Full-time Mommy

Since graduation a couple weeks ago, I'm officially a full-time mommy! Wow! And let me tell you- it's just as glamorous as it sounds. Haha! Ok, so it's not glamorous, but it's definitely been fun!
Sierra has been growing into quite the deluxe model baby. She sits and plays with her toys and can pull up on anything she can reach. She LOVES her walker, in which she can now fly across the tile to follow Mama around the kitchen, chase dogs, or even drive the water bowl across the dining room. I'll catch that with the video camera one of these days!

Until then, here are Giggling Baby and Zoe the Floor Buddy:





Last Friday, we sneaked through San Antonio to meet our newest "cousin" Wesley Sidle. Yay! When Wesley was born 2 weeks ago he was the same weight as Sierra (7 lbs, 1 oz) and just an inch longer. It was really incredible- I really could not remember Sierra being so tiny! It was a lot of fun to see them beside one another as evidence of how fast they really do change in just 6 months!! (Pardon my hands- Sierra was very intrigued by that hair Wesley had!)





Also keeping us busy has been our backyard renovation project. So far, we have a new fence (quite fancy, I might add), new grass (adios, dirt farm), and a bunch of new plants (native flowering plants to bring in butterflies and hummingbirds). There's still some more landscaping to do, and possibly some work to the patio. Pictures will be coming soon!

Catching up!

We've been busy! So this post is a whirlwind tour of our last few weeks:

Part 1: Dallas!
After a weekend camping and a weekend in Austin, we loaded up the car for the third weekend in a row! My brother Travis and his lovely fiance Ashley were having their engagement party at their swanky pad in Dallas, and this couldn't be missed! Our traveling circus (Travis, Chrissy, Sierra, and Zoe) crashed at Uncle Austin's place in McKinney and it was dog heaven! Saturday morning we took Zoe, Captain (Austin's English Mastiff) and Brady (Austin's roommate's lab mix) to the K9 Kerplunk in Plano for their annual dog-only swimming event. A total zoo, but everyone had fun and Z was completely worn out. Yay!

Then we showered up and the human portion of our circus headed into Dallas for the big party! Travis and Ashley are an adorable couple and we're SO excited for them! They had a great party too!

Part 2: Graduating Grad School
The following week, back in H-town, was equally as wild as Chrissy finished her last week of graduate school!! It was a fun time- full of maddening fights with Word trying to print the final dissertation and The Great Signature Hunt. That pesky registrar put up a good fight, but there was no way (after 7 years) that an accounting error would stand between me and that doctoral hood. Finally, it was all complete: I delivered a final copy of the dissertation and all 15 signatures to the graduate school on Friday at noon. Yay 11th hour!
5 years of research, reduced to a measly 120 pages.....

Graduation ceremonies were actually the next day and wow was that a wonderful feeling! There were 50 students receiving their PhDs in our ceremony held at the Rice University campus.

Getting hooded:

Yahoo!!!

Shaking hands with UT Regent Robert Stillwell: (Check out the hood!)

After the ceremonies, we headed back to our house for a wonderful graduation party hosted by my mom. I felt so incredibly lucky to have so much love and support from my family and friends- thank you!!! :) More pictures here, including those from T's "studio", if you're interested:



Part 3: Mother's Day
Despite our very strong desire to stay in our pjs all day, it was our day to celebrate our mothers- who undoubtedly felt the exact same way many, many days when we were kids. It's no surprise that I have a whole new appreciation for what Mommies do for us this year. THANK YOU!!! Thank you for caring for us, teaching us, supporting us, and not killing us!! Haha! :) We met Gigi, Granddoug, Uncle Travis and Aunt Ashley for brunch at Pappas Steakhouse (yum!), then headed to Katy for time with Mamaw, GrandPapa, and Uncle Austin. Somehow, we managed to buy a fridge and make it to church also. Wheww! 
Papa and Sierra found a little time to relax and read a book (Cat in the Hat) before bed time:

Part 4: The most important part!
Who am I kidding? You read this blog for the baby pictures... haha! So here you go- your patience for making it all the way through this absurdly long post is rewarded.

