Dominic is still doing very well in the area of bodily growth. I’m estimating his weight is now up to 250 – 275. Ok, so not that much but I’m sure he’s pushing 20! We don’t go for another 3 weeks to see his Dr. for a check up so we don’t know the official “weigh in” at the moment. Care to place any bets? I’m guessing “HUGE.” :) He fits nicely in 3-6 month clothing but a lot of his pants are getting too short because my boy is already itching to be a basketball player! I have already pulled out his 6 month pants because he’s so long! What happened to my LITTLE baby???

Along with growing physically, Dominic is learning all sorts of new tricks! In the last month he has learned how to laugh, which in turn, makes mommy and daddy crack up as well! He has learned that his hands are the best snack a boy could ask for AND he has learned that he doesn’t need a pacifier – his bottom lip is just as good! Seriously, not only does he like to eat his hands but he also eats his face! Crazy baby!

Laughing at Mommy!	Bottom lip? What bottom lip? Oh, that one. Oh, well I ate it.
mmmmmm, hands!

He has really started to “wake up” to the world by grabbing at toys, smiling at people, and staring for countless minutes on end at a little nothing of a spot…. this is when he turns into “Cave baby.” When he finds something to study he starts to make little grunts over and over and just stares. Its hysterical! We expect to find primative cave paintings on the side of his crib any day now. We’ll keep you posted.

Angelo and I are also enjoying the coming of the holidays now that we have our little boy. Halloween is still a few days away and we have already been having loads of fun. Last week we attended a Harvest Party thrown by Chris and Leanne. We had lots of fun – depite mommy not feeling good.  Dominic had a good time watching all of the kids run around and I had fun having adult conversation with some great friends.

… and this is his deer in the head lights impression…

On Saturday, we went to Erin’s (Don’s sister) Halloween party and had a really good time catching up with Erin who is having a baby in February – a little boy! YES! Finally another boy for Dom to play with! Poor guy is surrounded by the ladies… I’m sure he wont mind in 16 years or so. :) At the party Dominic got to show off his Halloween costume! He was a big hit posing as his favorite wookie, Chewbacca!

Cutest. Wookie. EVAH!

All in all our little boy getting more fun everyday! Pretty soon he’ll start on solids – sitting up – walking – going to college… man oh man. Dominic, PLEASE slow down! Mommy can’t take you growing up so fast!

Oh, remember Maggie? Yeah, our beloved cat seems to think we’ve forgotten her. We find her in this position all the time. Kitty prosac, anyone?

nobody likes me anymore, they all only like the kitten. Stupid kitten.

There were probably 35 people at peak (mostly women). I showed up about an hour and a half into it and came just in time for the tail end of food. We had a great spread of food like usual and it was a fun time. I am overwhelmed with the generosity of those who came today, we got a lot of nice and thoughtful stuff.

After the shower we returned home with both my truck and Lori’s car filled / packed tightly (should’ve got a picture, it was a bit comical) and we unloaded all the stuff into Dominic’s room and began to loosely sort stuff. We have a crib full of diapers that will need to be sorted and packed into our hall closet and we will have to start washing his mountain of cute clothes and begin putting them away, woo Memorial Day!

I must say it’s all really starting to feel very real and I’m getting super exciting and nervous waiting for the moment of birth to arrive, or as I’ve dubbed it, it’s like waiting for ticking time bomb to explode!

¡Odelay Vero! Cuz like, Dominic gots his new Doyers clothes, and pretty soon he’s going to get his black sunglasses, his knee high socks and then he’s going to grow a weak mustache and then he’s going to want to take his little `Charo` to a game, fool! So you tall her she better be ready, all right?

Chubby Little Cheeks!

Hard to see from the still image, but he was smiling!

It’s probably a little too early to tell who he looks more like, but here’s a photo of each of us:

I’ve also uploaded the video they gave us:

Overall it was a very cool experience!

