Woohoo!!!

Ok... I realize that this is about the Zillionth post I've written this month. So, if you're sick of us, you don't have to read. If you can't stand to read another post where I GUSH about my child... don't read this one. I'm so happy today because Dominic CRAWLED for the first time ever! I have been getting a little worried... trying not to... but worrying still (especially because his pediatrician asked me if I wanted a PT to come out to the house) that he hasn't reached this signifigant milestone yet. But... shortly after that office visit, he started creeping... and then today, he crossed the width of the hallway from the bathroom to the opposite wall in pursuit of the outlet (of course) with his belly up and off the floor!!!! Woohoo!!! Way to go baby boy!

So, being the obsessed fool that I am (I'd like to take this moment to apologize in advance to our 2nd child... who has NO hope, whatsoever, of having as many pictures and videos of themself as Dominic does. But that's pretty typical, right? Anyway... sorry ghost baby of the future... I still love you.) I whipped out my camcorder and tried for all I was worth to get him to perform his new trick. All I got out of him was this...

...not quite what I was going for. But kinda entertaining, nonetheless... if you're me.

"What?" you say. You want to know what else is going on in our life? Wow... I knew we were interesting. Well... Dominic also got his top right tooth on Saturday. He doesn't like his binki much now... it hurts. But he still uses it at night. I'm sure gonna miss his toothless grin, it was so cutie-pa-tootie. *sniff, sniff.* He likes to feed himself (which is messy) and give himself drinks (which is messy) and if we try to help him when he's really in a "I want to feed myself" mood, he throws a tantrum and cries like he's hurt himself or something. So dramatic. He's just discovered the stairs, and always drags himself in their direction whenever I put him down... so I guess it's time for a gate. His favorite pass time is walking (while I hold his hands and get aches in my back) all over the house and outside. He also likes playing the piano and wrestling with me when I change his poopy diapers. Life is messy right now. I tell him "NO." very firmly... and he laughs at me. *Sigh* I get no respect.

We went to see Santa at our Ward Christmas Party last weekend and Dominic sat happily (well... unamused) on his lap while I took his picture. I'm actually kinda bummed that he didn't freak out... because that would have made funny pictures. ;)

Yesterday, Dominic got the stomach flu. The first time he threw up, it was on the hardwood floor downstairs. "Whew!" The second time, it was over my shoulder right before I put him into the car... and it went right into my diaper bag. Successfully plastering my keys, planner, his photo book, 3 of his books, his diapers, his stuffed frog, and everything else in the big compartment. I cried a little bit. The third time was in his swing... nice. And the fourth time, he had compassion on me and heaved onto the kitchen tile. I was just talking to Rich about how the doctor said he'd get sick 6-10 times in his first year and how he's NEVER gotten sick since he was just a few weeks old. Pushed my luck. He's had the stomach flu twice in the past 2 weeks. Ugh.

Today, while I was gingerly applying butt paste to Dominic's bottom, he decided to pee into his mouth. I freaked out, which scared him and stopped the "stream". He then looked at me with a funny/disgusted look on his face, and then... he swallowed. Aggghhhh! Poor baby. After that, he decided to finish peeing. He showered his entire face, his mouth again, his hair, and me. If I wouldn't have been so flabbergasted and frantic I might have handled the situation better, and prevented the 2nd onslaught. But all I could seem to do was stand there and yell. You think by this time, I'd be a pro at this... this is not the first time that Dom has peed in his mouth. It's, like, the 4th or 5th. I'm such a good mom.

Anyhoo... here is a slide show of Dominic being cute.

Family Pictures!

So... with the help of some great friends, (Thanks Rachel and Nathaniel!) Rich and Dominic and I headed off to the park this weekend and took some family pictures. I played around with them a little bit and here are my favorites! :)

Jeepers Creepers!

We have a G.I. Joe! Dominic started creeping about a month ago and now he's getting pretty good! So now begins the "No-no" phase of our lives. :) He loves outlets, the Christmas tree, and door stops... particularly the white caps on the ends... they're a tasty treat.

So Much To Be Thankful For

We hope you all had a very Happy Thanksgiving filled with love and laughter and yummy turkey! (Mmmm... and I hope you are all enjoying leftover turkey sandwiches... with extra mayo and lots of mustard!) We had so much fun this year! Our wonderful friends, Brent and Angela Earl, drove all the way down here from Utah this year just to spend Thanksgiving with us!



We love you guys!!! We all drove out to Surprise and were able to spend Thanksgiving with the greatest families ever. Jen and Thayne, thank you so much for hosting this year. Umm... and last year... and the year before that... well, thanks for always hosting! You guys are awesome!

We had Jennifer and Thayne and their kids, both of Thayne's brothers, Darin and Neil, their wives, Donae and Heather, and their kids, Hollie and Jarin and their kids, Brent and Angela, and Rich, Dominic, and me! It was so nice! I love big family get-togethers.

We ate the yummiest Thanksgiving feast ever. Then we talked, laughed, jumped on the trampoline, went crazy with all the Black Friday adds, watched a movie, played Speed Scrabble (which Jen is waaay to good at.... I finished nicely in last place) and just enjoyed each other's company.

Of course I was excited because it was Dominic's first Thanksgiving. And his pediatrician just told me that I can start feeding him meats and basically anything except for nuts, eggs, and straight milk. So we had fun! He ate turkey, cranberry sauce, sweet potatoes, mashed potatoes and gravy, stuffing, and pumpkin pie! He finished off his whole plate! What a lucky duck that his first time eating "grown-up" food just happened to be on Thanksgiving Day!









I have so many things to be thankful for this year! What a wonderful immediate and extended family we have. And what a wonderful husband I have. He is so perfect for me. Dominic is such a blessing in our home. We have amazing friends. Rich has a great job, I love being a mommy, we live in a beautiful community, we're healthy, we have an awesome ward, and we have the gospel in our lives. We are so blessed.



Our Family



Donae and Bailey



Neil and Aaron



Jarin and Darren



Hollie and Sienna



Rich, Angela, Brent, Thayne, Jennifer, Heather


Here are all the kiddies, they want to wish you a .....

Fish Eyeballs and Other Grossness. (Is that a word?)

I have my hubby back, YAY!!! It was soooo cute, at the airport... Dominic and I actually decided to go inside this time and meet Rich when he came through the gate. When Dominic saw him coming, he started laughing and breathing hard and grinning so big! Then he actually BEAR-HUGGED Rich around his neck. It was so cute it made me cry.

So, last time Rich went to Malaysia, he took hardly ANY pictures. And so... I didn't post them. So now that he's back (and after I gave him explicit directions to take A LOT more pictures) I have enough to blog about. :) At the bottom of this post, are two different slideshows. One for each of his trips to Malaysia.

Now... for the fish eyeball part. On his first trip, his manager told him that if he plucked an eyeball out of a fish and ate it, that he could have Friday and 1/2 of Monday off when they came back to the states. Well, Rich wanted the days off...



...so here he is eating a nasty fish eyeball.

Rich has a rough time when they go to Malaysia because it is predominantly seafood. Usually he just eats rice. Haha... he also has a very hard time getting up the courage to use the restrooms there. Apparently the Malays use a hose in lieu of toilet paper. And because of that, sometimes there is 1/4 an inch of water on the bathroom floor with "particles" floating around in it. Haha!!! Rich says you have to hike your pants up so they don't get nasties on them!

Anyway, despite the restrooms and seafood, Rich has really enjoyed his trips to Malaysia because they have opened up his eyes to how easy we have it here. The people there are so humble and good, and they work HARD and LONG and don't complain. Good people. Anyway... blah, blah, blah... hope you enjoy the slideshows! They're not too long. ;)

Malaysia September

Malaysia November

When Fighting with Prunes...

