Frankie's first funeral

A couple of weeks ago, Frank took Frankie to Arkansas for his Grandma Marion's funeral.  Frank was extremely close to his Grandpa Frank (whom he is named after), and Marion was Frank's third wife.  Frank kept in touch with Marion and the rest of that side of his family, and he wanted to take Frankie up to Arkansas to meet everyone, especially since he also shares Grandpa Frank's name.  The two Franks stayed with Alyce and Bruce and had a wonderful boys' weekend.  Alyce has a craft room, and she and Frankie spent hours playing in her "art studio."  He was so excited to show me all of his new art stuff when they got home!  He also spent a lot of time at the Parker Homestead playing with his cousin Kaiser, driving tractors, and playing in the dirt.  While the boys were gone, Lily and I enjoyed a girls' weekend at home.  We had fun, but we sure did miss our boys!

Visit to Aggieland

Right now, at 8:00 a.m., I am sitting in a completely clean, quiet house.  I think this may be a first!  Both kids are sleeping in, Frank has already left for work, and I have already gotten dressed and cleaned everything up.  Have I mentioned yet how much I love having a nanny??!!!  [edit:  I started writing this post this morning, and both kids woke up at about 8:05.  It was good while it lasted, ha!]

This weekend we were having an open house at our home, so we decided to take a road trip down to visit Monte and Amanda in College Station.  We had a great trip!  We arrived around 9:30 Friday night, and we stayed up way too late and drank way too much Friday night.  Saturday we took the babies to lunch at Northgate and ate at a place called the Backyard, which used to be Fitzwilly's.  The place was packed with some kind of fraternity event, and it was a bit of an adventure.  Both kids fell asleep the minute we got into the car, so Frank and I drove them around and went by my old apartment (I seriously did not recognize it!), his old house, and a bunch of other random places.  So much about College Station has changed, it is amazing.  Saturday night Amanda and I went to get pedicures, and then we all went out to Los Cucos for dinner.  Frankie had a bit of a hard time listening and eating this trip, so Frank had to take him outside a couple of times and did not get to enjoy his dinner.  College Station sure is different when you are there with little kids.  Sunday we went by the alumni center and took a few pictures with the big Aggie ring statute.  Only time will tell if we have a couple of future Aggies on our hands...

Lily got tubes today!

After months and months of ear infections, antibiotics, and shots, Liliana finally got tubes today!  I am hopeful this will be a huge turning point for her.  The surgery was so quick and easy, it was amazing.  She went in at 9:15 this morning, and she was not allowed to eat all morning, so she was a little fussy because she was hungry.  She went back at 9:15, and the doctor came in maybe five minutes later to tell us that everything went great.  About five minutes later, Lily woke up and they brought her to us in a recovery room.  She was very upset at first, but within ten minutes she was drinking some pedialyte and calm.  She fell asleep on the way home and then slept for 2.5 hours.  Ever since she woke up, she has been so happy!  She has not been fussy at all, and there has been no indication of fever or pain.  Praise God!  We also have been trying to wean Lily from her acid reflux medicine.  She has been getting only half a dose all week, and today was the first day she did not get it at all.  She seemed good, so, fingers crossed, we will be all done with that medicine soon too!  So many changes lately for this little girl.

Last night we went on a family walk after dinner, and she was very smiley and happy.  I finally got a picture to show off her new chompers!

Easter 2014

Happy Easter!  We had a pretty low-key day celebrating this year.  We have been running around busy busy busy lately, and we took today to step back and try to relax.  We slept in, took our time eating breakfast, made it to the 10:00 a.m. church service, and had a family lunch at McAlister's.  We skipped the Four Seasons Easter egg hunt and stayed home and made cupcakes, grilled out, and hunted for eggs in our back yard.  Liliana loved the fake grass in her easter basket and her new xylophone from the Easter bunny, and Frankie ate way too much candy, including the "donut birds" (aka peeps).

Liliana - 10 months!

Sweet little "sistee" Lily is 10 months old!  It is so hard to believe.  She is such a little peanut, and she is smaller than many other babies who are half her age.  She is very dainty and petite, and she has teeny tiny little feet.  She is still wearing newborn size socks and shoes!  I think she is going to be very short and petite like my Mom.  Lily continues to be having a rough month with illness, as she was sick again this week with some kind of virus that caused a high fever, sore throat, and vomiting.  Poor little girl!  We finally met with the ENT specialist this week, and we found out that she has sustained some hearing loss as a result of her recurring ear infections.  She is scheduled for tube surgery in two weeks, and I am so hopeful that it will solve all of her ear problems!

At 10 months, Lily is:

-still in size 3 diapers, size 9 month and 6-12 month clothes, and newborn socks and shoes.
-eating four bottles a day, four containers of baby food, and some table food, including puffs which are her favorite.
-babbling a lot (which is why I never imagined she had any problems hearing), including da-da-da, ma-ma-ma, ba-ba-ba, and na-na-na.  I think we can call "dada" her first official word.  She also says "na" for no.  She also nods for yes and no.
-has four teeth (top and bottom front teeth)
-loves:  being outside, her brother, bath time, bottles, puffs, music, katy, and her daddy.
-dislikes:  poop, medicine (although she is getting much better about that), being tired or hungry.
-still no movement.  She can scoot all the way around on her bottom, flop onto her stomach, and roll around to get where she wants to go, but she still has not figured out how to crawl.  She is also completely uninterested in standing or pulling up.  She is so different from Frankie, who was walking really well by now!

Liliana missed her last two days of day care, and her teachers were so sad that they did not get to see her and say goodbye.  Two of her teachers in her newborn class told us that they wished we had asked them to be our nanny because they love her so much.  I went ahead and got their contact information just in case, but I really hope we love Ms. Kiersten and that everything works out with her.

Liliana is loved by everyone.  She is a true beauty, and she is such a sweet, happy, and gentle girl.  I am getting a little bit sad that she is growing so fast, because I know she is my last baby.  Part of me wants her to stay tiny and little forever.

Bluebonnets!

I am so so so far behind in my blogging these days.  It really feels like there is never any time for anything anymore, which includes blogging unfortunately.  Today we had a full slate of things to get done, and, I knew it would be a challenge, but I fully expected to tackle most of our to-do list.  Let's just say that did not happen.  However, we DID manage to get one thing knocked off the list:  bluebonnet pictures!  The bluebonnets are out in full force, and they seem to be more prevalent and beautiful than ever this year.  We went out to a gorgeous spot this morning and took some pictures of Frank and Lily.  Lily wasn't in the most smiley mood, but we did still get some good pictures.  Here they are: