As you know, Dominick turned three last week. It's hard to believe he's that big already! We celebrated twice. First, we had a small family party the Saturday before his birthday. Dom was actually sick that day and ended up falling asleep for the night before 6 pm. He still managed to eat lunch, open presents, and decorate cookies, but cake and ice cream had to wait until the next day. He liked the cake but seemed a little freaked out by the candles.

For Dominick's actual birthday, February 21, Mike took a half day, and we all went out to lunch after Dom finished at PDO. We ate at Chuck E. Cheese's. Dom had a blast. He was having so much fun he didn't want to stop and eat pizza. When we got home, Dominick got to open a couple more presents, including his very own digital camera. It's a funny thing, and Dom looks very cute when he's using it. If only he would stop pushing the red button that erases his images, I could transfer some to the computer. Maybe he'll come up with something artistic.

In a previous post, I mentioned that Noel's hair was starting to fall out. I assumed he would end up with a ring of baldness around his head like Dom had at the same age, but that has not happened. Instead, there's already new hair in the formerly bare patches. The hair is so light and fine that it doesn't show up very well yet, so Noel looks a bit like an 80s flashback with all that long hair on top. Here's a recent pic of Noel, courtesy of my mom. I absolutely love the clasped hands. He's been doing that a lot lately. Interesting fact about Noel: apparently, he is not a fan of "Hips Don't Lie" by Shakira, or at least as sung by Mike.

Just a quick post to let you know we haven't vanished from the face of the earth. I hope one of these days I'll figure out how to catch up with things so I don't feel swamped all the time. There's barely time to go to the bathroom, let alone keep up with this site. I have some pictures but probably won't be able to post them tonight because I have to sort through and rename them first. So those will be coming.

Much of why we've been so busy has to do with our house. First, we decided we were going to look for a larger house, which meant getting this one ready to put on the market. We made a list of all the tasks, big and small, that need to happen. Even after all the improvements we've made, there's a lot to do. We hired a company to refinish our hardwood floors. (That work will start on March 12. I can't wait.) We ran numbers, established a price range, searched real estate listings and finally went to two open houses a couple of Sundays ago. And that is when reality hit. We were shocked to realize just how little our new, higher price range would buy in our area. Nothing we saw, either in person or in the listings, was significantly better than our current house or yard, especially considering the expense of selling, moving, and starting over in a new house with a bigger mortgage. Our new approach has become to improve this house. The main project would be a major basement remodel. The refinished floors and all those other tasks will now be something we do for ourselves, not resale. Eventually, we'll probably look for a bigger house. It's hard to imagine living here with two teenage boys (!), but we'll see how we feel in ten years or so.

That's what we've been up to the past couple of weeks. Of course, we also celebrated a birthday, which I hope to include in a post in the not-distant future.

It's a couple of days late, but here is Noel's three-month photo. At least it was actually taken on time. We'll see how long I can keep that up.

At the risk of jinxing myself, I have to share my excitement about Noel sleeping until 5:15 the past two mornings. Technically speaking, that's sleeping through the night, but I'm looking forward to being able to push that very early feeding back to a more palatable time. This morning, I never got back to sleep, then Dominick was up before six. Lovely.

Dom's funny. He likes to say which words are big words. I've heard him say several times "Backyardigans is a big word." That it is. Then other times he'll say stuff like "Pear is a big word." Not so much. Last night, Dom told us he needed some booze. At least, that's what it sounded like. Mike and I gave each other puzzled looks, then we realized Dom wanted to scare us by walking around the house with a blanket over him and shouting "Boo!" Dom makes a cute little ghost. Today, he mixed it up and said "Bow!" (as in bow and arrow).

Time to sign off and get some sleep. Before I go, here's a recent picture of Dominick just being silly.

Dominick playing in his rocking chair

The Super Bowl is on, so what better time to update the site? I mentioned to Mike that TLC is having a "What Not to Wear" marathon, but he didn't seem terribly excited about it. Too bad.

Dom's been to PDO three times now and is enjoying it. Last Wednesday, he helped the teacher set up chairs around the table without prompting. I was so proud. When I came to pick him up, he and another boy were playing with hula hoops, and he insisted on putting those away before we could get his things.

Dominick has officially finished First Steps, as of Friday. He would have stopped on his third birthday anyway, but we really didn't have anything to work on, and with his new activity, it seemed like a natural time to stop OT. He has come so far since a year ago, when he was barely even saying "uh oh." Now Dominick is using full sentences almost all the time. One of the longest we've heard is "I'm going to pick him (Noel) up and carry him around." Uh, no you're not! It's sweet, though.

Noel is much like Dominick was at this age. We've spent a few meals lately with the hairdryer running in an effort to calm him down long enough for us to eat. He's not sleeping much during the day, unless I make a real effort to get him to nap. And, sad as it is to say, it appears that Noel's hair is starting to fall out. I noticed a little bare patch at his right temple today. Pretty soon he'll have a line of baldness around the middle of his head with really long hair above and below. The question is what color it will be when it grows back in a few months.