breakfast story

before i forget how this went...

at breakfast this morning, i had this conversation with dominic:

dominic: i want to sit next to you

me: ok, why don't you sit in opa's chair?

dominic: put opa's chair in the corner and put my chair there!

me: why? your chair is the same as opa's.

dominic: [insisting] put my chair there!!!

me: why don't you want to sit in opa's chair?

dominic: if i sit in opa's chair, omi will call me 'opa'.

could she be any cuter?

seriously.

"there's my opa!" (she says "pa! pa!" also says that for "papa")

birthday celebration #1

dominic's going to have a whole season of birthday celebration!  last night we went out to red robin for dinner before opa goes to malawi (tomorrow).  we had a good time at RR, in spite of their short-handedness (or so they said).  i was disappointed that they "didn't have enough staff" to sing happy birthday to him.  what is up with that?!  but dominic didn't notice.  

he loves to see the train there and he enjoyed his mac-n-cheese.  i tried not to mention the mac-n-cheese because i wanted him to get something else, but he recognized the picture right away.  when the server came to take our order, he quickly announced (with no prompting), "i was macaroni-cheese."  later, when the mac-n-cheese arrived, he said, "where's my cheeseburger?"  haha, what a kid.  

and he loved his birthday ice cream.  i had to ask for a balloon and the server begrudgingly brought one.  

everyone else had fun too...

then we went home and omi & opa gave him their present.  oh, what an exciting moment it was!  with the perfect gift bag...

what is it?  what is it?  it's... a...

TRAIN!!!

this gorgeous train was made by an amish toymaker in pennsylvania and carefully hidden by omi all these months.

i was surprised it took him a full five minutes to ask where the train tracks were.

omi told him it was a magic train that didn't need tracks.  oooooooh.

he likes to take the cars apart and line them up "in the changing station"

then he attaches them again and circles them before driving again.  what a funny guy.  

thanks, omi and opa!!

then mathias got goofy with the balloon... hilarity ensued...

[click any picture to enlarge]

climbing trees

opa helped dominic climb this tree and he just wanted to do it all afternoon.

(this kid needs new socks!)

opa went to "eye-gee-ah"

opa went on a trip to nigeria with DMI. he was gone nearly three weeks. we've been counting down the days till he gets back. last night was the night! dominic was soooo tired at bedtime due to no-nap, getting-a-cold, and playing-like-a-kid. but after an hour he was still making a racket in bed!

i finally went in there and his bed was a wreck. he had almost pulled the fitted sheet off. i told him that opa wouldn't come if he didn't go to sleep. this made him cry a little. then i promised him that opa would wake him up when he came. he went straight to sleep after that.

an hour later, opa came and tried to wake dominic... impossible! the child could not be woken!

but first thing this morning he asked where opa was. mathias said he thought opa would be upstairs.

"ok!" dominic said and promptly turned around and trotted upstairs to find him. (normally, he won't even go to the living room by himself first thing in the morning.)