Holy Pink Princesses!

Let me be the first to introduce you to Baby Girl “Beans” Dixon!  Unfortunately, I don’t have a scanner here in the apartment, so I had to take a picture of the ultrasound photo in order to post it.  You can still tell that she is beautiful and looks perfectly content cuddled up in my belly.  We are so excited to add a girl to the family!  I am ready to have an even playing field in the battle of the sexes!  Although, I guess we are still outnumbered if you count Emmitt the dog.

We are settling in nicely in Seattle.  Frank and I have enrolled in Little Gym, so we have at least one scheduled activity every week.  He has moved up in Little Gym ranks to the Beasts class.  So far, we have been Bugs, Birds, and now Beasts.  They do more independent activities in Beasts, which means Frank does a lot of running away from the group and watching the window for passing buses.  But, he does still enjoy playing the tambourine and doing his forward rolls and shooting baskets and chasing bubbles.  I did notice this past week that there are a few other pregnant moms in the class, so I need to make it my goal to speak to these people.  I might just make a friend in this town yet!

The few acquaintances we do have in Seattle have been very welcoming!  We have had dinner with one of my law school friends and her daughter, a playdate and dinner with one of Heath’s law school friends and her family, and lots of quality time with our real estate agent!  The house search has been quite daunting so far.  With so little knowledge of the neighborhoods and city geography in general, we have had a tough time even figuring out where houses are located.  My first week here, I looked at so many houses that were so wrong for us!  That experience helped us narrow our criteria, and so now we are able to sit back and wait for new listings to come up.  I don’t want to jinx anything, but we actually saw one house yesterday that we liked enough to bid on.  If our offer is accepted, I’ll update with more details later!

So, as you can tell we are keeping relatively busy.  On our slower days, Frank and I like to walk around downtown Seattle.  We have been down to the Pike Place Market several times.  I even had the nerve to buy some salmon and produce from the vendors earlier this week!  Sure beats Kroger.  We finally made it up to the top of the Space Needle last Saturday.  What a great experience that was!  Short line to buy tickets (Frank was free!), short elevator ride, and there we were!  It was absolutely nothing like the 2+ hour ordeal that is the Empire State Building, and I was pleasantly shocked to say the least.  The view was gorgeous that day — sunny and clear.  You could even see Mt. Rainier, which (as crazy as this sounds) can completely disappear in clouds or fog.  I mean, this mountain is so HUGE; but, most winter days you would never know it existed!

This is a pretty good shot of Heath and Frank with downtown and Mt. Rainier in the background.

I’ll close with an apology about my sheer laziness regarding this blog.  Some days, there’s so little going on that I have nothing to write about.  Other days, I am so busy that I haven’t got time to write.  Plus, I must say I prefer writing on my desktop with the huge monitor.  My tiny netbook isn’t quite as comfy for blogging.  Anyway, I realize those are all lame excuses, so I promise to be more consistent.  I also need to take more pictures!  All I have to leave you with is Baby Beans and her creepy Skeletor smile!!

Yikes, girl!  Put some meat on those bones!!

We’ve arrived (and survived)!

We made the big move to Seattle on Sunday.  It was a long day, but Frank was a champ on the flight.  I snapped a few pictures of the momentous occasion: I think this was just prior to take-off.  He was very excited to be on the plane!  Actually, he was just excited to be with his Daddy, whom he had not really seen for three weeks.  Note the Dallas Cowboys track suit.  Fat lot of good that did us! He was a bit apprehensive of the moving sidewalk in the Seattle airport.  BTW, if any of you Mommies out there do not have this contraption which turns the carseat into a stroller, you must purchase post-haste.  I think it is called something ridiculous like GoGo Kidz carseat caddy.  You can get it from Amazon.com, of course!

Happy Daddy and Frank with all of our luggage…not including the 14 boxes we Fed Ex’ed to ourselves and the two suitcases Heath brought up two weeks ago. Glad we came in shifts!

