11 Months and Counting...

Wow! My baby is growing so fast. Dominic is 11 months old today and he's still the JOY of our lives. Some funny (and not-so-funny) things he is doing now...

~~He is petrified of bubbles. He BAWLS and runs (crawls) away when we blow bubbles. :( I thought he would LOVE them! But no, it's like torture for him. I thought it was kinda funny, so when Rich got home, I had him blow some more to show him what Dominic does. He immediately started crying and crawled right up my torso and buried his face in my neck... climbing and clawing the entire time. Then we felt bad. So... no more bubbles for Dom.

~~When he gets mad, he screams, stiffens his body, and then (if he's sitting) he folds himself in 1/2, spreads his legs, and bangs his head on the floor. Yikes! I'm scared... really.

~~He's just learned to wave bye-bye and also to clap his hands when we say "Yaaaaay!".

~~He hums all day long. "Hmm-hmm-hmmmmmm!" He's just so happy, it's catching.

~~He shakes his head from side to side and giggles. What a funny guy. We love him.


Here are a few pictures of the little guy... doing what he does. :)


Cheeeeese!!! Do you think he's used to getting his picture taken or what?




This is his "Curious" look. We love it when he makes this face.




Dominic LOVES yogurt.






He'd eat it for every meal if I let him.




Mmmmmmm... Yum-num.





Congratulations on your FOURTH tooth Dominic! He got his 2nd front tooth (his top right)on Friday.




So now that he's got some little chicklets in his mouth...


Let there be BRUSHING...




And BRUSHING...






And BRUSHING!





I'm sure that this is probably against the LAW in 48 states, but I bought Dominic a pink Cinderella Princess phone. He giggles when she says "Ahhh... I could dance all night!" I know, kind of disturbing.... but it's a flip-phone that is very similar to mine. I can barely hear out of my phone anymore because of all the action it receives from Dom. And there just weren't any "boyish" phones in the "last minute, gimme-gimme check-out isle". So... Princess Phone it is. And he LOVES it.






But... don't worry. He also plays with his VERY boyish red race car that he got from his Mamie. He pushes it around the living room for, like, 45 minutes at a time.







He is an excellent crawler now and can get anywhere in 3 seconds flat! Whew!




He likes to color. (Well... he likes to EAT colors.)






And he's looking a LOT like Poppie Olson!!! :) We love this boy!




We love you all and hope that you are doing fantastic! Love, Us. :)

Christmas Vacation

We're back! Our trip to Utah and Idaho for Christmas was snowy, busy, cold, and SOOO much fun!!! This... is a reeeeeaaaallly long post, but we were gone for a really long time. So HERE are 25 FUN things we did:

1. We got a chance to wear our cute winter clothes (FINALLY)!



2. We got all bundled up...



3. Went to Temple Square (Of course! What kind of Christmas vacation is complete without a trip to Temple Square?)



4. Enjoyed the Lights!

The ones at Temple Square...

And the ones on Nana's Christmas tree...

5. Watched our brother-in-law Ross sing at the Assembly Hall



6. Enjoyed the SNOW!!!



7. Played lots of games, like...

...Age of Empires (Ahem... until 3:00 in the morning!) ...Wii ...and of course, our traditional game of Boggle. (Although you'd better study good ol' Webster before you play because Rich's family knows words like "nit" and "quid"... yeah, they're smart like that.)

We stayed up late at my brother, Jarrod's house playing board games too. Apples to Apples, the "What if" game... (that one's becoming a tradition), and a few others. Thanks Jar and Jen for hosting the Olson Family Christmas get-together this year!!! We love you guys!

8. Loved Family


















9. Played with Cousins





10. Learned some New Tricks!



On our trip to Utah, Dominic perfected his CRAWLING, , PUSHED himself to a SIT, PULLED himself to a STAND (in the bathtub... because wanted to see how fast I could move), learned how to DRINK from a STRAW, and learned the art of stair CLIMBING!!!
He learned it on the two steps that go down to Nana's living room and got pretty darn good at it.

In fact, the first thing Dominic did after we got home was to climb both flights of stairs in our house all by himself... except for, like, the 20ish times that I had to save him from a sure and sudden death.

11. Listened to Jarin play Christmas Songs on his Guitar

...Thanks Jarin, I LOVE the Spirit of Nativity song. You are sooo talented!

12. Had a Very Merry Christmas! (And celebrated Dominic's FIRST Christmas!)



13. Enjoyed our Stockings



... Nana Innes made Dominic's stocking. He's our little drummer boy, (a toy soldier). :) Rich and I's stockings are Soldiers too. JoAnn makes the stockings for each family the same.

Poor Jolene... or should I say "Poor Jolene's future husband"... her stocking is a ballerina. Haha! Let's hope he can handle a lot of taunting. ;)

14. Opened Presents



15. Got Spoiled



My sweetie-pie niece, Zoe, saved up her babysitting money so she could buy Dominic this cute stuffed doggie. Zoe, you are such a love. :)


16. Took Hundreds of Pictures of Our Kiddies Awww... look at all those proud parents!

17. Ate Waaaaaayyy too Much Junk



18. Threw a Few Tantrums



19. Went Ice Skating



20. Fed Some Cows



...Look what a good little farm boy Rich would make!

21. Made a Quilt with Mom Innes



22. Had a Happy New Year!



23. Went to the Movies and Dinner with my Best Buddy! I LOVE this girl! :)


Ahhh... and I love the movies. Rich and I went to "Twilight" right after we got into Utah. Loved it. We watched "Valkyrie" with Kara and Dallas. It was really good... and, I bawled my eyes out. (I'm sure no one is surprised in the least.) Thanks Kara and Dal, we had tons of fun with you guys! We wish we lived closer so we could do it all the time! :)

24. Visited Good Friends

I was also able to visit my wonderful friend Tiffany and her parents... but I forgot my camera. (Soooo unlike me... but I'm sure they're all relieved anyway.) It was so good to see you Tiff!!! :)


25. ...And Drove aaaaalllllll the way HOME. If you add up all our driving time: the drive up to Utah, the drive to Tremonton, Pocatello, and Paul, and back, and the drive back home to Arizona... we drove about 35 hours! We got a little bored... hence Dominic's faux-hawk.


Welp... there ya have it! We hope you all had an AWESOME Christmas break!