Baby babbles & pool time

Happy Memorial Day! Frankie started babbling this week. He says da-da-da or ba-ba-ba or gee-gee-gee. It is sooo cute! He does it completely randomly, and there is no way I am counting "da-da-da" as his first word. He is still working really hard to crawl, and he gets up on all fours and rocks back and forth all the time now. No forward motion yet though! He also seems to be going through a growth spurt, because he is eating an extra bottle a day for the last few days, waking up earlier than normal starving, and absolutely chugging his bottles when we give them to him. He also recently started putting his feet in his mouth, and we have been giving him the sippy cup, which he is getting the hang of.

This weekend my parents came to visit and we had a great time with them. On Saturday my Dad and Frank went up to the Byron Nelson and got to hang out at the pool bar with a professional golfer. My Dad is an avid golf fan, and he was thrilled! Needless to say, they were not in the best shape when we finally picked them up, and Frank was out cold for the rest of the night. They had a little too much fun. On Sunday they babysat Frankie so that Frank and I could go to the Byron Nelson and the Four Seasons and have a date day. It was so nice! Then we went over to Allison and Steve's house to go get our nails done and go out to dinner.

Today we went up to the pool for the club's Memorial Day family party and met up with Astyn, Josh, and Bennett. We took Bennett and Frankie to the toddler pool, and they did pretty well. I can't wait until they get older and can really splash around and have fun. The pool was crazy crowded today, but I am excited to get to go up there a lot this summer.

Here are some pics from this weekend:

Steve, Kasey, and Frankie

hanging with Nana and Grandpa

drinking juice like a big boy!

Bennett & Frankie

Holy weather!

Last night was one of the scariest weather events I have ever experienced. We were under a tornado warning for about an hour last night as a very scary thunder and hail storm violently thrashed through Fort Worth and Dallas. We woke Frankie up to bring him downstairs so that we could huddle up together. Frank made me & Frankie and Katy go into our master closet and hide under the stairwell. We could hear all of our windows rattling, hail pounding on our roof, and extremely strong winds. It was extremely scary. After about half an hour, the worst passed, and we went out to assess the damage. We had two broken windows (including one in Frankie's room), but that was it. We never lost power, and thank goodness no tornadoes touched down near us. My sister happened to catch the picture above of a tornado that touched down just a few miles from her house! She said it was extremely scary up there, but they did not have any damage either and everyone is safe. We had golf ball and baseball sized hail at our house, which was insane, and Frank made himself a little hail cocktail after all the events were over.

sick little bug

My sweet little buddy is sick with some kind of stomach virus. He has had very little appetite all weekend, and he has not been keeping his formula down, so I took him into the doctor this morning. She told us to give him Pedialyte for the next 12 hours, but we tried this morning and he absolutely hates it! So we ended up giving him watered down formula instead, which will hopefully help to keep him full without irritating his stomach. I stayed home from work today to take care of my sick little bug, and he has been miserable all day. He does not want to sleep or eat, but he is so tired and hungry.

On a more positive note, we had a great visit this weekend with Grambo and Grambie, who stopped by on their way out to St. Marteen. Their flight was delayed until 3 a.m. on Friday night, but we got to spend all day Saturday with them, and it was really nice. We went over the the Valudos' big annual crawfish boil, and it was really nice to see everyone. Frankie was a little bit fussy when we were over there, which I am now thinking was because he was getting sick. It was still fun to show him off to a bunch of friend we had not seen since he was born.

Hopefully he will be feeling better tomorrow, and keep your fingers crossed that no one else gets sick!

Six month professional pictures

Leslie Lane of Lane Portraits took these wonderful pictures of Frankie to commemorate his 6-month birthday. Although this photo session was not as difficult as the newborn photos, it was still a LOT of work to get Frankie to sit up, look at the camera, and smile. It definitely took all three of us--me, Frank, and the photographer--to make it happen. Luckily, Frank is a smiley happy baby, so we did not have to work TOO hard. I did sing the Itsy Bitsy Spider about 40 times, complete with hand motions, in the Fort Worth Botanical Gardens, because that is my only gauranteed way to make him smile. Even that did not work after two hours of pictures. I apologize to everyone who had to witness that. Here are some of my favorites!

so excited!

hey there blue eyes!

