Little Rascal!!!

We still haven't sold our old house and we still have no cable or Internet access at the new house. Who knows when we will sell the old house. The people still want it and everything is fine with the title. The hold up is their loan. They are getting some type of government loan and it is a super slow process. They loss their home in Hurricane Katrina (New Orleans) and they relocated to Lafayette.

Dominick's behavior is HORRIBLE!!!!!!! I can't begin to describe this behavior to you. I'm sure it is perfectly normal 19 month behavior but it is driving us all nuts! He even got into my jewelry box, took out my pearl earrings I had bought in Jamaica and chewed them up and then brought them to me to show me what he had done. I can't even fold clothes if he is awake. He will unfold them, or lay on top of what ever I'm folding, or scream his head off if I do it on the bed where he can't reach. I tried to do a little work for school today and someone came to the door and this is what Dominick did with my tape in a matter of 5 seconds.

He pulled out the entire roll of tape, balled it up, and was walking around with it stuck to his shirt and the dispenser hanging off as if nothing had ever happened. Notie he dispenser still hanging from the tape. He knows when he's doing something wrong. At my parents' house, he swiped the white out tape from their desk in a split second and ran in the guest bedroom and started yanking out all the whit out tape from the dispenser. As soon as you take one thing away from his, he immediately turns around and does something else, such as beating the walls or dogs with his toys. I think the first word he will learn to spell is B-A-D. I'm constantly spelling that word to him. What a little rascal!

Our Weekend

We had a great weekend at my parents' house. On Friday, we took Dominick to the Aquarium and the River Walk in New Orleans. He really enjoyed the Aquarium. Not only did he enjoy looking at the fish, birds, penguins, etc., but he also enjoyed the kiddie section that had a slide and other things for him to do. It was pretty cool.

Then on Saturday my dad and brothers babysat Dominick all day while my mom and I hung out, even though it was my dad's birthday. It was awesome to have a babysitter. Jon and I have NO ONE to help us with Dominick in Lafayette where we live. My mom and I got our nails and eyebrows done, then we went furniture shopping for my new house, and then we drove out to Biloxi, Mississippi and ate dinner and went to watch a Russian Acrobat show at a casino. It was great to hang out with my mom. We've been best friends since I was in high school. I'm talking like seriously best friends, I've never had a friend as awesome as my mom and probably never will have another friend comparable to her. We talk on the phone every single day, often times for hours. I even call her every morning on my way to work and she calls me every day on her way home from work. My husband and my dad can't understand what we could possible talk about for hours everyday. Luckily they both completely respect our relationship and have never once tried to discourage us from talking and hanging out so much. 11 years ago, I moved 3 hours away from my parents to marry Jon and he has never once asked me not to leave him for the weekend to visit my parents or never once asked me to not spend a holiday with my family. Smart Man! I even asked my mom to be my maid of honor when I got married. Although she was honored to be asked, she felt awkward being a bride's maid at her age and told me to ask my other best friend who I had gone to school with since the 5th grade, whom I love dearly. Sorry to ramble on so much about my mom. I'm just so grateful for my family. I'm the only girl and I have a very special relationship with each one of my family members. They are so awesome!!!

This was the kiddie section at the Aquarium. Dominick is sitting on a huge whale that would blow water vapor out of his blow hole every few minutes. Every time Dominick heard it blowing the water vapor, he'd run up to it, push the other children out of his way, and hold his hand over the blow hole.

Dominick was riding this fishy like a horse, silly boy.

They could pet the manta rays here.

Penguins!

Go Diego, Go!!!

We took Dominick to see Diego live last night. It was the cutest play but unfortunately Dominick wasn't all that impressed. He did get excited but he didn't really realize that it was live, if that makes any since. I figured he was a little young for a play but I still want to expose him to all that type of stuff. Whether he likes it or not, I want to expose him to symphonies, plays, museums, sports, etc. as he gets older. Hopefully he will develop an appreciation for the Arts but I wouldn't be surprised if he has no interest in any of it. Isn't that how it usually works? You have all these perfect plans for what you want your child to do and like and they seem to have their own seperate plan that doesn't quite mesh with yours. He is ALL BOY and super active...that child can't sit still...EVER! He was running fever at 103.8 the other day and he was still running around and would not take a nap.