Well, it turns out our timing was great because they were in need of some of my special skills. So I offered my special skills, they decided the resume I was wearing was evidence enough that I was a professional… and here’s a photo of my special skills credential.

I also was honored to have an assistant (sorry, didn’t get a photo of him with his credential).

Well it turns out that since my special talent wasn’t required anymore (and that I love my wife dearly) I have finally fully shaved off all my facial hair! It had been nearly 8 months with facial hair, which was good times but it did feel great to clean up again!

I guess I achieved my goal of taking photos of me with various funny facial hair so in like 10+ years my kids can look at photos of their dad and laugh!

We mostly did indoor activities which included: eating a bunch, visiting with bourbon, playing (board / card) games and rocking out in a few marathon (full band) Rock Band sessions.

Lori and I borrowed Ian’s truck (a 2500HD 4×4 version of my truck, I’m in love!) and did some scenic stuff: drove by my Dad’s house, visited / walked on the frozen Fernan Lake, watched ducks living on the edge (of ice and water), watched ice fisherman discuss the depth of the ice we were standing on, walked the boardwalk /a resort area of Coeur d’Alene Lake, walked downtown Sherman Ave, had lunch at the local pub and did some more around town scenic driving.

I finally processed through images and uploaded some photos to the gallery here. I also decided to make use of my spiffy new iMac / programs and create a slideshow of those photos.

I also messed around with iMovie a bit. It has a “publish to youtube” function (which works well) but I HATE youtube’s quality (or lack there of) so after lurking for many months, I decided to create an account and upload to Vimeo. Their normal video quality is soooo much better than youtube and they support HD (720P) video so I can’t wait to get a HD Camcorder! For now here is the playlist/album of videos from our Idaho Vacation:

If you don’t see the video and are using a RSS reader click here to visit the post directly.

]]> http://alberico.net/wp/2008/01/10/winter-break-2007-2008/feed 1 http://alberico.net/wp/2007/12/17/lol-baby-iz-coming http://alberico.net/wp/2007/12/17/lol-baby-iz-coming#comments Mon, 17 Dec 2007 16:00:48 +0000 Angelo http://alberico.net/wp/2007/12/17/lol-baby-iz-coming Continue reading →]]>
BTW, Lori approved of this *doctored* image

Well folks, here is our announcement to the world. Lori and I will have a baby sometime around July 15th. The picture above is of an ultrasound (what a strange video camera that is!) of our Baby, who at the time was figured to be 9 weeks and 5 days old.

This is a frontal view and you can make out the fuzzy shapes (from right to left) of a head, two eyes, upper and lower body, two arms and legs (which aren’t fully developed quite yet). Lori thinks our child looks like a gummy bear! During the ultrasound we saw the tiny flashes of a heart beat and the baby was moving it’s arms quite a bit over it’s face!

It was a very cool and emotional experience to go through. We were now watching our child which until that moment was represented by many months of trying, then a crazy colored line on a stick (which confused / surprised a Guitar Hero playing fool like me!), nausea, cramps, tiredness and moodiness!

We were also able to fully surprise all of our family and here’s a photo of two (soon to be) Grandmothers.

We stopped by my Dad’s house and surprised him. Then we were off to Lori’s parents house for a casual get together (or so they thought), we were to have Enchiladas and Pie. Lori presented her mom with a gift which was for Christmas and something she would probably like to display for the remainder of the season. Lori’s mom opened up the gift and was confused for a few moments which was immediately followed with an immense amount of joy, jumping and hugging. Lori’s dad was a little confused at the gift and his wife’s reaction until he understood what it was and then he was way over joyed and proud. I believe he immediately cracked open a bottle of wine and poured me a glass to toast the good news.

Next we composed an email with the image attached, to Lori’s grandmother in Georgia. Lori called her grandmother and told her that she took a picture of her Christmas gift and sent it in an email so she needed to check her email. It took grandmother a few minutes to get her email open and load the message, then she accidentally zoomed into the photo and so she was having trouble figuring out what she was going to be looking at. She panned around for a minute and then we all heard her scream with joy and then begin to cry.

