Dominic - 3 Years Old!

Wow, our baby is three! He's Cornerstone (Sunday School) age, and I have to submit pre-school registration forms for him this week! Hard to believe. 

Having a three year old means picking your battles. Two days late on the photos, so I'll take what I can get! Even if that means dinosaur jammies haha! He also definitely got candy because he actually sat and smiled for a photo.

How our boy has changed from 1 year to 3 years! 

Weight: 38lb (he fluctuates from 36-40) (94-98 percentile)
Height: 39.5 inches (90th percentile)

Likes:

• Cars, Paw Patrol, sports
• Putting things in his mouth (he has a serious oral fixation). He doesn't even realize he's doing it until I remind him to take something out of his mouth. 
• Routine. He likes knowing what to expect, and I'm much the same. 

Dislikes:

• Fresh basil, apparently. 
• Having expectations thrust upon him. I feel you, hun.

Notes:

• Size 6 diapers, 9 shoes, 4-5T clothing, depending on the brand. 
• He is a sensitive guy, who shows empathy and wears his heart on his sleeve. Is he his father's son?! He definitely gets part of his personality from me though; he's a textbook introvert. He does much better in small groups, and takes a while to warm up to new people and let them in. He isn't always shy, and has a crazy side, but definitely needs down time after being around people. He has very big feelings. 
• He's so cute with Emilia most of the time. I often overhear him teaching her how to say words, "Emilia, can you say Corvette? Emilia, can you say magazine? Emilia, can you say drill? Emilia, can you say Magnatiles?" You get the idea. Or if I go upstairs to fold laundry or something, I can hear him say, "It's okay Emilia, Mommy will be RIGHT back!"  
• He loves cars. I don't know how to express how well he knows cars. You don't believe it till you see it. He names so many cars on the road. I couldn't even list the ones he knows and can identify by just the headlights, tail lights, or body shape. He exceeds my knowledge/recognition for sure. One of his favorite activities is to line up his cars, name them, drive them around and play out little stories with them. 
• He's also oddly good at puzzles. Maybe it's normal and I just think he's awesome, but other people seem to be impressed too. Ashleigh says his pattern recognition is really good, which makes sense. 
• He's started going to Cornerstone at church. About 6 weeks ago he asked if he could go up there instead of to nursery because, "there's too many babies in nursery." Um... okay. When did you get so big?! He still needs one of us to go with him, and he doesn't quite have the attention span required to sit through songs, story and craft, but we're getting there! It helps greatly if Isla is in Sunday School too. "Isla is my best friend." 
• He is a pretty adventurous eater, but also likes to be 3 and assert his independence randomly. 
• He will be potty-trained soon. He's definitely capable, and if/when I can find a full weekend to dedicate to potty-training, I think it'll be done quickly. Right now he's just stubborn about going on the potty. We haven't been pushing it, but we do have Paw Patrol underwear ready for him. 
• He's so cautious about new things. Even many of his gifts for his birthday/Christmas he will take a long time to warm up to. Eventually he will though, we just can't push him or else he shuts down. We haven't worked much on his alphabet, etc. He still knows them all and the sounds they make. He can count to... 12, and then 14, 17, 20, 49! Obsessed with the number 49 for some reason. He knows lots of shapes and points them out while we're out (yield sign is a triangle, for example). 
• He is in a big boy bed! Apparently 6 months ago he was still in the crib. No more! He naps like 50-60% of the time. Otherwise, because he's such an introvert (and I need my me-time), we still keep him in his room for two hours so he can rest, play, nap, do whatever he likes in there. We have a video monitor to make sure he's not getting into too much trouble. He is honestly as refreshed after two hours of quiet play time as a two hour nap. 

I love this smile <3

Also in her jammies, holding a banana! Haha. He refused to get his picture taken until she climbed up. 

We love our gentle giant so much. I can't believe there was ever a time where he wasn't in our lives. Or a time where he was so small he would fit in my lap, and I could carry him for hours, and he would sit still for more than 30 seconds!

Dominic turns 3!

Yesterday was Dom's 3rd birthday. Hard to believe.

He has grown so much this last year and has become a sensitive, kind, intelligent little boy! I'll save the details for his official 3 years post, but this is what we did for his birthday!

I find it hard to have the energy for his birthday. We've been out doing people-y things almost every day for the last week, and we're all tuckered out. It's hard to plan something big as well because everyone has Christmas parties and plans. That being said, Dom had most of his favorite people over yesterday to celebrate with him! We were planning to have our families over for dinner and cupcakes in the evening, but the day before my mom suggested splitting it up between a breakfast and dinner. 

My parents, Opa and Oma G, and Adam and Aly came over yesterday morning for crepes. Mom and Dad brought the fixings and made them, which was really nice. We put a candle in Dom's crepe and sang Happy Birthday. He unwrapped some special gifts, including a puzzle, some nice clothes, a RC Corvette, and a scooter! For the last 5 months when you asked him what he wanted for Christmas, he said a scooter. Not sure how he even knows what a scooter is! Haha. It'll be a long while before he can ride it independently, but he still likes to push it around the house. The RC Corvette has gotten lots of use already (mostly by David). Dom is also obsessed with it, though! After breakfast Henry & Katrina dropped by to say Happy Birthday and give D a couple gifts. Nice surprise! Dom was a little overwhelmed already, but he secretly appreciated it haha!

You can see how tired he was already; his eyes are all puffy.

Her "Cheeeeeeese!" face.

Thank you to Adam and Aly for providing our coffee fixings!

This drill is part of a tool set Dom got for Christmas. It's almost always in one of their hands. 

Blowing out the candle in his birthday pancake :)

He is so good at puzzles. Once he got started on this one he got in the zone and flew through it. Part of the reason he hardly acknowledged Henry was because he was in the final row of the puzzle when they came in! Haha

After everyone left I made a batch of chili for the crock pot, and then Dom and I made cupcakes together. He really wanted chocolate cupcakes with blue icing. I did my best haha. I am not a baker; I'd much rather cook! During quiet time I made some buttercream icing that actually turned out really yummy! I sloppily spread it on the cupcakes and then found a few tiny boxes of smarties in the cupboard and used those to put 3 on each cupcake. Again, not cute, but sufficed for a 3 year old! Haha

They've got this part down pat!

Yesterday was the first day this week he decided not to nap at all. He's been sick so sleep has been a priority for him. Yesterday he played for 2 hours in his room. I think the introvert time was needed, but it didn't refresh him as much as sleep would have! 

We had David's family and Scott and Ashleigh over for dinner, and quickly realized it was more people than we've ever tried to squeeze around the table! We had 10 adults and 3 kids. Every bite of chili went, and all the buns were gobbled up. Dom didn't really eat his chili, but he was so exhausted already I didn't expect much out of him. 

We sort of spread gifts out over the evening, but again he was spoiled. I don't even know what to do with all these toys and stuff! He got a Hot Wheels body pillow, Hot Wheels cars, homemade mini hockey sticks, and a basketball hoop! He was super excited to play some ball, and Rebecca was right in there which was too cute. She sure holds her own! 

Grandpa using Dom's tools to fix Dom

Dom using his tools to fix his Corvette

Our house is inundated with fun colorful toys! It literally looks like a toy store in here!

The hoop reveal! Funny story about the hoop... It was in the spare room at Dave's parents' house for weeks. About a week and a half ago, we're eating dinner at their place and we hear a faint, "Daddy.... daddyyyyyy...." Dave goes down and sees Dom standing in the doorway of that room staring at the hoop, "Daddy... a basketball hoop!!!!" Surprise was no more, so they brought it out and played with it for the evening. We went home and didn't mention it again. I guess he forgot about it! It's actually nice that he got to play with it before, because he knew exactly what to do/expect when it got brought in last night!

So happy to share with his cousin <3

And then there's this... what a scary face Emilia! If you look closely at one of these pictures you might be able to see that it looks like she chipped one of her teeth. Her top right of the front four has a little nick out of the side. I have no idea if she chipped it or if it's just an odd shape.

Such form.

Got Dom's agent on the phone to report his next dunk!

We had a 3 sparkler from many years ago. We found it in the bottom of a Christmas box before we even got pregnant with Dom. I just held on to it because I figured someday it would come in handy. Then this Christmas I found it again and realized we can use it for Dom's birthday!! Time flies! He was overwhelmed and just stared at the sparkler, and then didn't want to blow out the candle, but he was quite excited about eating the cupcake! Haha

He had such a fun day, and when he woke up this morning he said, "Can we do my birthday again?!" At the end of the night he was so done. He just lost it. So much fun and stimulation and sugar. He crashed!

This face accurately depicts how he was feeling for sure haha

Just before 7 Emilia let me know it was time for bed. She crawled up here and said, "Night!" 

Dom was not far behind. 

Thank you so much to everyone for helping us to make Dom's birthday special!