So my mom bought Dominic a sailor’s suit the last time she went up to Solvang. We had it in his closet and it dawned on me that we had better put it on him and get some photos because at the rate he’s been growing he’ll soon not fit in it.

So here is link to some more photos of Dominic in his cute little Sailor’s Suit. Thanks mom, I’m sure he’ll be very embarrassed later in life!

Today was Dominic’s 6 month Doctor visit.

Even baby gowns have that pesky problem of catching a draft, though he didn’t seem to mind.

Today he had 3 shots, and didn’t even cry for the first one and minimally cried for the next two.  He checked out well and his current stats are: His weight is 20 lbs 2 oz which means he’s slowed down a bit but is still in the low 90%. His head size is 18” or the mid 90%  His height is a little over 29” which puts him off the charts (above 100%).

We both felt his weight had slowed down and have recognized his height as he often has to wear clothing a few months ahead of him, so we weren’t too surprised.  He’s been cleared to move on to next stage foods and soon enough on to real food.  He will have to go back in a month to get the second part of his Flu Vaccination and then his next set of shots will be at 1 year old.  So for 9 months he’ll just go in to visit with the doctor and get measured and weighed.

Christmas was fun this year with Dominic and I can’t wait until next year when he’s more aware.  I finished editing through and uploading our Christmas Eve and Morning/Day photos.  I took way to many photos and now I feel bad for always giving the shutter heavy photographers a bad time at the award shows for overshooting :)

Today marks 6 months since Dominic joined our family!

It’s still hard to believe and feels like it was so long ago!  Tomorrow is his 6 month checkup so There Will be Shots and we’ll get another official weighing / measuring.  I’m excited to find out how he’s progressing and will be sure to update you all.  No video to post yet because I’ve been too busy and haven’t had time to put anything new together, but I promise to update here when I do so.  Also I’m still piling through the 19 million photos taken during Christmas, but I will also update when I post those to flickr.

Stay tuned…

I just paid a fee in order to be brutally tortured. Yep, I signed up for the Camp Pendleton Annual Mud Run – AGAIN.

All kidding aside, I’m SO excited to run this race again. I’ve been stalking the website for weeks just waiting for the sign ups to begin… and the race isn’t even until June!

I’ve completed this course twice before and let me tell you, it is no walk in the park. It’s a 10k (or just over 6 miles) but it’s also an obsticle course… oh, and there’s mud. A lot of mud.

Let’s see… there are a couple of 6 foot walls to climb, and then immediately following, a pool of muddy disgustingness to fall into (I’ll bet cash money that Jimmy Hoffa can be found in there!). There are sand crawls, rivers to wade across, a 2 mile hill to climb, oh.. and the hill of death – picture a hill that is so steep that you slip with every step you take.. oh.. and I forgot to mention that there is mud involved… oh.. and marines using a fire hose and spraying all who attempt to climb it! Good times! And it all finishes up with a belly crawl through another mud pit. I stinkin’ can’t wait!

This race leave me crippled for days but oh how I love it!

I’ve been fortunate to not have to endure the pain alone. Fellow bloggers Rachel and Linda have plugged along with me with the same desire for pain. Actually no, we all strive to be as strong as we can be and this race really pushes us to continue with that goal. I’ve included a few pictures from a couple of years ago.

So here we are in 2009, the race is just over 5 months away and we have a lot of training to do. Time to whip my body into shape… no more post baby weakness. Time to get strong and prepare for imminent pain and suffering.

If you would like to feel what it’s like to be seriously whipped, you should join us! The feeling of completion is absolutely amazing and has always left me with the feeling that I can do anything.

oh… and having a bunch of marines there to cheer you on… yeah, that’s nice, too. :)

Today Dominic is 5 months old and he finds this to be pretty hilarious:

Thanks to Richard for taking some awesome photos, we have a great set of Christmas photos to choose from for our Christmas card. Thought he selection was hard we were able to nail it down and have printed our Christmas card and will send them out this coming week.

You can see the edited Selection of photos here

As of last night, we are 100% officially decked out for Christmas 2008!

It started on (Black) Friday of last week with me pulling out the decorations from the (meth)shed and I strung up lights on the outside of the house while lori hung up some inside decorations.

Saturday we hung our lighted fake pine garland on the wall opposite our TV. Tuesday came and I had heard about the awesome clearance discounts at Lowes on all holiday decorations including the expensive fake trees. I know, I know, first a neti pot and now a fake tree. Believe me when I say I LOVE real pine trees, in fact when we lived in Idaho we used to go to our neighbor’s house and pick a tree from his forrest!

Lori and I had considered getting a fake tree with now having Dominic (and eventually having another). We figured with him running around next year it’d be better not having to deal with the pine needles, watering, drying out, fire hazard and the other down side of having a sort of live tree in your house. I have to say after seeing the tree decorated and light up (oh yeah it’s pre light!!!) it looks very nice and always so perfect. The only drawback is that it doesn’t smell. So in honor of that I put a 3-pack of little trees air freshener on the tree as an ornament.

Here’s a time lapse video that boils down the hour it took us to assemble and decorate the tree into 2:30.

I am so looking forward to celebrating the Holiday as a newly extended family this year!

Because there is NOTHING quite like a happy, smiling, laughing, jumping BABY!

He sure loves to laugh lately!  Tuesday night at our life group he started randomly laughing at the 3 ladies there and thought Beth’s hand movements were just hysterical!  He likes to be tickled before bed time and then tonight Lori was lifting him in the air and he loved it!  The jumper is a big favorite for him (and us) after I shot that clip he remained in there (non stop jumping the entire time) for another another 45 minutes (about an hour total!) Needless to say he LOVES to jump and laugh!

Oh how I love this little guy!

Say what?

OK, I know some of you are confused (I still am) while others know exactly what I’m talking about.  Before I start, here’s a picture I scanned from the box:

That’s pretty much what it is and what it does!

So why the heck did I purchase something like that?  Many friends have been praising the mighty Neti and how “wonderful” it is and how it has saved them from sinus infections.  I’ve been interested in trying to avoid any future sinus infections as they are a MAJOR pain in the butt to overcome.  For some reason over the last few years I’ve become more succeptable to them so the promise / praises from friends about the Neti pushed me to try it.

I’ll be honest, hearing the “Neti” process described I was less than thrilled and pretty scared / worried about trying it.  Some of the words used to describe the process: “waterboarding” “drowning” “choking” “drainage” “gross”… you get the idea.  But most everyone I’ve talked to praise it with only a few not enjoying it.

I’ve been working myself up to getting one and trying it out but never have.  Now we have these crazy fires and my sinuses are drving me nuts and getting irritated.  I remember last year when we had the fires the same thing happened but resulted in a sinus infection that lingered for about a month with good antibiodics!  Smoke started pouring in on Saturday, my nose / sinuses were acting up I figured now was the time to try.

Picked up one of those strange pots came home, read through the manual looked at the funny photos and then read some of the quasi “spiritual” mumbo jumbo.  I’m feeling nervous and kind of feeling the buyers remorse.  I put the salt in, add warm water, tilt my head to the side over the sink, shove that thing up my nose and tilt.  I feel water entering my nose, kind of burns slightly like when you dive in the ocean then water comes out the other nostril, I forget to breathe during this process (the manual says to breath normally out your mouth) kind of panic a bit begin pouring the water quicker and then I feel water in my throat / mouth and I kind of choke and my eyes tear up.  Water is coming out of my nose still.

I decide that I did it mostly right but screwed up on a few things so I’d try again.  Second attempt on the other nostril with the head tilted the opposite direction, did it perfectly no problems.  So then I do the other side and I think I figured out the method.

So yah, gross stuff comes out of your nose and water runs after you stop, but you blow your nose and the dripping stops.  Minutes later after cleaning up (ok it’s not that messy but still) I am sitting down and my nose feels clear, my head doesn’t feel so stuffy and I’m breathing a bit better.

I went all day today again, the air was still pretty thick and my nose / sinuses were feeling blocked and I had a little headache.  We got home, I setup the magic pot and poured into one nose, perfect this time, no choking no burning (salt) sensations both nostrils!  I’ve mastered the Neti and my head feels clear again.

Now I can’t describe this pot as Amazing becuase it’s still a strange thing but I can say there may be something (non spiritual) to this and now I’m a little embarrassed for writing about this, but oh well!

Oh and incase your interested, they sell these pretty much everywhere, Target, Bed Bath & Beyond, probably online… if you go to the store they are usually near all the Billy Mays crap!  If only BM would endorse it!

Today marks 4 months since our world was drastically changed by the delivery of our AMAZING little boy, Dominic.

What is our little guy doing now?

He loves to smile and laugh at us.  He has discovered the jumper in the last few weeks and loves to jump and often stays in there for a long time (which allows us to get chores done).  He’s rolling over pretty good now and even back again.  He is starting to be entertained more and little less dependent on us always holding him.  Dominic likes to explore our faces and grab hair, necklaces, noses, chins, cheeks…  He’s still an AMAZING sleeper at night and sometimes during the day will take longer than 45 minute naps!

Though we have our moments of difficulty, Dominic and I do pretty well on our days together.  I really enjoy being able to spend time with him and watching him grow up.  He is a fun little guy and I think he’ll only get more fun and funny, I suspect he’ll have quite the funny personality!

His health has been good, he did get sick the week of Halloween with a cough but it didn’t seem to bother him much after a few days.  Yesterday was his 4 month checkup which also came with 3 shots!

His current stats are: 18lbs 10oz & 27” long so that puts him still in the 95 percentile and though he’s large he’s growing very proportional!  The doctor said he appears as large as the average 8 month old child and I would have to agree!

Here’s a quick video montage of some 2 – 4 month Dominic activities.

On a side note, I looked back and see that Dominic’s really stifled the blog posting (deal with it), this will be the 18th post in the last 4 months! Though we haven’t blogged much in the last 4 months, I try to keep up with posting photos and you can always visit flickr to get your fix of new Dominic Content!