After this, we invited over Lori’s family friends, Jim and Holly (who are like grandparent’s to her) for pie and socializing. Meanwhile we were still waiting for my mom to stop by from her long day / evening of shopping. We decided to wait until my mom arrived to give her the gift (and not tell Holly and Jim just yet.)

After a good half-an-hour or so of normal conversation my mom made it over. We handed her the gift she put it down and said, ‘oh thanks, I’ll open this on Christmas,’ but we insisted she open it now. My mom was confused, because she opened the gift backwards. However, once she realized what the gift was she immediately she started to cry and dispense hugs. Holly was in mid-sentence and when she realized the news / gift she responded with a ‘oh my gosh… I didn’t even know, this whole time…’

It was fun being able to totally surprise our family and make this moment even more special!

So, I’m going to be a father and we’re going to have a baby! It’s all such a strange concept that is feeling more normal each day. I am happy, proud and scared at the same time!

We think the cat knows what’s going on, as she constantly wants to sit on Lori’s lap!

]]> http://alberico.net/wp/2007/12/17/lol-baby-iz-coming/feed 11 http://alberico.net/wp/2007/12/05/my-neighbor-put-up-lights http://alberico.net/wp/2007/12/05/my-neighbor-put-up-lights#comments Thu, 06 Dec 2007 06:30:17 +0000 Angelo http://alberico.net/wp/2007/12/05/my-neighbor-put-up-lights

The snowflakes surround the house and then there’s two red holly berries… I don’t get it?

]]> http://alberico.net/wp/2007/12/05/my-neighbor-put-up-lights/feed 2 http://alberico.net/wp/2007/12/02/making-christmas-2007-part-2 http://alberico.net/wp/2007/12/02/making-christmas-2007-part-2#comments Mon, 03 Dec 2007 05:41:40 +0000 Angelo http://alberico.net/wp/2007/12/02/making-christmas-2007-part-2 Continue reading →]]> Continued from here…

Today after church and lunch and since we were in Downey, Lori and I headed to All American (we were 2 of maybe 5 there) Home Center. Now it’s Sunday, after church time and the Christmas shopping season so you can imagine they were busy. I found a good parking spot in the front and met Lori in the garden / tree department. We picked a tree to our specifications pretty quickly this time. Being busy, I grabbed the tree and asked the guy if Lori could just take the tag and pay for it while I wait with the tree so it doesn’t have to go into the rack and then I’d have to wait in 4 lines (to drop off tree, to pay for tree, to wait in my car to enter the “tree pickup area” and to wait for them to find my tree again.

The kid seemed confused so he brought his “manager” to answer the question who said no, but I could take the tree to the register and take it out myself. I said fine and lunged the tree overhead and charged into the store! The store was BUSY filled with huge families most with 6 – 12 per group (and the kids rolling all over the floors). Most of the people didn’t get that I had a tree and was trying to get through or just didn’t care, so I announced tree coming through move or you’ll encounter it, Merry Christmas. I got quite a few open mouth / confused looks from people who just decided to stop in front of me so like a logging truck just rolled through. Lori jumped in front of me and cleared a path. We made it to the register, paid and I loaded my truck and left for Lakewood. Record time at the AAHC, I was proud and laughing at how funny the situation was and what I did to get through.

We came home and began to decorate the tree. This tree fit perfectly (against my fears) in the corner and does look nice. We also hung up the pine lights which suck to make look nice because they store as a nice flat roll! Maggie is still not too happy with the tree though she’s now beginning to warm up to it. I predict she’ll knock off at least 2 or 3 ornaments by morning.

Last year our trees were named Grimmace (and 2.0). This year our tree is named Townsend Tree, due to it’s tall slender appearance. thought it was almost named Wallace (because of the tall/slender appearance and it kind of rhymes with Grimmace).
Some photos here

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