Shoulda been a cowgirl (Anna comes West)

We were so happy to have little Anna, my niece, and her Mom come West to visit us out here in California the past week. Dominic had such a good time with his cousin who, besides being lots of fun, was also really helpful too. She bathed him and fed him and changed him and even helped keep him calm when he was fussy. Here are some pictures of their time together...(and Dominic doing his best Gene Simmons impression)

Here are some pictures from the children's museum in San Jose. It was such a fun day to go as they had their own mini Chinese New Year parade, celebrating the year of the rat. Here are Derek & Dominic checking out the parade and Anna in her best Chinese garb....

We also took Stef and Anna to see the Pacific ocean which Anna had never seen before. Anna and I ended getting all wet by a splashing wave which was a cross between a disaster and super fun.

Here is Dominic, all snuggled up with his Mom (who is all red in the face from just having exercised, btw). None of us can believe that he is almost 10 months old. He has *finally* started to crawl and get around and he knows a handful of words, including hi, bye, up, duck and his latest one, book. Speaking of books, he's really started to enjoy them and pay attention to them (previously, they were simply used to bite on) and it's fun reading to him and having him turn the pages. He continues to be a pretty mellow kid....

Christmas 2007

Dominic had a fantastic first Christmas. He really did love the tree and all the lights and decorations and he seemed to just sense the excitement.

As you can see from the picture below, my Mom (aka Grandma Gayle) came to visit and we all had such a good time playing together. He took about a full 5 minutes to warm up to her and the 2 have been bosom buddies ever since.

Mom was also here to witness his first word. Now, if you wave and say "HI" to him, he will wave back and repeat something like "HI." He doesn't really know what it means, of course, but he'll pretty much do it every time.

Probably like all kids Dominic's age, he cared way more about the wrapping, bows, and boxes that he did about the gifts themselves. As I said above, though, he seemed to know that we wanted him to be excited so he tried to throw us a bone by making his most excited faces.

Here is a picture of Dominic with his Uncle Chris and Aunt Heather on Christmas Day. They always heap lots of love and presents on him and this holiday was no exception. We love that they live close to us so he can see them and know them.

Here is Dominic with his Tutu...

Naturally, after it was all over, he slept the sleep of a happy and content child.

Now Dasher, now Dancer, now Dominic....

Frankly, I find it a little ridiculous of us that we think that putting reindeer antlers on our kid is *SO* funny. But, for whatever reason, we do. I guess we don't get out much. Anyway, Dominic's friends at daycare made him his very own set of antlers and Derek and I have been amusing ourselves with them ever since.

Dominic has also really gotten into balloons over the past few weeks--he just goes crazy for them...He's constantly trying to bite at them though, and we're trying to avoid having one pop right in his face so we bought him this ball instead. He really loves it and laughs a lot when he plays with it.

Here are some other pictures from the past several weeks--one of us hiking with Derek, one of Dominic playing with his Dad and harassing his grandfather and one of him fast asleep in his bike trailer. Derek and I really do have ridiculous amounts of fun playing with him and being his parents.

Half-Birthdays, Halloween, and How I love Food

This post is brought to you by the letter H and the number 6.Dominic just turned 6 months old! I know it's silly but somehow, I get this little secret thrill that he shares his half-birthday with Derek's "real" birthday. Anyway, I just took him in for his 6-month shots and the Dr. said that he remains a very tall, skinny baby. He is just starting to sit up for short periods of time and has also started pushing his little behind in the air in preparation for crawling.


We also had a lot of fun with Dominic on Halloween. All the kids at daycare dressed up. If I was even half the Mom I want to be, he would have been an energy saving lightbulb for his costume...But laziness (and busy-ness!) as well as Derek's love of black turned the kid into a little skeleton. Clearly, he had no idea what was going on but he did seem to know that festivities were in the air. I cannot wait until next year when we can take him trick-or-treating and then steal his candy after he goes to bed.


Chris & Heather came round last weekend and spoiled us for our birthdays. We had fun hanging out, eating yummy ice cream cake, and playing together. Heather snagged a helium balloon for Dominic from the restaurant and I wish I had gotten pictures because he thought this was like the most hilarious thing he had ever seen. We're all looking forward to being together for Thanksgiving.














We also had the pleasure of getting a visit from Sylvia and Ralph from Hawaii. Dominic just loved Sylvia who, with lots of grandkids of her own, knew just how to make him laugh.

Finally, finally(!), Dominic has started to eat some solid foods. He does a really good job eating, actually, and seems to LOVE the food. He gets all excited when he sees you getting the jar out and acts more or less starved until you start shoveling the food in. I have the normal pictures of him with messy face and all that--some of which I will post next time. But I had to first post this pictures of my 2 smiling boys, because it is a much better one.

Family, Toys, Fun...ah, the good life

It was my Birthday yesterday and when I got home from work, I saw that Dominic had snuck home and baked me a cake to celebrate. It was actually pretty funny because we took a lot of pictures and had a hard time getting him to look at the camera--he was mesmerized with the confection he'd whipped up, apparently.

Dominic (and Derek) have also been busy playing with some of Dominic's previously un-used toys. Now that he's almost 6 months, we felt it was time to break out the bike trailer and some other "toys" and give em a try. Derek acted pretty cool when we took Dominic out on the Foster City bike trail but for those of you who know how much Derek loves both his son and bikes, it was a pretty momentous occasion.

We also put Dominic in his backpack and took it on it's true maiden voyage to the Half Moon Bay pumpkin festical where we met up with Tutu and Grandpa. Dominic always thinks it's really funny to be be up so high and he always looks sort of pleased with himself or something.

We also took Dominic to Michigan at the beginning of the month to visit with Stef, Pete, and the kids and Arie, Jaime, and Jackson also came up for a visit. It's always hectic and crazy to have so many people together at one time but man, it was a lot of fun. Dominic loved all of his cousins--it really is funny how they are just so in tune to other little kids. Anna had a special knack of making him laugh and giggle out loud.
Here are Arie and Craig playing a game of Go Fish. I can't vouch for how good Craig is at this game but he sure is good at t-ball. None of my pictures of the game came out very good but here is one of him and Derek playing baseball in the back yard.

Pete and Dominic taking in Craig's game.

Dominic and Anna snuggling up

All the cousins sitting with Uncle Pete...

5 months--5 years

While Dominic is turning 5 months old, Derek and I had a 5 *year* wedding anniversary this week. Here is a picture of Dominic who was captivated by the flowers his Dad got for me. Derek and I went to dinner and left Dominic with his Tutu and Grandpa--it was the first time we had actually left him and gone anywhere together. It was nice to have "adult" conversation and not to have to rush over dinner.

Speaking of his Tutu, I was alarmed a few weeks ago when I realized that we barely had any pictures of Dominic with her. She spends tons of time with him because she watches him 2 days a week but for some reason, no pictures. So I begged her to sit for a quick snaphot before heading home one day last week. You should see the kid when she walks through the door in the morning--he starts squealing and laughing...It sure does make it a little easier to leave him and head to work.

We are headed to Michigan next week and it will be so good to see our family and friends. It will be Dominic's first time on an airplane so Derek and I admittedly a tad nervous about the whole thing but we'll just cross our fingers and hope for the best. We'll definitely have lots of fun family pictures to post when we get back.

Dominic Gets Teeth (and other stuff)

Dominic has gotten his first tooth! Well, sort of. He has the teeniest edge of a tooth poking through his bottom gum. I think I saw another one along side of it but it's actually harder to get his mouth open and his tongue out of the way (so I can see) than I would have thought. Anyway, I'm glad to actually have some progress on that front as I was beginning to think the kid was just a drooling, sopping mess 24 hours a day for no reason.

Dominic also started using his high chair for the first time this week. He's still on the "all liquid all the time" plan but it's just nice to have him up at the table with us when we eat. He actually seems to enjoy being up that high. Here are a few pictures of him in his highchair. In the first one, he appears to really want some food. In the 2nd, he's playing with his new favorite toy--a stuffed elephant that our friend Jodi sent him.

Dominic also "talks" --nonstop. I am not kidding either. Except for a few moments right after he gets up, the kid is more or less constantly exercising his vocal chords. In fact, I am pretty sure that his open mouth in the 2 pictures above are really just because he's "talking." I did mention to get one picture where he seems to be more interested in snuggling his Dad than talking.

Toys

Now that Dominic is 4 months old (!!), he is really starting to enjoy some of his toys. Below, you can see pictures of him playing with one of his stuffed animals as well as his new toy piano.

After all of the playing, there is usually a lot of sleeping. Generally, those pictures are not as fun but here are a few good ones from the past week.

This is a photo is of Dominic pretending to do tummy time but actually watching TV (which we only let him do for about 5 seconds a day). The kid is completely mesmerized by it and will devise all sorts of strategies to sneak a peek at the idiot box.