YAY! Hockey's back!!

Tonight we went to our first Sharks game of the season. I hope to go to many more this year because it is something that all 4 of us LOVE to do! We are a family of Sharks/hockey fanatics!! We all have so much fun at the games and I love that it is something we can do as a family.


We NEVER tell Dominic we are going to a Sharks game until right before we start to get ready to go. Otherwise we get "Is it time to go to the Sharks???" all day long. So after Dave picked them up from daycare he told them we were going to the game. As soon as I walked into the door I was attacked by a Dominic screaming "MOMMY! MOMMY!! WE ARE GOING TO THE SHARKS GAME!!! I SO EXCITED!!!"


We all put on our Sharks gear and headed out to the game. After we parked we walked over to Power Play Hockey to have Dominic try on some hockey pants so we can figure out what size he wears. OMG! He looked SO CUTE in his hockey pants!!! He loved wearing them too! That was a nice surprise because he has hockey gloves and wants nothing to do with them. After we found the right size, we headed over to HP Pavilion.


The game started and the kids did their usual cheering and clapping. They LOVE cheering with the crowd and yelling "Go Sharks!" There was even a time when both of them were standing in front of our seats dancing, trying to get onto the big screen. No such luck! I think our seats were too high. This was a very exciting game! The Sharks ended up winning 3-0 and there were multiple fights!  

crowded penalty boxes

As I'm watching these really crazy, exciting fights I'm thinking to myself, "Ugh! Dominic does not need to be watching people cheer on other people hitting each other! We finally got over his hitting phase!!" As I am trying to figure out in my head how to explain to him that hitting & fighting is BAD, the guy sitting next to me looks at Dominic and tells him "Fighting is not good! NOT GOOD! Sometimes it can be exciting, but it is not good!" I just had to laugh because I thought it was so funny that this complete stranger had totally read my mind.

While we were at the game we stopped by the FINatical Kids Club booth to pick up the kids' gift packs. I sign Dominic up for FKC which is a Sharks fan club for kids. They get this cool gift pack (last year he got a really nice Sharks backpack, aluminum water bottle, hat & poster) and throughout the year, they get invited to events just for them and SJ Sharkie. Occasionally some of the players MIGHT show up as well. At each of the events they have raffles where the kids can win autographed gear. This year I got the email that registration was open and they sent pictures of what is included in this year's gift pack.

As soon as I saw that plush Sharkie ball I knew it was going to be the subject of MANY fights between Dominic & Chloe. So this year we signed them both up! Yes. We paid $25 for Chloe to have her own plush Sharkie ball...

During the 3rd period, Chloe started to look very tired. I was holding her and knew she was going to pass out soon because she was hardly moving with all the noise around us. She fell asleep literally seconds before the 3rd goal was scored. I had JUST looked at her and her eyes were still open. They scored, we all yelled and I noticed she didn't move so I looked at her and she was totally passed out! Needless to say, I did not get to stand up and do the "Hey" song for goal #3. She never even flinched with all the noise around us!

The game ended, we got all our belongings and headed out to the car. Chloe was still passed out as I carried her to the car and when I put her down into her carseat she jerks up and looks around and says "All done?" I said "Yes, the Sharks game is over. Sharks won!" She raises her hand in the air (still sleepy) and says "Go Sharks!" It was so cute! Dominic kept saying "That was a great game!"

When we got home Dominic & I showed Chloe her gift pack from FKC. As I suspected, she LOVED the plush Sharkie! She kept hugging it saying "Mama, I love it!!" Then we showed her the signed puck from SJ Sharkie and she gasps and whispers "wow!". Apparently it was quite impressive!

All in all, it was a super fun night! We hope there will be many more just like it this hockey season. Right now the kids are sleeping soundly in their beds with their Sharkies. :)

Goodnight!

A New Girl in his Life...

Dominic now goes to school 3 days a week (Monday/Wednesday/Friday).  I work from home on Wednesdays so I get to experience picking him up from school on a regular basis.  I LOVE this!  I love to hear what "projects" he worked on, who he played with, what he did during outside time and what new friends he has made.  He is a VERY talkative kid and the rides home from school are no exception.  


