The Albericos

Today Dominic is 2 years old.

It truly seems like so long ago but I do remember the day he was born vividly, though it was a LONG day+!

Lori and I love him more each day that passes and we are excited for him to take the next big leap into being a big brother here in about a month!

Happy Birthday little man! We Love you!

UPDATE: Photos from Dominic’s Birthday Party Here

Yes, it’s been a while.  We’ve been busy with tons of work and house stuff.  I plan on posting more on the house stuff in a later post.

Since the last post, we had the big ultrasound and found out we’re having another boy! How exciting, another crazy little guy!

So we’re now at 29 weeks, which means there are 10 to go.  I am excited and a little nervous about having a newborn, you get used to the independence as they grow up.  Still, I am ready to have fun going through all the little baby stuff again.  My other concern is Dominic, he is THE center of attention and I’m not sure quite how he’ll react to having to share this attention with another.  He is a fun loving little guy so I’m sure he’ll be a great big brother.

So far the baby appointments have gone well and all looks to be on target.  Here are a few frames from the last ultrasound we had.

Lori is getting more tired as time moves on.  I’m sure it’s part being pregnant, part working and MOSTLY chasing after an active almost 2 year old Dominic. She’s also had the return of the crazy heartburn and fun contractions. I love her and I am continually amazed with her will, excitement and just the desire to carry a child and experience all the discomfort… this is something that I as a man will never fully be able to understand.

This weekend we have a 3D/4D ultrasound scheduled so hopefully we’ll have a few more fun frames to post up here and probably some more journaling. Time to dust off the blog and ready it for Baby 2.0, yes he still doesn’t have a name.

Well that is all for now, until next time.

I’m still in shock. I found out almost 6 weeks ago and Im still in shock! God sure has a funny way of making things happen even if you think you are not ready!

December 12th was the life changing day for our family. I decided to take a test, because.. well.. I ‘knew’ something was off.

Positive.

POSITIVE.

Uhm, what?!

All sorts of things were going through my head. I’m a planner, I plan everything in my life… I didnt plan this so soon! We had planned on the kids being closer to 3 years apart, now they’ll be just 2. What’s the big deal about a year? Not much I guess, its just not how I PLANNED it! Suffice to say, I cried. Not because I was unhappy, per sey, but just scared. I have a 16 month old (at the time), how HOW can I have another baby NOW?! Surprisingly, Angelo was in great spirits. I tearfully brought the test in to show him and cried a bit more out of fear. He, on the other hand, was all smiles and very cheerful.

Boy its amazing how one of us is always level headed when the other should be institutionalized.

But, not 6 hours later, we had a house full of friends and I was beaming. This wont be so bad, will it? 25 months apart is scary but there are so many plus’s. I didnt have to drive myself nuts trying to get pregnant this time. This one will be born in the summer too which makes things a little easier being a teacher. This one is our last so we’ll be done with the diaper phase that much sooner! And, they’ll be close enough in age that they can play together for years to come. SCORE!

A few more days went by and all of a sudden im super excited! The Lord has blessed me with something that I didnt even know I wanted right now. Amazing.

We told a few close friends at first because we have big mouths, but waited to tell family until Christmas Eve. We told them I was pregnant with Dominic for Christmas, too so I thought it was only fitting. For Dominic, I bought Christmas ornaments and put his ultrasound picture in it and let our parents unwrap them and figure out what they were. This time, I wanted to do something clever, again. I searched high and low for a “I’m a Big Brother” shirt for Dominic to wear, in hopes of having him wear it for Christmas eve and see how long it would take for people to notice. No luck. I looked EVERYWHERE and no one had any. I wasnt giving up, I wanted to do this! I found the best one on line that had monkeys on it (Dominic’s favorite animal – sorry Rachel!)  that said “This monkey is going to be a big brother” And had a big and little monkey playing together. Perfect. So I rushed ordered it and it got here the day before.

Christmas Eve night was a little tricky because my dad came a little later than my mom ( she was here sooner to help cook) so we had to make Dominic wear a sweatshirt until my dad got here. Finally, after Dominic pulling on his sweat shirt for some time       ( probably because he was so hot) my dad came. He brought one of Dominic’s gifts, his first tricycle. Perfect. I plopped Dominic on it, commented that gee, it was a bit warm in here for that sweatshirt and took it off revealing his shirt. It took all of 17 seconds for my mom to start screaming. Success. We did the same thing the next day for Angelo’s family with the same results. Awesome.

So far things are going very well. At almost 10 weeks I am not nearly as sick as I was with Dominic. I am a lot more tired (A. LOT.) but thats to be expected being that I have to keep up with Dominic.

Today we had our first ultrasound where we got to date the pregnancy (pretty spot on) and hear the heart beat. Smiles all around. All looks good. It feels real now. The due date is August 19th but the baby will most likely be born a week early (39 weeks) with a planned repeat C section. Im excited about that, actually. I had to go to 41 weeks with Dominic and way too much labor AND surgery, so this is much better :)

I am hoping that will with be better with our blog from now on. We wrote about Dominic quite a bit and I want to do all I can to make sure this baby gets just as much attention!

So,  then there were two….