Little cutie

Mommy & Me

SUPER BABY!

standing up!

future Aggie

my little poser

Happy six month birthday little buddy

Happy Six Month Birthday little buddy!! I can hardly believe that six months have passed since you came into our lives. What a whirlwind six months it has been! You are such a joy and a blessing, and we are so happy to have you in our lives. Frankie went to the doctor today for his six-month check up and shots, and he weighs 18 lbs 2.5 oz and is 27 1/4 inches. He is in between the 50th and 75th percentiles for weight and between 75th and 90th percentiles for height. He is a long and lean baby! He has pretty much mastered sitting up on his own, and he is perfecting his backwards crawl and plank position, but still no forward movement yet. He gets up on his knees and rocks, and we think he will be crawling soon.

He still loves to be outside, and we have been taking many walks in the evenings enjoying the beautiful weather! I hope to take him up to the pool at the Four Seasons this weekend, because I know that he will love it. I took him over to our neighborhood moms' group on Sunday and he got to play in Bennett's jumparoo, which he loved, and sit up and play with Bennett. It was so cute to watch them interact with each other. Frank kept trying to steal Bennett's toys and eat them.

Tonight after the doctor's appointment we did our monthly photo shoot upstairs in my reading room, and this time was completely different than previous months. He has never noticed my paper monthly signs before, but this time he wanted to grab it, eat it, and play with it, and i had to work to distract him from the sign to get a decent picture. My little guy is exploring everything and anxious to get moving!

Here are some pics from his 6-month birthday photo shoot with Mommy:

hey cutie

6 months old!

I want that sign

what kind of sign is this??

this sign is Yummy!!

Proud Mama

After working on it for almost a month, Frank finally figured out how to sit up by himself tonight! I am such a proud mama! I realized today that I have definitely become one of those people who posts way too many pictures of my child on facebook. But you know what--I don't care. I am so proud of my baby boy, and I absolutely love watching him reach all of these new milestones. There is nothing more amazing than seeing the world through a baby's eyes and watching him learn and experience new things all the time. Here are some pictures of Frank sitting up and jumping in his jumper.

Happy Wednesday!

Happy Mother's Day!

Today I was blessed to be able to spend my first Mother's Day with my own amazing mother and with my sweet little boy. I was sad that Frank was not able to be here to help us celebrate, but I am glad that I came down to Houston to celebrate with my family. We also got to see my grandparents, and Frankie's great grandparents, on Saturday night, which was very special. This past six months have absolutely changed my life. I used to identify myself as a lawyer, a wife, a friend, a runner, a shopoholic...so many different labels. Now, first and foremost, I am a mother. And it is more than just a title, it is a bond that I share with every other mother in the world. It is the most important hat I wear, and it is the most important job I will ever have. I absolutely love my son, and being a mother is the greatest gift that God has ever given me. It has made me appreciate my own mother so much more, and in so many ways that I simply could not know before I came a mother myself. Cheers to all of the wonderful mothers in my life!

beautiful flowers from my sweet little boy (aka Nana and Grandpa)

beautiful flowers from my sweet husband

Daddy's coming home!

We have big news...Frank is coming home!!! He has accepted a new job in Dallas that will not require him to travel. We are so happy that he is going to be home with us every night. We have been missing him a lot, and I know that Frank is happy to be coming home too. He is going to be working in outside sales for an energy company, and I think he will be great at it. We are so excited for him, and I am so proud of him! This has certainly been a whirlwind last six months...a new baby and two new jobs. But every change has been a positive step for our family, and it has brought us to exactly where we want to be.

Frank left today to go to Savannah for two weeks for military stuff, and I am going to miss him, and I am pretty bummed that he won't be here for my first Mother's Day. But, knowing that he will be back home in two weeks with no more travel in sight makes this two-week sojourn much more palatable.

Change is exciting, challenging, scary, and hard. But change can also be incredibly rewarding. We pray that this new change is going to bring our family closer, make Mommy's life a little easier, and be a positive step in Frank's career progression.