Broken Branch Ranch

Posted on March 24, 2016 by Mdfrisco

Last November, Justin had a meeting that was about a 6 hour drive away. To try and shorten his driving time, we went to my parents ranch the night before so Justin only had about 4 hour drive and we got to spend the day playing on the ranch while daddy was gone. My parents ranch here in Southern CA is called Broken Branch Ranch. One day recently, we saw an airplane in the sky, Jacob and I started talking about how we were going to get on a plane again to go visit Grandma and Grandpa at their ranch in Oregon. After thinking about it for a minute, Jacob said “No lets drive.” I told him that would be a really, really long drive. And he said “No lets drive to the broken ranch!” He really loves going to my parents ranches, there is so much for him to do and his favorite thing is helping Grandpa with his chores. The minute he wakes up in the morning, before Grandpa has had a chance to finish his first cup of coffee, he is bugging Grandpa to go outside. So off they go in the cart to pick up after the horses and feed them breakfast.

Later that day when Dylan went down for his nap, we saddled up my mom’s horse, Checkers, for a little fun.

Jacob is very comfortable ontop of a horse

First they started off by walking around

And he kept saying go faster, go faster. So grandma got up with him.

And he got to go faster!

Then Dylan woke up to join the fun

It is so great that our boys get to experience this different kind of lifestyle of working around a ranch. They love it!

Tickles with GG

Posted on March 22, 2016 by Mdfrisco

Last October the Pittsburgh Steelers were in town playing the SD Chargers and Justin had tickets to the game. He invited his dad and some friends to go with him, so Papa J, Nonnie and GG came to visit for a few days. Earlier in the day before the game, we went to the Bernardo Winery to walk around. In the tasting room, Jake and GG sat down on the couch. He would start out on the other end of the couch and slowly start creeping towards GG, once he got within her reach, she would start tickling him.

And they both laughed and laughed and laughed

Then he would go all the way in for a snuggle before retreating to the other side of the couch to start over. They were having so much fun and I love watching him play with her!

Back outside Jacob found a fun swinging bench.

Which made a good spot for an impromptu family photo, can you tell the Steelers were playing that day?

My cool boys!

Then Papa J and Justin left for the game, which the Steelers won! And the rest of us went back to the house and baked cookies while watching the game on TV. Football, family, wine and cookies, doesn’t get much better than that!

Practice

Posted on March 17, 2016 by Mdfrisco

Life with two kids is kind of crazy…so my passion for photography has been on the back burner for quite a while. Yes, I am still taking pictures, obviously. But I haven’t really been happy with the quality of them since I am just capturing the moment and really don’t have much time to adjust settings/lighting/angle/focal point/etc…to really get that professional quality photo look. There have been so many times that I’ve looked at the pictures and said, “Eh, these didn’t come out good, I’m not going to post them.” That is the perfectionist in me. But then I shift into mom mode and really remember what this blog is truly about. Sharing stories of our lives and capturing those fun moments of our kids growing up, it really doesn’t matter if the quality of the photos are to my ideal liking, what matters is the memory that is being recorded. So I’ve decided to not worry so much about it and if the pictures are not that great, oh well. Besides to tell you the truth, alot of the pictures on here lately are taken with my iPhone.

However, occasionally, if the moment is right, I do find myself getting my camera out to practice my photography. During this particular moment I was getting Dylan ready for a nap, and of course Jake decided he was hungry at the same time. So I made him some food and got him set up with the iPad while I put Dylan down. After I came out of Dylan’s room I stood talking to Jake for a few minutes and I had one of those moments where I thought, Whoa where did my little baby go! I have this silly little boy living in my house now!

I also noticed how great the lighting was so I decided to get my camera out. Nothing fancy about these pictures, just a little boy eating his lunch.

This little boy challenges me on a daily (no make that an hourly) basis. I often tell Justin that I think he has “inherited” my hearing problems since he doesn’t listen to me. He tests my limits and often makes me question my parenting ability.

