I still have a few photos to process through and I’m planning on blogging the labor processand then one on how we are doing currently.  I’ve created Flickr sets for Vincent’s First Week at Home and Vincent’s First Month.  For now enjoy this photo of our little guy and know there’s more to follow.

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!! :)

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.

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!

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!

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 :)

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…

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!

Tonight was out first Halloween with Dominic.  Though he had no idea what was going on and he also wasn’t feeling 100% well, he did great dressed as Chewbacca!  We trick or treated in Los Alamitos, where our Bug-A-Boo was being held.  It was a fun event and we had a blast, the Platt’s really know how to have a fun time.  We really look forward to next year when he can toddle around!

Here are a few photos from Pa’s Pumpkin Patch in Long Beach.  He didn’t last very long there (also not feeling well) but he hung in long enough for a few cute photos.

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.