The Party Don't Start 'Til I Walk In

Hey y'all, I'm Stephanie! ~ I feel happy saying "y'all" since I spent some significant years of my adult life living in Tennessee and gave birth to a baby there too. :)  Southern by proxy or something, right? 

Well, I certainly am not adopting "yinz" from living in Pittsburgh even though I was born here.  My parents thankfully took us in a Uhaul across the country when I was six years old and I was raised in the desert in a tent. No, not really.  The tent part's not true. But, the desert part is.  I grew up in Mesa, Arizona in a traditional family with loving parents and two younger brothers.

I'm a wife to my best friend, George. We've been together for 5 years and married for almost 2. Our love story is very full of peaks and valleys and it's made us strong together. We are miscarriage survivors and we have a spunky 20 month old baby girl, Lily.

I'm also a mama to a 12 year old boy from my first marriage, Andrew {mine} and a nearly fulltime stepmama to an 8 year old girl, Reagan {his}.   Yeah, so that means I've had babies in two different decades~my son was 10 when my daughter was born.

I'm a former kindergarten teacher who's lucky enough to stay home with my baby girl right now, but I do look forward to getting back into the classroom! 

I take wayyyy too many photographs, have an unnatural affinity for Sharpies, I'm a lifelong learner, I'm fiercely passionate about parenting, education and family, and have a strong faith.

This blog is the baby that came after I outgrew previous blog homes documenting pregnancy and everyday life in separate places. I write primarily about my everyday life with most of it about Lily.  Andrew is of the age where his life is more private, so I tend to write more about his events when writing about him. 

I'm honest. I'm authentic. And my life is not always full of the good stuff.  In addition to writing about the good stuff, I write about the struggles in being a stepmom, dealing with an uncooperative, wacky BM {bio mom of my stepdaughter},sharing custody with an out-of-state parent {my son's dad}, the difficulties of parenting a tween, toddler and stepchild.  I've very protective of my marriage and while I may gush about him sometimes, I write about him mostly in his role as a daddy.

I embrace people and their stories and have made many good "real person" friendships through social media. Heck, I met my husband online {not on a dating site}so I'm a believer. :)  

Like I told my husband years ago, as a teacher, my job was to champion people~~seek out their best, their potential. Be optimistic and hopeful.  As I've gotten older, I've learned thos traits weren't about my job as a teacher. It's who I am.

Hope you'll stick around! Looking forward to getting to know you!