Meeting Uncle Monte, Aunt Kristen, and Cousin Felicity

This weekend Frank's brother Monte, his wife Kristen, and their 10-year-old daughter Felicity drove out to meet little Frankie for a quick visit on their way to California. Monte is in the army and will be deploying to Afghanistan for the second time in February of next year. It was so great to introduce Felicity to Frankie. He was absolutely fascinated by her, and she cracked him up with her funny faces. We do not get to see any of them often, so we were very excited that they made the trip to Texas to visit. Felicity is growing up so fast! She is a smart, beautiful girl, and we are so happy that we got to spend some time with her.

Here are some pictures from their visit:

brothers Bernardo + Frankie

Frank & Monte

proud patriots

two men and a baby

hanging with Aunt Kristen and Felicity

Monte, Felicity, and Frankie

there's Katy!

playing with his cousin

hanging with the ladies

so sweet

Frankie & Monte

Walsh wedding (and first night with a baby sitter)

Last week on Friday afternoon I took Frankie to the doctor because had kept us up half the night on Thursday. It turns out that he has a double ear infection. Poor little guy! He just can't seem to catch a break this month and is instead catching every possible illness and infection that is going around. He seems to be feeling better now, but he decided to keep us up half the night again on Sunday night, so we have been pretty exhausted this week.

On Saturday, we went to Daniel & Kristi's wedding at La Cima Club in Las Colinas. The wedding was beautiful, and it was nice to celebrate the special occassion with good friends. It was also the first night that we had a "stranger" baby-sit Frankie. Kristi recommended one of her coworker's daughters to babysit for us, and she turned out to be fantastic. She is a college student who works in the infant room at a day care and is very experienced with babies. I was nervous to leave Frankie with her because he was not feeling well and I could not predict whether he was going to wake up at night scared and in pain. Luckily, the reception was only 5 minutes from our house, so I knew that if there had been a problem I would have been able to get home quickly. And it turned out that everything was fine. He went to sleep easily and did not wake up. Our babysitter was super nice, and she even cleaned the kitchen, washed all the bottles, and unloaded the dishwasher while we were gone! I was so pleasantly surprised, and I hope we will be able to use her again.

Here are some pictures from the wedding:

lovely ladies @ Walsh wedding reception

the Vestals

bride & groom

first dance

the Reeves

yummy cake!

groom's cake--cake balls

Crawling video

Frank reminded me over the weekend that we do not have a video of Frank crawling, and he told me that I needed to take one before he starts walking. So, here is a video of our shirtless little boy crawling all over the kitchen!

Gripper toes

This is one of my favorite recent pictures of Frankie, because he is using his feet to hold his toy up and play with it. He has been doing this a lot lately with different toys, his bottle, and other objects he manages to get his hands on. He is generally all over the place, crawling from toy to toy, but when he settles on something that he wants to play with, he will roll over onto his back, hold the toy up with his feet, and play with it. He seems to be continuing a trend in my family, which my mom has always called "gripper toes." Frank has always made fun of me because I use my toes to pick objects up off the ground all of the time. This is something that our mom taught us when we were little, and I think Frankie will be carrying on that tradition. I love your little gripper toes, Frankie!

...gonna get married!

It was a weekend of weddings! After Jennifer's reception ended, we drove back to Sugar Land and caught the last hour of Ashley & Logan's reception. Ashley is my sister's best friend from high school, and our families have been very close throughout the years. My parents and sister were at the reception, and they had clearly had a lot of fun before we arrived. Ashley's reception was pure party-mode, complete with a rocking band and tons of dancing. We got to hear just about every fantastic dance song ever in that hour we were there, and we had a blast dancing and hanging out with my family. My brother very generously offered to babysit Frankie while we were wedding-hopping, and he did a great job. When we got home, we all stayed up into the wee hours of the morning catching up. It was so nice to have my whole family together for a little bit, because it happens so rarely anymore!

Here are a few pictures from Ashley's reception and the rest of the weekend:

pool time!

kisses from Daddy

Proesch ladies

Dancing on the chair!

love my family!

Going to the chapel...