But truly, he really is a good little boy, and is just going through his threenager phase. I think he is pretty darn handsome and I love his independent, silly, rambunctious personality. And this is what I get for asking him to smile with a mouth full of food!

I love you my sweet boy!

Dylan and Oma

Posted on March 12, 2016 by Mdfrisco

I have been looking back on older pictures trying to collect the ones that I wanted to share but never made it onto the blog. So like most of my posts these days, the next several ones will be going back in time a bit. First up are the ones I took of Dylan with Oma.

When Jacob was a baby my grandma (Oma to Jake and Dylan) lived a couple of hours away. We would drive in to visit her and Jacob’s favorite things to do was wave at the other residents as we walked in/out, ride on Oma’s walker and run around on the big grassy lawn they had in the back. A little over a year ago we were so excited when Oma moved just 25 minutes away from us. We started making weekly trips to visit her. Jacob has the routine down, he pushes the button to open the front doors and goes right to the hand sanitizer to “wash” his hands then heads over to the elevator to ride upstairs and walks down the hall right to Oma’s apartment, talking to everyone along the way. It is so fun for me to just stay a few steps behind him and watch him. He still loves to ride Oma’s walker, and work the remote control on her recliner and on warmer days we go outside in the courtyard to play with a ball or bubbles. Jacob loves his Oma and talks about her all the time, I love the connection they have!

Then along came Dylan. All of us still go visit Oma, but sometimes on days after I drop Jacob off at preschool, Dylan and I will go visit her, just the two of us. This gives them some good one on one time.

(2 mos old)

Dylan clearly is a fan of Oma as well!

(4 mos old)

I love seeing the joy that the little kids bring to Oma. She is blessed with many, many kids, grandkids and great-grandkids, a lot of joy!

(8 mos old)

Dylan is starting to learn the ropes himself and keeps busy exploring every inch of Oma’s apartment during our visits. He stops every few minutes to share a smile and a laugh with her.

(10 mos old)

And flashes his baby blue eyes

I am so thankful that my boys know their Oma and enjoy visiting her as much as I do.

THREE

Posted on February 20, 2016 by Mdfrisco

The first week of January, after we got the house cleaned up from Christmas, we got out the birthday decorations to celebrate Jacob’s 3rd birthday!

Jacob was born on a rainy day, so it was appropriate that the week of his birthday we had a pretty wild storm come through town. Over a span of 5 days we had rain, flash floods, thunder/lightning, a tornado warning, a power outage and an earthquake! For people who are spoiled with San Diego’s perfect 70 degrees and sunny weather, it made for an exciting week! Jacob was so happy to use his new umbrella and rain boots

and I felt like I was glued to the window for days watching it all unfold! This crazy birthday week weather also confirmed my suspicion that this is going to be a wild year navigating life with a “threenager”.

On his birthday we had a trip planned to go visit the local fire department since every time we drive by he looks to see if the garage door is open. If it is not, he says “it’s closed, that means there’s not an emergency and the fire trucks are sleeping.” If it is open, he is thrilled to see the trucks and yells “They’re awake! They’re awake!” However, due to the flash floods and thunder and lightning I decided it would be best to stay home rather than driving through the mess, and they were busy enough during the storm. That night after daddy got home from work we had a giant cupcake to celebrate his birthday and he sang along with us when we sang Happy Birthday to him.

I’m THREE!

The next day at school, he had cookies with his class to celebrate his birthday again. And that weekend we had a Thomas the Train themed party with some of Jacob’s friends! When looking online for a bakery, I discovered the bakery that did our wedding cake has their main location nearby. So that was an easy choice for his cake. I’m not really big on birthday cake, but this one was GOOD!

Not all the kids made it into this picture, but I love seeing these kiddos together and it will be fun to look back on these pictures when they are older.

He also had his three year check up with our pediatrician. We addressed the peanut allergy again and his blood test results came back a 2 on a scale of 0-6. It is a low number, but there is an allergy there, so we have an appointment to visit my old office do do some more testing. Otherwise, he is a very healthy boy who now weighs 30.9 lbs and is 37.5 inches (a little over 3 feet) tall.

It was a fun week celebrating our cute, rambunctious, stubborn, frustrating, smart and sweet 3 year old! To close this post, here is Jacob’s 3 year old picture with the giraffe and elephant.

Christmas Day

Posted on February 4, 2016 by Mdfrisco

On Christmas Day, Jacob was up before the sun as usual. And he was excited to see that Santa had come!

First order of business was playing with the train…I love this new tradition! Every year we plan to add to the train, track and even start building a village around it. I have a feeling it will be a favorite among both our boys for many, many years. Thanks Papa J for getting us started!

Then he tested out his new tricycle…

Then the party got rockin’ when Tante Heidi, Uncle Andy and Cousin Matt showed up with Oma and a drum set!

Jacob was so excited! He helped Matt unpack the box and anxiously waited (while counting off with the drumsticks) while Matt put the drums together.

Thanks Matt!!

Then we had brunch and just visited for a while.

Then we opened presents, Jacob liked playing Santa as I told him who to give the presents to. No one took any pictures while we were opening presents, but Papa J and Nonnie got a selfie stick, so that called for a (blurry) group photo!

And there was one last present for Jacob and Dylan. Although Dylan is a bit too young to ride it, Jacob hopped right on and started riding in circles around the house. This is seriously the best gift for a toddler, we love it and I wish I had the adult sized one for myself!

I have this great picture of Jacob with his two great grandmothers at Christmas last year and was hoping to recreate the picture with both boys this year. However Jacob is not all that cooperative when taking a picture these days, so we got one with Dylan.

That afternoon we took a nice walk to the resort down the street from our house to look at the decorations and warmed up with a cup of coffee before heading home to make dinner. This was such a fun Christmas since Jacob really got into it this year and understood what was going on. I know the next couple of years will be even better with Dylan getting older. It all happened so fast and we did so much, but truly loved having everyone over to celebrate the season!

I leave my decorations up until after New Years, so the boys had a few more days to play with the train before putting it away.

And to wrap up all the Christmas stuff, here is our silly family photo. I love this for a couple of reasons, I got Jacob involved and had him help me set up the camera on the tripod and talked to him about what we were going to do so he was excited (and cooperative) to look at the pictures on the camera after we took them, so he actually stayed still and smiled! Secondly, I love how Dylan is looking at Jacob, he truly is Dylan’s favorite person, I hope that feeling lasts forever!

Merry Christmas!

The Season

Posted on February 2, 2016 by Mdfrisco

We are still alive (barely) over here. I am slowly but surely trying to get a little more caught up on the blog, so lets go back in time and rediscover Christmastime 🙂

Christmas is my favorite time of year. Yes, it gets crazy and chaotic, but it is a good kind of crazy. It’s not only the actual day of Christmas that I love, it is the entire season. We did all kinds of fun things to celebrate the season and to prepare for Christmas at our house. I wish I could say that I had my camera out at the ready and was taking all these wonderful photos to document the season…however, with two small children, time is not my friend. And the time and effort that goes into taking those beautiful, creative photos with the perfect lighting and setting just didn’t happen for me this year. But it doesn’t mean I didn’t whip out my iPhone to snap away, so I do have pictures to share.

First off, baking! For as long as I can remember, my grandma has always made an old family recipe for pecan sweet rolls that we would have on Christmas morning. When my grandparents moved out of their house into their retirement community, they didn’t have the kitchen capacity to make them any more and it really was too much work for her to do at that point anyway. That first Christmas after they moved, it dawned on me that she wouldn’t be making the sweet rolls and I couldn’t let that tradition stop! So I called her and told her to email me the recipe and I went to Costco to buy a mixer with a dough hook and ever since then I’ve been making the rolls for our Christmas morning. The past few years, my mom has come to help (especially once the kids started showing up!) It is an all day process and they are so worth the work. This year my grandma (Oma) came over to visit with us while we made the rolls. It was a bit of a chaotic day juggling, making the rolls, taking care of the kids and Oma and making lunch, keeping the kids entertained, etc… but we got it done and Oma really enjoyed the day with us and it made for some fun memories!

A few days later, the boys helped me make cookies. I love how Dylan is just plain happy to be a part of anything we are doing, especially if his favorite person (Jake) is involved. Jake is really good at using the cookie cutters, and he is even better at eating the cookie dough!

This year we experienced another parenting “first” when watching Jacob in his preschool Christmas Program. His class is the youngest, so they were only onstage for about 7 minutes and they sang “Go Tell it on the Mountain” and “Twinkle Twinkle Little Star”, then they came back onstage for the grand finale. Even though Jacob knows the words to the songs he pretty much just waved his star around and searched the audience for us. I could tell when he found Grandma since his face lit up and he started waving back to her.

It was pretty cute, he had a lot of fun and we are proud of him for going up on the stage in front of all those people!

We had my family Christmas party at my Aunt and Uncle’s house. Jacob loved playing with the new trains he got.

And Dylan was a real life doll for his girl cousins. They were completely enamored with him and he loved the attention!

That night we drove to my parents cabin with plans of staying a few nights and going to Wildlights at the Living Desert in Palm Desert like we did the year before. However, we all got sick…miserably sick. So we took it easy for a day before heading home. It was too cold and windy to work outside with a cold, so Jake and grandpa watched the National Finals Rodeo on TV

and we gave Dylan a warm bath, hoping it would help with his congestion. Even when he’s sick, he’s my smiley happy boy!

We were all so congested and plugged up, we could not hear anything. The pressure from driving over the mountain really bothered the boys and they cried the entire way home. It was a long drive. And the cold lasted a long time, but we finally got better. And we kept celebrating the season…

Growing up my mom sang in the choir and they would always sing at the community Christmas tree lighting ceremonies, or Christmas programs or some other kind of Christmas event. I remember going to many of those events with my dad to watch my mom. There was something magical about the music, lights, hot chocolate and bundling up on a cold night. Now we are still enjoying these community events, but with the added bonus of seeing it all through our kids eyes. The first one we went to was at the Bernardo Winery. They had a great train village set up and Jacob could have spent the entire night there! Every time we would go do something else, he kept saying he wanted to go back to the trains, so we made several trips there. We had some amazing food from the food trucks they had, but the wait was ridiculous, thankfully we had the train village to entertain Jake while we waited for the food! This year Jacob really started understanding the concept of Santa Claus. So while we were waiting in line to see Santa (he hadn’t arrived yet), we were talking to Jacob about Santa being on his way and how we were going to sit on his lap and tell him what we wanted for Christmas, etc… Jacob was excited! He kept watching the sky and waiting to see Santa in his sleigh with his reindeer.

And when Santa did arrive Jacob was starstruck to see him in real life! While we got closer and closer in line, he watched all the other kids sit on his lap and take their picture with Santa, however, when it came his turn…he wanted nothing to do with it! But Dylan didn’t mind at all.

So then we thought if we did the family photo, Jake would be more comfortable, but he wouldn’t leave his daddy’s arms.

A few nights later we got together with some of our neighbors and went to the Christmas festivities at the Rancho Bernardo Inn. They had carolers that Jacob loved listening to, they had a giant gingerbread house, beautiful decorations, a fun lighting show/display complete with fake snow and again Santa Claus. This time we were able to convince Jacob to at least stand by Santa, I told him that Dylan needed him to hold his hand.

Poor Dylan has these crazy cowlicks at the front of his hairline, no matter what I do, it won’t go one way or the other and it’s going to be a battle for him the rest of his life. But with the twinkle in his blue eyes and that big smile I still think he is pretty darn cute regardless of what his hair does 🙂

On Christmas Eve we had family and friends over for a German food feast! And we went to the Christmas Eve service at our church. It was a special service singing Christmas songs, watching the adorable kids program and hearing the heartwarming message, which is always a nice reminder of what Christmas is truly about. Celebrating the birth of our savior is the reason for the season! And even though I didn’t get photos I wanted to with my camera, we were sick most of the time and Jacob didn’t want to sit on Santa’s lap, it really doesn’t matter, we still had an amazing time with family and friends and created memories to last a lifetime.

For unto you is born this day in the city of David, a Saviour, which is Christ the Lord. – Luke 2:11

The Tree

Posted on December 19, 2015 by Mdfrisco

Picking out our Christmas Tree was the easiest experience this year. When we got to the lot, Justin took Jake in to start looking around while I got Dylan out of the car and bundled up. On my way in I saw a neighbor and stopped to say hi and chat for a few minutes and when I turned around I saw Justin and Jake standing by our tree. When I walked up to them, Justin said “This is it.” I briefly looked around and agreed that he had picked out the best one. We hadn’t even been there for 10 minutes and we were done. After paying for the tree and getting it loaded up ontop of the car, we decided to stick around for a bit and let Jacob play.

I came really close to getting a Charlie Brown tree after Jake kept carrying this one around with him.

Dylan getting his first grasp of a Christmas tree branch

They had Santa’s sleigh there to use for photo ops, but Jake is not really cooperative in that department these days, so this is the best we got.

Back out on the lot Jake was heading for the BIG trees

One of the men working there restocking the trees heard me calling Jake’s name (as Jake was ignoring me as usual), so when he walked by he said “Hey Jake!” that stopped him in his tracks. Then he asked Jake if he wanted to help him with the tree he was carrying.

Of course Jake jumped at the chance to get his hands dirty! The man talked to him the entire way to where he was setting up the tree, and thanked him with a high five when they were done.

We practically had to carry Jake out of there to keep him from running after the man to help him over and over and over again. Maybe we should have asked if they were hiring.

I never thought our family would really get into the Elf on the Shelf. But this year, this little guy, who Jake named Red, joined our family.

After the boys went to bed, Justin and I put lights on the tree and wrapped a bunch of Christmas books and put them under the tree. The next morning with Red perched on top of the tree, Jacob was excited to see that Red had put lights on the tree and brought books from Santa. So now every night before bed Jacob gets to choose a book from under the tree to unwrap and read.

I put our fragile/glass/breakable ornaments at the top of the tree and bought a big box of shatterproof ornaments that we could put everywhere else. So Jacob “helped” me decorate the tree.

Which resulted in a low patch of the tree that was beautifully crammed with ornaments.

The next day, my mom was in town, so the two of us spread out the crammed ornaments and finished decorating the tree.

One night I sat Dylan down in front of the tree and told Jake to show him the ornaments. Jake took his job seriously.

Then Dylan decided to liven things up a bit and pick on his brother by pulling his shirt, over and over and over again.

He he he…good one, huh mom!

Okay now, back to the ornaments.

It’s going to be a FUN Christmas this year!

Hal-whoa-een

Posted on December 6, 2015 by Mdfrisco

No I didn’t misspell the title of this post…That is how Jacob prefers to say Halloween. I am still way behind and have lots of catching up to do, but before I can even think about picking up my camera for the Christmas season, I need to get the Halloween pictures up. So here goes.

You may remember that Jacob had a cast on his leg for Halloween last year, because of that, we still dressed up but didn’t really do the whole trick or treating thing. This year however, he spent the entire month of October gearing up for the big event. He kept practicing by closing all the doors in the house and telling us to knock on them and when he opened (answered) the door he would yell trick or treat! Yes, it was a little bit backwards, but he was having so much fun. I kept reminding him that after he got a treat he needed to say thank you, so while driving or walking or any time when he jabbers away he would recite the trick or treating scenario in preparation for the big day…We go up to the door and ring the doorbell, when they open the door we say trick or treat, they give us candy and we say thank you!

One of his favorite things to do during the month of October was go to Home Depot to look at all the Hal-Whoa-een decorations. We did buy some tombstones and skulls to put in our yard, however, they never made it outside since Jacob decided that they were his new favorite toys. He carried them around the house, held them while watching TV, set them up on the couch in his room while playing and constantly talked about them.

He is one of those kids who likes to be scared. If something scares him he will cling to us, bury his face in our shoulder then with a sideways peek ask that whatever was scaring him to happen again. There was a skull hanging on the wall next to the front door at a Halloween party we were at. It had motion sensors in the eyes so anytime someone walked by the eyes lit up and the mouth started opening and closing. Jacob was scared of it but fascinated at the same time, he would not leave the skull and spent quite some time watching it. By the end of the party when it came time for us to leave, he waved goodbye to the skull as we walked out the door and said “good to see you!” like it was an old friend of his. And to this day he still talks about the skull at the party.

All of his excitement was rubbing off on us and knowing that there were lots of families in our new neighborhood, we had a feeling that it was going to be fun. We started off the celebration with pumpkin carving. First daddy helped with cutting out the top and scooping out all the seeds.

My smiley boy 🙂

And my ‘mom don’t take my picture’ boy

Then it was moms turn to talk about how we wanted to carve the faces and what shapes he wanted to use.

And I love a love affair with the giant pepper tree on the golf course behind our house and the way the light filters through it in the late afternoon, so you can expect to see it a lot in the pictures I take in our backyard!

Success!

When trying to figure out a costume for Jacob we kept showing him costumes that were given to us, but he wasn’t really excited about Spider-man or pirates. Knowing about his love for trains and how he is always pointing out the train conductor in the books and shows, I got him a train conductor costume. When I showed it to him, he was so excited and wanted to put it on right away. So we had a skeleton and a train conductor this year. When trying to get a picture of them Jacob had to mess with the pumpkins until he was satisfied with their placement.

Then he started tickling his brother and they spent a few minutes giggling together

Then finally they both looked at the camera and smiled!

We got good use out of that costume. First, on the Thursday before Halloween he had a costume parade and party at school.

Then on Friday, we visited my old office and daddy’s office to go trick or treating. That night we went to our friend’s annual Halloween party, where we dressed up as the Robertson family from Duck Dynasty.

The morning of Halloween, after daddy made pumpkin pancakes, we took our train conductor and mummy (Dylan had several Halloween outfits) to trick or treat at Oma’s house.

That evening we set out with some friends in our neighborhood for Jacob’s first real trick or treating experience. It didn’t take him long, he caught on really quick on what to do. By the time we got home, he had quite the stash!

I took a quick look back on last years Halloween post, and I can’t believe how much Jacob has changed in just a year!

Summer fun

Posted on November 1, 2015 by Mdfrisco

More catching up here…

I’ve learned that with a two year old, it is better to get out of the house for a few hours rather than try to keep him happy and entertained at home all day long (it is good for mom to get out too!) Even though it was a really hot and humid summer, it didn’t stop us from going outside and taking advantage of all the fun things there are to do in this wonderful city we live in. So when my mom came to visit in August, we took her to some of our favorite spots. First up was Lake Poway to feed the ducks.

Even thought it was miserably humid and we were drenched in sweat, it is so worth it to see the pure joy and excitement in Jacob’s face as he turns around and races back to us to get more bread.

Then after a quick “thank you grandma” he runs back to throw the bread into the water.

Over and over and over again…

Trains have been a big thing in our house lately and Jacob is always asking to go ride the train, more specifically Thomas the Train. And is always on the lookout when we are driving for train tracks and train crossings. So we made a special trip to Old Poway Park to “ride the train”. While daddy and Jacob were buying tickets and standing in line to board the train we were playing around with this blue eyed boy.

Then it was our turn to ride the train with Jacob, and daddy did his best to get a picture 🙂

On Saturdays they have a nice farmers market, so we wandered around and got some lemonade, sunflowers and looked at all the other goodies.

Then we walked down to the park to find some shade to drink our lemonade, “cool off” for a bit and wave to the train as it went by

you can tell by how miserable Jacob looks in that last picture that humidity was killing us so we packed up and went home to the AC and story time with grandma.

The Frisco Project

Adventures in life, pregnancy, friendships, family & a little photography

Category Archives: Family