...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!

Horrible, no good, very bad week

So this week has been crazy. It has only been three days since we got back from Mason, but it has been an extremely busy and tiring three days. Frankie is not feeling well. He came down with a fever on Tuesday, and he has been refusing about half of his bottles completely all week. I swear he feels like he has lost weight. He has also been extremely fussy during the day and waking up a lot at night. He is drooling like a mad man, so I assumed that he was teething (especially because he has no other cold-like symptoms). But tonight Frank noticed that he has some sores on his legs and feet, so we suspect he might have Hand-foot-mouth disease. Doesn't that just sound disgusting? So I am going to take him to the doctor AGAIN tomorrow.

After a few slow weeks, this week has also been incredibly busy at work. I volunteered for a huge research assignment that is due tonight. It is already 9 pm, and I figure that I have at least 2-3 more hours to work on it. And I have to use Frank's computer, but he is using it to write a paper for grad school. So I will be lucky if I finish it by midnight.

Then I am supposed to drive (with Frankie) to Houston this weekend for a friend's baby shower. I missed another friend's bachelorette party due to a sick baby, and I would hate to miss another event for the same reason. Hopefully I will take Frankie to the doctor tomorrow and they will tell me that he is just teething and will be fine. And hopefully he sleeps all night tonight without waking up crying. I have been visiting him at day care during the day the last few days, and he has been crying when I leave. He has never been like that before, but he gets extra clingy when he does not feel good. Poor baby!!!!

Frank and I are so stressed out right now. I know that everything will be better once Frankie starts feeling better, but when you add illness into the mix of two full time working parents, a full time student, and a baby, you basically get chaos. Okay, enough procrastinating, enough complaining, I have to get to work!

Fourth of July weekend in the hill country

I hope that everyone enjoyed the Fourth of July weekend! We spent a wonderful Fourth of July weekend in the hill country at our friends Ryon and Sara Vestal's ranch in Mason, Texas. Our friends Daniel & Kristy, Amy & Don, and Amy & Jayson joined us. In total, there were 10 adults, 2 babies, and 4 dogs in town for the weekend. We had a blast! Ryon and Sara were great hosts, and they made adorable t-shirts for everyone, including the babies. Frankie and Mason are both getting so much more active and fun to watch. They both did fairly well, although they were on completely different schedules and made bedtime quite difficult a couple of nights. Frankie screamed bloody murder when I tried to put him to bed on Saturday night, and I realized that every time I would open the door to leave the room, the light and noise would wake him up. So I finally decided to wait in the room with him for thirty minutes after I put him down to make sure he stayed asleep. It worked...but I ended up falling asleep myself and sleeping right through dinner and the rest of the night! I have to give myself a little slack because Friday was such a long day. We woke up at 5:00 am to pack and get the house ready for our maid. Then I went to work at 8:00, worked until 1:00, got on the road by 2:00, arrived around 7:15, and stayed up until 3:30 a.m. Phew! And of course we had to wake up at 6:45 a.m. on Saturday when Frankie woke up. No wonder I was exhausted!

On Saturday, the girls brought the babies into Fredericksburg for some shopping and wine tasting while the boys played golf. And on Sunday we all went out to the river for an afternoon of relaxing. Each couple was responsible for cooking one meal, except Frank and I had breakfast both days. Anyone who has stayed at our house knows that Frank LOVES to cook breakfast! Everyone made fabulous food, and we absolutely stuffed ourselves. It was a great weekend with great friends, beautiful scenery, awesome food, and way too much alcohol (as usual!).

Here are some of my favorite pictures from the weekend:

cute T-shirts to commemorate the weekend

chillin in the river

my two Franks

ladies

boys

best buddies

Bernardo family

I want your hat, Daddy!

look at their cute shirts!!

Ryon and the babies

family pic

Mason, Texas

my boys

about to get hitched!

my & my little buddy

our lovely hosts

beautiful Texas hill country view

Crawling and pulling up

Little Frankie has been growing and changing so much every day lately. He is getting more and more curious, and he is trying to get into absolutely everything! Last week at day care he started to pull up on things. Today, he found the ledge underneath our coffee table and pulled himself up on that. We went ahead and lowered his crib, because I know that it will only be a matter of time before he starts pulling himself up in there. He loves to stand and hold on to furniture, and he constantly wants to push himself up and crawl on everything he can reach. He also does a funny "monkey crawl" where he gets up on his hands and feet, like he is doing the yoga pose downward dog. He also can now go from sitting to crawling and from his stomach to sitting. He also officially started crawling today! He has been doing the inchworm crawl for a few weeks now, and he has been rocking on all fours for over a month, but he finally put it all together and crawled today. I am so proud of him. He is such a busy, busy boy, and I know that he will be walking before we know it. Now we REALLY need to get on that baby proofing!

his newest trick

caught you!

i'm in the driver's seat