Last week I picked Dominic up and did the usual "How was your day?"  He always starts out with "I was a good boy!!"  Last year was rough and he RARELY had good days.  Almost everyday there was an incident where he hit, pushed or threw sand/blocks/toys at another kid.  It was a very stressful year and we tried so many different things to change his behavior, but nothing worked.  Our Pediatrician kept telling us that we just needed to be patient.  He was a normal 3 year old boy and would eventually grow out of this "phase".  At the time we felt like he was NEVER going to grow out of it.  Luckily the doc was right and he has been doing GREAT this year.  He has yet to have a "bad" day (well there was one day where he cut a hole in another kid's shirt with scissors, but since he didn't hurt anyone we'll let that one slide for now) and he is SO PROUD of himself!  We are also extremely proud of him.  He is totally honest about it too.  One day the teacher told my Mom when she picked him up that he had a "great" day!  During the walk to the car, he told my Mom "Bachan, I had a little bit of a bad day, but it was a good day!"  He apparently threw sand behind him, not knowing there was someone there.  Since he didn't know, the teachers knew it wasn't intentional and so he didn't get punished for it, but I think he felt really bad. :(  He's such a sweetheart!


Anyway, on this particular day, I asked him who he played with.  He said "I played with Connie. We are getting married someday.  We are going to go to Morgan Hill and show Emma how you get married." OMG!  It is starting already!  I don't even know where he got that idea!! It must have been Connie's doing. I don't know about this Connie chick.  We'll have to see how long this lasts.  But he also told Dave that night when he got home and mentioned it to my parents over the weekend.  I guess it's better that he gets married than punches someone, right?!?!  :)

Missing pillow

Tonight as Dave & I were getting ready for bed, Dave noticed his pillow had been replaced with one of the extra pillows. He looked around and couldn't find his regular pillow.

After I get ready for bed, I always go into the kids' rooms to check on them before I go to sleep. When I went into Dominic's room I gave him a kiss while he was fast asleep and noticed some stuff on the floor next to him.

Found the pillow...

First Day of School!

Today was Dominic's first day of school!  He has been SO EXCITED to go back to school!  He has been looking forward to seeing his teachers and all his friends.


On Wednesday, they had an Open House to welcome all the students & their families to the school before school actually started.  All the kids got to see their teachers (or meet them for the first time) and play all over the school.  As soon as we got there, he ran right into the school and searched for each of his teachers.  Once he found them he gave them each a big, huge hug!  Then he was off and I think he literally played with every single toy in every single area of the school.  It was so much fun watching him.  He was so happy to show me everything and have me sitting on the floor with him building things with the blocks.  I love getting a chance to spend some 1:1 time with him and I think he enjoys it as well! 

 I had to get a pic of Dominic "exercising" on the kiddie elliptical.  So cute!!

Friday, the first day of school, is finally here!  What we learned today is that getting out of the house on time on Fridays is going to be a challenge.  Friday is garbage day.  Our garbage man used to come early so by 7am he has already come and gone.  His route seems to have changed a few weeks ago because he no longer gets to our house that early.  Instead, he goes to every single street around us first.  That means that every single time Dominic hears the truck on one of the neighboring streets, he thinks it is coming to ours and has to run into our room, jump onto our bed and look out our window for the garbage truck.  Once he realizes it isn't coming to our house, he goes back to whatever he was doing...getting dressed, taking his vitamins, eating his breakfast, putting his shoes on.  Yes, each of these activities was interrupted by multiple dashes upstairs to look out the window.


We finally get dressed & fed and head out the door!  Take a wild guess what happens when I set him up to take his "First day of school" picture?

And we don't just watch it collect our garbage, we have to watch him get everyone on the court's garbage and then the very nice man waves at Dominic as he leaves our court.  The highlight of his Friday mornings!

Okay, the garbage has been collected, we can now go on with our day!

As we are driving to school he asks if Lily will be there.  He has been asking me this every single day this week!  Yes, Lily will be there.  Then he says that he can't wait to see Ms. Peggy, Ms. Nadine and Ms. Monique!  I tell him that Ms. Monique won't be there.  He asked why and I told him that a new teacher is there.  He says "Oh. Ms. Monique is old?"  Just what I need.  Dominic walking into school telling everyone that Mommy says Ms. Monique is old!  I tell him, "No, she just teaches at a different school now." That's the end of that.  He then proceeds to ask (for the 137th time this week) if Lily is going to be there. 

We finally get to school and drop off was a little different today!  The MWF class has about 3x as many students as his TTH class did so there are tons of people there to drop off!  We get there, I get a pic of him in front of the school...

I sign him in, check the folder, talk to the Director about something I am working on for her and then turn to say goodbye to Dominic and he has already gone back with the rest of the class!  I didn't even get a goodbye!! :(  At least I know he is excited and looking forward to the day.

When I picked him up from school, he was so happy to see me and tell me that he had "SO MUCH FUN!!" at school today!  I asked him what he did, did he work on any projects, did he learn anything new?  He said "No. We played, we went outside, we played outside, we ate snack, we came inside, and you pick me up and now we are driving. Where are we going?  Are we going home?"  I told him that I was dropping him off at Donna's (daycare) and he said he wanted to go home with me.  I told him that Chloe is at Donna's and she misses him so he has to go there to see Chloe.  He says "No she doesn't.  She's OK.  Let's go home and play and then we pick Chloe up later." Uhhhh..."What about your friends, Eliza & Nathan, at Donna's?" His response "Okay...remember, last week, Eliza said I'm cute?!?!"  Eliza is the same age as Dominic and a couple weeks ago he tells me "Mommy.  Eliza said I'm cute!!!" in a very giddy voice.  It was one of the cutest things ever!  

So all in all it was a great day!  He had a blast at school and cannot wait to go back next week!  I am enjoying the fact that he didn't complain at all about having to go to bed and fell asleep right away!  Whoo hoo!!!

Well hello there!

Well, I guess I took the summer off?  There were quite a few times over the summer where I thought "I should blog that." and then I would think "Oh, but first I need to blog about that.  But the pictures for that are on the server at home so I'll have to do it later."  Obviously I did not do it later.  This summer has been crazy busy for everyone, work has been nuts and so time just flew by! Before I knew it, Dominic was another year old and school starts tomorrow!  I'm going to try and make a promise to myself to blog at least once a month.  I really want to capture moments with my kids and the funny things they say.  We'll see how that goes...again!

Here are a few highlights...

Happy Birthday Dominic!
My baby boy is now 4 years old (and 2 months, but whose counting?)!  He had a really fun Cars birthday party where we broke a tree to fit a bouncy house (oops, I mean we did NOT break the tree...the tree broke on it's own), had a delicious grilled cheese bar, a  yummy ice cream cake, and the birthday boy had tons of fun bouncing around with his cousin & friends!  My sister takes awesome pictures so I asked her to be the photographer at his party since I never remember to take pictures the day of.  Here are some of the pics she took:

The tree we did NOT break to fit the bouncy house.

Dominic loves when they match!

Chloe thrilled to be wearing the Mater hat

Taniya modeling the Mater hat for us

My baby...

Piñata time!

Inspecting her piñata goodies

Presents!

It is so hard to believe it has been 4 years since one of the best days of my life.  Time goes by so fast! :(

Backyard fun!
Since we moved, we now have an awesome backyard that the kids LOVE to be in!  They are out there all the time and would stay out there ALL THE TIME if we let them.  Here are a few pics of them enjoying the summer at home...

Happy 4th of July!

San Jose Giants

At Dominic's preschool auction we got some tickets for San Jose Giants games.  The kids have a lot of fun at the games and surprisingly enough, they actually behave quite well! These are some pics from a game we went to a couple weeks ago...

After the game, Dominic got to go onto the field & run the bases!

That was our summer in a nutshell!  Until next time! :)