This weekend I spent three days in Galveston celebrating the wedding of my dear friend Jennifer to her new husband Mark! Jennifer and I met in college through my freshman potluck roommate Josie, who was friends with Jennifer from high school. Jennifer and I were both economics majors, and we had a bunch of classes together, so we kept in touch. After we both broke up with our boyfriends our sophomore year, we became partners-in-crime. Ironically, she met my husband Frank in an economics class before I met him. And she is also the person who is single-handedly responsible for my career. Jenn was thinking about going to law school and she had a dream of going to school in New York City. I did not really have a plan at that point, but I thought about going to NYC and going to graduate school for journalism at Columbia University. I went with Jenn to a career fair for law schools, and I talked to the admissions counselor from Columbia about pursuing a masters in journalism and a law degree at the same time. I got really excited about the possibility, signed up to take the LSAT, and the rest is history! Jenn did not end up going to law school after all, but I would probably never have even considered it if she had not brought me to the career fair. So thank you Jenn, you have been a wonderful friend, and I was honored to be a part of your special day.

Jenn has always been a gorgeous girl, but she absolutely shined on her wedding day. It was so inspiring to see how happy she is with Mark, and we wish them a lifetime of happiness, health, joy, and love. Here are some pictures from the big wedding day:

smash! cake in the face

father daughter dance (so sweet)

me & my hubby

the ladies

cake!!

love this photo! first dance

kissy kissy

getting gorgeous

bridesmaid bouquet

bride-to-be!

8 months (already?!)

Yesterday was Frankie's 8-month birthday! I cannot believe that he is already 8 months old. It seems like just yesterday I was coming home from the hospital with him. Time is literally flying by, and he is changing so much each and every day. I spent too days away from him this weekend, and I missed him like crazy!

At 8 months, Frank is:

• extremely busy, always wanting to touch, feel, and taste everything. I thought he was busy before, but this is on a whole new level.



• crawling, everywhere! He is getting faster and faster, and we literally cannot turn away for a minute without him trying to get into something he shouldn't.



• fascinated with wires, remotes, cell phones, and my camera.



• becoming a huge ham! He knows my camera and he smiles and poses when i pull it out to take his picture.



• pulling up on everything. It was just two weeks ago that he started to pull up, and he has gained so much strength since then, it is truly amazing. He can pull himself up to standing on the couch, coffee table, bar stools, high chair, basically any and everything. This weekend he also started cruising along the couch and coffee/end tables at my parents' house. He is also learning how to get himself down from standing, and he is getting better at that every day too.



• loves standing up. He can stand briefly unassisted, but usually he is at least leaning against a piece of furniture or holding on to something with one hand.



• absolutely loves the water, including bath time and pool time. They say he goes crazy on Friday splash days at day care.



• still toothless, but getting more hair every day.



• wearing size 12-18 month clothes.



• still babbling, mostly da-da-da, although he says ma-ma-ma and makes other sounds on occasion. Sometimes he whisper babbles, which is soooo cute.
  
  

Frankie is the love of our lives, and we are so blessed to have a healthy, happy and sweet baby boy.

Brooke & Mason's baby shower weekend

Last weekend I went to Houston to help host a baby shower for Brooke & Mason. Brooke has been my friend for a long time, since we used to play softball together in high school. We are so excited for them! We cannot wait for Frankie to have another playmate. It was great to see a bunch of my friends and celebrate the upcoming arrival of Baby Bennett (this will be Frankie's 3rd friend named Bennett)!!

On my way home from the shower, I experienced one of my worst nightmares: my car completely died in the middle of a busy freeway. Luckily, I was able to navigate my way to shoulder before I lost power completely. I called OnStar, who sent someone out to tow my car, and I called my parents, and my Dad and brother came out to rescue me. It turned out that a pulley broke, which caused a belt to go off its track, which caused the alternator to stop working and the car to die. It was a huge pain, and I ended up having to miss work Monday and drive back late Monday night. But at least the car was still under warranty, and at least they were able to diagnose the problem and fix it. Thank goodness this happened when I was in Houston, without the baby. I cannot imagine how scary it would have been to have the car die on my way to or from Houston with Frankie in the car.

Because of the car mishap, we were able to spend one extra day in Houston with Nana and Grandpa, and I know that Frankie really enjoyed that.

Here are some pictures from this weekend:

proud parents-to-be Brooke & Mason

cute water bottles

sugar cookie favors

cake

hanging with the Gramps & Daisy

sitting with Miss Diana

such a talented baby--holding the toy with his feet

splashing in the pool

such a ham

we've found our tongue

my little cutie!