The Diego pictures are fuzzy, I guess because of the lighting or the distance from the stage.

I'm at my mom and dad's house for a few days before I go back to work. I am going back to school next week to get my class ready and then I start back the end of the following week. I'm a tiny bit excited about getting back into a new school year but jeez did the summer go by fast. Unbelievable! We are taking Little Man to the Aquarium of The Americas in New Orleans tomorrow. That should be a lot of fun, it is one of the few things that we can do that we won't pass out from the heat since it is air conditioned. I'll try to post pictures of that within a day or two.

Still No Internet

We still don't have internet access at the new house and probably won't for about 30 days...UGH!!! We are supposed to possibly close on the old house this week so I don't know what I will do for internet after that happens. We have internet access at school but I can't access my personal email or any blogs because the school board blocks all that type of stuff because of the students.

We are enjoying the new house. We just got grass seed sprayed in the yard yesterday. It is such a mess because it rains everyday and it is so muddy for the dogs, etc. We should have gotten sod but it is much more expensive and it would have been a few more weeks to get the sod in and we are so tired of the mud already. Here are a few pictures of them spraying the grass seed. The green stuff is the seed (hydroseeding).

I had them leave this section without grass so we can do a flower bed.

This is Little Man's new seat... the fireplace box!

Out of Order

Just wanted ya'll to know that I won't be blogging for a few weeks. We moved to the new house on Friday but they don't have our cable installed yet and we use the cable service for our Internet so I have to drive back to the old house in order to use the internet. Luckily we can still use the internet at the old house because we didn't close on that house yet. There was a minor problem with the title so it may take a week or two before we can close on the old house. There are still a few things to do on the new house such as landscapers, sealing the slate, and finishing off the upstairs bonus room, plus it is a disaster trying to unpack everything so I won't have much time to go to the old house to blog. Don't give up on me, check every week or so and I'll start blogging as soon as possible.

Booger Eater

I don't know if any of you remember my post dated October 31. It was about Dominick banging on the television screen and how Jon loved it and hoped it would break so he could go out a buy a newer, better T.V. Weelllllll, guess what happened...yep, the T.V. is seriously messed up! And yep, Jon is totally happy because he thinks he's getting a new plasma or LCD T.V. that he can hang on the wall. Ha ha ha, he is so mistaken about that, at least for now. I will be calling a repair man to fix that sucker. Suddenly we noticed that the screen is really blurry and distorted. We should be able to fix it by using the remote control to simply adjust the projection guns but NO LUCK...the guns must be so out of whack that it can't be adjusted with the remote. Is it a sign that Jon deserves a new T.V.? Anyway, Dominick does not bang on the T.V. anymore. He has moved on the bigger and better things to do these days. Like exhibiting full-blown TERRIBLE TWO's, eating french fries and ice off the floor in Burger King, slapping his mom in the face, terrorizing the dogs, and eating boogers. Yep, I have caught him twice repeatedly putting his finger in the nose and then straight in the mouth. This is especially disgusting to me after watching my first graders eat their boogers for the past 8 years. Aren't I just so lucky to have a booger-eater in my home.

SHORTER but SMARTER

When I picked up Dominick from daycare this afternoon, I thought he looked shorter than the other kids so I asked his teacher if he was the shortest. I'm always curious to know how tall he will be because to me he seems so short. She said "Yeah, I think he's the shortest and the smartest". Huh??? I asked her what she meant and she said that he is just so smart and he says way more words than any other kid in his class. Of course that made me so proud! I guess Little Man will take after his Momma in both height and brains, hee-hee (just joking about the brains comment!).