Anyway, our temporary housing is pretty nice.  It’s a furnished apartment in downtown Seattle.  We are pretty close to a bunch of cute restaurants, shops, and bars.  I’m sure I’ll be hanging out in all of those places a lot.  Ha.  The weather has been nice since we arrived, and it is supposed to be sunny at least through the weekend!  We ordered a new stroller that is supposed to arrive today, so Frank and I are hoping to take a walk this evening to check the place out.

The good news/bad news is that Heath is already doing so well at his job that they’ve trusted him to travel to Dublin to negotiate a big deal.  So, after being here 1.5 days, we took him back to the airport today.  He’ll be gone for 8 days…I suppose this will force me to learn my way around!  Thank goodness for the GPS (or as our good friend Sarah B. would call her, “the Lady”)!  The Lady will be leading us through the winding streets of Seattle neighborhoods in no time!

We’ll start our house search in earnest tomorrow morning with the realtor.  I’m ready to find a place of our own, but I’m also glad to have a break from unpacking the 578 individual items that I sent off in that truck last Friday.  Yikes.

I’ll keep you all posted as things progress.  Thanks for all of the well-wishes and prayers over the past couple of weeks.  We are very lucky to have friends like you.  We can’t wait to have you all out to visit us!

Out with the old…

So, I feel like I have a pretty good excuse for not blogging the whole month of December.  As most of you know, the first half of the month was devoted to getting our house on the market, and the second half of the month was devoted to holiday travel and festivities!  The great news is that the house sold within 8 or 9 days of putting it on the market.  In fact we only had to leave the house two or three times for showings!    Now, I find myself in the throes of packing/donating/trashing all of our things.  Knowing our new house will likely be smaller than our current house (and having our resident packrat already in Seattle and out of my hair), I hope I’m able to throw a bunch of stuff OUT!  My mom will be coming to Dallas tomorrow to help out with the packing and childcare during what promises to be a pretty hectic week.  But enough dwelling on the dread to come…instead, we could look at pictures from our very busy and very fun December!

Frank has really become interested in “reading” lately.  He can climb up into the rocking chair in his room by himself and fetch his books.  Well, most of the time, they all end up on the floor, but he tries.  He especially likes the book of photos of his family.  He has gotten really good at identifying his grandparents and cousins.  His current favorite person in the world (besides Dadda) is my niece Lenzy (“Eensy”).  He can find every picture of her in the house.  His current favorite book is “Goodnight Gorilla.”  He likes it when we get to the page where the zookeeper’s wife discovers all the animals are in their bedroom.  The page is all black except for her big, white surprised eyes.  When we get to that page, Frank gasps his breath, makes his best look of surprise and exclaims, “OH NO!”  Every time.  It’s hysterical.

We stretched the holidays out for several weeks this year, wanting to make sure we spent as much time as possible with both sides of the family.  We spent a few days hanging out in Plano with the Dixons and Furreys, and we took our annual trip to the Galleria to people-watch and eat Mexican food.  This year, we had to go the Saturday before Christmas instead of Christmas Eve, and it was quite a bit more crowded.  Call me Scrooge, but I’d rather be anywhere but a mall on the Saturday before Christmas.

Next, our travels took us to Little Rock to visit the Vaughts/Kueblers/Smiths, etc.  We stayed almost a week, which is more time than we’ve been there for the holidays in a long time.  It rained the whole week.  No, I take that back…it POURED.  Like, the animals were pairing up.  But that did not stop us from riding the downtown trolley car to see Christmas lights or hanging out with Santa or having several family get-togethers!

Frank, of course, got a TON of Christmas loot.  Santa (“Ho Ho”) was very good to him.  Despite that, he still really loves to play with all of my “vintage” 1970′s toys when he visits my parents.  Here he is walking a pathetic little wooden doggie, which I’m sure is covered in lead paint and asbestos.

Frank was not the only one who had fun over the holidays.  Our very best friends here in Dallas (Jenny, Tiffany, Kallie, and Craig) took us to the Lakewood Country Club wine room (fancy!) for a going away dinner!  Mind you, I’m terrible at goodbyes, so I’ve already set up a lunch with the girls for next week, and then I’ll probably stop by their houses next weekend…I just don’t ever want to say the official “farewell.”

