When you ask me...

Dear Dominic,

When you are older and you ask me what you were like when you turned two, I will tell you that you were a very happy little boy. You filled our house with smiles and laughter. You loved to be tickled and couldn't get enough attention from your “Mama” and “Dada.”

Your talking had progressed so much by that point that you were attempting to string three, four and five words together and tried to repeat everything you heard. Your clarity was not quite always there yet and sometimes we had no clue what you were telling us, but we could generally figure it out most of the time.

When you turned two you were still small for your age, just finally fitting into 18 month sized clothes. However, that fact that you were so small and light, made you very nimble. You were like a little monkey, climbing on anything you possibly could!

You started to develop your imagination at this age and Mommy would catch you playing all by yourself and talking and telling stories even though no one else was around. You were very organized and liked to have things lined up in a certain way. You loved anything that could be driven, most especially your toy trains, cars and trucks. You also really loved to read and be read to. Whenever we drove in the car, you would try to help Mommy and Daddy out by blowing on the traffic light to make it turn green. You also loved to help us do whatever task we had at hand. “Dominic do” was a phrase we heard constantly signifying that you were big enough to do whatever it was all by yourself. You could identify all of the primary colors, could count to 10 on your own and did pretty well with your shapes too.

Right around the time that you turned two, you were really starting to get the hang of having manners and would say “please” sometimes, but were very good at remembering to say “thank you”.

Mommy and Daddy would also always get stopped by strangers who would tell us what a cute little boy you were. We’d also get tons of compliments on what a well behaved child you were.

When you ask me what you were like when you turned two, I will say that you were the light of my life and the reason that when things got tough, I could still take a minute and kiss you and hug you and laugh with you and I would know that everything would be all right!

Love,
Mommy

Dominic's 2nd Birthday Party

This past Sunday, October 24, 2010, Dominic celebrated his 2nd birthday. We had a party at the Marbles Kids Museum in downtown Raleigh. Dominic's friends and cousins came to celebrate with him and we had a really great time!

This is Dominic playing with some blocks while he patiently waited for his guests to arrive.


A ride in the ambulance for Nicolette


Daddy's Chauffeur


Cooking in the kitchen with another little cutie, Ella

Some painting outside on a sunny day

Vincent enjoying the cool water

Surfs up, Dude!

Our little Picasso

Making hand prints with Daddy

In the pet shop

Some lovin' for the birthday boy from the birthday girl, Alexandra

Dominic's Choo Choo Train Cake

Thanks to Grandma and Grandpa, Dominic really got to be the conductor of his train party.

Happy Birthday to you!

1, 2, 3 blow...

All of the kids loved the train cookies that Mommy and Dominic made

Yummy Cake

Vincent double-fisting it with cake and a cookie and not even caring how messy he is...It must have been a special day!

Morgan enjoying all of the excitement

Mommy and a mouthful of cookie!

After the party, we came back to the house for some pizza and so that Dominic could open his presents. He got lots of help from his cousins and enjoyed every second. Thank you to everyone for all the great toys. Dominic is certainly not going to be bored any time soon!

Mommy's Helper

I had some baking to do this weekend in preparation for Dominic's birthday. With Dominic's "Dominic do it" attitude about 99% of things these days, I knew in order to get my project done I had to make it into a project for both of us. I set him up with some cookie cutters and a wad of dough and he entertained himself for quite a while making all sorts of shapes and impressing me and himself along the way. Every once in a while, he'd pop one of them onto my baking sheet and we'd throw it into the oven with the rest of the cookies so that he even had snacks to keep him going. Of course, with a lot of "mmmm's" and belly rubbing gestures. All in all, it ended up being fun to "work" on our project together and I got my job done with absolutely no tantrums!

Hill Ridge Farms 2010

On Saturday, we made a trip back to Hill Ridge Farms for pumpkin picking and some fall fun!
Dominc seemed to have a great time running around and experiencing all it had to offer. They had even added a few more things since last year. Our friends, the McMahon's, came with us this year. Some of the lines were pretty long, espcecially since it was such a beautiful day out. We were joking that the two 2 year olds (Dominc and Treyton) were more patient on the lines than the two Dads were!

While we were planning the day there was a big part of me that was excited to go just to see the difference from last year to this year and how it would be so different for Dominic based on the different stages he was at. While I was getting him dressed to leave, it reminded me that last year Dominic had actually gone to Hill Ridge barefoot. It was at a time when we still didn't regularly put shoes on him since it was still generally warm out and he wasn't walking yet. That morning, we tried to put shoes on him, but he had suddenly outgrown the one pair that we had for him. At the time, it was no big deal to just take him barefooted. I think it was the next week that we bought him his first pair of "real" sneakers that weren't just for show and he started walking very shortly after that. It was just so overwhelming to me that that was only one year ago, but him being in that stage seems like decades ago on some days. So cliche, but it really does all go too fast and I wish I could bottle up every single stage!

Dominic's first movie

When I was a little girl, the very first movie that I went to see in the movie theatre was "An American Tale," the story of Fievel Mousekewitz. I got to go for my birthday when the movie came out, so for that Christmas I begged and pleaded for the Fievel doll. I got what I asked for and Fievel was in my life for a very long time, always having a spot on my bed. I still have him. When Grandma and Grandpa came to vist last month, they brought Dominic his very own Fievel doll. This prompted me to go online and buy the movie, since I didn't have it in my collection. It had finally arrived last week and Becky and I decided that would be our activity for the evening on Sunday night before she had to leave in the morning. We weren't quite sure if Dominic would sit through the whole thing or not, but it was worth a shot. He stayed glued to his seat the whole time. There were a few scary parts that he wasn't too fond of, but once those passed, he would settle down and continue watching. He seemed to enjoy it and it was really special that now we have a "first" in common. Maybe soon, we'll see if he's ready for the movie theatre!

Fire Trucks!

Our town's firehouse had an open house for the kids to come and visit on Saturday. There was plenty of fun stuff for Dominic to explore and do. We even ran in into our friend Treyton while we were there. A very fun morning!