Happy New Year!

One of Dom's Xmas pressies was a swing. He loves it and giggles almost continually when he's in it.





January 1 has been a lovely sunny, lazy day. We have played with Dom, went for a walk to the park and fed the ducks, and Matt and I both did further exercise as well (which led to us being so hungry that we had a very early dinner). A good day to start the year with on the whole.

We watched Forgetting Sarah Marshall last night. It is a good romantic comedy - manages to be both funny and sweet at times, and I tend to find most most romantic comedies I've watched recently fail on either the 'romantic' or the 'comedy' bit or sometimes both. I largely wanted to see it because it had Veronica Mars in it but I would really recommend it for Russel Brand's character and the awesome (but way too brief in my opinion) scene of the Muppet Dracula musical. I wish they had made the whole musical - Muppets + Dracula + Musical (or 'Song play') = awesome.

Summer holidays!

Hurrah for warm weather and holiday fun. Thankfully Dom seems to be back to his full exceedingly cute, bouncy, mischief-making self after a couple of grisly days on Xmas and Boxing day.

Here are some photos of him playing with some of his Xmas toys yesterday.



Everyone wants a foam morning star to bash their enemies.



Dom's activity table was one of his presents that didn't even get to the wrapping paper stage. We wanted to put it together to check it out in advance and then he liked it too much to take it off him.

Today he managed to nick a near empty bottle of Matt's after-shaving aloe vera balm and gleefully carried it around before undoing the lid and squirting some of it on his chest. He now has a nice manly smell. I guess he considered that at one year old he is too sophisicated to go around smelling of baby lotion.

Here are some photos of him today wearing one of his birthday pressie tops.





He was a bit surprised when his reading was rudely interrupted by photo taking, but I really like the strange lean and slightly startled expression. This may lead to more surprise ambush photography from his mum...

Merry Christmas!

Alas I got some horrible vomiting bug on Christmas eve so yesterday was a bit rough and Dominic is starting the noble tradition of waking up nice and early (5.30am!) on Christmas morning. Only one thing can renew my weary Xmas spirit in these circumstances... Awesome Christmas Video

Using his lion walker

The chubby diet

Dominic lost a bit of weight during his stay in hospital so we have now embarked on operation fattening up baby. This largely consists of giving him high-calorie snacks between meals. We have to stick a 'Zip and Mac' or Grover DVD on to get him to stay still long enough for a quick snack on the couch.



Chippies... om nom nom...



Chippies help to put the 'potato' in 'couch potato'.



Ice cream always tastes best from a cone...



...and it makes it easier to smear the ice cream all over your face.

Home again... again.

I'm still too traumatised by our harrowing week of Dom's operation and the panicked rush back into hospital yesterday to really go into any description of events. I'm sure Matt will cover it on his blog if he hasn't already.

The important thing is that Dom is now back home and is decidely more perky than he has been for some time. Seeing him miserable and unable to smile or laugh was truly heartbreaking. It is impossible to express adequately how good it is to have a baby that is crawling around again and back to his playful ways.

He has been romping around most of the afternoon reading, playing hide and seek, dropping random objects in the bathtub and watching his Grover DVD. He has even guzzled some toast as well. Hurrah!

As you can see from the photos, he doesn't look like a baby that was only discharged from hospital this morning.



Hanging out with Dad and a remote control.



After reading lots of picture books, he decided to steal Mum's book and give it a go.

One year old today!

I can't believe it! Dominic is 1 year year old already! It has definitely been the fastest, busiest, most exhausting, and best year of my life.

Celebrations are a little dampened by the rain (we had been planning for romping around down at the beach today) and going into hospital for his operation tomorrow. He has had three days in a row of birthday parties - although yesterday afternoon was Grace's birthday party not his, he didn't seem to realise that. He now gets all excited any time he sees a cake and people start singing happy birthday.

I should finish packing today but Dom is keen for more fun. It's not hard to guess what I'll end up doing given a choice between chores and playing with the baby...

What birthday fun can we get up to on a rainy day I wonder?


When there's a party at the end of it, even car rides are fun!


Ice cream birthday cake! So delicious he had to try to grab it straight away.

Monkey cake! Monkey cupcakes as well!

Om nom nom!