Okay, it’s selfish but the best part of the month of December was our trip to Turks & Caicos.  Just Heath and me.  No Frank.  No dog.  No parents.  No offense.  It was our first time away for that long, and we sure did miss Frank.  But he had a great time with both sets of grandparents and cousins, and according to all reports, didn’t even notice we were gone.  We had a wonderful time doing what we do best: lounging and eating.  Although we did go snorkeling one day, which was quite an adventure…

The cool part was Heath finding a second career as a conch hunter!  He seriously found six or seven of them (to everyone else’s one or zero).

The not-as-cool part was running into these baracuda.  Sorry for the quality of the picture; it was taken with one of those underwater disposable numbers.  Suffice it to say, these guys were scary and a little too close to me.  I spent the rest of the trip on the boat.

Other than our one day of adventure, however, we stayed close to the beach, pool, and eating establishments.  Here is a picture of us all gussied up for New Year’s Eve:

We even had a great view of a beach fireworks show from our private balcony!

Happy New Year, Everyone!  I hope your year is not as crazy as ours is likely to be. 

Because, did I mention, in addition to the moving across the country, we are also having another baby??  Yup!

Headed West

Sometimes life throws you a curveball and you actually swing at it. 

In case you haven’t heard, we are moving to Seattle!  This is truly one of the most exciting and, at the same time, nerve-racking events of my life…On one hand, it is one of the most beautiful places I’ve ever seen — all the water and the mountains and the gorgeous old homes and the rows and rows of houseboats.  On the other hand, it’s SOOOOO far from home.  I mean, it’s in the Pacific Time Zone for crying out loud.  If you want to get to Europe from there, you “fly over the pole.”  The NORTH pole.  Like where Santa lives.  But, on the flip side, it’s only a five hour flight to Hawaii, so that’s a plus…

I guess I should back up and give you some insight as to how we got here.  Sometime way back in August, Heath got a phone call from a recruiter.  As a lawyer, this is really nothing new.  I used to get calls two or three times a week trying to entice me to jump ship and join another (virtually identical) law firm in downtown Dallas.  I always gave them the same response: “Why would I want to go down the street and do the same boring  job for the same ungrateful clients for the same pay at some random place where I don’t even know anyone?  At least here I have friends.”  Heath, conversely, always chats these people up.  When he was at the firm, he would feign interest and gather all kinds of good information (who was hiring, why they were hiring, how much they were paying, why they thought he’d be willing to leave the firm, etc.) and then he would take all that info to our recruiting department and gossip about it.  Clever, I must admit.  Anyway, now that he works “in house,” the calls don’t come as frequently and they are usually not your top offers (“How would YOU like to be general counsel of The Michael Scott Paper Company?”)  What I’m trying to say is that this particular call in August caught his attention. 

The recruiter was from Seattle and she was calling on behalf of Amazon.  Dot Com.  And they wanted Heath.  Not that that should surprise anyone that knows Heath.  He’s kind of a big deal.  At first the offer was very flattering, and we joked about how we would just dump our entire lives here and move to Seattle and drink coffee and wear flannel and discover bands.  Haha, funny, right?  But, as I mentioned before, Heath has a hard time telling these recruiters to buzz off, so she kept calling.  Eventually, we decided it wouldn’t hurt for him to interview with them, brush the dust off his resume, and maybe get a free trip out west.  Of course, the first thing they did was give him a writing assignment.  Oh, wait, this is not as fun as a free trip, I thought.  He worked on it really hard, though, as he does everything.  He even let me “proofread” it, and of course I went nuts and tried to re-write the whole thing.  I was surprised at how much I missed that stuff!  Short-story-long, he (we!) knocked it out of the park, and he moved on to the next phase.

From there, everything started happening really fast — he flew out there and met a bunch of people, they called his references, he was getting phone calls from all kinds of muckety-mucks at Amazon at weird hours (ok, Pacific Time Zone hours).  Pretty soon, I knew we had moved on from the “haha, funny, right?” stage to the “oh wow, you’re serious?” stage.  Before we knew it, he had a real offer and people were calling us about setting up a house-hunting trip!  At that point, I freaked out just a little bit.  I mean, I had never even set foot in the state of Washington!  So, Heath convinced them to call the trip a “decision-making trip” instead of a “house-hunting trip” and that calmed me down some.  Although all we really did on the trip was look at houses!