I was transferring some home videos the other day and I could not believe Dominick had been home 4 weeks and was just a little bitty chunk and he already knew the sounds for a cow, dog, duck, and sheep. I am just so amazed how quickly these little guys pick things up. The child had only heard Spanish his entire 9 month life and he caught on to English immediately. My mom taught him to do sweet eyes in 15 minutes on our 2nd day in Guatemala. It just amazes me how God creates little ones and makes them so special.





One of Dominick's art projects this week was making a hat. He was sooooo proud of his hat, he ran all over the house looking for his Daddeeee to show him his hat.

The hat created by Dominick

Oh, by the way, Dominick's surgery went great! He was a terror coming out of Anastasia and took a long nap that day, but other than that I pretty much couldn't tell much of a difference in him. He ate and drank like his usual self. However, I forgot about his tongue and must have brushed his bottom teeth too hard tonight and he said "Bo-Bo Momma" and I noticed it was bleeding a little under his tongue. Poor baby! That's one of his new tricks now, anytime he barely bumps himself, he says "Bo-Bo" and wants you to kiss that spot. Sometimes he just holds out his arm and says BO-BO so I'll kiss it. So sweet!

I'm going to my parents house until Monday so I definitely won't be blogging over the weekend. Hope you all have a great 4th of July. I'll probably be at home packing more boxes, fun, fun!

Finally a Haircut!!!

Little Man finally got a haircut. I've been wanting to cut it but Jon really didn't want me to. I finally asked him last night if he'd really mind if I cut it and he said OK. I looks so much better!Before haircut
After haircutDominick likes to be super neat when he eats. I have always kept a wet rag with me when I fed him and I'd wipe his face or hands or tray if any food accidentally got on it so that Dominick didn't end up rubbing it in his hair or something. Well I guess he got used to it and now he holds out his hand after every bite for me to wipe it and then he purses his lips for me to wipe his face. Too funny! Unfortunately he's not that neat outside. He picked up a tiny snail the other day and put it in his mouth, YUCK!

Dominick is ready for tennis lessons.

Looks Like We Are MOVING!!!

Okay, I've been knowing that we might be moving for a few weeks but I didn't want to say anything and give myself bad luck. If everything goes according to plan, we will be moving in 2 weeks (July 6). I'll tell you guys the story of the "bad luck" I mentioned. We had a cute little house that I adored, and then Jon bought another house to fix up and sell. Weellllll, we were paying 2 house notes for over a year while we tried to sell the fixer-upper house with no luck. We ended up having 3 contracts on the OTHER house ( fixer-upper) that fell through because of the buyers having financial problems. That is seriously bad luck, all 3 contracts falling through. So, Jon bribed me and told me that if I would agree to sell OUR house (the little one that I adored) and move into the other house, it would free up some of our money and I could start the adoption process sooner than planned. So that's what we did and we have been living in the OTHER house for 2 years now. We tried to sell it in the Fall of 2006 with NO LUCK. It was on the market for 4 months and only 2 people looked at it the whole time. So we put it on the market again last month and in 3 weeks TA-DAAAA, we had a great offer on our house. We tried not to get excited because of the bad luck we've had in the past. But we really had no choice, we had to hurry and find a house because IF this contract DOES go through, we have to have somewhere to move. So anyway, we found a house that was in the final stages of construction so we are able to pick the flooring, counter tops, faucets, light fixtures, and a few upgrades. Unfortunately, you have to pay for the upgrades in advance and if for some reason the people don't buy our house, we loose all the money we've paid in upgrades on the new house...OUCH!!! So please pray that everything goes OK.

Here's a picture of the new house. It is nothing fancy and quite a bit smaller than the house we are living in now, yet it is the nicest house we will have ever had so we are just so excited!!! Some of the upgrades we added were granite counter tops in the kitchen and bathrooms, a gas lantern on the front porch, a gas hook-up on the back patio for a gas grill, slate around the fireplace and slate on the back patio floor. There is a 4th bedroom over the garage which we will probably use as a computer room.

