Baby Dominic.

A week ago today our little man entered our lives! Dominic Pedro Alvarez was born on 7/24/12 at 9:27pm weighing in at 8lbs 10oz and 20.5 inches long! We went in that morning for an induction and let me tell you it was a long day! Here I am that morning - do I look ready to have a baby? :)

The labor was really slow...I wasn't dilating very fast at all so they kept adjusting my pitocin (what starts contractions) up and down. Finally at about 7pm there was some progress and then suddenly he was ready to come out! They even had to page the Doctor stat because he wasn't planning on waiting! When he came out Robert and I both thought he looked so much like his sister, except for a ton of black hair!

While all this was going on Big Sister and the Grandparents were patiently waiting outside! :) (I think Elena was excited and ready to take some pics of her new baby brother!)

They all instantly fell in love too!

 Robert and I with our son!

 Our Family of four!!

Uncle Jim, Grandpa and more Mommy cuddles.

We also Skyped with Robert's family because they were unable to make it up from Texas - gotta love technology!

Elena is a very proud big sister and adjusting very well so far!

 More visitors and more cuddling.

Check out our little man!

Ready to head home!

Elena was pretty excited to have someone hanging out in the back seat with her. It was so weird seeing two kids back there!!

After we showed Dominic his new home he was ready to crash! Whew, what a day!

We are so glad that he has finally arrived! He is the sweetest thing ever and is doing a fantastic job of eating, sleeping and pooping!

If you are wondering where we got his name, it is from two very important people in our lives - Pedro was Robert's Dad's name and he passed away a year before our wedding, we know he would have loved to meet both our kiddos and would have been an amazing Abuelo to them (This is also the only grandchild that will be passing along the Alvarez name!) We thought the name Dominic sounded really great with Pedro - it is strong and masculine and just happens to be my Grandfather's name. What a perfect fit. :) 

Last sibling-less Saturday.

Elena is going to have a little brother very soon, so I decided to treat her to a Saturday of fun - her choice! :) I gave her some options for what she wanted to do today and she chose - the water park!! (of course!) :) She had an absolute blast!

 Grandma Teresa came too and Elena of course loved this! I don't think Grandma's get much better than this!! ;)

 Then we let Elena pick lunch - she chose Pacific Coast Pizza, Yum! We even treated her to Orange Leaf after that!

After a long nap (thank goodness!), I gave her one last choice to end the day - dinner. Her pick? Samurai of course! I had a really fun day with my baby girl, now time to gear up for my baby boy!!

Nursery Inspiration.

I found an adorable rug at Target and have decided to use it as a starting point for the little guy's nursery. Mind you, the nursery is no where near being finished! (maybe by the time he turns 6 months!-lol) But I think we have a good start on decorating it when it is ready! I decided it would be fun to let Elena help with some decorating by doing a couple paintings for the walls. She was pumped!! And now wants to make some for her own room! The 3 main colors I wanted were green, orange and light blue - so instead of ending up with brown, I decided to break them up and only let her do one color at a time. Worked like a charm! ;) 

 She is so proud of her paintings!

And here are a few other things for the nursery, including the rug I was talking about as well as my Mom and I's 1st attempt at a quilt! (More to follow on that little project!)

Less than a week to go!!! And with the forecast of many 100+ degree days coming up I think I am even more ready for this little guy to be in my arms instead of my belly!!  

Fly a kite.

There has been a kite in my car for the past few months and Elena saw it the other day and insisted that we had to fly it. I can understand why she wanted to, she loved it last time and we honestly haven't done it since! So my Mom and I took her to a nearby park and let her have at it. She was really excited.

As you can tell, she was very serious about getting that kite up into the air!

It probably would have worked a little better on a windier day (hard to believe we actually caught a day with little wind!) but she didn't care and had an absolute blast. These pictures aren't the greatest but I can totally see the joy on her face in them so I love 'em! :)



Insta-Friday.

I've finally joined Instagram! I had been loving eveyone's photos on there forever and then finally realized it had become available on my Android phone! I love all the cool effects you can add to pictures on here. So here are some insta-pics from the past few weeks! Enjoy~

1. indecisive happy hour

2. my little fish

3. most recent purchase for the little man

4. H.O.T.

5. cheese

6. Grandma and Elena swimming

7. loud fireworks

8. sweet tea.yum.

9. lime sherbert is her #1 pick

10. hanging in the backyard

11. butterscotch pie

12. masterpiece for baby brother

13. little helper

14. sweetie

15. my little fish mermaid

16. holy sugar cookie!

17. nice touch marriott

18. new soccer gear

Less than 2 weeks!

My goodness! I am literally in shock that this little guy will be here in less than 2 weeks!! Unbelievable the difference in baby #2 vs baby #1! Besides the entire pregnancy flying by I feel so unprepared for this guy! No nursery ready for him yet, but Elena's was done with months to go til her due date! No clothes washed/hung up ready to be worn yet - I better get on that! (at least the newborn sizes) Need to check and see if I even have any newborn size diapers! Bags for baby and I at the hospital need to be packed. Car seat, swing, changing table, diaper genie, highchair, little baby toys - all need to be ready to go! Sheesh! I think this time around I just know how much of that stuff actually gets used in the first couple of months - hardly any! So I am not too stressed, just starting to get a little antsy and realize I need to get on the ball! I also haven't even had time to think about getting maternity pictures taken of the bump (in fact my little monthly picture log stopped at about 20 weeks - whoopsie!) So here is an updated pic with Miss Elena to show you just how big this little guys is getting!

 

I am so excited, nervous, happy, anxious for my son to get here (it is going to be so hard to get used to saying that!) I just know how much our life is going to change with his arrival. I know in a couple weeks I will say how hard it is to imagine life without him but for now it is so hard to picture what our family of 4 is going to be like!  But I am so, so ready to welcome him into our family! Elena is definitely ready too - she has even started referring to him as "her baby" :) I can't wait to see her as a big sister!

A busy, busy 4th!

We did so many fun things leading up to the 4th of July this year. Elena was pumped when our neighborhood donut shop had red,white and blue star sprinkles on their donuts!! :)

We went to a pool party on the 3rd of July where Elena got her 1st taste of a pool slide. She was definitely a fan!

 We went to our local little town parade for the first time. Elena had no idea what a parade was I now I think she thinks its just a fun way to get candy! Ha ha! She got to enjoy it with some neighbor friends of ours.

 What she was most excited about the parade wasn't the candy but it was seeing Santa! Lol - I'm sure he was dying in that suit on this day - it was so hot!

 After a quick break from the heat at home - (this prego mama was h.o.t!) we headed down to our local park for fun and games! This is always so fun and we have enjoyed it a couple other times as well click here and here if you want to see - it is amazing how little Miss E has changed!  

Daddy would be proud - she really got into the football toss!

There was a water slide there so we finished up the park with letting her cool off!

After a 3 hour nap - thank goodness - (I needed one just as much if not more than her!) we headed down to buy some fireworks for her to shoot off that evening. She was excited!

 Then we waited until it got dark and joined some neighbors for some firework fun!

Elena had fun playing and shooting off little fireworks but she ran from them all (even smoke bombs - lol) and covered her ears for everything! :)

Finally it was dark enough for the big ones!

 I tried out the firework setting on my camera and got some awesome pics of Elena playing with sparklers! So cool!

I took a quick video to show you some of the mayhem that is our neighborhood on the 4th of July!

Happy 4th of July 2012!