Dominic is 2!!

Today is Dominic's 2nd birthday.  I'm kind of in denial that he is two.  We celebrated with a BBQ at home yesterday and some great friends: Sean, Leslie, Jen, Andy, Erin, Scott, and Stephanie.  Marcos smoked a pork loin, just like on Dominic's first birthday.  It may have been his best one yet. Here are the pics, starting with the fire truck cake I made for the boy:

It looked great for about an hour.  Notice how the front is leaning?

Here it is after the front fell forward and I did my best reconstructing it.  So sad. :(

Random pic of the bacon-wrapped jalapenos. We also had 7-layer dip, creamed corn, and Judi's Famous Coleslaw

New picnic table Andy and Erin brought for Tony and Judi. He loves it!

New slide from Ita!! Another big hit. Video to come...

Radio Flyer 500 from the parents.  Dominic really got spoiled this year!

Then it was time for cake.  Dominic has seen a lot of birthdays lately. He went to 2 classmate birthday parties in the last few weeks.  This past Wednesday, Ms. Beth told me that they had 4 birthdays in the class between the 6th and the 9th, so they've also had several classroom celebrations.  (I found this interesting because the maternity ward at St. David's was slammed when he was born). So when we talked about his birthday in the last few days, he kept mentioning cake and making blowing sounds.  It seemed like he pretty much knew the drill.

The new picnic table was the perfect place to put the cake.

He made some funny faces when we sang.

Still singing. I think he was kind of like, "Uhhh... this is awkward!"

And then when it came time to blow out the candle, he wasn't really ready.  He got up and walked away, but we brought him back and said Dada would help.

He wanted a cupcake instead of a piece of the fire truck cake, and even chose one of the small ones.  We still have not cut the cake! I think we will tonight and will try the candle again and see if he'll blow it out with just us for an audience.

Then he got three cool new cars from the Weiss'! He slept with them lined up on his ottoman, and ate breakfast this morning with them lined up on the kitchen island.

The rest of the pictures are from this morning. We were outside playing at 7:30am and went back out several times.  It's so nice that the backyard is fun now.  We really have not been spending much time out there.  And the weather was so nice - I had to put on a sweater the first time we went out!

The plastic chicken even got a turn.

Daredevil.  I think he might have a future in surfing?

He also raced some cars down the slide.

And took several turns himself, of course.

He still has some more presents to open today from San Diego and North Dakota.  It seems like so much! Hopefully all these new toys will provide some entertainment when the new baby gets here. 

Thank you everyone for making the boy's birthday weekend so special.  I will blog again soon with some videos from Saturday.

Love you, Mama

I just blogged below, but this deserves it's own post.  Today Dominic said "Love you, Mama" for the first time and it was the cutest thing I've ever heard.  Well... right up there with those soft little coos he made sometime around 6 weeks of age.  Definitely two of the best sounds in the world.

He has matured exponentially in the last month or so.  His speech has already improved a lot since the items I listed in the August 6 blog.  His comprehension also seems to be increasing dramatically.  I went to Denver last Sunday and he did very well with me gone for 4 days, though he did search the house for me after school each day.  I really think he understood when we told him I was leaving for work.  Since I've been back we've been talking about how he was sad when I left and then he was "happy!" when I came home. 

Kiddie Acres

I'm a little behind in my blogging.  Dominic's "girlfriend" Harper had her birthday party at Kiddie Acres last Saturday.  It's hard to describe this place.  It's kind of like a little amusement park with rides that must have been around since I was a kid.  They remind me of the ones by the zoo in San Diego.  He seemed to have a lot of fun, although you'll see in the pictures that he didn't smile on the rides.  If I remember correctly, he rode the jeeps three times, the airplanes twice, the boats twice, and the merry-go-round and train one time each.  They also had a ferris wheel and live ponies.  The ponies made me think of little Bonnie in Gone with the Wind, so I'm glad he showed no interest in them.

Heading out to the party.

Behind the boats there were 4 pavilions with 4 different birthday parties.

He wanted to ride in the back of this boy's plane instead of one of the empty ones.

Not many smiles, huh?  He woke up coughing really early that morning and was exhausted.  I know he had fun because he ran from ride to ride and kept wanting to go again.  I think he liked the train the best.  The merry-go-round was probably his least favorite.

And here are some pictures from yesterday.  I took him to the playground because his school was closed for a teacher work day to get ready for the new "semester."  It's funny how they treat it like a school and not a daycare.  Semesters don't mean much to his class, but I think it does mean they will do school portraits soon.  That might be a fun first for us.

I think this one is funny because his face looks so chubby.  It doesn't really look like Dominic to me.

Marcos took him to the doctor in the afternoon to see if there is anything we can do about his cough.  It's been going on for over a week, and bothers him the most at night.  The doctor said his lungs sound good, and all we can do is run the humidifier at night and try steam in the bath to loosen up phlegm. I guess he just has a cold. She said his ears look perfect and he's been very healthy for a kid who has been in daycare 3 months now.  Woohoo!  He weighed 29 pounds with his clothes on, and stood on the real scale instead of sitting on the baby scale.  My boy is all grown up!

He got his hair cut after the doctor, so he is looking very grown up too.  Here is a picture of him laying on the sidewalk when I told him it was time to come in and get ready for bed.  I think he was trying to say he'd sleep outside.

 

UPS Truck

A couple Fridays ago we went to Andy's work for a tour. Andy is Marcos' cousin who lives in Austin and builds guitars - yes, we have guitar building experience on both sides of the family. How cool is that?! Dominic didn't do too well on the tour; there was a lot of talking and not much moving. Marcos  and I ended up hanging out with him outside while Tony, Ita, Uncle Tony and Judi finished the tour.   Dominic could not have been more thrilled when a UPS truck pulled up about 10 feet from us and loaded about a dozen guitar-sized boxes into its cargo.  He stared in fascination. When it drove away he said very clearly, "Bye, UPS truck."  The truck was definitely the highlight of the outing for Dominic and we had a lot of conversations about it in the days that followed. Here is a video of me trying to get Dominic to talk about it.

I love how he says "boxes" and also that he mentioned the apple - Andy was indeed eating one when we arrived, but it was not discussed at the time or prior to this video. Dominic must have had it stored away in his memory!

Dig n' Ride and (Almost) 23-Month Update

We finally got Dominic a ride-on toy last weekend. It is the Fisher Price Dig n' Ride and he seems to like it a lot. Today after school we took it outside for the first time.

He really seems to be growing up quickly lately and his verbal skills are starting to take off. Some things he's started doing in the last 3 weeks or so:

• Says "love you."
• Says "yeah" instead of "ah" about 80% of the time.
• Occasionally puts an adjective and noun together, such as "yellow car" (come to think of it the noun is always "car").
• Opens the refrigerator by himself!  We've learned that if the boy comes up to us saying/signing "milk," someone better run and check the refrigerator because it's probably wide open.
• Joins me singing our bedtime song.  He gets pretty into it.   Dada is not allowed to sing with us or even stand in the room.  But he likes to listen on the monitor. ;)
• Sings the alphabet pretty often and you can understand some of it. 
• The other day I said "Mama called the doctor and the doctor said" and then I paused and he said "no more monkey" as clear as day. My jaw about hit the floor. 
• Knows his colors, but sometimes confuses blue and green.
• Says "av-cado" even though Banana is still "nani" and Strawberry is "straaaaw."  Still, I think a 3 syllable word is progress.
• Vigorously points in his mouth when mentioning a food he wants to eat.  I first noticed this the other day when we were out in the front yard.  Out of the blue he said "Pizza" and started pointing inside his mouth.  Confused, I said, "Uh... you want to put pizza in your mouth?" and he said "Yeah."  There was no pizza in the house at the time.  Today he opened the cabinet and pointed at the blender and said "Emmy" (it was cute, because he's been doing this sporadically for a long time).  I said "Emmy makes smoothies."  He looked at me and started pointing in his mouth. "You want to put a smoothie in your mouth?" "Yeah."
• Watches traffic lights when we are driving and understands red means stop and green means go.  2 weeks ago we turned him around in my car so he is finally forward-facing.  They recommend you wait until age 2, but we made it pretty close.
• Can name most his family members in pictures.  In Gerow pics, he is always quick to point out Robert.  Same with Tio and Mio in Morales pics. He also gets excited to see pics of his cousins.

That's all the comes to mind right now.  I wonder how different he will be by the time sister arrives.  Will he be speaking in sentences??

San Diego: Yiayia's House

Here are some more pics from our trip to San Diego for Emmy and Josh's reception:

Dominic and Lily, second cousins

Walking around Yiayia's house like he owns the place

Stressed bride and tense groom.

Cute pendants made by Steffi

Cute pic of the Culleys

 

What was with Malcolm and that lemon?

The pics don't do this cake justice - another of Steffi's creations.

My contribution, with the help of Aunt Nancy's pretty handwriting.

Dominic and his sister

What, what'd I do?

Beautiful flower arrangement by Tricia!

I didn't worry too much about getting pics at the reception because I plan to steal some of the photographer's. :)