Happy Memorial Day

Saluting the flag with Daddy on Memorial Day

water!!

Fun at the splash park!

We had a great Memorial Day weekend, spending lots of time outside and lots of quality time together with friends and family.  On Saturday, Allison and I took Frankie to the splash park.  He was not quite sure what to make of it.  He really liked the fire hydrant and a few of the other structures, but he was scared by the water that shot up from the ground.  I think he will really like it once he gets a little bigger and does not think it is so scary.  On Sunday we went up to the Four Seasons for their big memorial day pool party, and Frankie had a great time!  We brought the Manktelow family up there with us, and Frankie had fun playing with Maddy.  Maddy is 3, and it is so amazing how much older and grown-up she seems compared to Frankie.  She was really cute with him though.  On Monday we went up to the Manktelow's country club pool and went back to their house for lunch.  We put Frankie down for a nap, and he cried/screamed for 30 minutes straight!  He NEVER does that.  We finally got him up and took him home.  It stunk that we had to leave so early, but for some reason he just did not want to sleep at their house.  We got home and he took a 3-hour nap as usual.  We are looking forward to a summer full of time at the pool and fun with our friends!

18 months

Frankie had his 18-month doctor's appointment this morning.  He started crying as soon as the nurse walked into the room, and he cried while he was weighed, measured, and checked by both the nurse and the doctor.  I think he was traumatized during all of his hospital x-rays.  He weighs 25 lbs 2 oz (35th percentile) and is 34.25 inches long (95th percentile).  He remains tall and lean, and at this rate he will most likely be over six feet tall.  The doctor was really impressed with his language development.  She said that she expects kids his age to know 10 words, and she was surprised when I guessed that he knows 100 or more words.

At 18 months, Frankie is:

• Getting much better holding my hand when walking in public.  And I finally broke him of his key dependency when walking to day care.
• Not doing so good with sharing.  He thinks everything is "mine!"
• Really trying to talk in sentences.  He can say two words together like "mama car" or "more milk" or "truck home," but he cannot quite piece everything together yet.  I am sure it won't be long.
• Eating really well.  He still loves fruit, likes salad and broccoli for veggies, and loves chicken nuggets, macaroni and cheese, sausage and hot dogs, and anything with ketchup.
• Loves to read books, and will now sit still and let me read to him for entire books.
• Still loves watching Gigglebellies and singing the bumble bee song and watching "Ben."
• Can name all of the workers at day care, his teacher, and all of his classmates.  Can also say the names of all of my family members and Frank's family members.
• Loves giving big hugs and kisses, but also sometimes hits and bites still.  We have started doing time outs when he hits or bites one of us at home.  He bit a kid at day care last week for the first time.  Hopefully this will not be the start of a trend!
• He is finally over his fear of slides, and he is in love with the hose! 

I love this little boy so much, and I cannot believe he is 18 months already!  Here are a few pictures of him playing with his new favorite toy...the hose:

Frank's graduation party

This weekend I threw Frank a big party to celebrate his graduation from Auburn.  We had a bunch of family come to town and a lot of our wonderful friends came out to celebrate with us.  Our house was full of adults and crazy kids.  There were a bunch of older boys, and Frankie was not too happy that he had to share his toys and his turf.  He shouted "mine!" several times, and he was not always on his best behavior.  But I think he had a blast.  I am so happy that so many people came out to celebrate with us.  I know that it meant a lot to Frank to see everyone.  Frank's sister Stella and her husband Ronnie came in town from Portland, Oregon, and his Uncle Andy came out from San Francisco.  It was great that they were all able to come out and make the trip.

I was really preoccupied during the party, so I did not get too many pictures until the very end of the night when only our families were still there, but here are some of the few pictures I took:

Happy Mother's Day

I had a wonderful Mother's Day thanks to my adorable baby boy and my sweet husband.  They surprised me with a massage and pedicure at a wonderful spa near our house, and I was spoiled with wine, chocolate covered strawberries, and 3 hours of blissful relaxation.  I loved it!  Frank also had Frankie sign my Mother's Day card, which I thought was soooo cute.  He loves to "write" and "color" these days.  Frank also surprised me with these beautiful hydrangeas and cooked me filet mignon for dinner.  I am privileged and blessed to be Frankie's mom, and it is 100 percent the most important thing I am, my number one priority, and the thing that brings me more smiles than anything else in the world.  Frankie's smile is infectious, and spending time with him and seeing those smiles lights up my world.  Granted, these days, he is more likely to be whining than smiling, but I will take them when I can get them!  I hope all of the mamas out there had a fantastic day!

Take me out to the ballgame!

