Time

Posted on December 4, 2013 by Mdfrisco

There are a lot of things that I’ve learned or noticed in a different way during this parenting gig. One thing that really gets me is how f.a.s.t. time flies by! It has been a month since I’ve posted anything here, and on one hand I completely understand why, we’ve been out of town so much this month and pretty busy. My life has been a constant cycle of packing, unpacking, laundry and repacking. But it has all been fun and it is all good stuff. On the other hand, I can’t believe it has really been a whole month! And to think that Jacob turns 11 months old in two days is downright crazy!

We went to a birthday party last weekend for the daughter of some friends who turned one. Her mom and I were talking and she said everyone keeps referring to her little girl now as a toddler, and yes, she is walking/toddling around, but mom is having a hard time emotionally getting through the transition of her little girl being anything other than a baby. She is in denial. And honestly, I feel like I am too. In another month Jacob is going to be 1 year old. And I know this month is going to go by just as fast, if not faster, than last month.

While I am excited for Jacob to grow up and I am looking forward to other milestones and fun things we can do as he gets older, I find myself thinking back and missing those baby moments that we’ve been through. When he slept all the time and I could stare at him for hours. I miss him snuggling with me, now he just wants to be put down so he can get moving. All the hours I spent on the floor with him during tummy time encouraging him to lift his head, roll over, sit up on his own. And so many other things that seems like we were just doing them yesterday, but they were several months ago now. And at the rate time is going I feel like tomorrow I will be saying it was years ago when we were doing those things. So before Jacob turns 11 months old, lets reflect back on his 10th month 🙂

43 weeks

44 weeks

45 weeks

46 weeks

47 weeks

We started the month off at a wedding in Bakersfield and then spent a few days in Paso Robles wine tasting, I have pictures and stories to tell on that trip and will save them for another post. Then we went to my parents cabin and Justin helped my dad with their remodeling project while my mom, Jacob and I drove in to visit my grandma. Then two days later we went to Justin’s parents house for Thanksgiving then the day after we got back we drove to Orange County for the birthday party I mentioned earlier. Oh and Justin got sick the day before we left for Thanksgiving and I got sick the day after we got back, and Jacob has been battling a strange case of hives for a week now. Two days before Thanksgiving he started randomly getting red splotches/hives on different places on his body and they didn’t last long, just a few minutes even, and they move to other areas of the body. And it is not at any specific time, they come and go all day long…We haven’t tried any new foods recently, lotions, soaps, laundry detergent, etc…and it is making me crazy trying to figure out what it is. It doesn’t seem to bother him, he’s not itching, fussy, he doesn’t have a fever, there is no swelling, he is sleeping great and is breathing fine. The day between getting home from Thanksgiving and going to the birthday party we spent at the doctors office and the Nurse Practitioner on call checked him out and said other than the hives everything looks good and he is healthy. She said that it could be some sort of virus that his body is reacting differently to and she basically said that hives are so common in young children and sometimes it is a phase and it will go away, just give it some time. I am a little skeptical, especially since he has a family history of allergies on both sides…but I am giving it a couple more days before I get a second opinion.

Other than that…Jacob is doing wonderful! He was a champ during all our travels and we’ve had a really fun month. It is amazing to see his personality change as he grows. My mellow, easy going little boy has developed a strong opinion about things and is not afraid to let me know his opinion. If this child takes after me I know I’m in trouble 🙂 He is Mr Busybody, crawling all over the place getting into everything. He makes complete strangers hearts melt with his smile in public. He has decided that he no longer wants me to feed him, so all of his meals have to be things that he can pick up and feed himself, sometimes I can squeeze a spoonful of something in between handfuls of food. As much as I miss those sweet tender baby moments, I also love this fun time and seeing him learn and change as he grows.

I have lots more to share so I’ll be back soon! XO

Trick or Treat

Posted on November 7, 2013 by Mdfrisco

A friend of mine gave me a monkey costume that I was excited for Jacob to wear for Halloween, especially since I’ve been calling him my little monkey, it was perfect. I got it out at the end of September and tried it on him and it was too small. I wasn’t about to go out and buy him something right away since he grows so fast I was afraid whatever I bought wouldn’t fit him at the end of October. A week before Halloween I was shopping and I saw a top that was covered in skulls (for me, not him) and I remembered that we had a glow in the dark skeleton outfit for Jacob. So I got the top and figured we could go with a skeleton theme for Halloween.

