2 months

It’s hard to believe that Evie turned two months old on May 27^th as we can hardly remember life without her. 

Recent advances include frequent smiles, coos, oohs and maybe even signs of a giggle, some fist-to-mouth coordination and lots of curiousity/interest in visual “toys”.

Recent additions to Evie’s favorite things include standing, dry diapers, Lady GaGa’s ‘Poker Face’ (don’t ask), her Gopher mobile, spitting up on dad’s bare chest in bed and slurping on her wet fists when taking a bath.

May showers

This past weekend my cousins Megan and Kim graciously hosted a Backer baby shower for Linds and Evie at their Highland Park home.  EJB scored big and Linds and Tisha had fun having time getting to know the Backer women without us boys in the way.

Thanks for coordinating Kim and Megan… and thanks to all you Backers for taking the time to come out and see and spoil the newest member of the Backer clan (the 67^th by my math).

Festivus

Graduation week brought the family together for a week of fun.  My mom flew in from Denver, brother Joe and his fiancée Tisha from Chicago, and my dad made the trek up 169 from New Ulm.  We hit up Sally’s, the Melting Pot, the Drink, Barrio, Brit’s for some lawn bowling and plenty more.  Evie was a super trooper throughout, sitting quietly through long speeches and happily welcoming a million transitions from grandma to Joe, to grandma, to car seat, to grandma, to Laura, to grandma, to car seat, to grandma, to Tisha, to grandma, to grandpa, to (you get the idea)… oh, and even to mom and dad once in a while!

It was great having everyone together again… thanks for everything y’all!

Grad Week

The week of May 18^th was a big one for the Backer family.  I graduated from the U of M’s Carlson School of Management with an MBA, and my little sis’ graduated from UST with a B.A. in HR and Business Communications. 

I’ve got a job lined up at General Mills in their marketing research group (Consumer Insights), but Laura hasn’t been so lucky just yet.  To that end, If anyone knows of any HR opportunities out there in the real world please keep my sis’ in mind (labacker@stthomas.edu).  J

Our own private dog park

After three summers of trying to maintain grass coverage in a backyard constantly trampled by our two wild animals, Griff and Maya, I finally gave up the fight.  My dad, Linds, La and Tom all donated their services and helped me turn my backyard into a dog-proof wood chip desert.

While I’m very much looking forward to not having to worry about growing grass or the dogs tracking mud and dirt into the house, I’m already dreading the day a future potential home buyer says, “We’ll buy the place… provided you remove the 10,000 lbs of mulch in that backyard!”. 

RBLMDN

Grandpa Bob took Evie on Tuesday night and sent Linds and I out for our first post-EJB date night. We headed to Bagu (48th and Chicago) for sushi… which aside from beer was the “forbidden fruit” most difficult for her to abstain from during the pregnancy. Welcome back Linds!

GrandPaPa

Linds’ dad paid his first visit to Minnesota since Evie’s arrival this past weekend. Bob left both of his Harleys behind this time; the motorized one due to rain in the forecast... and the K9 version because he wanted to focus energy on playing Grandpa as opposed to playing Cesar Millan.

Thanks for all of your help Bob… looking forward to your next visit!