So a well-expected side-effect of Dominic's prevacid is...er...constipation. I try to make sure he's eating enough fruit to battle this, but sometimes a mom has to bring in the prunes. Dominic is not particularly fond of prunes. Well... who is, really? But I still persevere. It's a messy job, but somebody's got to do it. Through all our early morning battles with prunes, hopefully I've instilled in Dominic a valuable life-lesson...



..."The prunes always win."

Happy Halloween!

Here's our little guy in his Halloween costume. He's a Harley Davidson Rider. Hee hee! When I was prego, we were in Utah for Christmas, and Rich's brother, Jim, and his wife, Leslie, gave us this little biker outfit. Doesn't he look great!? I dressed him up early on the 31st so Rich could see him in his Halloween costume when we picked him up from work to take him to the airport. Then I headed out to Avondale to spend Halloween (and a few days after) with our wonderful friends, the Betensons. We took the kids trick-or-treating... in the 90 degree weather. It really was fun though... I felt so bad for little Dom in his pleather pants though! Anyway... I hope everyone had a super Halloween!

27 Years... *Sigh*

So... this is the first year that I've not been psyched for my birthday. I knew it would start being like that soon. I just keep rounding myself up to thirty. Not that it's a bad thing to be thirty, I'm sure it's great... it just makes me feel in a hurry to get done all the things in life that I need to get done. Hmmm... what are those things??? I don't even know. This post doesn't make much sense... guess I'm getting old. Anyway, my birthday was great. Dominic gave me my birthday present by sleeping through the night for the first time EVER so I woke up on my birthday totally refreshed! Yay for Dom. Yay for me. Yay, yay, yay! Rich got off work a little early and we went to the Farm Grill for my FREE birthday dinner, and then we went over to our friends' Mandy and Seth's house for cake and ice cream. It was a yummy funfetti cake... mmmmmm, my favorite! Thanks guys!



Dominic and Me... 27 years.



Blowing out a lot of candles



Dominic, enjoying the frosting from the candles.



Sandwiched between the two best looking guys in the WORLD. Lucky me. :)

Jack-O-Lanterns, Spiders and Dominic's First...

Last Thursday night, Dominic woke up about 6 times and a feeling of dread washed over me as I panicked that his Prevacid wasn't working. The next morning, he was sooo cranky and wouldn't take his bottle. I could tell he was in pain and I thought I was going to have to make an appointment with the Ped again to talk about his reflux. But to my delight, as he was crying with his mouth wide open... something caught me eye. I stuck my finger in to do some rootin' around in there and sure enough... I found THIS!



Yay! His first tooth! Waahhh! He's getting so big.

Now... on to holiday stuff. So, now that we're a "family"... we decided to start doing some more holiday traditions. And so... after our trip to the Pumpkin Patch, we decided to carve a Jack-O-Lantern for FHE on Monday. It was sooo messy and sooo fun! We also baked some yummy pumpkin seeds that we can eat while we watch "The Nightmare Before Christmas". Our Jack-O-Lantern... who I've dubbed, "Jack", (naturally) turned out super-cute and I was so excited to put his happy face on our front porch for all of the cute little trick-or-treaters to see! Here are some pictures from Monday night:








Here are our YUMMY Pumpkin seeds...



So... after a few days, I went out to light "Jack" up because I was feeling festive. And to my utter dismay, I found this...



I guess in Arizona, you should only carve your pumpkins the day BEFORE Halloween. Poor Jack... so long dear friend. Darn sun.

Lastly... I was just wondering...who needs fake plastic spiders to decorate your porch with when you can have the real thing!?


One bad thing we've discovered about our new place is that every other night or so... we have about 3 more black widows to kill outside. I don't know where they keep coming from! Time to call the bug guy... wouldn't want any little trick-or-treaters getting bit. :( Pretty scary lookin' huh? Welp... Happy Halloween!