We took the trip a couple weekends ago and made the decision shortly after our return to Dallas.  We are both giddy with excitement and scared to death at the same time.  We’re trying not to be super sad about leaving our friends and family behind, but that is definitely the hardest part.  We are extremely lucky to have such supportive families and loved ones, who have kept the guilt-trips to a minimum and the promises to visit to a maximum!  Heath will be starting the job on January 4th, and Frank and I will join him as soon as the house is sold (hopefully around the same time!).  We just love the looks of Seattle and can’t wait to discover all the hidden charms. 

We were saying the other day that Seattle reminds us of a cross between Little Rock and Chicago and Lawrence and Estes Park and Blue Mountain Beach…in other words, the places our hearts go to when we are happy!

I’m Updating the Blog, Molly!

Ok, things have been super crazy around here lately, what with Halloween and traveling and WALKING!  So, I’m going to try to do a quick recap to get you all up to speed.  Oh, and about the title of the post — saw one of my dearest friends from law school this weekend, and she let it slip that she blog-stalks me (no judgment), but that she is mad when I don’t post new updates very often.  I totally get that.  I read a ton of blogs, and I’m always like, “Dang, lazy-a**es, why don’t you ever update?” (even though I don’t do it myself).  So, short-story-long, this one’s for you, Mols.

We’ll start with last weekend.  On Saturday, the Lake Highlands Area Early Childhood PTA (say that 5 times fast) held a Halloween Carnival at one of the local elementary schools.  Because we knew we were going to be out of town on Halloween, we thought this would be a great opportunity to dress Frank in his costume.  We had a great time.  He loved playing all of the carnival games, especially the bean bag toss, and getting a balloon animal.  Here are a few pics:

As if that weren’t enough excitement for one weekend, we also took him to his first Cowboys’ game at the new stadium last Sunday.  It was a 3:15 game, so we figured it would be one of the few games this season that was to take place during his waking hours.  He had a blast at the game — playing with cousins Audrey and Tanner, clapping everytime the crowd went wild, flirting with Aunties Tiffany, Kallie, and Joy!  Here are some snapshots:

I should probably mention that all of these pictures were taken before Frank ate some of my nachos, puked all over himself and Heath, and we ended up leaving at halftime.  Oh well, it was fun while it lasted!

So, let’s move on to the following week.  As you know if you’ve been reading, Frank has been toying with the idea of walking for over two months now.  He has completely mastered the “holding onto two fingers” walk and more recently the “I will take a couple of steps if I don’t know you’re looking” walk.  People kept telling me he would walk when he was ready, and sure enough, he was ready on Friday!  Heath had been traveling for work most of the week, but he was home Friday morning to get ready for our weekend away.  Plus, we had just picked Johnelle and Corey (Frank’s activity directors for the weekend) up from the airport.  Now I know he just wanted a larger audience!!

We were so thrilled that we were all there for his first REAL steps!!  Way to go, Frank!

Big thanks to Johnelle and Corey for taking care of our boy for the weekend.  We were able to go to Lawrence, KS for my friend Carrie’s wedding.  I loved being able to show Heath around Lawrence and take him to some of my favorite law school haunts!  The weather was gorgeous, and we were glad to be somewhere with fall colors for a change!  We bought Frank a KU polo and a National Champs basketball.  It was only the second time I’d been back to Lawrence since graduation in 2002, and the first time was almost three years ago.  I loved seeing my girls again (Shannon, who is pregnant with her second child!; Molly, whose fabulous boyfriend we FINALLY met; and the blushing bride, Carrie, looking gorgeous as always and happier than I’ve ever seen her).  Though we don’t see each other as often as we’d like, I sure do love those girls and owe them big time for getting me through law school!!

