10 Months!

Getting so close to the big 1. Party planning has already begun for the big number 1. We want it to be so special and well special and awesome takes time. So I think its safe to safe that since she is 10 months old its time to get planning. Franki is just too funny. Her personality is really blossoming these days. She is a drama queen, I mean serious academy award winning drama here. She can also turn it on and off like you wouldnt believe. One second she is arch your back, throw yourself on the ground throwing a fit because you took something away from her and the next second she is giggling in your ear. I love seeing her personality shine. I also love seeing how quickly she can be distracted to other things (im guessing there is only another month or so of distraction before she can find what she wants when she wants it. She gets into everything now (i can imagine what it will be like when she is walking). She is a super fast crawler and can get out of sight and into just about everything. Her absolute favorite thing to crawl after is anything Hulk related, from hulk himself, to hulks food, water bowl, toys, etc. She is HULK obsessed, literally. She has always loved him, but in the past month she has really become drawn to everything he does. She pulls his ears, his tail, his skin, and she even growls back at him when he growls at her. One of her newest favorite games is to play tug of war with hulk (guess who wins everytime??)-Yep hulk. He pulls her down and she face plants and laughs hysterically. I mean any other time this girl falls even minor it usually elicits a small cry. When Hulk pulls her down she thinks it is hillarious. I mean he could do no wrong at this point. The funny part is that the feeling is not mutual. Poor Hulk is being a little bit tortured and he doesnt love it, he likes playing sometimes but other times the poor dogg gets tortured. She has also added a word if you can call it that to her list. Whenever we say wheres hulk, or hulk she yells HUUUUhh, HUUUUhhh. She knows exactly who we are talking about and searches the room for him. She is also not into baby food anymore. She wants whatever we are eating and that is it. She also prefers to feed herself a majority of the time. She recently has enjoyed maccaroni and cheese, guacamole, hummus, strawberries, watermelon, bluberries, bread with jam, corn on the cob. I would say most of all she still is a boob lady. She loves the momma's milk and she drinks more milk than a baby her age, but she enjoys it more than food on many occasions.  Im beggining to think weaning her may be harder than I though. At least I have a couple more months before that begins. We have been working on her taking a cup with her milk in it, but she doesnt quite want it yet, so each week we will try again. She takes water out of her straw cup all day long, but not milk she prefers it out of her bottle. She loves feeding herself and it really keeps her occupied to sit in her chair while we are eating or we are out to dinner. This has helped us be able to eat our own dinner all together. She loves giving kisses, she likes playing peek-a-boo, racing around the house crawling, she loves anything that makes noise or music. She loves looking at books and cimbing and crawling over and under just about anything. She is back to waking up overnight and not sleeping as well since her little virus last week, but we are working on getting that on track again, because this momma is pretty tired. I could literally watch her for hours, she keeps me and im pretty sure everyone around us very entertained!

Our memorial day weekend was filled with family and friends and again I feel so lucky to have all these wonderful people i our lives and to be able to make lots of new memories everyday. Franki went to her very first Cubs game. We had amazing seats. We didnt see a very good game (for the cubs anyway, Pittsburg had a great game hitting 4 homeruns!) So at least we got to see a lot of hits. Either way it was a blast. Franki enjoyed a ballpark pretzel and loved looking around at all the people and the noise that a ballpark offers. We spent both sunday and monday at BBQ's. Sunday rained out so we spent the day inside my mom's house, eating good food and being entertained watching Franki walk her dinosaur all around the house. It a nice time to celebrate mine and my aunt kathy's birthday! Our birthdays are one day apart so we sang and had cake. Oh yeah and I get the best present ever from my aunt and uncle. Wait for it... a garage door opener!!! Really I am so excited, I wont have to manually open the garage forever like I thought I would! Thanks so much to my Aunt and Uncle for your generous birthday gift, we will take extra good care of it! On monday it was beautiful and we spent the afternoon at our friends Catie and Kevin's house. They have a wonderful backyard and were great hosts! They cooked lunch out and we lounged on the pation and in the kiddie pool (no not emma and franki :), kevin and tyler enjoyed sitting with the lawn chairs in the pool).  Im really lucky to have such great friends back in my life. We love Catie and Kevin and there daughter Emma is as sweet as can be (even when Franki pulls her hair). Oh girls will be girls it starts early I guess :). They were also so nice and helped me celebrate my birthday with a wonderful cake and candles and a flower pot for out frotn porch. Our house is really turning into a home with all these awesome gifts. Great Memorial day weekend. Looking forward to more Sunny days ahead!