Last Saturday we took Frankie to his first baseball game to see the Texas Rangers play the Angels.  We went with Frank's Air Force unit and sat at the very top of the stadium.  Frankie did great!  He loved climbing on the seat, clapping, and seeing all the birds and flags at the stadium.  He made it through six innings, even though he only had about a 15-minute nap.  I always loved going to baseball games, and I can't wait to take him to more games in the future!

Watercolor (vacation part 2)

After our not-so-ideal Auburn trip, we were nervous about heading down to Florida.  Frank even mentioned changing our tickets and heading back to Dallas, but we had already paid for the hotel, and I was determined to get some relaxation out of this vacation, so we went ahead with our plans.  Thankfully, during the scenic, back roads drive from Auburn to Watercolor, Frankie's entire attitude changed, and the rest of the vacation was wonderful.  We stopped at a tiny cafe in Elba, Alabama to eat lunch and Frankie actually sat through an entire meal and ate his food!  It was a small miracle.  We absolutely loved our hotel in Watercolor.  The room was huge, the view was awesome, and the staff was so friendly.  We also really liked the beach, and really the whole area in general.  The water is a gorgeous, clear, calm, blue-green color, and the beach is wide, white sand.  The resort was perfect for families because it was connected to a beach club with a huge pool and had literally every amenity you could imagine.  We were a short walk away from Seaside and we went there one night for dinner.  There is a huge green square, and we let Frankie run wild with a bunch of other young kids after we ate.  He was in pure heaven and he said "thank you" about 15 times on our walk back to the hotel.  It was so sweet.  Frankie loved the ocean and "swimming" in the pool, but he did not like the sand too much, especially when he was wet.  We all got to spend a lot of sweet quality time together while we were there, and I even got to read a book and get a tan!  On the plane ride home, our flight was delayed and a bunch of the passengers were transferred to another flight, so we had the plane almost all to ourselves.  Thank goodness, because Frankie cried for almost the entire flight.  It sucked, but I am so glad he saved his bad flight for when Frank was there to help me out! 

Here are some pictures from our time in Watercolor:

Frank's graduation weekend!

Last weekend Frankie and I traveled to Auburn to watch Frank graduate from his MBA program.  First of all, Frank graduated with a 4.0--who does that?!  I was really close to doing that in undergrad, but a couple of pesky B's ruined my perfect record.  I have to admit that I am a little jealous that Frank managed to pull it off.  But, more than anything, I am SO PROUD of him!!  Graduating with an MBA is one thing, but to graduate at the very top of your class is an awesome achievement.  He worked his butt off, and it all paid off!

Anyway, I was very nervous about my first solo plane trip with Frankie.  I had an oversize, extremely heavy suitcase, a stuffed diaper bag, a large purse, and his huge convertible car seat strapped to a rolling contraption that I used to wheel him through the airport.  That thing was a lifesaver.  I could not have physically made it through the airport without it. Frankie was actually much better than I feared on the plane.  I had to constantly entertain him, but I came prepared, and he did not cry much at all.  I was happy when fellow passengers complimented me on how well-behaved he was and how well I kept him occupied.  At this point, I felt great.  However, the hardest part of the whole ordeal was when I had to carry everything off the plane and reattach the car seat to the wheel carrier.  It took me forever, and it was so hard to try to control Frankie while trying to put the thing together.  A few nice men helped watch him for me, but it was so stressful and I was sweating like crazy by the time I was done.  Frankie then promptly fell asleep once I put him in the seat and began rolling him around.  He slept for the next 45 minutes or so until we got our rental car.  By the way, Budget is the absolute worst rental agency I have ever dealt with and I will never use them again.  After waiting forever, we finally got our car and were on the road to Auburn.

Auburn is a beautiful town, and the school is so pretty.  I was not sure what to expect, but it was so much nicer than I had imagined.  I loved walking around campus and getting to see all the beautiful magnolia trees.  It was also nice to get to share Frank's special weekend with him and to finally get to meet all the people in his program that he had talked about so much for the last two years.  Frank's Dad also made the trip, and it was great that he was also able to share Frank's special achievement.

In hindsight (and in foresight, since I said so from the beginning), it really was a mistake to bring Frankie to the graduation.  I spent almost the entire time in Auburn keeping him occupied, and I did not really get to enjoy meeting Frank's classmates or taking part in the graduation festivities.  Frankie was running on low sleep and pent up energy, and he was cooped up in a tiny hotel room with us and we all went a little crazy in those three days.  Frankie would not eat at a restaurant.  He refused to sit in high chairs, so we had to eat every meal literally in shifts.  It was pretty miserable.  Thankfully, we turned the corner during the three-hour drive to Florida, and the rest of the trip was fantastic!

Here are some pictures from our weekend in Auburn:

my handsome graduate