found local libraries that offered story times and special programs for even the youngest of learners. We bonded with other mamas and babies and begin scheduling weekly playgroups too. I dusted off my old planner (from my working days) and begin plugging in daily activities and outings for us!

I still to this day, plan out our week so that we have some sort of outing every day and also some sort of home activity. Yes, some of you may think I am crazy or an overachiever but I guess that is the teacher side coming out in me :) I have came up with activities such as "baby in a box", doing puzzles, water play, exploring different parts of the house, bubbles,playing catch, acting out stories, dancing and singing to kid songs off i tunes and the occasional children's show on TV (or now the i pad as she seems to be more impressed with that). You will be surprised the kind of reactions even babies have to being stimulated and introduced to new sights and sounds.

With the move, Nora and I didn't miss a beat. Prior to moving, I was able to do my research and had activities on our calendar before even arriving and boy oh boy, you should see my calendar now! Albuquerque is amazing for having kid friendly activities and centers to go to that both educate and entertain your little ones. I am still searching and trying some of them out so that hopefully soon once we get moved into the new house and settled in, we can finalize our calendar with all our fun adventures!

It has always been important to me that Nora knows how to behave in public and know what is expected of her. I believe we are already starting this with her as we can't go anywhere with out someone stopping to play with her or compliment her on what a happy baby she is and how pleasant she is acting. Don't get me wrong, I am sure this will soon become a challenge as we enter the later stages of development, but I will save my opinions on discipline for a later post, lol! Believe it or not, Nora does already know the meaning of No and has gotten the occasional scowl and thump on the hand.

I know I have other fellow mamas that are following my blog so I would like to occasionally update this on some kid friendly activities that we have found or tried. I would also love to hear your ideas as well as I am always up to trying something new (and so is Nora).

Once again, I can not tell you all enough how fortunate I am to get to spend each and every single day with my baby girl! I know that not everyone is able to do that and I feel so thankful that I am! I would not take back a single day I have had with my little one, good or bad, to go off to work each day and only get to see her for an hour or two a day. Each and every day she amazes me or cracks me up with something new she does and says (yes she is babbling a ton now)!

Here are some pics of little Nora learning and exploring...

Simplicity Parenting

My dear husband informed me tonight that it has been more than a couple of days since I last wrote and I better get on the stick before people lose interest, lol! ( I actually think he is almost more excited about this blog than me :)) So here I go...

So lately I have been doing a lot of thinking about my parenting style as Nora is growing up so quickly in front of my eyes. I have had some big decisions to make recently as well that can be stressful for even the most experienced parent....like which pediatrician to choose, to continue doing physical therapy or not, how to curb Nora's separation anxiety and the list goes on... My title is not really saying that Parenting is simple because it is far from that!

My title is saying that...parenting simply does take over your whole life!! When having a recent discussion with Nick about Nora's new pediatrician, he pointed out to me how particularly picky I really am. After feeling unsure if I made the right decision, he asked me..."would anyone ever be good enough for you?" I paused for a moment and answered, "well maybe not!" As you can probably already tell by my endless amounts of pictures and daily posts about my precious angel, I really do hold my daughter on a pedistool to say the least. She IS my entire life....she is what makes my world go around, she is what makes me excited to get up every morning, she is the little one that can turn me into "mama bear" in a quick second!

I don't think I need to apologize for being "too picky" when it comes to what is best for my baby girl. This being said however, I am very aware that she is not the only person here on god's great Earth so I will have to learn to share her and let her learn through self discovery. I want to be able to shelter her but also allow her to experience all there is in this amazing life.

As I lay in bed each night, I always tend to reflect upon the day and think of what tomorrow holds. Lately I have found myself thinking of all that I want to instill in Nora as she grows and how I can start doing it now. Here is what I have came up with so far...

I want her to have manners and be well behaved
I want her to learn to share and help others
I want her to be creative and express her silly personality
I want her to be social and know how to communicate well
I want her to be able to experience life through trips, events and activities
I want her to love to read
I want her to love animals
And most of all, I want her to love ME!

I am pretty sure that even at the young age of 10 months, Nora already has her own way of showing me she loves me! We have been struggling a bit lately with Nora insisting on "mum mum" to be by her side constantly. Including at bedtime, which now has turned into quite the event to get her settled in her crib, without being snuggled to mommy. I know though, that this stage too will pass in time, so until then, I will view this as Nora's precious way of thanking me for all that I do for her each day.

As I am reading this aloud (to check for errors for my brother, lol), I can already feel myself swelling up with pride and love for my sweet baby girl. Although I am not one to express my religious beliefs, she truly is the greatest gift that god has ever given me and it is now my lifelong responsibility to care for this beautiful, happy, energetic, and helpless child.

Some pictures of the day that my whole life changed forever :))

Making New Friends

Friends and family are what life is all about, right? When leaving both Kansas and Texas, we left behind some of the most precious friends. Thankfully though, through the invention of facebook, we can still feel connected even if we don't see each other regularly. As you can tell by my 700 plus friends, I enjoy staying involved with those who have touched my life in some form or another.

When moving to a new city, it can be a very lonely time if you don't reach out and begin to establish some new friendships. For some this may be a difficult endeavor but for our family, my husband just leaves this up to me, lol. This is not an easy task and does require one to move beyond their comfort zone. It makes me sad when people say that they don't have any friends,but at the same time, I feel that is partially their fault. It does take time and effort but in the end, it can have a lifelong impact on your happiness. 

People often ask me how I can make friends so easily. It's simple, be kind, be friendly, be interested and be available. Find things to do that you enjoy, then meeting others along the way is simple because you know they have common interests. Yes, I will admit that I have met my fair share of friends at bars and that's ok :) However, since the bar scene is no longer in our vocabulary, there are plenty of other ways out there. I can remember within a week of living in Ft. Worth, I was lounging by the pool at our corporate housing with a stiff drink in hand and visiting with our new neighbors. Who would of know that those couple of people (who were awesome by the way) would later help us form our entire circle of friends for 3 years!

Since moving here to Albuquerque just a little over two weeks ago, I am so excited to say that we are already starting to meet new friends :) Nick has met some really nice people he works with and has been lucky enough to have a few happy hours, bbq's and even played some tennis (which he hasn't done in years). Since I arrived, I have met some fabulous mommy friends through a mommy meet up group I found online (the internet is a great tool for branching out) and have also met another fellow mommy through a mommy blog I have belonged to since before Nora was born. This has all happened even before we have moved to our new house and our new neighborhood. I look forward to seeing what that area has to offer as well. Our neighbors in Ft. Worth were truly amazing and became some of our best friends in Texas, can we be that lucky again...I sure hope so :)

I want to include some recent pics of Nora and her newly found friends! We look forward to getting to know them more as time goes on. I like to think that our family is fun, energetic and friend-able! And to our Kansas and Texas friends, we miss you and think of you often!!!!!

 Nora and her new buddy Andre, they are only a few days apart

 Smitten with each other already :)

 Nora and Luke having some lunch at the ABQ Botanical Gardens

 Nora getting a very welcome Hello at the 4th of July Picnic

My fabulous (and very welcoming) new Mom's Group!