Vincent being the little gassy guy he is, went as a Whoopie Cushion.

We had a late start to the evening due to Vince’s projectile presents (vomit) moments before we were to leave, which prompted a bath.  After a stop to show off the costumes to Grandma, we ended up at a friend’s house in Los Alamitos for a neighborhood Bug-A-Boo mini carnival.

There Dominic was able to walk the neighborhood and entertain all the adults who LOVED his costume.  He was enjoying it and would dance, especially when I’d play Elvis music on my phone for him.

Having two kids to manage on Halloween is pretty tiring and one of them isn’t MOBILE yet!  I can’t wait until next year when Vince is walking around (with Dominic running away) and then the subsequent years when they’re both running away from us while we go trick or treating.

Hopefully next year we’ll get some coordination with their costumes and maybe a return for Lori and I to dress up again though it’ll be hard to top Dog and Beth!

Halloween is ok but I’m REALLY excited for Christmas!

More photos here

This time however we had TWO kids to wrangle (well Vincent’s not mobile yet) and with Dominic being 2+ now, he’s VERY interested in the rides and not so much the photos.

Unlike the previous two years (photos: 2009 and 2008) we made the trip on a Saturday and quickly found out they are BUSY!  So next year we’ll return back to the empty patch that weekdays bring.

We met up with David, Gina and Emma so we had some fun shots of the kids.

It’s fun having this annual tradition and it gives quite a perspective on just how much Dominic has grown up when I look at the old photos.

Check out the full set on our Flickr.  However, I must warn you (and I know I’m biased) there are some images here that may just completely melt your heart!

RAGE!!!

It sure has been quite a challenging month for us!  We have one child who is an increasingly active and independent 2-year old while the other is totally dependent (and lately fussy) infant, lots of learning for all of us!

Overall Dominic is a great big brother and as time goes on he is showing more affection towards Vincent, often wanting to hug or kiss him and occasionally wanting to hold him.  Vincent is even part of Dominic’s night time bed routine, we all say good night to Dominic and give him a hug and kiss.

I have to compliment Dominic because he really is a good kid and is usually pretty even tempered.  He is learning to play more on his own and allow us to tend to the baby.  That being said, he is still a 2 year old and does have his moments!

On to Vincent, who seems to be a good natured baby, when he’s feeling well.  The first few weeks of his life was filled with quite a bit of drama.  One we decided that breastfeeding wasn’t working for him he went full time onto formula.  We figured out that much like Dominic he has milk sensitivity issues, so he was put on soy.

He’s been doing ok in one respect on the soy but we think the other issues he’s having are gas (which is also common to Dominic) and we also think he’s suffering from reflux (much like Dominic the spit up king if you remember) however unlike his brother he’s not a happy spit-upper.

Lately we’ve found him gulping, hiccuping and a few other signs that we can read as reflux while he’s eating, which seems to be causing him grief.  We’re working with his pediatrician and trying different non-medicine methods to see if we can provide him with comfort.  So far, the reflux is winning and we’ll probably be putting him on infant pepcid or zantac soon.

We’re hoping to help him feel better when eating and hopefully he’ll be comfortable and sleep more uninterrupted.  He seems to have potential to be an awesome sleeper much like Dominic.  At night, after his fluke 8 hour sleep one night he seems to be averaging a 4 or 5 hour stretch followed by a 2 or 3 hour follow up.

The sleep, or lack of a decent continuous stretch followed by a day being around an active 2 year old, has been rough on us.  We were both VERY spoiled with Dominic who started to sleep through the night before he was 3 weeks old!  Though, we are confident that once Vincent feels better he’ll fall into good habits.

Initially, we spent a lot of time at home except for trips to the doctor’s office.  I’ve been blessed to be able to work from home which has been helpful to be around and be the extra pair of hands when necessary.  Despite all this staying at home (and going stir crazy) we’ve started to make an effort to get out more and try to normalize our life again, whatever that means.

The 4 of us have out to dinner a few times in the last month and we’ve survived.  Now I know to those of you who don’t have children, that doesn’t seem like a big deal, but it truly is!  Dominic shows more signs of trying to be grown up like us, he’ll often sit in the booth and not use his booster for part of the meal and I think he’s enjoying sitting next to me and being a big boy.

We also finally got a double stroller (which is a strange concept/device) and have put it together.  Next step is to get out and start taking walks to get back to being more active. Speaking of getting out, it sure does take quite a bit longer to leave the house with 2 kids and you’re always forgetting something for one of the kids.  I know it’ll all make sense eventually, it’s only been a month!

Well that is all I can think of for now because I’m EXHAUSTED! I’ve post the first month’s photos of Vincent to our Flickr account.  So now that we’re into the second month I’ll start to break up photos into groups so the next set will cover 1 – 3 months and so on until a year then the gaps will be longer.  I’ll continually add photos to these sets and hopefully remember to point out a few here as I post.  So be sure to check our flickr account for the latest photos.

Testing this server and I Love this photo!

In this next series of clips shot over a 20 or so minute period (don’t worry it’s been cut down to under 4 minutes) we see Dominic steal the remote, return it to me, explain in his crazy language all about it, playing fall down, making his monkey play fall down and just being generally goofy and cracking himself up… It’s time for bed!

In this video, Drive By Kisses, I had Dominic playing in the office but he was getting a little cranky so I asked him if he could go give mommy a kiss, true to form he stopped crying and then like a little remote control vehicle bolts out of the room around the corner to where Lori was sitting on the couch and gave her a nice kiss then he ran back in the office to continue playing.

Dominic is in Love (OBSESSED) with Monsters, INC. Here are a few clips of what he does each and every day (sometimes multiple times a day). I love the movie and I know it’s my fault for exposing it to him. It really is cute to see him dance, laugh at scenes, focus intensely on a scene, or tell us about something going on in the movie (in his own brand of authentic frontier gibberish).