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Dominick's surgery is scheduled for next Monday. They are gonna put tubes in his ears and cut the skin under his tongue-OUCH! While looking at his tonsils, the Dr. noticed that the skin under his tongue goes a little too far, if that makes any sense. It doesn't appear to affect his tongue but there is a slight chance it could cause speech problems later so it is best we do it now while he'll be put to sleep anyway. Poor little guy, I doubt it will slow him down anyway. He is one busy dude!

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Oh and one more thing...

Mom & Dad,

Hope you have a WONDERFUL and safe time in Nova Scotia. Wish I was going with you. I'll take good care of Tigger and hopefully Jacob will give your plants lots of TLC. Love you bunches and can't wait to see you when you return.

Back from Florida

We had an awesome time in Florida. Dominick got to experience a lot of new things he had never done before such as going to a water park twice, playing in the sand, playing in the beach water, swimming in a big pool, seeing a dolphin & sea lion show, and riding on rides at an amusement park.

My parents and brother and his girlfriend came the last 2 days we were there and helped with Little Man. Thank You Guys! Because of you, Jon and I were able to enjoy a few moments of adult rides and activities.

This was the water park. They had 3 really cool kiddie sections.

Dominick loved this slide! It was the cutest thing, as soon as he'd slide down into the water he would scream to do it again.

This was his 2nd day playing in the sand. He didn't like it the first day but he enjoyed the sand and water more each day after getting familiar with it. One of Dominick's new 2-word sentences is "Eewwww-Daddy". It's hilarious, he says it all the time, even when Jon is not around. You can hear him saying it in this video.

Dominick had a blast at this amusement park. They had a bunch of kiddie rides that he loved. He would scream when they tried to take him off the rides so we would pay for 2 rounds on each ride and then he didn't cry half as bad when they took him off.

On our way home from Florida, we stopped at Jon's parents' house to visit. As you can see, Jon's dad (Pop) is already teaching Dominick to play with your fork and napkin in restaurants. Dominick is well on his way to being spoiled by the grandparents.

This was one of my favorite parts of the whole trip. Jon was sweet enough to stay at the condo with Little Man while the rest of us rented scooters and a 3-wheel car and drove up and down the beach for a few hours. The chicks in the red car (it had 2 wheels on the front and 1 on the back) were me and Becky, the cool chick on the baby blue scooter is my mom (yes, she can even drive a motor cycle) and the guys on the green and blue scooters are my dad and brother (Tio). We had so much fun!

We are leaving Friday night to go to my parents' house and then leaving Saturday morning to go to Florida for the next week so this will probably be my last post until after Father's Day. We will be coming home on Father's Day.

Dominick went to an Ear, Nose and Throat doctor yesterday because he has had so many ear infections and they are going to put tubes in his ears. We don't have the date scheduled yet. I am so glad and hope it works.

The next few pictures are for you Hunnie and Pop.

This is the outfit ya'll bought for Dominick for my baby shower last year. I was surprised it fit him when I tried it in the Spring. He has worn it a lot but the shirt is getting too small so you guys might not get to see him in it.
Dominick never has done well when it comes to smiling for the camera, but now I can't even get him to stand still so I sat him on the kitchen counter for this picture and you can see what he did immediately. Reached for the purse, pulled out the wallet and started pulling everything out of the wallet. This child is into EVERYTHING. Before I can bend down to pick on thing up, he has already gotten into something else. He has been super strong-willed lately and needless to say he has been serving some TIME OUT in his pack-n-play. I keep that stupid thing set up in a spare bedroom for time outs. I usually don't have to use it often, but when I do IT WORKS.
Here is Little Man with a broom in his hand getting ready to sweep. I bought him his own broom because he fights me for mine when I'm trying to sweep but unfortunately it did not work. When I'm sweeping, he wants MY broom of course. I had to put him behind his kiddie gate to keep him out of the kitchen to sweep yesterday because he refused to let me use the broom. And of course he screamed his head off the whole 5 minutes I swept.

I'm OFF!!!