Lots of "Firsts"

It has been the month of First's for us. Some good others not so good.

Francesca is standing all on her own and even taking a step (one single step-first step taken on May 19th), However with her walker she is crusing all around the house. She got her first pair of shoes (real shoes, ones that arent just cute but durable and made for little standing, walking and crawling feet). She has eaten her first grilled cheese sandwich (YUM-O). She is imitating just about everything, wierd faces, sounds, everything (she even attempted to growl back at Hulk when he was growling at her today). She is experiencing her very first Chicago Spring days, full of walks, playing in the yard and loving it just like we do.

The not so good firsts this month. Her very first trip to the doctor that was not for a well check up. Her first trip diagnosed her with a double ear infection (Yuck). However she was really her normal self with thte exception of being put down, she jsut didnt want to lay down and I didnt blame her I hate to lay down when my ears hurt. So a nasty runny nose, sore ears and ten days of antibitoics later she develops a fever of 103-105 (the highest) and that is with motrin and tylenol around the clock. Her fever developed not even 24 hours after her last dose of antibiotics. She has a urinary tract infection and man did it put her on the back burner. She was so tired and just looked sickly. So she got lots of lovin. I spent lots of time holding her consoling her and sleepign with her attached to my hip or chest. (currently she is sleeping in her crib:)) Not like i dont love a good cuddle, but the last two days I havent even been able to go to the bathroom and put her down without her crying. So slowly but surely she is getting back to herself (oh were on another 10 day course of a different abtibiotic). I am sure she got the UTI from the first run of antibiotics which caused massive diarrhea (lets hope this antibiotic is different). She is still eating and drinking well and that is all we can ask for. Let's hope we got her firsts and seconds out of the way and she will continue her normal helahty self for awhile after this. We have a big week and weekend ahead. Let's just say I hate when this babe is sick. It makes me super sad and I hate that sometimes there is nothing you can do but walk in circles holding them to make them feel better. It makes me think back to the many times i wasnt a parent and jsut a nurse and how differently I view things now that I am a momma. I love this girl and I cant wait for her to start feeling much better. I have a feeling we will have many more firsts coming our way in the next month or so!

Happy heart

I have a full happy heart. I sit here listening to the monitor of my sleeping baby after a great night with good friends. And after a long week and lots of thoughts on all kinds of things, I sit here with nothing but wonderful happy thoughts and a happy smile and a happy heart. I feel blessed to have such good people in my/our life. My family, old friends, new friends, ah life is great.

Ty's Birthday

Tyler and I are the same age for exactly four weeks every year! He is now the big 27! (which means ill be the big 28 in just a few weeks, but this isnt about me :)). We had a great celebration. I woke up a little early and surprised him with waffles for breakfast, which Francesca also devoured! My family came over for dinner and we had some delicious Augustino's Deli. One of Tyler's favorite places. Then I made him a golf cake! It was my first hand cake decoration. I LOVE to bake but I usually just go with the straightforward store bought icing and mke the box cake. This time I did the store bought cake and icing but there was a bit more detailing that had to go into the golf cake (it looked just like one golf hole). Tyler being that he is quite easy to please ( I love that about him!) thought that his cake was the BOMB! It helped that it was chocolate and tasted delicious. So we shared a nice dinner and sang Happy Birthday. He got lots of Birthday goodies. I got him a gold swing evaluation, since he is really into golf this summer and is always looking for ways to improve his game and impress me! He also got a new pair of sandles. He was most excited about my parents gift to him which was TWIN's tickets for July when they play the south siders of chicago a.k.a White Sox.

The best part of his birthday celebration was that it lasted two whole days! Yep, since I am off on Thursdays Ty played hooky from work and we took Franesca for her first trip to the Shedd aquarium! She absolutely loved looking at all the fish. Which in turn made us love the experience that much more. It was the first time in awhile we have gone on a family trip to the city since we moved. She could have sat and stared at the first fish tank we put her in front of all day if we let her. She would put her mouth directly up the glass and ooooooh and ahhhhh at all the fish. It was so cute. She would try to grab the fish directly through the glass. We spent almost 3 hours looking at all the different fish, lizards, turtles, dolphins, frogs, jelly fish, penguins and so much more. I have a feeling this will be a fequent visiting place for us, especially as Franki gets older. Ty;s birthday ended up being a wonderful family filled day and It was just as awesome and special for me as it was for him! Im happy he was able to have such a nice 27th Birthday! Happy Birthday Hunny! How does i feel to finally be the same age as me?!!

Last but not least. Happy Mother's day to all the Mommies out there.  A special Mother's day shout out to my amazing mother, my best friend! I am lucky to have been taught so much from my mother and to have learned so much about life from and with her. I cant wait to instill what I have learned from my mother into Francesca. We had a wonderful sunny warm day at My Aunt Kathy's ( who I also give a big thanks to for being and inspirational mother and aunt to us!), My cousin cooke up some amazing ribs and we enjoyed the entre afternoon outside playing bags and just enjoying each other's company. I enjoyed spending my first mother's day playing with Franki and watching her enjoy crawling all over the grass and practicing her newest sound DADADADA, DODODODODO. This girl just loved the outside, she really doesnt mind being plopped right in the grass with some toys and she is about as happy as a baby gets. I love that about her. She is a lot like her parents, nice weather and good company is really all you need to be happy. Happy Mother's day to ALL!

9 month stats and 1st vacation!

Franki is nine months old! 3/4 of a year old, cant even believe it. Its hard to believe i know but I love this girl more and more every month. It doesnt seem possible to love her more because I love her soooo much but every month she surprises me with her awesome personality and loving ways and it leads to more love and admiration in my heart. She had a nine month appointment today with her new pediatrician. We loved the new doctor and the office. She now weighs in at a whopping 16 llbs 4 oz (10th percentile), 27 1/4 inches- (35th percentile). She is doing everything and more that a nine month old baby should be doing.
She is puling herself up onto everything. She can stand by herself for about 30 seconds. She can even lift herself up onto the wall and back door, really anything. She is laughing all the time and at just about everything. She is turning into a total ham, when we are out and about she sheepishly smiles at people and hides her head into my shoulder. She loves to play with everything toys and or just magazines and books. She will flip through books and magazines and just babble. She is so sweet. She loves giving slobbery wet kisses. She loves to rub your arm when you hold her. She does this sweet hand on her forehead when she is getting tired. She is doing a lot of oooo's and huuuu's. No other specific sounds yet. She started waving hi and bye today! It is too funny, she open and closes her hand down by her side, but she definitely knows what she is doing. She is really wanting to feed herself everything these days. She loves bread and loves gerber snacks. She passed her first day at daycare and loved all the little ones. She didnt even notice I was leaving because she was completely entralled with the other kids and the toys. She is a smart little thing.

She officialy had her first vacation. We had a girls long weekend in Florida. It was filled with lots of laughter, love and fun in the sun. The first day we got there and went directly to the beach. Franki was tired from traveling and after deciding to eat the sand, she was not the happiest little traveler. She slept while we walked the beach and enjoyed some sun. We then enjoyed a  delicious drink and dinner right on the ocean. The following day we hung out at the pool. As I have said before this baby loves the water, she didnt dissapoint. She absolutely enjoyed every moment in the water. The entire days was filled with kicking her legs, delightful squeels and lots of water bliss! I think it was safe to say that everyone who saw her in the water was filled with a happy heart. The third day we ventured back to the beach and let miss Franki take on the sand on her own terms. What do you know she loved it! She learned her lesson about not eating the sand and instead just played with it. She also loved the ocean. She was like a little puppy in water, before you would put her in the water her legs would instinctively kick waiting to hit the water! It was overall just a really nice vacation and nice to have time with the girls (my mom, aunt, elle, geema and steph). It will be a vacation that we will never forget! Franki loved being with the girls and as usual fits right in to her surroundings. She is lucky to have all these girls love her so much. Here our some great pictures from out first trip together!  (dont worry Tyler had a fun time in his bachelor bad with Hulk, Austin and my Dad. His weekend was filled with long walks ;), golfing, steaks, and just time for himself.)