Well, that’s the gist of what’s been going on in Dixonland.  Right now, though, I’ve had a napping baby for the past hour…and still haven’t showered today…so I gotta run!

Gammie’s Visit!

The storm that is Miss Shelia blew through Dallas for a few days this week.  I don’t know who had more fun — Frank, with a new cruise director; Me, with an extra pair of hands; or Gammie, with TWO babies to spoil (yes, I still count as her baby)!  Even though she was just here a couple of days, we packed in a lot of activity.

She took us shopping (of course) and bought Frank a lot of winter clothes, including a coat and mittens, new jeans, pj’s, several sweaters, and some new shoes (“shoes” still being his favorite word).  She bought me a new dress to wear to Carrie and Steve’s wedding, since all the dresses I’ve bought in the past two years are now too small…in the top area…let’s just say that I fell victim to the belief that I had grown permanent boobs during the whole pregnancy/breastfeeding thing and bought a whole new wardrobe to celebrate.  But, alas, as quickly as they’d arrived…

I digress.  So, we shopped a lot.  I even convinced her to let me buy her something (since it is her BIRTHDAY on Friday, after all).  She picked out a pair of black leggings.  Seriously.  So, I bought her the black ones and a bonus brown pair and called it even.  Happy Birthday, Gammie!  I’m sure most of you understand how hard it is to buy a birthday present for someone who (a) already has everything, and (b) would rather buy stuff for you, such that you can never “catch up.”

The weather was perfect during her visit, so Frank wanted to play outside a lot.  He taught Gammie how to shovel sand at the sand table, and he showed her how he can climb up and slide down the slide all by himself!  Mostly, he just wanted to walk around the perimeter of the yard hundreds of times holding onto Gammie’s pointer fingers.  He can take up to three steps on his own, but he much prefers to grab two fingers and take off.  He can even run…as long as he’s holding on! 

The best part of Gammie’s visit was our trip to the Arboretum to see the pumpkins!  Frank loved it.  He pointed to every pumpkin individually and said “ball!”  Eh, close enough.  Here are some pics:

 

We even took a major risk by changing him into his Halloween costume mid-photo-shoot.  The risk paid off, because we got some great shots!

I hope you all like the costume!  I think it turned out great.  I actually used a needle and thread on some parts of it!  The glue gun and the metallic spray paint were more fun, though!  Oh, and if you’re not familiar with the book, Frank is dressed up as Max from “Where the Wild Things Are.”  This book changed my life.  It has always been my favorite, and one that I cannot wait to share with Frank.  Coincidentally, they just made the book into a movie.  Heath and I went to see it on Monday night (thanks to Gammie, who babysat), and we loved it!  I cried.  Like, sobbed.  I think it was the perfect storm of emotions — my favorite childhood book, my son’s homemade Halloween costume, and the heart-wrenching mother/son relationship in the movie.  Or maybe it was just that we saw it at Studio Movie Grill, so I drank two glasses of wine while watching it.  Tends to make me a bit weepy, the wine.

Anyhoo, THANK YOU GAMMIE!!  We had a great visit.  HAPPY BIRTHDAY!  We LOVE you!

A Little Sunday Fun…

Just thought you guys would like to see how much Frank has grown since last fall:

Such cuties, both of them!  Today we cheered the Cowboys to victory, although they continue to play like [insert four letter word].  We are hoping they have a “come to Jesus” during the Bye week and that they WIN BIG when we take Frank to his first game in the new Stadium on the 25th!!

After the game today, Daddy made us watch all the wrap-up coverage of the other games on the Red Zone Channel.  Frank is slightly more interested in this than I am, but both of us would rather play instead!

Or grocery shop…

Hope you all have a great week!  My goal for the week is to make Frank’s Halloween costume.  Yep, you heard me — MAKE!  No, I don’t own a sewing machine…or even a needle and thread, and No, I haven’t sewn anything since the apron and pin cushion I made in Mrs. Douglas’ home ec class in 1989.  But I have a hot glue gun and a vision, so watch out!!  Will post pictures if it works out.  Will never mention again if it fails.

Fourteen Months Old!