I'm officially off for my summer break and it feels so awesome!!! We are leaving next Saturday and going to Destin, FL for 8 days, can't wait! We rented a condo that would allow us to bring our 2 fur-babies so I didn't have to hear any of my family members complain about babysitting them. The condo sleeps 6 people so of course we invited some family members to help out with Dominick. My parents and at least one of my brothers will be staying with us for 3 days.

Part of my Mother's Day present from Jon and Dominick finally came in the mail yesterday so I will post a picture of it. Jon had ordered it about 4 weeks before Mother's Day but he knew it wouldn't be ready so he had just given me a picture of it. Here it is.

It is a huge blanket with Dominick's picture on it. So cool, I LOVE it!!! Notice my head at the top of the blanket. I was standing on my toes in the picture, the blanket is taller than me. Dominick didn't realize it had a picture on it so Jon stood further back with him for him to see it better and Dominick got a big smile and said "Dee-Dee" which means Diego. So cute!

Dominick will be enrolled in daycare on Monday, Wednesday, and Fridays. I had to keep him enrolled in order to keep his spot for when I go back to work next August. I'm kinda glad I had to keep him enrolled because it will give me a chance to go grocery shopping and catch up on some things around the house and I think it is good for him to be in that environment with other children. By the way the biting issue has been resolved, at least for now. Unfortunately, there ended up being 3 toddlers who started biting and they were doing it up to 3 times and day so the daycare had to dis enroll them.

Dominick now has 14 teeth and 2 more that are about to pop out any day now. He is talking like crazy. I can't even begin to write all of the words he says because he says so many. Probably at least 50 words, maybe even twice that much. He tries to repeat anything we ask him to. Not many of his words are very clear, but I understand just about all of them. He is also saying a lot of 2 word sentences like "bye-bye, da da", "Momma-meee" (he says meeee when he wants something) " Momma-more", "Dada-shoe", Dada-truck" and today at the zoo he said "Bye-bye, crocodile". He also does sign language for the words night-night, more, go, stop, all gone, out, baby, momma, drink and eat. And he counts EVERYTHING. Seriously, he walks around the house, holds up one finger and says "three, three, three" instead of one, two, three. I'm sure that now that I will be home with him for the summer he will learn even more with the one-on-one attention from me. It is hard for me to catch him doing all of his "tricks" on camera and I have a good video of him doing all his sign language in the bath tub but I accidentally got a tiny shot of his pee-pee so I will have to try again so that I can post it.

Happy Memorial Day!

Happy Memorial Day and THANK YOU to all you men and women in The Armed Forces. I appreciate all you do and pray for you all everyday.

My parents are so awesome, the daycare is closed tomorrow for Memorial Day but Jon and I both have to work so my parents drove 3 hours to spend the weekend with us and babysit Little Man tomorrow.

Momma, I know Daddy put you on a new budget an told you to stop spending so much money, but do you think you could maybe get my bangs cut?

This is Jon's b-day present from
Dominick. He really liked it!

I only have 4 days left of this school year, only 3 days left with my class. I hate to admit it but this year was the worse class I've ever had. But as I was typing this poem I write to each student every year, I got teary eyed and really sad. You can't help but grow attached to these students every year after spending 9 months with them and investing your heart and soul into them. This is the letter I write on cute paper with a class picture attached and then laminate it.

Dear Amy,

You're a very special person

And Amy you should know,

How I loved to be your teacher

And how fast the year did go!

We did a lot of special things-

We learned, we laughed, we cared,

I always will remember you

And all the fun we shared.

Please come back to visit me

As through the grades you grow,

Try hard to learn all that you can

There is so much to know!

The one thing I tried to teach you,

To last your whole life through

Is to know that you are special

Just because, Amy, you are you!

Love,

Mrs. Duhon

This was our "Beach Day". The first graders got to wear sunglasses and hats, have a picnic with hot dogs, and bring beach balls and sign each other's ball. We did some art activities and read books that were beach related. It was so much fun!