Look Mama- Izzy can give me a bath!!

Ooooh Zoe!!! 

Ok- you can clean my mouth, but I get to pull your face fur... (We may have the world's most baby-tolerant dog).

N

Sierra is becoming more mobile- we don't have any real crawling yet, but she excels at spinning in circles and moving in reverse. Which is how she ends up under the coffee table. I'm not sure what this means, other than it's time to baby-proof this house.

 I mean no disrespect to the other Mommies out there, but yes, we do have the world's cutest baby. (Ernie was my fav as a kiddo!)

Congrats on making it to the end!! I have a backlog of videos that I haven't been able to edit and post due to lack of space on my hard drive. As soon as I get that issue sorted out, I promise to post more of Sierra-in-action. Stay Tuned!

6 months!!

Wowzers! I'm absolutely amazed, flabbergasted, thrilled, and a little sad that we're here at 6 months already! What an incredible half-a-year it's been. Without a doubt, I have experienced the most blissfully happy and most exhausted moments in my life- Sierra could probably say the same! Haha. Our days together have been flying past. It's so hard to believe that an equally short period of time will slip past before we're chasing a 1 year old toddler around. Again, WOWZERS!

Anyways, before I get ahead of myself, here are Sierra's official stats per the pediatricians office today:

Weight: 16 lbs 5 oz (25-50%)
Length: 26 inches (50-75%)
Head circumference: 16.5 inches (<25%)

Still a little girl, right?!?!

We had barely scraped the house back together again after returning (soggy) from our camping trip, when we headed out of town again! This time to Austin to attend cousin Caroline's senior recital. She dazzled us with 30 minutes of Mozart, Bartok, and Granados on piano.

I'd like to say Sierra was entranced the whole time, but I CAN honestly say she loved the Boogie-Woogie Bugle Boy trio Caroline sang with her roommates at the end of the recital. Her brain was probably jumping- people actually singing on pitch! (Her parents fail at this.)
We brought cookies for a reception afterwards- Travis decorated a custom giant cookie for her:

While we had Sierra in Austin (and she can't argue yet), we grabbed her orange and white tutu and headed over to the tower for some pictures. Should she ever stray and decide to go to A&M, her punishment will be copies of this picture printed everywhere....

Next weekend's travels: Dallas!!!

The Pichots go camping

First, and completely unrelated to camping, Sierra has big news: a tooth! Little Mr. Bottom Tooth FINALLY broke through (could it have been any slower?!?!) and Little Ms. Bottom Tooth (she lives next door) is right behind. Hopefully this means a reprieve from the crankiness we've enjoyed the last few weeks- the next tooth doesn't come in for another year, right??? :) Little Mr. Tooth actually made his appearance in the produce section while we were shopping for our camping trip. Is there an emoticon for a mother pulling her hair out??  :$ 

Yep! The Pichot circus made another road trip, this time we headed to Lake Texana State Park, about 90 miles from Houston- actually half-way between us and Beeville! Our trusty tent-camping book (Texas-edition, we have about 4 other states also) assured us this was a great place to escape RVs and enjoy some birds, so we loaded up the Subie with baby stuff and camera gear and headed out.

Sierra even had her own little tent with her own little thermarest. It was a great place to hang out while the parents set-up or cooked or whatever around camp. Don't worry, she wasn't banished out on her own at night. Her tent got shoved inside our slightly larger tent, which is beginning to get a little crowded with 2 adults, a baby, and a dog (who also has her own bed, of course!).

And Zoe earns her bed too as our resident waste disposal system. Scrambled eggs, tofu, whatever- there will be no raccoons in our camp tonight!

It turned out to actually be a bit cooler than we expected, thanks to the strong wind coming across the lake. Sierra got to shop for a new jacket and shoes at Wal-Mart, but Mama just used little bodies to stay warm.

Father & daughter, protected from the sun:

My favorite: Daddy Diaper Change: Wilderness Edition!! I doubt Travis ever considered this skill in his many years of scouting.

My parents drove down to enjoy the campfire and some dinner. And s'mores- of course!!