He seemed happy with his costume

For lunch we went to Justin’s office for a Halloween party.

Lots of the kiddos came in that day and had a great time hanging out together in the reception area, they were so excited they couldn’t sit still for a photo!

Across the hall from Justin’s office is where my friend Julia works and they were having a Halloween party too, so her little girl KJ was there. We had to meet in the hallway to say hello.

Later that afternoon we went to the big shopping center by our house for a Halloween extravaganza. There was a band called Left4Dead playing, so we found a spot with a view of the stage and watched the crowds of kids go by as they trick or treated and all the people dressed up in costumes dancing along to the band. It was one of those moments that really made me stop and enjoy this time with Jacob without thinking about where we had to go or what we had to do next. I was also thinking about how thankful I am that we live in the community that we are in, that puts on these events for all the families in the area. Of course the beautiful San Diego fall weather helped to make the day even more perfect!

Even though my little monkey outgrew his monkey costume…

The skeleton theme worked out pretty well.

We got lots of comments from people

And Jacob is happy in anything as long as he can crawl around it in

Hope you had a great Halloween!

Fort Knox

Posted on October 30, 2013 by Mdfrisco

Well, there is no stopping him now…it’s official…we have a crawler.

While Jacob has been scooting for a while now, he never really left the 5 foot span of the area where he was playing. Which meant I could plop him down with some toys far enough away from the stairs and know he would be fine. Not anymore… It amazes me how quickly this all happened. He was scooting around for a several weeks and then one day he started the army crawl, the next day was a clumsy crawl and then by the third day he was a pro! And let me tell ya, he gets faster everyday and is loving his newfound freedom!

Since this all started 2 weeks ago, we have been in childproofing mode. Our house is two stories (technically 3 if you count the garage) and the downstairs is split into two levels. Which means we have lots of stairs. We already had a gate at the bottom of the stairs to keep the dog downstairs while we were not home. We had bought another gate a while back for the top of the stairs leading to the bottom half of our split level downstairs but never installed it. The day Jacob started crawling Justin installed the gate.

The next night I went on Amazon to order a gate for the top of the stairs upstairs and 2 “temporary” ones to keep the dinning room and kitchen separate. That way it keeps Jacob out of the kitchen and Apollo has his safe area where he can nap, relax and have access to his food and water without worrying about Jacob climbing all over him (Apollo’s tail (and toys, ugh!) has been Jacob’s favorite target and motivation to move across the room). So basically our house has become Fort Knox.

And here is our 42 week old 🙂

And then she was 1

Posted on October 29, 2013 by Mdfrisco

One of the reasons I love taking pictures is to look back and see the changes that occur over time. I did newborn and 6 month photos for Grace, and mom called me to do her 1 year photos. Not only has Grace grown so much but they also moved into our neighborhood! Mom said she wanted to do beach photos this time and we decided on Torrey Pines State Beach. After taking a few pictures at their house…

…we headed to Torrey Pines. My favorite thing about this beach are the beautiful cliffs, they make a great backdrop.

Grace was just recovering from a cold and was being extra snugly with her mom

Maverick & Goose

Posted on October 24, 2013 by Mdfrisco

Being a child who grew up in the 80’s Top Gun was one of my favorite movies (right up there with Grease and Peggy Sue Got Married). Not only is it a good storyline, but Tom Cruise was so dreamy (before he got all weird and creepy) he made any young girl swoon.

A few years ago we were with Justin’s parents walking around the Palm Desert swap meet and in one of the pet booths I saw this flight jacket/vest made for a dog. It immediately made me think of Top Gun and I wanted to buy it for Apollo. Justin was not too thrilled at the thought of dressing up our dog and I was not sure if they had the right size for Apollo so I ended up not buying it. A few months later for Christmas Apollo got a gift from Justin’s parents.

We actually have used this on several occasions to keep Apollo warm and I keep telling Justin at least it is a cool Top Gun flight jacket as opposed to some fancy knitted sweater thing.

Fast forward to about 6 months ago…A girlfriend of mine gave me all of her son’s baby clothes when she found out her second child was a girl. While going through all the bins and bins of clothes I was SO excited when I came across this…

Daddy’s Little Wingman, I mean, how perfect is that!

I knew right away that I would have to get Apollo and Jacob dressed up together and have a Top Gun day.

Now I feel like I need to watch the movie again for old times sake.

Caution…

Posted on October 21, 2013 by Mdfrisco

…I bite!

(and no his foot is not deformed, his sock is twisted)

We used to warn people that Apollo gets a little nippy when he is being protective, territorial or if there is too much excitement going on for his liking. Now we are adding Jacob to that warning. He got his two bottom teeth in at 7 months and just a few days ago his two top ones pushed through. Before he had any teeth he used to gnaw on my finger or the fingers of anyone who was holding him. When he first got his two bottom teeth in, he would still try to chew on my finger and after a few times of me screaming OW, he figured out that he shouldn’t do that anymore…and the finger chewing stopped. Then he moved onto toes. While in his carseat or even when playing on the floor I’ll find him chewing on his toes. He really surprised me one day when I was sitting on the floor with him and had one leg stretched out and wasn’t really paying attention to what he was doing and he made his way over to my foot and started gnawing on my big toe. Not only did it tickle but man those teeth are razor sharp! Now I’ve learned to hide my toes from him. He loves to chew on his hard plastic toys, even the soft silky tags on his stuffed animals, carrot sticks, foam tiles (see photo above), dog toys (ugh! I did find him chewing on one of Apollo’s toys one time, I about died!) any shoes that are within his reach, the metal frame of his jumper, pretty much anything really.

While he was working on pushing the top two teeth out, I experienced something that I had heard about often, and was hoping I would never experience, but knew in the back of my mind it would probably happen. One day while running some errands, I was in the mall parking lot nursing Jacob in the car…and he bit me. It took me by surprise and I yelled OW! After a brief pause of shock, he started crying. The next day while nursing him before bed, he did it again, and my reaction scared him which led him to cry again. A couple of days later he did it again and this time he didn’t cry but he had a look of shock on his face. And he hasn’t done it since…so either it registered with him that he is not supposed to do that, or he has some relief now that the teeth have finally broken through. We’ll find out when he starts working on some new teeth.

A biter or not, I still love him to death and I understand now the reaction I get from people when I tell them that Jacob is 9 months old. It is such a fun time and watching him grow and learn is so amazing! I love to sit and watch him move around and play, it is crazy to think just 9 months ago he was just born and several months ago, he couldn’t even roll over, and just 3 months ago he started sitting up by himself, and now he doesn’t want to be held more than a minute, he wants to be down on the ground where he can move around.

Here is our 40 week old

and 41 week old

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.

9 months

Posted on October 10, 2013 by Mdfrisco

We had Jacob’s 9 month follow up this week and he is doing great! He was entertaining the people sitting next to us in the waiting room by babbling and clapping his hands. That was the first thing the doctor noticed when he came in was his clapping. He is quite the ham these days 🙂 His pediatrician checked him out and said he is a strong, happy, healthy boy! Usually, there are no shots with the 9 month visit, unfortunately for Jacob, this visit took place at the beginning of the flu season…so he got his flu shot, the first of 2. We go back in a month to get the 2nd round.

Here are his stats:

Jacob weighs 18 lbs 10 oz (32nd percentile)
Jacob is 28.50 inches long (60th percentile)
The circumference of his head is 17.75 inches (50th percentile)

Jacob is just starting to get to concept of waving, if you show him his reflection in the mirror you will find him waving back, and sometimes we’ve seen him waving to strangers. He has also mastered the art of scooting. Every time I put him down he pushes himself up into a sitting position and scoots around to get where he wants to go. His favorite items to go after are the dog and moms iPhone, and if I move my phone out of reach or sight, he gets MAD! If he scoots over to the dresser he has figured out how to open the drawers. We keep putting off the childproofing but I have a feeling that we will be buying those baby gates pretty soon. Jacob is also starting to show some signs of separation anxiety, when out in public and there are some new faces around, I notice he holds on to me a little tighter. He will still smile and clap and maybe wave, but doesn’t want me to let go of him. And as long as I am in his line of sight while playing by himself he is fine, the second I go around the corner he panics and starts crying. He is still a champion sleeper and such a joy and source of entertainment and amazement for us, he is a blessing and we couldn’t ask for anything more.

Here is our 9 month old

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 🙂

The Frisco Project

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