Fun with Uncle Terry

Posted on June 23, 2014 by Mdfrisco

Every year around the end of May, Justin’s Uncle Terry comes to California to visit from Kentucky. So we spend a few days at Justin’s parents house so we can visit with him. The guys always have a great time golfing for a few days, and then we pretty much spend the rest of our time in the pool.

Lots of family came over, including Justin’s cousin Lisa (Terry’s daughter) and her family.

Lisa’s boys were great with Jacob and played with him all day long

Papa J and Nonnie got Jacob a cute little chair and table for outside. It was perfect for dining poolside!

I love this picture of Apollo who looks like he has had a few…and is about to fall into the pool!

Not to worry though, he is saved by the raft

Told ya the boys were great with Jacob!

Jacob had fun playing in the misting fans

The Frisco men, BBQing ribs for dinner! Not sure why Jacob doesn’t look too happy…maybe because he had to stop playing in the misting fan to take the picture?

The next morning I had to take pictures of Jacob with his balloon. We had celebrated Lisa’s husbands birthday the night before and Jacob attached himself to one of his birthday balloons. He just loved dragging it with him everywhere he went.

He also loves his popping walker that he got for Christmas from some cousins

But rather than walking with it, he prefers to spend his time trying to figure out how to get the balls out of it.

And even though Apollo didn’t fall into the pool, he did fall into the fountain which resulted in giving him a bath in the middle of all the craziness.

It was a fun time with family and we always enjoy seeing Uncle Terry!

Jacob’s Angels

Posted on June 17, 2014 by Mdfrisco

Every single night before I put Jacob down in his crib we pray. It is my time to be still (Psalm 46:10). We thank God for our blessings, we pray for those who are struggling, we praise him for all the good that we see, we ask him for guidance and I always, always ask him to wrap his arms around Jacob and protect him through the night and always.

A week and a half ago was a true testament that God hears our prayers. Jacob and I were driving south on the 15 freeway on a Saturday afternoon and a car swerved into my lane and hit us. The actual impact happened so fast, I remember seeing the car, hearing the screech of our tires and then we spun…across 3 lanes of a busy freeway. That is the part that is so vivid in my mind, it seemed to happen in slow motion and that is the part that haunts me. I remember seeing faces of people in other cars as we went by. And I remember feeling so helpless that I couldn’t do anything to stop it from happening. I remember thinking, is this it? Is this how it all ends? I remember thinking please don’t let anything happen to Jake, if someone has to be hurt, let it be me. It is true what they say how your life can flash before your eyes. We landed facing oncoming traffic in the fast lane unharmed. When we stopped, I braced myself because I was sure someone was going to hit us, no one did. Then I dove into the backseat to check and make sure Jacob was okay, he was fine. Two guys pulled over to check on us and told me that 911 had been called. I called Justin and he came right away. Minutes later the CHP, a firetruck and ambulance were there. The paramedics and fireman checked us out I gave my statement to the police and then we loaded up Jake’s carseat into the car Justin drove to the scene and we followed the tow truck towing my Jeep off the freeway. When driving away we saw the car that hit me on the side of the freeway a little further down and it was pretty banged up and the airbags had deployed. The damage to my car was minor, the front left side and bumper is banged up. There was liquid leaking (not gas) so it may be the radiator…? It is still at our mechanic and we don’t really know the full extent of the damage yet. So we were hit, spun across 3 lanes of freeway without hitting anyone else, landed unharmed and with minor damage to my car. Wow!

When we got home it was time for Jacob’s nap. But I didn’t want to put him down, I just couldn’t leave him and I wanted to watch him play. Seeing him laugh and kick his ball around, dance to music and bring me all his books, toys and stuffed animals was reassuring me that he was okay. When it was obvious that he really needed that nap, I got him to fall asleep on me in the rocking chair. I knew he was fine from what I could see, but I kept thinking of all those stories of people who go to sleep after hitting their heads and never waking up. Even though Jake didn’t really hit his head, we were still in a scary accident and I just couldn’t put him down, I needed to hold him close. I needed to feel his weight on me, and feel his heart beating and his steady breathing and I needed to stare at him through my tears as I was thanking God that he was okay. Later that day, when it came time to put him down for the night, I was glued to the baby monitor to make sure he would move every once in a while, I kept going in his room and putting my hand on him to make sure he was still breathing. I seriously wondered if the crib would hold my weight or if there would be enough room for both of us if I crawled in there with him. It was a long night.

The next few days were hard. Really hard. I have never been in an accident before and for it to happen on a busy freeway was really unnerving. I couldn’t get the “what if’s” out of my head. If it was just me it would have been one thing, but the fact that Jacob was with me made it so.much.more.traumatizing. I was not eating, I didn’t sleep and I felt like I couldn’t stop crying. I was shaky and all the stress was making me physically sick to my stomach. I didn’t want to drive anywhere, I was planning to call Jacob’s swim school and put his classes on hold for a week and all I wanted to do was climb into bed and hide under the covers (and bring Jake under there with me). All I wanted to do was forget about it. I wanted to erase the whole day from my memory and pretend that it didn’t happen, but I couldn’t. Justin was my rock through all of this, and when I told him I was going to put Jake’s swimming lessons on hold, he gave me a little pep talk and told me I needed to be strong for Jake. He said I needed to be healthy so I can continue to take care of him. I needed to provide stability for him and keep doing the things we enjoy doing, like his swimming lessons. So that day, I took him to his lessons. Throughout the week, we went somewhere every day, like we usually do. Some days were fine, some days I found myself having a little anxiety attack on the freeway so I ended up taking the back roads home. Every day is a little better. One day at a time.

Once we got the police report we found out that it was a 17 year old boy who was on his way home from taking his SAT tests. He said he swerved to avoid another car and that is what brought him into my lane and hit me. Since I have never been in an accident before, I’ve never read any kind of police report. It is kind of interesting to see how they piece all the evidence and facts together. At the end of the report they state the conclusion and witness statements. The witnesses all said the same thing, after the collision and seeing the smoke from our tires they slowed down to avoid being involved and then they saw a grey SUV spinning across the freeway and landing facing the traffic in the fast lane. It gave me chills when I was reading their statements. I wonder if theirs were the faces I saw as we were going across the freeway? I wonder if there really was another car that made the 17 year old swerve into my lane? If so, does that driver have any idea what he caused? There are a few unanswered questions like that, but they really don’t matter in my book. What matters is we are safe. Jacob is unharmed. And I finally have a little sense of peace and closure on the whole thing. And I know the reason we are safe is because those guardian angels I pray for every night were in full force. God cleared a section of a busy freeway so that we would land unharmed. It blows my mind the fact that we didn’t hit a single car when we absolutely should have. God is good!

Several years ago Justin and I were traveling south on the 5 freeway and we saw a car cut across the freeway and when it hit the center divider it went up in the air and flipped. That was a pretty scary thing to witness and I remember it took a long time to shake the heaviness I was feeling from seeing it happen. To this day every single time I drive past that spot (which is at least 2 days a week) I think about it and I grip the steering wheel just a bit tighter. Now there is a spot on the 15 freeway that will always remind me of our accident.

I read somewhere a while ago this statement:

Christianity is more than simply a set of beliefs I hold so I can achieve salvation for my individual soul. It is also a distinct way of understanding and interpreting everything in the world.

I find this to be so true for so.many.things. People love to blame God for destruction, pain or anything bad. I am not going to get too deep into that subject, I don’t have a perfect answer to why bad things happen to good people. It reminds me of the Why Me? post I did a while ago. But what you can learn from those bad things and the way you handle them and how you live your life after coming out of the storm makes all the difference in the world. There IS a war going on, good vs evil, and God will always win. In this case, instead of feeling a tightness in my chest each time I approach that section of freeway (or at this point driving on any freeway) I want it to be a reminder of how good God is and how he protected us. Yes, it was scary and it could have been really, really bad, but it wasn’t. And for that I praise Him!

Justin’s Aunt made a comment to me after posting about the accident on Facebook about how Billy Graham picked names for his guardian angels. The thought of that made me smile. I know God has his warrior angels, but I’d like to think that all Jacob’s great grandparents are the ones fighting away all the bad and keeping my sweet boy safe. And I know he’s in good hands!

Here’s a picture of our happy little monkey at the library this afternoon

Mother’s Day

Posted on June 13, 2014 by Mdfrisco

Since Father’s Day is two days away I figured I better share about our Mother’s Day first! We drove to Temecula and met Justin’s parents and grandma for brunch. I didn’t take many pictures except for a few on our walk around Old Town after we ate.

Jake loves sitting on his daddy’s shoulders and he also loves all the attention and waves from strangers looking up at him. Such a little ham!

3 generations

Me and my baby boy

After wandering through some of the shops and Jake started giving me this look…

I put away my camera and we headed home. It was a fun afternoon celebrating three moms, and I feel especially blessed to be a mom to this little monkey.

The Mission

Posted on May 24, 2014 by Mdfrisco

Last September I did a post about our visit to the Mt Soledad Veterans Memorial, which we checked off on our How San Diegan Are You? list. Another thing on the list that we have not done yet was visit the Mission San Luis Rey De Francia in Oceanside. On the Saturday before Mother’s Day we didn’t have any plans and didn’t want to spend the beautiful day indoors, so we took a day trip to the mission.

When we arrived, the guide in the museum gave us the layout of the grounds and told us where we could go and the things we could see. We started out walking through the museum. Jake didn’t really seem impressed…

We ended up in a courtyard behind the museum and let Jake roam around. That was much more interesting to him!

Sometimes the simplicity of a bench or chair is my favorite kind of photo opportunity.

Jake is in a phase where he wants to touch everything, and I mean everything! He is always sticking his finger out and reaching to touch something. On our walks he likes to touch the different plants and all the poles for the street signs or street lights. Even when driving in the car if he sees a stop sign, he will frantically point his finger like he expects me to pull over so he can touch the pole. And the big bell hanging in the courtyard is no exception.

I always take my camera with us when we go on these adventures, but don’t always take pictures. Sometimes, I just want to just relax and enjoy the moment. But sometimes, like this day, there are just too many good photo opportunities to pass up it ends up becoming a mini photo session! Especially when Jake is having such a great time exploring the area.

When I was completing an online profile a while back for a MOMs group I am a part of it required a photo of me and Jake. And I thought, pshhh no problem, I have plenty of pictures! After spending several minutes going though my photo archives, I realized that I do have plenty of pictures of Jake, and Jake with daddy, but I have very few of us and the ones I have are older pictures, nothing recent. It is hard when you are always behind the camera to force yourself to hand it to someone else so you can get in front of it. And I am working on that…So when we went down these old steps that led down to the pools where women used to wash clothes and bathe, I handed the camera to Justin and played with Jake on the steps for a few minutes.

And I had to crop that last one to get a closer version of me and my bat boy.

We wandered through the cemetery

And stopped by the church on our way out

It was a fun family day and I am looking forward to our next adventure to check off the list!

More Randomness

Posted on May 22, 2014 by Mdfrisco

One of the authors of a blog I love to read does a Ten on Tuesday post every Tuesday. And she lists 10 things: news to share, a funny story, a link to a cool video/recipe/story, an opinion on something, an idea, thoughts, anything really… I feel like I need to start something like that because sometimes I want to post things, but it’s not really enough for it’s own blog post and sometimes I feel like I have a bunch of unrelated things to say in one post, hence this title and my last post title of randomness. So I need a clever name, any ideas?

Now on to my random ramblings…

As I said in my last post, we had a busy week last week and I fully intended to post all about it last weekend or even last Monday. But somehow it became Thursday and Jacob, Justin and Apollo are snoring away, the dishwasher is running, the house is (mostly) picked up, I finally got my shower in and I am determined to get this done before I go to bed.

Last week we had an action packed week planned. Over the weekend we had a Frisco family fun day playing tourist at the Mission in Oceanside and we met Justin’s parents and grandma in Temecula for Mother’s Day brunch (I have stories to tell and pictures to share about those coming soon). On Monday, Jacob and I met up with our good friends at Torrey Pines State Beach for our weekly beach fix.

On Tuesday we started swimming lessons! Jacob loves water in all forms, the bath, ocean waves, pool, and washing his hands in the sink. We love the beach and the pool and go as often as we can so I really want Jacob to have some good swimming foundation down as early as possible. So now we go to swimming class on Tuesdays and Thursdays. So far Jacob loves it!

On the way home from swimming lessons that day I noticed a big plume of black smoke when I got off our exit from the freeway.

I knew right away there was a fire and the area behind our neighborhood is full of canyons and wildlife preserves and lots of vegetation to burn. I was not sure if it was a wildfire or some kind of controlled fire. Just a few minutes after getting home I got a text from Justin checking up on us since he heard about the fire. Once I got Jake down for his nap I turned on the news and sure enough a few miles away a wildfire had started. We were not in any immediate danger, but it was a very unsettling feeling since we have had to evacuate before for the 2007 fires and I knew there was a chance we might need to leave again since the winds were blowing west, towards us. That afternoon we went to the library to meet up with a group of our friends for our weekly storytime gathering and playgroup afterwards.

On Wednesday, my Aunt took her second grade class on a field trip to the Safari Park in Escondido. So Jacob and I joined them. It was one of the hottest days of the week with temperatures reaching 102 degrees plus we had the hot Santa Ana winds blowing. The park was pretty empty and I kind of felt like we had the place to ourselves! Jacob had a great time in the petting zoo with my aunt and uncle.

He thinks anything that has hair and walks on 4 legs is a “Doggie!!!”

He was having a great time chasing them all over the place. And it looks like the goat is charging him in this picture, but I assure you it is not.

We stopped for lunch in the shade and then saw the elephants, gorillas, and all kinds of birds before heading home. On the way home I kept seeing more plumes of black smoke and knew something was going on. Several wildfires had broken out all over San Diego.

Again we were not in any immediate danger, but man, it was so scary to see all this on the news. My heart went out to all our firefighters who were working around the clock for several days fighting these fires in the heat and with the winds working against them. They totally kicked ass (excuse my language) and put these fires out over the next several days and saved so many homes and buildings from being destroyed. A few homes/buildings were lost, but for the number and scale of these fires if it was not for our amazing firefighters it could have been a lot worse.

On Thursday, we had swimming lessons again, and it was a huge welcome since it was the hottest day of the week and even a 92 degree pool felt glorious! On Friday we didn’t have any big outing planned, so we went to the playground and spent the afternoon in our pool cooling off. Between the beach and the pool we are pretty much going to be living in our bathing suits this summer and Jacob is already rocking a pretty serious farmers tan!

This week has been a stark contrast as far as the weather goes. We went from 100+ degrees to 66 degrees. It has been pretty chilly getting out of the warm pool after lessons this week! But it feels so good, I really prefer the cool beach weather. On Wednesday we had a playgroup date at the park and tomorrow we are meeting some more friends for a picnic lunch and park date. Oh and one last thing, we turned Jacob’s car seat around so now he is a forward facing big boy now! Technically (according to the American Academy of Pediatrics), we are not supposed to do that until he is 2 years old, but I’m saying mom and dad know best in this scenario. He is a much happier boy now that he can see what is going on while we are driving!

It has been a really fun few weeks (except for the fires), I’ve barely had time to keep up with the laundry and grocery shopping and pretty much collapse every night which is why I haven’t been here. But as I said I was determined tonight and it is now 11:41 pm and I better hit the sack.

I’ll be back with more on our trip to the Mission and Mother’s Day and everything else inbetween, and don’t forget I am taking suggestions on a title for my randomness posts!

Randomness

Posted on May 7, 2014 by Mdfrisco

Two days after Easter, Jacob started coughing and sneezing and ended up with a full blown head cold. Other than a mild fever and a day or two of a runny nose (which I’m sure was teething related) Jacob has not been sick. So now he has had his first real cold. Of course a couple of days later when he started feeling better I got it and then I think I either gave it back to him or he relapsed. But man, I remember the days when I could call in sick to work and rest in bed when I was not feeling well. Not anymore! Thankfully, Jacob still had a pretty good temperament when he was sick so I was not dealing with any major mood swings. He was actually very cuddly and wanted to be held all the time, which I loved, except when I was trying to get something done. Being sick didn’t really disrupt Jacob’s nighttime sleep, except it was heartbreaking hearing him cough through the night. It was hard to try and play with him or keep him entertained while all I wanted to do was close my eyes or stand in the hot steaming shower to relieve my congestion. I did get a small break over the weekend when Justin took Jacob to meet his parents for lunch in Temecula. I spent the entire time they were gone dozing on the couch. Anyway, for people who don’t get sick often, it was a doozy! Now, other than the lingering dry cough, we are both much better. Not looking forward to Jacob bringing home all those germs when he starts school, ugh!

On a more exciting note, Jacob has been walking now for about a week and a half. Of course the first couple of days he was a clumsy klutz falling over after ever few steps. But now he is more and more sure footed and is picking up speed. I’ll get some pictures of him walking up here soon to share.

Also, sometime in the middle of being sick and learning how to walk, one of Jacob’s molars popped through. He won’t let me look in his mouth anymore so I’ve had a hard time looking for new teeth. But I have noticed him chewing on some of his hard plastic toys and a couple of days ago I had my finger in his mouth getting something out that he put in and surprised myself when I almost sliced my finger open on his molar. Sheesh, those teeth are sharp! I think he is working on the other side now because he is back to chewing and is really biting down hard on things.

Generally Jacob has always been such a fantastic eater. He recently went through a picky phase where all he wanted to eat was bananas, yogurt and cheese. He would eat a little bit of other things here and there, but not much. Looking back I think it was leading up to his cold and cutting his molar so he was probably just not feeling well. But now his appetite is back in full force and I feel like he is eating more than before. And he will eat pretty much anything I give him, or at least try a few bites before deciding he doesn’t want something. He eats more than I do and I sometimes wonder how I am going to keep him full when he is a teenager!

We have a really, really busy week next week, so I probably won’t post anything next week. But I’ll be back soon with more stories and pictures.

To end this post here are some pictures of our recent visit with Oma, to celebrate her 91st birthday!

Jacob loves to play with her wooden blocks

Or more specifically, he loves to knock them down!

Happy Easter

Posted on April 25, 2014 by Mdfrisco

This year my birthday fell on Easter Sunday. And my mom arrived for her visit 2 days before. We really didn’t have anything big planned for the weekend, but we ended up being pretty busy. On Saturday afternoon, we went to an Easter festival that our church was participating in at a local park. By the time we got there everyone we knew had already left and the playground was pretty crowded so we decided not to stick around. But we stopped in front of the DJ so Jake could wiggle his booty, he loves music! And to pose with the blow up Easter bunny, which he was not too sure about.

Later that afternoon we went to a birthday party for Jacob’s friend Micah who turned 1! Then that evening, Grandma babysat while Justin took me out to dinner in La Jolla for to celebrate my birthday.

Sunday morning after church we played at the park and went out to lunch. That afternoon I wanted to get a family picture so we went to the park to play around for a bit.

Jacob loves to smell flowers. Whenever I have flowers on the counter in the kitchen he always stands under them, reaching up and calling out to someone to pick him up so he can smell them. And he has to smell each flower, not just one. In fact, he has been really interested in all plants and flowers in general. When we are on our walks in the stroller he is always reaching out to touch the plants as we pass by. Once his fingers touch the plant he pulls his hand in the stroller and giggles. So Jacob and my mom were smelling the little white flowers in the grass.

I’ve had a little luck with Jacob wearing a hat when we are outside since he is distracted by everything that is going on. This is one of my favorites of his hats, we bought it for him to wear last Thanksgiving, but he wouldn’t keep it on. But on this day we got just a few minutes of hat wearing

Before it came off

We ended the day with our friends on bay enjoying the beautiful weather. Hope you all had a wonderful Easter!

The Haircut

Posted on April 23, 2014 by Mdfrisco

When Justin was a baby he had blonde curly hair. Since Jacob has his daddy’s dark eyes I was hoping he would inherit his curly hair too. And I love the look of casual, long(ish) hair on little boys, especially if there are curls. But I think Jacob has inherited my straight hair. And other than a simple trim in the front to keep the hair out of his face we have not yet given Jacob a haircut. Which has resulted in long wispy hair and it was getting to the point where I could make a ponytail in the back.

One day when we were coming out of the grocery store, there were some girl scouts selling cookies and they were cooing over Jacob saying how cute he was (of course he had flashed a smile and was waving at them) one of the girl scouts said to us as we were leaving “What’s her name?” and Justin casually said “Jacob“, the look of confusion and then shock on her face was pretty funny.

One evening, Jacob and I were having dinner out at a restaurant and an older couple sat down at the table across from us. They were enamored with Jacob and kept saying how cute “she” was and the man kept saying how they had all grandsons and no granddaughters and he just loved little girls, etc, etc, etc…They were so adorable how they were drooling over him (of course he was smiling and waving away to them as well) that I didn’t have the heart to correct them and just played along thinking we would end our conversation soon. They ended up chatting away and playing with Jacob throughout the entire meal and I eventually called him by name several times and when they asked me questions about him I started with the word “he…” and I briefly saw it register with the man when he realized his mistake.

So many people that I meet always say it is obvious he is a boy, and he is usually wearing obviously boy clothes. Although some colors such as, grey/yellow/red/white could go either way. And looking back on both of those incidences he was wearing yellow one time and red the other. Then one day we were at the grocery store, where they all know us since we are there all the time, and the produce guy asked if Jacob would like a balloon to play with while we shopped. I said “Sure that would be great!” and he came back with a pink balloon…Now maybe there is a perfectly good explanation, like they had an excess of pink balloons they were trying to get rid of, or maybe before it was inflated it looked red, or maybe he was color blind??? Anyway, after that I decided it was time for a haircut. Luckily, Justin’s parents were already planning to come for a visit a few days later and Papa J knows his way around a hairstyle, so he brought his scissors and Jacob got his first haircut!

Jacob sat on his daddy’s lap and we gave him a toy to play with

The first few minutes were no big deal to Jacob, but Justin was getting used to the scissors flying in front of his face 🙂

Then he realized that his Papa J was doing something to him

And tried to put a stop to it

But Papa J quickly distracted him with his playful antics

Then Jacob kept reaching for Papa J’s spray bottle

Which of course he got, along with a cookie in his mouth

And that kept him entertained for a while

Especially after daddy showed him how to press down to make it spray

And then he spied his Nonnie with the cookies

And the spray bottle lost it’s magic

After getting a cookie, Papa J was able to quickly finish his work

The result is a happy little guy

new things to play with

and a haircut that turned my baby into a little boy

Thanks Papa J!

15 Months

Posted on April 15, 2014 by Mdfrisco

Last week we had Jacob’s 15 month check up. His pediatrician moved into a brand new office and as we were walking through the lobby I felt as if we were in a really nice hotel instead of a medical facility. Instead of checking in with the receptionist there was a kiosk where we checked in electronically and sat down in the kids play area to wait for the nurse to call us back. It was a short visit. His doctor weighed him, measured him, checked his eyes, ears, mouth and everything looks great. Jacob got his shots and we made an appointment to go back for a follow up in August. Here are his latest numbers:

Jacob weighs 21.6 pounds
Jacob is 31 inches long
The circumference of his head is 18 5/8 inches

A few fun things I want to remember about Jacob over these past few months:

When I stopped breastfeeding at 12 months old, Jacob was still taking his milk in a bottle. At 13 months we made the transition from a bottle to a cup, it didn’t really go as easy as everyone made it seem. He would drink water out of a cup with no problem since he had been doing so for several months, but when I put milk in it, he would look at the cup and see that it was not water and throw it on the ground without even one sip. I had to laugh because I remember a time when I was desperate for him to take a bottle and now here I was trying to get him off the bottle! After consulting with his pediatrician, he told me to stop the bottle cold turkey and keep trying to give him milk in a cup, and feed him lots of cheese, cereal with milk and yogurt to ensure he is getting the calcium and other nutrients he needs. After almost a month of doing that, he finally realized that he was not getting his bottle back and resigned to drinking his milk out of a cup.

We’ve been signing to Jacob pretty much since he was born. I know he understands what we are signing to him and he has been doing some signs on his own for a while, but recently he has really stepped up and is signing a lot of things. It is so cute to watch him figure out how to communicate what he wants to say. I really try to sign mostly everything, especially when I am reading or singing songs to him, but the main ones we do on a daily basis are: diaper, milk, water, eat, more, please, all done, bath, socks, shoes, dog, daddy, mommy, and poop…yes he does it when he is pooping and I have Justin to thank for teaching him that one 🙂

Jacob has been known for his charming smile and friendly waves to every soul that passes by for quite some time. Now he is getting even more playful (and smarter!) He puts his cheek to his shoulder and gives a sideways glance when he is being shy. He starts to give you something then right when you go to take it from him he moves his hand back and giggles to play keep away. When drinking his milk, if he notices we are drinking a beverage as well, he will hold up his cup to do “cheers” each time he takes a sip. He loves to give kisses and blow kisses. Anytime I try to pick him up to change his diaper or clothes he thinks we are playing a game of chase and takes off away from me. He loves being naked and again when I try to get him dressed he desperately tries to wiggle out of my grasp. He will point to his head, ears and toes on command, but if you ask him where his nose or bellybutton is he will only show you where your nose or bellybutton are. He loves to lay on his tummy and roll back and forth, kind of reminds me of when he was a newborn and we spent so much time doing tummy time. While he is usually his charming self, he has his moments too. When he is tired or doesn’t get what he wants, he will throw full on temper tantrums, yelling, stamping his feet and throwing himself on the ground. When he wants to be in the center of attention and Justin gives me a kiss or a hug Jacob will yell and try to push him away from me. He is very vocal these days and has been making all kinds of noises testing to see what sounds he makes that we will respond to, this is where the sign language has come in handy. Thankfully those moments are fewer than the playful ones, but of course, they always seem to arise when we have company or when we are in public. Go figure!

We still read to Jacob before every nap, bedtime and randomly throughout the day. He has his favorite books and will let you know if you are not reading the one he wants to read. Once we determine the correct reading material for the moment he settles in to enjoy the story. I love that he knows what is coming and will say things or sign something at the appropriate time in the book. In Snuggle Puppy whenever we say the word kiss, he will blow a kiss. In We’re Going on a Bear Hunt he picks out the doggie on every page and every time we say “Oh No!” he puts his hand up to his head. In The Very Hungry Caterpillar when we get to the part when the caterpillar is full and fat, he will flip back to the beginning of the book and compare the hungry (skinny) vs the not hungry (fat) caterpillar. In Goodnight Moon he always points out the red balloon, and when we come across the kittens he always says “doggie” (close enough!) In Where’s Spot? he sometimes waves to the animals behind the door/stairs/piano, etc… when he lifts the flap and after he finds Spot in the basket he gets a big smile of accomplishment on his face. In Guess How Much I Love You he will reach his arms out to show how much he loves us. In any book where there is a dog (or any furry animal on 4 legs) Jacob will exclaim “doggie!” When done with the book he closes it and signs all done. It just blows my mind sometimes how much he really understands and comprehends…it is amazing!

Jacob is not quite walking yet. For months he has been pushing around a walker toy and cruising around on furniture. For a while he would climb to a standing position behind my legs and push me forward so he could walk behind me. Then he moved onto holding onto my finger while he walks around, which is what he wants to do all.the.time. This week he has been standing on his own and experimenting with taking a few solo steps here and there. He is very capable of walking on his own, he just doesn’t want to. He keeps reaching for my finger and every time I wriggle my finger out of his grasp he takes a step and realizes that he doesn’t have any support and sits down. I know there will come a day when I will be begging him to hold my hand and right now I keep trying to wriggle my hand out of his grasp…kind of like the bottle thing. So the walking on his own is the next big milestone he is working towards at the moment. Justin and I have a bet, when he turned 15 months old I said it would be at least another 3-4 weeks before he started walking on his own, Justin thinks it will be earlier. So stay tuned…

There is so, so much more and no way I can document everything. All in all, Jacob has been so much fun! We truly are enjoying this little man who has taken over our lives and we are so blessed to be his parents!

Here is our little monkey taking his phone calls in the laundry basket.

The Playground

Posted on April 10, 2014 by Mdfrisco

What little child doesn’t enjoy time spent at a playground! We are lucky to have a few of them within walking distance. If we don’t have some kind of big outing planned or errands to run then we always go to the playground, it is part of our typical day.

The first thing we do when we arrive is hit the swings.

This usually doesn’t last too long, he gets ansty to cover the playground territory and climb all over everything. But he does enjoy it for a little while.

Actually now, his favorite way to “swing” is to stand up holding onto the seat of an adult swing and move back and forth and side to side with it. I call it dancing with the swing.

This particular day was a Saturday morning, there is no way I could take pictures and chase Jacob around the park by myself, so we had daddy with us. Jacob was delighted to have his daddy on the playground!

We spend a little time playing in the sand

Of course, Jacob thinks that the other kids toys are way cooler than his…

When he is ready for some real exercise Jacob heads for the big play structure and starts the climb

He likes to spin the rocket ship through the solar system.

Then he heads over to the top of the slide

and either sits in my lap while we go down or he lays down on his belly and slides down backwards by himself.

At the bottom of the slide, he immediately scoots himself off and starts the climb back to the top again. We do this over, and over, and over again! It’s good exercise chasing him around!

The tricky thing about the playground now is when we are on a walk with the dog, I have to remember to go a different route that does not pass by the playground, because if we don’t stop to play when we pass by, Jacob gets a little upset!

The Frisco Project

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