Aidyn's 2nd Birthday Party

Dominic had a wonderful time at Aidyn's party! It was hard to pull him away, especially from the pool. It was so nice that he got to play with Cameron and Cole and the weather was perfect!

DRAGON!!

You gotta love how unpredictable kids are. I came home one day from work to discover a unicorn and a dragon. The unicorn was pretty upset to find we had no pictures of her on the trampoline! Ooops!

I'm in a Tree!

Daddy always encourages this type of thing...

4th of July

We had a very nice 4th with the exception of all the rain that seems to plague Gee & Papa's parties! They need to be nicer to the party gods! The rain did allow though for numerous games of hide-n-seek! At the end of the night I was determined to get Dominic to the fireworks. We had brought him the night before to water tower hill to watch Burlington's fireworks for the first time. He was SO excited before it started and then SO disappointed once it actually did. You could see the fireworks but it wasn't really any better than watching them on tv. I felt awful! So Dominic and I headed out to watch Williston's fireworks on the 4th. I dresses him in pjs and he had his "ear cuffs" for the noise. We played on the jungle gym to wait and when they started he was pretty amazed. They were right over our heads. So we settled in at the top of the jungle gym with a blanket around us and watched the fireworks. He saw 5 or 6 of them and then fell asleep! Guess the ear protection worked! The fireworks were short which was perfect because it started raining right as I was carrying him back to the car.

Some Dominic updates!

I haven't updated on Dominic recently so I thought I should share what he's up to.

He's such a sweet kid and always wants everyone to be happy. He's still such a good big brother to Samantha. They have their moments of course but most of the time they're best friends. When I mentioned to him that I may just bring him to "Up" he insisted that Samantha had to come too. He loves puzzles and books and is really into playing pretend.

He's also a pretty typical boy. He loves running and jumping. He's totally into potty humor now which I'm told boys never grow out of. :-) He's still doing kempo and loves going and having class with the other kids.

So some stories: One day I was bouncing him on my legs and he asked for me to do it again. I said, "Oh you're so heavy" and he said "I know, I'm so heavy I'd break your legs and then the bones would come out and then I'd go Arg arg arg (miming chewing.)" I really could only just sit there stunned. :-)

While we were on our way to the movies the other day Dominic saw a police car and we started a conversation about daddy. Dominic said "My daddy's a police officer, he saves the world." It was just so sweet!

Last night we had a big thunderstorm and Dominic asked me where the rain comes from so I told him that when the clouds get really heavy with water it comes down. Instead of stopping there he asked me how the water gets into the clouds so I explained that the water comes from lakes and oceans and it goes into the sky into clouds. He told me that we needed the rain to come down so that we would have water to drink. Then he asked me who makes the thunder. I told him that warm air and cold air kind of crash together and that's thunder. I couldn't believe how in depth the conversation went. He's so curious and always surprises me with how insightful his comments and questions can be.

Our family has also realized that we engage in too many political arguments. Every time we are all together Dominic has tried to raise a conversation by bringing up President Obama. It's probably a bad sign when the 3 year old is bringing up politics!

Love this expression!

This is still at Samantha's birthday but I just love the expression on his face in this one!

Samantha's Birthday

Dominic was so excited about Samantha's birthday party and he did so well understanding that the presents were for her because it was her day. He only asked once when we were getting ready to open them. He asked "Where are my presents?" I felt so bad telling him they were just for Samantha but he did well and I think it's important for them to understand that it's not always their day. Of course it helped that she wouldn't actually open any so Dominic got to open them all and Uncle Chris brought a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle for him.

Mid-Leap!

Dominic and Samantha have been really into jumping lately. He wanted me to take a picture of him jumping and I was able to catch him mid-leap!

Climbing Trees

Of course this would be daddy's idea but I will admit the kids love climbing.

Hammock Time

Hanging out with Papa in the hammock! Not sure how relaxing it was for Papa though...

Pizza Pizza

Dominic cooking with daddy again! He loves to help in the kitchen!

Sugar on Snow!

We went to a great sugar on snow party at Uncle Pete and Aunt Cyndi's house. They loved the sugar on snow but Dominic especially loved playing with the other kids and looking for moose on Gee & Papa's land. We didn't find any moose but we did find lots of frogs and some deer hair caught on a fence. Dominic learned about electric fences (we told him it would sting like a bee and he was VERY careful around it) and touched some frog eggs. Daddy caught a frog for him to look at and it jumped into the water!

Easter

Dominic slept in on Easter sunday so unfortunately there weren't too many eggs for him to find. (Miss. Samantha was a little too observant!) Luckily the Easter Bunny went to Gee & Papa's house too! He loved his Easter basket and finding eggs. The Easter bunny brought him "Born Free."

Perhaps an odd choice but we had watched "A lion called Christian" the week before and Dominic was enthralled! He insisted that we get a lion! I explained that in the movie we watched the lion got too big and they had to bring him to the jungle. Dominic responded with "Yes, but when he was little he slept in their bed!" He even came up with a plan to go get a lion at the zoo and bring it home. I told him that it probably wouldn't be a good idea to go into a lion's cage and he told me that it was ok because he was big now!