This little guy taunted Travis all weekend. He was very brazen and had no problem flying into camp and landing a few feet away- unless Travis had his camera. But Travis finally caught a few pictures.

Also, a red-shouldered hawk. (Travis is enjoying his new super-lens).

Travis also had fun with lighting and flashes while Mama snuggled up with a sleeping Sierra (you can see her jammie-clad hiney) and an exhausted Zoe around the campfire.

Unfortunately, we woke up to thunderstorms about 4am on Sunday morning- which means a panicking dog in our tent. Once the sun was up, we broke camp in the rain and headed to McDonalds. Ironically, they had lost power in the storm and couldn't take orders. So much for the "civilized" life! Haha! But all-in-all, we had a great weekend and even Sierra enjoyed her first camping experience!

Baby in the Bluebonnets

Travis and I have fulfilled our duty as parents of a Texas baby (a 7th generation one, too!) and acquired the required "Baby in Bluebonnets" pictures. On Sunday we drove up to Brenham and Independence and the wildflowers were fantastic! Whole fields were solid with yellow, orange, pink, and blue- definitely a banner year. Travis took some great pictures- I had so many favorites, I couldn't narrow them down! So, here's an obnoxious number of shots:

We started with a few practice shots in our play-clothes. Look... she sits up now!!

After changing into our "pretty" clothes, she was sick of sitting up. So Mama got to join in the fun. Papa was there, really! Just behind the camera.

 
"But I don't want to sit by myself, Mama"

F

"Fine, but I'm not happy about it...."

"Hmm... these look yummy!"

W

"Wheeeee!!!"

I

"I saw a bluebonnet THIS big!!"

Easter!

Another fantastic Easter in Beeville with the Riggle family (Cherry's clan). We moved venues across the street to Claude & Cherry's new house- about 6 days after the moving van dropped them off! The kitchen was tested to the max and everything was wonderful! I'll let the pictures do the talking:
Well, first I'll let Paul do some singing (Sierra's song from our annual family sing-along)

And now pictures...
Granddady (James Riggle) looking like the quintessential cowboy

 















What's Easter without a little crawdad tormenting? 

 Movie star Uncle Travis came to visit- along with Aunt Ashley, GrandDoug, & Gigi!

Sierra helping Uncle Austin read the greeting at "Tank Church"

In case you were wondering what "Tank Church" is, it's what happens when you have a big family, gorgeous Easter morning views, lots of talented musicians, and resident preachers! (Yes, that's a trailer with haybales in the back- what kid doesn't want to go to church on a hayride?!?)

The whole crowd:

 Trying to walk off a little of that dessert... and using our new carrier! (Beco Butterfly 2)

Sierra achieved what we all wanted- sweat pants and a rocking chair on the porch. Easter bliss!

So, that little ticker with the diploma over there --> has changed- it's now counting down to graduation! I survived my defense- wahoo! PhD defense is a 1hr public seminar to cover your research, followed by a closed-door committee meeting. My "grilling" lasted about 45 minutes- not too bad. The whole fam turned out to support me, which was really nice. And I didn't hear any snoring from the back row, so I take that as a complement. Sierra even got to tag along, thanks to Jan (aka Nana J) who offered to hang out with her in the lobby during my presentation. Now I just have to make a few revisions to my thesis and I'll officially be done with graduate school! :)

Just before my seminar- looks exciting doesn't it??

Our crowd afterwards- do I look slightly more relaxed in this picture?

Yesterday, Sierra was officially 5 months old! Wow what a big girl! She's over 15 pounds now- of course with the 3am feedings she's decided to reintroduce this month, she should be chunking up nicely!! We've played around with a couple solids (bananas & avocados), but haven't really started eating them regularly. Mama's not ready to give up these easy diapers...  :-P

Papa has been setting up his "studio" at home (aka the formal living room). Here are some of my favorite shots:

 

Of course, Mama manages to catch a good shot on occasion too:

A couple of other fun shots from this month:

OK, that's it for now. Easter is coming up soon- yay!! Time for some good crawfish, gumbo, libations- and family of course!! Stay tuned! :)