Fulfilled promise

Posted on December 11, 2013 by Mdfrisco

My mom is still very close with her best friend growing up. I have lots of fun memories when I was young of all the time our families spent together over the years. The youngest of Lynn’s 4 children got married at the beginning of November so we drove to Bakersfield for the happy occasion. Papa J and Nonnie came with us and had a great time babysitting Jacob at the hotel, while we went to the wedding with my parents, so it was a bit of a date night for us.

It was an absolutely beautiful wedding! You can see pictures of it here and here. The next day we all went to Lynn’s house for brunch and visited for a while, afterwards, we got back on the road again and drove to Paso Robles. It had been three years since we were last in Paso Robles celebrating my 30th birthday and I’ve been wanting to go back. There was a time when Jacob was not taking the bottle…I was getting frustrated and discouraged, and to keep me motivated to continue to work with Jacob to take a bottle, Justin made a promise that we would go back to Paso and go wine tasting once he did. So this trip was a bit of a late celebration for us! We visited our favorite places and discovered some new ones as well. Jacob was a good sport and enjoyed crawling all over the tasting room floors.

Justin decided that Jacob needed a little facial hair to match his daddy.

Jacob was napping while we were tasting at J. Dusi, when he woke up we went outside to take in the pretty scenery and play around before heading off to the next winery.

This little cart reminded us of all the ones we saw during our trip to Tuscany.

There was a giant oak tree which made for a fun backdrop

After a couple of days, my parents left to go home to get started on their kitchen remodel and we stayed one more day. We choose a road on the map that we have never been down before and stopped to visit the wineries in the area. Not only does Paso Robles have some fantastic wines but the country is beautiful! It is a must to visit a place up on a hill to take in the view.

A beautiful wedding, fantastic wine and fun times with family made for a wonderful trip and a fulfilled promise

A visit with Oma

Posted on October 16, 2013 by Mdfrisco

A few weeks ago I called my grandma to see if she would be free for a visit that upcoming Saturday. It turned out not only was she free but my aunt and uncle who live in Utah were coming to visit that same weekend! So we drove in and spent the afternoon visiting with Oma and family.

Jacob and Oma spent a few minutes getting reacquainted

After a few kisses and whispers from her he was right at home

It warms my heart to see Jacob snuggling with his Oma!

Jacob also got to play with his great Uncle John

And Tante Michelle who spoiled him with a new outfit and toys 🙂

Tante Heidi was showing Jacob Oma’s bears on her couch

That evening we met up with more family for dinner. Jacob’s cousin Sadie took it upon herself to make sure Jacob always had a toy available and showered him with hugs and kisses. She is practicing for her little brother or sister who will be arriving soon.

Meet Yo

Posted on October 13, 2013 by Mdfrisco

Okay this is one of those stories that probably won’t seem as funny when retold, it is a “you kind of had to be there” kind of story to really understand why it is so funny. But it is something that I do want to remember, so I am going to tell you the story of Yo, and hopefully it will at least make you smile.

It all starts with a doll

As any expectant momma knows, baby clothes are a popular thing that people love to buy for your little one. How could they not, every single time I go into any baby store I am tempted to buy some cute little outfit that I see. Justin’s mom bought an outfit for Jacob as a gift at my shower. Instead of just wrapping the outfit up, she decided to make things a little more interesting and bought the doll, dressed him in the outfit and wrapped it up in a big box. You can imagine the surprise on my face when I opened the box at my shower to see this doll staring up at me. He served his purpose making outfit buying/gift giving a little more exciting 🙂

After my shower, my best friend, Stacey, my mom and I were sitting on the floor of the nursery going through all my gifts and removing tags, doing laundry, making piles and putting things away. It was getting late and we were tired, but we were having fun and enjoying the time together. In all the piles of gifts we came across this

These cute little lovies are also a popular gift item. They come in all different kinds of animals, shapes, sizes and colors. They often have some kind of embroidery on them, this one was embroidered with I love you, only they forgot the u, literally the letter u not the word you.

I love Yo.

So in our tired giddyness we laughed and said I wonder who Yo is…later on in the evening we came across the doll and we were trying to figure out what we were going to do with it and again we were tired and giddy and I don’t remember exactly how it all went down, but somehow the doll was named Yo and it just took off from there.

While I was pregnant, we took a Childproofing Your Dog class, in an attempt to learn about what we could to avoid any potential problems between Apollo and Jacob. One of the things the instructor mentioned was before the baby arrives you could walk around carrying a doll, or have a doll on the couch with you, etc…so the dog can get used to the idea that there is another person in the house that is a part of the family. We didn’t take that part too seriously and Justin was not going to go about his daily life around the house carrying a fake baby, so we dismissed that exercise. However, once Yo came into our home there was no escaping it.

The morning after Yo was named, while we were making breakfast my mom put Yo in the bouncy chair next to the table while we ate. Apollo was a bit leery of this strange thing on the ground and gave Yo a few sniffs, but then he was over it. When were trying to figure out how to use the carriers I got, we used Yo to practice with. On Christmas morning when we were all sitting in the living room opening presents and Justin opened one of the gifts I got him which was some SDSU Aztecs baby clothes, my mom found Yo and got him dressed up in the new clothes and sat him on the couch and he spent the rest of the morning with us. When I got the baby swing we put Yo in there to test it out. Much to Justin’s dismay Yo was slowly working his way into our life as a practice baby.

Once Jacob arrived, Yo was put away in the closet and pretty much forgotten about. Every time we go through the closet and rotate through Jacob’s things, store the items he no longer needs and make room for new things we always come across Yo and Justin asks me if we can get rid of him. And every time I say no, not yet…I don’t know why, but I don’t want to get rid of him. I think it is the memory of that night that makes me want to hang on to him. Justin is pretty determined since every time he opens the closet Yo is there staring back at him, creepy! So I decided to take some pictures and share the story of Yo so that his memory lives on through the blog. And the next time we clean out the closet and Justin asks if we can get rid of him I’ll be able to tell him okay.

Catch up

Posted on October 1, 2013 by Mdfrisco

We’ve been busy…we’ve spent a lot of time with family. Justin’s cousins came for a night and we had a great time catching up with them, I was having such a good time that I didn’t pick up my camera once. We also drove in to visit my grandma and had dinner with some of my aunts, uncles and cousins. I’ll share more about that later. Justin went to Iowa for 3 days for a conference so I got a taste of what it is like to be a single mom. All went well, but I was so glad when he came home! And last week we went out to dinner to celebrate our 7 year wedding anniversary! So I am a bit behind…I did take Jacob’s weekly pictures every Sunday but have not had time to post them. So here goes…

36 weeks

37 weeks

38 weeks

A lot has been happening with Jacob in the past few weeks too! While he has been babbling for quite some time now, he is now stringing together sounds to say Da Da and Ma Ma. His favorite thing to do these days is clap, now everything is worthy of a round of applause! And he figured out how to push himself into a sitting position from his tummy (and is so proud of himself every time he does it and starts clapping the second he is upright). It is so cute to watch him and fun to see his mobility expanding, but the challenging thing is it is taking longer for him to go down to sleep since he immediately pushes himself into a sitting position when you put him in his crib and babbles and claps while enjoying the new perspective.

Next week is Jacob’s follow up appointment with his pediatrician and I have a feeling once we find out how tall he is it will be time to get a new car seat since he seems to be quickly outgrowing his. I got tired of squeezing him in his 6 month clothes and finally made the time to get the box out with his 9 month old clothes, so he is no longer breaking out the bottoms of his PJs (for now). While I was doing his laundry this week, I came to the realization that he gets a whole new wardrobe pretty much every other month, lucky guy! We’ll be back soon 🙂

Surf’s up

Posted on August 22, 2013 by Mdfrisco

A couple of weekends ago we planned to meet Justin’s parents and grandma in Oceanside to celebrate grandma’s 89th birthday. Unfortunately she got sick and couldn’t make it 🙁 They also had a family friend, Peyton, in town visiting who we wanted to see, so we still got together. It was a beautiful San Diego day and we had lunch overlooking the Oceanside Pier. When we arrived there were SO many people out and about, more than your typical Saturday afternoon, so we knew something was going on. Turns out, it was a female surfing competition. Apparently it was a pretty big deal and competitors from all over the world came to participate. So after lunch we walked out to the pier to watch. All the people lined up at the bottom of the picture were waiting for the next surfer to walk out to the water.

Turns out that the surfer was Bethany Hamilton, who became famous a while back after she lost her arm to a shark and returned to professional surfing. In fact I am pretty sure they made a movie about her?

Something new I learned that day was that the surfers make their way out to the water by going out under the pier so they don’t have to fight the waves (obviously I don’t know that much about surfing). If you look closely you can see her swimming out from underneath the pier.

The line of people are now watching the water

3 generations of Frisco men watching all the people

Papa & Nonie with Jacob

and us with Peyton

We didn’t stick around all day so I have no idea how the competition ended, but it was fun to watch for a little while.

Cowboy Style

Posted on August 11, 2013 by Mdfrisco

One thing that we did get at the tractor show was a cowboy hat for Jacob. Apparently they don’t make cowboy hats for babies, at least we couldn’t find any, but we found some kid sized ones, Jacob was asleep in his carrier at the time so we couldn’t try it on him, but he has a big noggin so we figured it would be close enough. It was a tad bit too big, but he wore it proudly! Just pretend that his jumper is in fact a horse

Who doesn’t like to go for a ride in the morning in your PJs and cowboy hat?

I mean it is great exercise and the perfect way to start your day

Giddy up!!

And my absolute favorite picture of my boys is now this one

My brother and sister in law bought a ranch about 10 minutes away from my parents. So we went over there one day and looked at the house and property. I absolutely love old barns and have always wanted to do some pictures in a rustic beat up barn and my brother had one. So we found a spot along a wall and set up some hay and had a little photo shoot. My mom was holding Jacob while I was getting the settings on my camera ready and they looked so cute, I started snapping.

Then we got my dad and Jane in the picture and Jane and Jacob had to say their hello’s before we could get down to business.

Then everyone was all smiles 🙂

After taking a bunch of pictures, we realized that Jacob didn’t have his cowboy hat on, so of course, we had to take more.

Then it was mom and dad’s turn

Our handsome little cowboy

Back at my parents ranch it was a beautiful evening so we spent some time out on the porch. If you remember the pictures we took with the tractors last year, you will recognize this one

We had lots of good old fashioned playtime

On our last night there, my parents neighbors came over to visit and meet Jacob.

My brother and his wife came over and we ended our trip with a family dinner.

We had such a good time and really enjoyed the relaxing (but busy) time away from home. We didn’t get the extra third seat on the plane ride home, but Jacob was such a good little traveler and slept the entire flight! Grandma and Grandpa wore him out!

Tractors, tractors and more tractors

Posted on August 10, 2013 by Mdfrisco

The next day we had a relaxing morning and then went into town to do some shopping at a farmers market and the guys went to the butcher and got some HUGE steaks for dinner. When we got back to the ranch that afternoon we did one of our favorite things to do in Oregon, target practice.

The guys went up on the hill behind the ranch to set up the target, which was a large piece of wood with a drawing of a bat, cougar, raccoon, beaver and a bear on it.

After putting Jacob to bed I walked up the hill to join them.

After each person had their turn the board was inspected to see where the shots landed and mark them off.

View of the ranch

The following day was the very much anticipated annual “Great Oregon Steam Up” in Brooks which is a little over an hour north of the ranch. It is a big fair type event over a few days that is dedicated to the restoration and operation of antique steam powered engines and farm equipment. My parents friends Vicki & Roscoe joined us again and the guys had big plans for the day and wanted to get there the minute it opened. So they left shortly after 6:00 am that way they could have a big breakfast and get all the things they wanted to do and look at done before we got there. Which included watching the loggers in action. After getting ready at a more reasonable hour my mom, Jacob and I picked up Vicki and drove up to meet the guys. We had lunch, wandered around the swap meet that had all kind of neat antiques and looked at lots and lots of old tractors. Then it came time for the tractor parade, we found some seats in the grandstands and watched an hour and a half of every kind of antique tractor you could imagine go by.

Even this little guy got in the spirit with his new John Deere hat from grandma & grandpa.

As much as I tried to take pictures of the tractors that were going by

This guy will always steal the attention of my camera lens

On the way home we stopped in Eugene to eat some delicious pizza at Track Town Pizza on the University of Oregon campus. Back at the ranch we continued the tractor theme of the day and started up grandpa’s 1952 John Deere Model R Diesel tractor.

Look at the tires on that thing (and Jacob’s excited face)!

We ended the day with a bath in grandma’s kitchen sink before bed

Okay that’s enough for today, I have one more Oregon post coming up soon! Good Night!

Leaving on a jet plane

Posted on August 9, 2013 by Mdfrisco

Three days after Balboa we made our annual trip to Oregon to visit my parents. This being the first “big travel” vacation with Jacob, packing was quite the production! We made sure to stop packing for a bit to play with our little guy before he went to bed.

IMG_0470ed

We woke up early the next morning and Jacob was excited to start his adventure on his first airplane ride!

It was a bit daunting thinking about everything we had to do to get all our stuff to the airport, through security and then how Jacob was going to handle the airplane ride. But everything went seamlessly and all the TSA people were actually quite pleasant and very helpful! On the flight up to Oregon the third seat next to us on the plane was not reserved (yay!!) so we were able to take the car seat onto the plane with us. Jacob did great during the plane ride and didn’t fuss at all. Whew!

We arrived to my parents in the late afternoon and got settled, gave Jacob a bath and put him down to bed for the night. The next day we loaded up the truck and drove east of my parents ranch up the mountain to Odell Lake. It was a beautiful drive through the plush forest and small towns. My parents friends, Vicki & Roscoe, rode up on their Harley and met us there. First we walked along the lake for a bit.

Vicki is a mom to some grown boys and a grandma herself so she was right at home with Jacob.

In fact the Carhartt shirt that Jacob is wearing was a gift from them

Jacob’s favorite thing to do these days is bite down (not sucking) on his finger (I’m still waiting for a tooth to break through!)

The weather was perfect and we had lunch at the lodge out on the patio overlooking the lake. It also made for a nice view for this momma when it came time for Jacob to have his lunch (and be burped, while biting his finger).

After lunch we walked through the picnic area/campsites by the river

My parents dog, Jane, is such a sweetheart!

Must have been something interesting on the ground?

It was a beautiful drive and a relaxing, peaceful lunch.

Every night after dinner we always play a few rounds of the marble game and when the boys get tired of the girls beating them 🙂 we go out on the back deck to enjoy our wine and wait for the moon to come up.

It doesn’t start getting dark until about 9:00 pm, then around 10:00 pm the moon finally starts to come out.

The tiny light on the mountain below the moon is the light shining from the town veterinarian’s house.

The next day we stayed around the ranch and had a cattle round up. I’m pretty sure my parents save this event for when we are in town since we’ve done it pretty much every year while we are up there. But we don’t mind, it is fun for us city slickers! After getting the cows through the “shoot” where they got their shots and tags my parents and Justin saddled up the horses and moved the cows into the field in front of the house.

Well…they moved most of the cows…They left some of them in the back field to wean the calves from the mothers. So for the next several days we heard lots of moooooooing back and forth between the mamas and babies, I definitely had some sympathy for those mama cows!

That night we went to the Dexter Lake Club for dinner and the best burger in town.

Jacob is grabbing at everything in sight and putting it in his mouth, your beer is no exception 🙂

Every night before putting Jacob to bed we read to him. He loves stories! Very rarely do I get to see his face while we are reading since I am usually the one reading to him. So I had to get my camera out to capture this.

He takes story time pretty seriously!

And yes, we were reading about Mr Brown making mooing sounds like the cows outside.

I’ll be back soon with more on our trip! XO

Balboa Baby

Posted on August 7, 2013 by Mdfrisco

We did our annual trip to Balboa Island where Justin’s parents rent a beach house for a few weeks every summer. We packed the car full to the brim of all of Jacob’s necessities (pack n play, stroller, etc…) as well as all the beach necessities (beach chairs, towels, umbrella, etc…) we barely had enough room for us and drove to Balboa for the day. True to beach weather it was cool and overcast all morning, but we were sure it would burn off later in the afternoon. We visited, played with Jacob and played cards while he took his nap. Unfortunately, the sun never came out…so we didn’t make it out on the sand. Instead we loaded Jacob in the stroller and walked into “town”, where we browsed the shops and got a little exercise. That evening some extended family came to the beach house and Papa cooked up a fabulous dinner as always and we enjoyed our time visiting with them.

It was too bad that the sun never came out, we were looking forward to letting Jacob play in the sand again. But he didn’t seem to mind, since he got lots and lots of cuddles from his GiGi who calls him her “little heater” since he keeps her warm when it is cold.

And of course Nonnie got in on the snuggles too

Here’s to hoping the sun is out when we go next year!

Father’s Day Weekend

Posted on June 21, 2013 by Mdfrisco

Last weekend was action packed! Saturday we drove up to Oceanside to go to the Antique Gas & Steam Engine Museum with my Aunt & Uncle. It was a gorgeous day and we saw lots of old tractors, cars, engines, and other random antique things. The all around favorite part was the blacksmith barn, where blacksmiths were working with machines or an old fashioned hammer and anvil to create various things. It was really interesting to watch.

Jacob with his great Aunt & Uncle!

Then we went to the Rancho Guajome Adobe house. Where a lady took us on a very thorough tour of the house and surrounding grounds, giving us an idea of what life was like in the 1800’s. Visiting these kinds of places is always fascinating to me. One thing that I love about visiting places like this and the old castles and palaces in Europe is imagining the people living there, sleeping in the beds, making meals in the kitchen, walking through the gardens, making history in their offices or reading books in the libraries. I love the preserved clothing, kitchen supplies, old pianos and trees that are over a hundred years old. It makes you feel thankful for the things that we have now, but also makes you think about things that you really don’t need. Our lives these days are crowded with material things that we all want or “need”. Visiting these historical places reminds me that sometimes the simplicity of having conversations with people, playing the piano and singing or dancing along, reading books and kids running around outside using their imagination to play is so much better than TV, iPads, internet and video games. But there are some things I am incredibly thankful for, like running water! And electricity, although the occasional blackout is kind of fun once in a while. Anyway…it was a fun day.

Sunday was Father’s Day! We started the morning at church, then drove downtown to the Petco Park to watch the Padres beat the Diamondbacks. Jacob had fun hanging out with his daddy and even wore a shirt telling the world that “It’s dad’s first Father’s Day!”

When the “Padre girls” were sling-shooting balls into the crowd, Justin caught one for Jacob.

Why watch the baseball game when you can watch Jacob for entertainment

Hope you all had a wonderful Father’s Day!

The Frisco Project

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

Category Archives: Family