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! :)

clean up time

Yesterday, Dominic & Chloe took it upon themselves to empty every single bin in the playroom.  The playroom floor was covered in toys of all shapes, sizes and noises.  Puzzle pieces from 5 different puzzles are everywhere!

This morning I started to pick everything up.  Dominic is playing with his cars.  A little while into the cleaning Dominic comes over and says "Good job, Mama! You're almost done!"

I say, "Thank you, Dominic. Why don't you help me?"

"I can't, Mama. I'm playing with my cars.  My cars can't play hockey by themselves."

Well alright then.

we don't care whose playing, we just want our hockey!

Today Dominic comes home, makes himself comfortable on the couch with his cheese crackers and says "Mama, can you turn the hockey game on?" I had totally forgotten that Game 3 of the Stanley Cup Finals was on tonight!  Of course I'll turn the game on!

As I'm searching for the channel...
 Dominic: "I love the Sharks.  The Sharks lost (in a sad tone)."

I find the channel and turn the game on...
Chloe: "Sharks! Sharks! Sharks!" in a very excited tone
Dominic: "That's not the Sharks Chloe. Sharks lost. This is the whales (Vancouver) and the lightening."
Me: "No the whales beat the lightening. This is the whales and the Bruins."
Dominic: "But they have a B on their shirts."
Me: "Yes, Bruins starts with a B"
Dominic: "Ooohhhh"

In the background, Chloe is singing along with all of the music & cheers during the game. She would clap, but she has cheese crackers in her hands and she wouldn't put food down for anyone or anything. Not even hockey...

Chloe's first Sharks game!

A couple of weeks ago we got Sharks tickets to the last home game of the regular season.  We decided that it was the perfect opportunity to introduce Chloe to the super exciting game of Sharks hockey!  Dominic has already been to quite a few games and he was so excited that this time we were bringing Chloe with us instead of leaving her at Auntie Marilyn's!  The kids got ready in their matching Sharks shirts (Dominic LOVES it when they match) and some items my Mom knitted for them.  Dominic has a scarf and Chloe has a super cute poncho. 

Our seats were ALL the way up in the nosebleeds, but still great seats! There are very few seats at a Sharks game that aren't good no matter where you sit.  Chloe was pretty comfortable sitting with Dominic, but eventually Dominic asked me to move her because her head kept getting in his way of the game.

He doesn't really like to take his eyes off the game.

You can tell they are both saying "cheese"

Again...eyes on the game

We got the tickets from my friend, Christy, who was sitting in the row in the front of us.  She was kind enough to try and get a family picture of us, but it is next to impossible to get both kids looking at the camera at the same time!  I think she did a great job anyway!

See...eyes still on the game.

Chloe sat with either Dave or I during the whole game.  She pretty much clung onto us for dear life, but still liked watching the game.  I had adjusted her at one point and put her in a position where she wasn't able to see the ice.  She re-adjusted herself pretty quickly so that she wouldn't miss any part of the game! So funny!

With each game we go to, Dominic gets more and more comfortable and more excited and totally into it!  He loves to do all the cheers and yelling and screaming.  This time he took the time to teach Chloe some of them so that she can join in the fun.  It was SO cute!

Here is a video clip after one of the Sharks goals.  You can kind of see Dominic dancing and cheering.  You can also see him turn towards Chloe and while he was doing that, he was telling her to say "Hey!"  She now sings along with him..."da da da...hey!"

By the 3rd period she was pretty tired and started to doze.  Here is a pic of her when she started to get really tired. Dave was trying to take a pic of her resting in my lap.  She does not look amused by his efforts.

All in all it was a really fun night! The Sharks won and Dominic talked about it for days afterwards!  We are definitely looking forward to taking the kids to more games next year!

Cars that play hockey

When Dominic plays "cars" they do not go on road trips.  They play hockey.  He says "Mama, can I play hockey with my cars?"  Of course you can!  This is how it looks...

These are the players

These are the fans

You can see the Zamboni off to the side waiting to "clean the ice" as Dominic says.

A view from the blimp

As you can see he is obsessed with hockey!  He doesn't just do this at home either.  At my parents' house, his train table is an ice rink and his cars play hockey there too.  Such a funny little hockey boy!

Don't you love me??

I always say the same thing to both kids as they go to bed...

good night
sweet dreams
sleep good
i love you
see you in the morning
i love you
i love you so much!

and there is at least 1 kiss in between each line.  yes...a lot to say and A LOT of kisses!  i can't help it. i love giving my kids kisses.

tonight after my usual goodnight wishes i tried to get Chloe to say she loves me. it went something like this:

Me: "Chloe, say I love you!"
Chloe: "bye" (not even lifting her head from the pillow)
Me: "say, I love you!"
Chloe: "Bye!"
Me: "say I love you!!!
Chloe: "BYE!!"

sigh...