Happy St. Patty's Day

Family weekend in Houston

We went to Houston in part to celebrate our anniversary but also in part to see Aunt Barbara who was in town to visit. She had not met Frankie yet, and she came over to my parents' house on Friday night with my grandparents for a big dinner. Frankie charmed everyone as usual. He is still shy at first around strangers, but he is really getting to know my parents, which I know they love. He is now officially calling them Nana and Papa. He started saying "Nana" this weekend, and my Mom loved it! He also said "Daisy" (my parent's dog). We decided to stay in Houston an extra night and go over to my grandparents' house for dinner on Sunday so that they could spend some more time with Frankie. The more time he spends with them, the more he recognizes them. My Grandma gave Frankie one of my Grandpa's Senior Olympics tennis medals, which is so special, and he LOVED it. I am so happy that we got to spend so much time with them this weekend. Here are some pictures:

Aunt Barbara & Frankie

high five GG

hanging with Great Grandpa

four generations

Senior Olympics medal

I love my medal!

love you Great Grandma!

Five-year anniversary

This weekend, Frank and I celebrated five years of marriage. Wow, I cannot believe it has already been five years! Nana and grandpa babysat Frankie so that we could enjoy a fabulous, much-needed night away. I am not going to lie: this has been a tough year for us. Between two job changes, grad school, air force, a bunch of traveling, and a very active and demanding toddler, we have not had as much couple time as we used to. We have a tradition of traveling to celebrate our anniversary (1: Costa Rica, 2: London, 3: South Africa/Zambia/Mauritius, 4: Park City, Utah), but since we just got back from my big birthday trip, we decided to stay close to home. Frank came up with the idea of staying at the Houstonian, which is where we spent our wedding night. I thought that was incredibly romantic, and we really enjoyed reminiscing about our wedding day. We went to dinner at Del Friscos, which we loved, and I had the best calamari I have ever had in my entire life! It was a wonderful evening away, and we are so thankful to Nana and Grandpa and Aunt Barbara for taking care of our sweet little boy while we were gone.

I love my husband so much, and I am so proud of him for all of his hard work and for how great of a father he is to Frankie. We have accomplished so much in these first five years, and we are exactly where we want to be. I am so proud of the home we have built, and I can't wait to see what the future holds for our family. Happy Anniversary babe!

My little brit

My son's speaking cracks me up. A lot of times, especially when he is saying something with an "o" sound, he sounds like he has an English accent. Especially with the way he says "more" (which is frequently)! It also cracks me up when he says "ohhhh no!" Two of his more recent words are remote "me-mote" and ketchup "kuu-kuh." Every time he wakes up in the morning, gets home from school, or enters the living room or our bedroom for any reason, he says "me-mote" and immediately runs to retrieve the remote. We do not let him play with them, but he picks them up and hands them to us. He also wants ketchup with EVERYTHING. He loves to dip his food in condiments, just like his Daddy.

You may have noticed that I do not post pictures of Frankie too much anymore...this is not because I haven't been taking pictures (I have taken tons), it is just that he will not sit still enough to let me take a picture of him!

Mommy guilt

I have had a lot of conversations with friends lately about the infamous topic of Mommy guilt. I think that every mother--whether you work at home or stay at home--experiences Mommy guilt on some level. You always think you could be doing more, spending more time, spending more quality time, or doing things better. For me, I work typically from 8 am until 4 pm every day. I choose not to take a lunch break (or any break) about 90% of the time so that I can maximize my time away from Frankie. That means I get to spend from 7 am to 8 am with Frankie (which consists solely of wake up, get ready, breakfast, and commuting and dropping off at day care) and 4:15ish to 7:30 p.m. (which includes pick-up, drive home, dinner, bath, and bedtime). So when you break out all the stuff we "have" to do every day, we only get about an hour or so of play time, which is obviously not much! I also do bath/story time every night before bed with him, and that is the time during the week that i really treasure. But at the same time, by the time it hits 7:30 p.m. and I have been going non-stop since 6:00 a.m., I am EXHAUSTED. And sometimes I want to skip story time and head downstairs for a glass of wine. But, I never do. I feel like my time with Frankie is so limited that I need to make the most of every single possible second. I don't ever go to happy hour after work, or go out with friends on the weekends without Frankie, or go workout when he is awake. I know that is not healthy, and I think it is contributing to me continuing to get sick all the time. I have not been taking any time for myself, aside from work--which, is obviously not time to myself. I have an extremely demanding, stressful job. I am SO LUCKY that my job is understanding and respects my family time. But, I often have to work on weekend mornings (like today), evenings, or during nap time on weekends. I have billable hour requirements that have to be met, regardless of what my working hours are. And since Frank is so busy with grad school and reserves, he is not available to help me out much. I am happy with my job, my decision to work, and I think Frank is thriving in day care. But, I am still struggling to find a good balance of being a mom, a lawyer, a wife, and ME all at the same time, and being at least semi-successful at all of them.

An extremely important cause & how you can help

My friend Jill is a big advocate for children who are living in orphanages in Eastern Europe. Several of these children have learning disabilities and developmental disorders, and, in some cases, they are drugged and/or forced to confinement in their cribs. I have read stories on many of the blogs that Jill links to, and these stories are heartbreaking. If these children are not adopted by the time they reach the age of five, they are sent to institutions where they often die quickly because they are completely unequipped to thrive in such settings. Unfortunately, adoption requires a lot of money. Which brings us to Zoey. Zoey is a child with down's syndrome who has been paired with an adoptive family in the United States and is so excited to welcome her into their family. However, Zoey's family still needs $10,000 in order to move forward with the adoption. Jill is hosting a fundraiser for Zoey and her adoptive family. You can read all about Zoey, her family, and the fundraiser on this blog:

http://www.bringzoeyhome.blogspot.com/

I did not know anything about the crisis in these Eastern European orphanages until I started following Jill's blog and other stories. Please consider checking it out and donating to this important cause.

Haircut, take 2

We took Frankie in for haircut number 2 on Sunday. After the first haircut catastrophe at Supercuts, we decided to take him to a place that specializes in kid's haircuts. He got to sit in a cool car, watch Toy Story, and play with trains...and yet, he STILL hated it. He cried and squirmed and acted like he was being tortured for pretty much the entire thing. I think he looks so handsome with his hair cut, but Frank wishes we had gotten it cut shorter.

Frankie will NOT let me take his picture these days, but here is my attempt to show you the results of his new haircut:

pre-haircut at the park

after the haircut

little cutie

this is what he did when I told him to smile

that's a little better