We are back at home relaxing and resting after a busy Easter weekend.

Friday evening was our church’s Good Friday service. I arrived early to setup and run sound check and drama rehearsal. The service was good and we had a lot of people there so it made for a great energy.

Saturday was our church’s HUGE Easter egg hunt with fun, games and free pancake breakfast.  With an estimated 1500 – 2000 people shwoing up, it turned out to be a HUGE event!  They setup 10,000 eggs in 3 separate (by age groups) hunt areas and I believe it took everyone about 3 mintues to fully collect all the eggs.  5 lucky winners found golden ticket eggs and won nice gift certificates.

The event was filled with good times and Dominic got to sit with the Easter Bunny for the first time in his life.  While waiting in line to take his photo with the bunny, he fell asleep in Lori’s arms while sucking on his new plastic egg friend!

Good thing he wakes up happy!

After we came home and let Dominic get his nap on we went into the back yard and took some fun some Easter photos of Dominic. Later in the evening we BBQ’d ribs and corn on the cob. Dominic enjoyed gnawing on his Corn on the Cob.

This morning I went to church to run sound during both services and then after we went to my grandparent’s house to have lunch with my family. It was really good to get together today but also very emotional walking around my grandparent’s house and being flooded with MANY memories of them.

Lunch was great, Dominic self fed himself peas, carrots, (cut up) hand made ravioli and garlic bread, we have a CHAMPION eater on our hands! After lunch we trekked over to Lori’s family gathering for dessert and visiting.

A Busy but good weekend! Oh yeah, tomorrow Dominic is 9 FREAKING MONTHS OLD!! :)

Warning this is video for parents, specifically Dominic’s parents. Therefore it may be boring to others!

It’s been about a month since I last put up a video of Dominic and I missed his 8 month post a few weeks ago. So here is a little slice of today’s activities with Dominic.

In the last day it seems like Dominic has figured out how to babble a bunch. If you know me, you know how much I love sounds so I’ve been digging his new little noises!

Currently he does the Da Da Dah, and the whisper version where he’s moving his mouth but not much sound comes out and then he does what we call “the old man voice” or “brando voice” which is a super throaty strange noise, as if he’s gasping.

Also not shown in the video is his crawling/scooting which still resembles a butterfly stroke but he does get up onto his knees more and will take *steps* from them if something is close and he wouldn’t have enough room to do the butterfly thing.

He is a fun baby to be with and often wakes up so happy and will spend the morning playing and looking over at me and smiling. I love this little boy so much and while I look forward to him growing up I know I’m going to miss this age!

and I still love her! ;)

Today marks our 4th wedding anniversary. It’s so crazy to think it’s been 4 years since we said “I do,” had a blast at our reception and then hours later were off to our wonderful Honeymoon in Maui!

Meeting Lori over 11 years ago truly has changed my life for the better. She is the most loving, thoughtful, caring person I have ever met and no one has consistently shown me these qualities quite like her. It is truly hard to remember life before Lori.

Also without Lori we wouldn’t have been blessed with the joy of Dominic and when I look at him I think of her and I am overjoyed with how complete my life is!

However, due to having an 8 month old baby anniversary celebrations this year have been subdued a bit.

Last Friday Grandma Castelli happily played with Dominic for the evening which allowed Lori and I to go out on probably our first date since 2 weeks before Dominic was born (almost 9 months prior.)

We went to Parkers Lighthouse (same place we went to on our previous date) had a nice dinner and then made our way to 2nd street in Belmont Shore. There we walked around and enjoyed each other’s company while we snacked on some Yogurtland.

It was a great evening and while it felt nice to have an evening together, it became a little harder as the evening went onbecause I was missing Dominic.

We’re hoping in a few weeks to have Dominic sleep over at Grandma Castelli’s house while we spend the evening and following day in some city a few hours away (wine tasting in Temecula?) and wrap up our Anniversary celebration.

Here are the collections of photos from our wedding and honeymoon.

I love you Lori and look forward to many more loving years raising our family and growing old together.

Why It’s Peanut Butter Jelly Time!

Apparently he’s getting caught up on old Internet Memes. What a funny little guy he is!

Recently, my grandfather passed away. I’m sad because in just under a span of two years, both of my grandparents are gone. I love my grandparents DEARLY and I will never forget the HUGE impact they’ve had on my life and I do plan on filling in Dominic on the details.

The reason why I bring this up is to record this memory/story. So with the passing of my grandfather comes the cleaning of the house. While I’m not ready to partake in this, my mother has done a little. She came over the other day and gave me an envelope. I asked her what it was all about and she told me to open it up.

I opened the envelope and in there was a stack of $2 bills clipped to a little yellow note. The note read “Angelo”, the value, and “From Nonna” all written in my grandmother’s handwriting. I immediately felt numb. Not due to the value, which was generous, but from the flood of memories of times in my life that my grandparent’s were generous to me.

It blows me away, my grandmother passed away nearly two years ago and just before Easter. I would assume that my grandmother was preparing little *boosts* for all of her grandchildren which she would’ve probably given to us come that following Easter along with a card where she would write a loving message.

Almost TWO years later my grandmother is STILL GIVING from her heart! She enjoyed collecting $2 bills and since she owned a Pizza Store she often came across them and would save them for her grandchildren.

I’ve never received a posthumous gift before and I’m not sure what to do or even HOW I could possibly thank her. So now, I have these bills, a paper clip and a note and I will save this *gift* for as long as I can.

Today Dominic woke up with a little upper respiratory cold but that didn’t seem to stop him from laughing like a CRAZY baby at me.

What a crazy little guy he is!

This morning we found out that Dominic has his first tooth poking out of his gums. We guess it decided to wait until he was 7 months old to appear. So far it’s just the tip and he’s been very interested and pushing on it with his tongue.

Today is Dominic’s 7 month birthday!

It’s been an emotional and busy few months so I’ve finally been able to process and upload new photos, here’s an album of photos from his  5 – 7 month photos

It’s so crazy looking at him now, he seems so different from that little (big) guy we brought home. He now babbles a lot when he wakes up in the morning and sometimes while he eats and at random throughout the day. He likes to do the raspberries as evidenced in the previous post’s video.

He can pull himself up pretty well and likes to stand and lean on his toys. He can’t crawl quite yet but he is getting really good at scooting around and pulling himself across the floor while on his tummy. He can also get up on his knees and he lurches forward sometimes but he hasn’t figured out how to coordinate his arms and legs to get an effective crawl.

He eats solid foods at least twice a day and we are beginning to introduce him to more bland versions of our dinners, though he’s still not quite into the texture of the ground up stuff. He plays around with his sippy cup while laying on his back on the floor and also enjoys chewing/sucking on frozen banana in a mesh strainer. He still doesn’t have his teeth but is working on them and we think we feel a few bumps on his bottom gums.

He’s still sleeping well at a very consistent 11 – 12 hours a night. He tends to take one 1.5 – 2.25 hour nap in the mid morning along with two 30 – 45 minute naps during the day and plays in between.

He is quite the happy baby and loves to smile and laugh. He seems to be developing quite a big personality and has us laughing often throughout the day. We are very blessed to have him in our lives, he’s quite the super baby!

Probably nothing too exciting, but we’ve been getting a kick out of this.

Here’s Dominic’s latest thing/sound, he enjoys making raspberries. Some are small, some large and others go from cry to berry in an instant.

In the first series of clips we put him in his new car seat (which goes into my truck) in order to properly adjust it, he was in a bit of a bad mood and acting out a bit. So he’d started to make raspberries and occasionally they’d turn to a whine/cry.

In the second clip he was playing in his exersaucer and making his new favorite sound so I grabbed the camera and recorded his fun noises.

I am blessed and really enjoy staying at home with him the few days a week I get to.

What’s the best way to top off an emotional but great day? Dominic in his jumper laughing his little head off. I love this little guy, he loves to have fun!

After Lori figured out that her jumping brought out big laughter from Dominic I ran and grabbed the camera and captured this. At one point just before I filmed this, he was laughing so hard and continuous he was turning bright red in the face.