Teething is no fun, but plastic popsicles are tasty!

Oh, how time flies!  Our little Frank is fourteen months old now.  And full of personality.  Unfortunately, September has been the month of continuous illness in our house.  It seems like he picks up a cold every week at school, Little Gym, the grocery cart, or God knows where.  He is probably the only 14-month-old in the world who blows and wipes his own nose with a Kleenex.  I’m hoping this means he is building up a superior immune system that will protect him for the rest of his childhood.  That’s realistic, right? 

Frank is continuing to grow taller, but he hasn’t really gained any weight since his 12-month check up.  Maybe he will be a stringbean like his mommy used to be.  Eh, there are worse things.  He is “talking” up a storm these days.  Currently his favorite word is “shoes.”  A man after my own heart!!

I have been grossly negligent in taking pictures lately, so I snapped a few yesterday so you can confirm that he is still indeed cute.  These are some of his newly-acquired facial expressions.  This kid will never need drama camp!

 

Changes…

Hello, friends!  Sorry I haven’t blogged in a while.  Things have been a little crazy since Frank started “school” a couple of weeks ago.  He is going to Mother’s Day Out once a week at our church.  He has only been twice, and I think he likes it!  He’s having a little trouble napping at school, but we are hoping he gets used to it over time.  Here are some pictures from his first day:

 

As I mentioned in the last post, his new school schedule has prompted us to drop his morning nap.  We are still having growing pains adjusting to being awake so much during the day!  I was just telling my mom today that I was really spoiled that Frank has been such a champion sleeper ever since we did “sleep training” at 4 months.  Unfortunately, this means I am not used to him refusing to nap or go to bed at night.  Rather than dwell on the setbacks, I am trying to focus on the great 9 months we had.  I keep repeating “This too shall pass…”!

Other than school and sleep problems, we have been having tons of fun so far this month!  We went to Little Rock to visit my family for Labor Day weekend.  Heath and I tailgated and attended the Razorback game, which was so much fun!  Thanks to my brother-in-law, Len, for cooking up some yummy burgers and supplying the cold beers at the tailgate.  And, thanks to Gammie and Lenzy for staying home to babysit Frank.  Much appreciated!  Before we left town, I snapped some good shots of Frank with Gammie and Papa:

They kind of look alike, huh? 

Frank is becoming more and more like a “real person” everyday!  He is ALMOST walking…he can walk holding onto one finger, but he is still a little apprehensive to let go.  He has lots of new words: nose, more, no (not too happy about that one!).  His favorite words are still bye-bye and baby.  He just says these over and over again to make sentences.  Pretty cute. 

For those of you we don’t see too often, we miss you and hope to see you soon!

Broadening Our Horizons

The past couple of weeks, we have been trying to phase out Frank’s morning nap.  Because he is starting “school” next week (Mother’s Day Out, once a week) and because they only get one nap at school, we decided to get him used to the new schedule in advance.  Unfortunately, he is not taking to it as well as I thought he would!  The kid just likes to sleep, and believe you me, I’m not complaining!!  Anyway, I have found that he doesn’t get as sleepy or fussy in the mornings if we have an activity (novel idea, I know). 

For me, this is easier said than done.  It is hard for me to admit what a homebody I am.  People ask me all the time what kinds of things Frank and I do all day, and I’m always embarrassed to answer that we mostly stay at home and play in the playroom.  I then, of course, give the excuse, “He naps twice a day, so we really don’t have time to do much…”  LIAR!!  So, last week, I decided enough is enough!  I don’t want Frank to turn into some creepy dude with pale white skin that lives in my basement playing online video games for the rest of his life!  (Seriously, these are the delusions I have).

We are now officially taking Dallas by storm!  In the last two weeks, we have gone swimming with the playgroup, played at parks, started back up at the Little Gym, attended music class/storytime at the Library, hit the Museum of Nature and Science, and attacked the Lake Highlands Sprayground/Splashpark!  What fun we’ve had!  Maybe I need to get out of my comfort zone more often.  I can already see the color coming out in Frank’s cheeks…

Here are a few pictures to prove it: