A Visit With Family and Friends

This past weekend, Apr 26th, we drove to Williamsburg, VA so that Stella and Desmond could spend some time with Ommy, Great Ommy (Dada's maternal grandmother) who was visiting from upstate NY, Aunt Shelly and Uncle John, and Dada's cousin Jamie and her new daughter Mckenzie who were visiting from NC. Mckenzie was born exactly one week after Desmond so it was fun for us to see the two of them side by side. Mckenzie was very calm and lady like and sat still for pictures whereas Desmond was all boy...very squirmy and never wanting to sit still for pictures or for anything else. Stella enjoyed seeing Great Ommy again (the last time Stella saw Great Ommy, she was just starting to walk at 13 months of age). Stella also enjoyed petting Aunt Jamie's dog Mia. We had a lovely visit with everybody and was glad to have spend some quality time with our extended family.

Here's Stella enjoying some time with Great Ommy and Mckenzie.

Then Desmond got in on the action...


...but didn't want to sit still for too long.


We did manage to get a few nice pictures of all 3 kids with Great Ommy.



We tried to take a picture of all 3 kids on the bean bag...


...but as you can see, Mr. Desmond didn't want any part of it.


One last attempt was made as all 3 kids got on their belly...


...but getting them to all look at the camera at the same time proved futile.


Here is a picture of Stella the last time she saw Great Ommy...she was such a baby back then. Time sure does fly!

On our way back, we stopped at Richmond and spent the night at Uncle Scott and Aunt Danielle's house. Stella and Mama slept in one bed together and Dada and Desmond shared a room together. This was the first time Mama had slept with Stella since she was a baby. Stella likes to sleep with her back up against the crib bumper and was using Mama's body to do the same...every time Mama moved away, Stella would inch closer so that she was basically resting her body on Mama. Desmond had a hard time going to sleep due to the severe thunder and lightning outside that was flashing through the window, but once he did, he slept until 7 am. The next morning, Stella enjoyed looking at the big koi fishes in Scott and Danielle's backyard. We left late in the morning, glad to have had a chance to see and spend some time with our friends.

Here's Stella grubbing some food (a Kashi granola bar) off of Uncle Scott.

Here's Uncle Scott trying to motivate Desmond to start crawling...

...and Stella just lounging.

What's So Funny?

Aunt Sil got him to laugh hysterically while we were waiting at the San Diego airport to catch our plane back to DC and we promised that we were going to post this video clip. The sound of Desmond's laughter is just pure joy for us and he laughs so enthusiastically and wholeheartedly. We never know what might set him off on one of his laugh trips. In this clip (size restrictions prevent us from posting the whole video) just tapping his tiny chin is enough to send him into a laughing fit. Enjoy!

Desmond is 6 Months Old!

Desmond turned 6 months old today. Wow, time sure does fly. At his 6 month checkup, he got weighed and measured as usual and received 3 vaccinations. His stats are as follows:

height = 28 inches (90th %)

weight = 17 lbs, 9.5 oz (50-75th %)

head circumference = 18 cm (90-95th %)

The female pediatrician commented that Des had juicy bottom lips and said "You know what that's good for?...kissing". Here he is pursing his lips together to show you how juicy they are.

Mama didn't want to hear this comment and imagine Desmond kissing anybody because when that day comes, Des will no longer be a baby and Mama is in no hurry for him to grow up. Right now, the Gup loves him some Mama and Mama loves her some Gup and the onesie he is modeling below couldn't be any truer.

He has been a real Mama's boy for the past few months giving Mama the biggest coos, giggles, laughs, and slobbery kisses. In fact, when he hasn't seen Mama for awhile (either because he was napping or Mama went out to run an errand, etc.) Des grabs Mama's face with both of his hands and bites down hard on her chin or cheek and stays there slobbering on her face for awhile. This is Desmond's way of kissing his Mama and he only does this to Mama and she loves it every time! ;-)

One of our favorite things about Desmond is his gummy, toothless smile. We don't want him to get teeth for awhile but by the way he is drooling and chewing on everything he can get his hands on, he might be teething. Mama wanted to capture his precious gummy smile before the first tooth came in and took the following close-up shots of it.

We posted at the beginning of the month that Desmond had rolled over. Once he did this the first time, it took him a few days before he did it again. We don't think Des was all that keen on flipping over onto his belly since he doesn't really care much for belly time. But as time passed, he started rolling more and more onto his belly from his back. Nowadays, he will do multiple rolls consecutively to get from one spot to the other, often when we are not looking. We think when we leave him alone for a minute or two, he starts rolling to try to find out where we went whereas if you are there with him he is content to stay on his back or belly playing and babbling away.

In addition to rolling from one place to the next, Desmond lunges for toys or anything that catches his attention. He was once laying back on a pillow on the couch and lunched for the phone in Mama's hand so that he ended up on his belly about to fall off the couch. Talk about strong ab muscles! These days, you cannot leave him alone on a high surface for fear of him rolling or lunging off.

Desmond has also been able to sit up by himself unassisted for a few minutes at a time. We know that he will be much happier once he is able to sit upright by himself.

Desmond loves toys now and will get very upset if you take a toy away from him. And who should be the one always swiping his toys?...his sister Stella, that's who. Like we posted before, sibling rivalry has officially started! But Desmond is growing fond of his sister these days. When he sees her first thing in the morning or after a nap, he giggles and laughs and reaches over to Stella to hug her...it's very sweet and makes Mama's heart melt every time.

Remote controls and telephones are his favorite toys because of all of the buttons. He also loves the helium Mylar balloons because of the crinkly noise they make. Desmond still continues to enjoy his exersaucer. And like most babies his age, playing with a toy often means chewing and slobbering all over them :-)

One of his favorite toys still remains his feet. He has gone from just grabbing his foot/feet to actually eating his toes. Unfortunately, we still have not been able to get pictures of the toe eating!

Desmond babbles all of the time. His favorite consent-vowel sound that he likes to repeat over and over is "dadadada". So far he has done "babababa", "thathathatha", and "dadadada" (in that order), but no "mamamama". Who knows, unlike his sister, maybe Des's first words will be Dada instead of Mama.

Desmond has been a pretty good sleeper lately, sleeping from 9 pm to 5 am, but we are trying to extend that morning wake up time to 6 am or later. You put him down on his back to sleep and immediately he turns to his right and goes to sleep on his right side. He has always preferred his right side since he was about 6 weeks old.

Regarding eating solids, the doctor has given us the green light to start fruits and vegetables since he has done so well with cereal. So Desmond will be getting some veggies soon...stay tuned!

Finally, Desmond got this 4th haircut on his 6 month birthday.

A lot has happened in Desmond's first 6 months of life and so many more milestones await him in the upcoming 6 months.

What's Stella like these days?

We wanted to document Stella's personality these days and her skills so that we can have it for the future when our memories start failing...depressing thought, but bound to happen.

Personality wise, Stella is a big comedienne. She is like her Dada in that way. We had been calling her a comedienne for awhile now. A few months back, Mama asked Stella whether she was an American and she replied by saying "No, I'm a comedienne". If she does or say something to make you laugh, it just lights up her world and she will repeat it over and over again.

She loves being silly...again, because it makes people laugh. For example, in the series of pics below, she thinks it is funny and silly to wear her pajama top on her head and pretend that it is a hat. Silly girl!

Besides her Dada's comedic skills, she also has her Dada's impersonation skills, especially imitating accents. Months ago, Dada was going around repeating phrases from one of our favorite TV shows, The Flight of the Conchords, in a New Zealand accent and Stella followed suit by saying "How about you Jemaine, do you have a rapping name?" in a very good New Zealand accent as well.

She is very observant and is very difficult to trick her these days. For example, now that Stella has started drinking juice, we wanted her to be drinking Juicy Juice which is 100% juice as opposed to the Minute Maid Berry punch that Mama drinks which Stella has taken a liking to. So when we gave her the Juicy Juice, she wouldn't drink it insisting that she wants the "red juice", meaning the berry punch. So Mama told Dada to mix the berry punch juice with the Juicy Juice in 1:1 ratio and give it to Stella. Stella drinks the juice mix and insists that she doesn't want the "purple juice" but wants the "red juice". Dada says to her, "this looks like red juice to me, so drink it". Stella looks at him and says, "Well, this looks like purple juice to me."

She is also a very stubborn 2 year old who has entered the "terrible twos" with a vengeance in the past few months, giving Mama heartburn on a daily basis. But Stella wouldn't be normal if she didn't exhibit these typical two year old behaviors. Sigh!!!

She loves her brother to pieces but sibling rivalry has started as of last week. Now that Desmond is more interested in playing with toys, whatever toy he happens to be playing with, Stella wants it and just steals it from him, even though most of these toys are toys she has outgrown a long time ago.

Stella has adjusted fairly well to preschool considering she only goes twice a week. She no longer cries in the morning and when Mama goes to pick her up in the afternoon, she is no hurry to leave. Her teacher has said that she is more comfortable in her new surrounding and is talking and interacting a lot more with the other kids. But Stella and the other kids still do a lot of parallel play which is age appropriate at this stage.

Some of her skills:

• Stella loves numbers and can count up to 100...her attention span permitting. She also recognizes 200, 300, 400, etc. and 1000, 2000, 3000, etc.
• She can recite her alphabet (which she's known since 18 months or so) but can now recognize words like "and", "the", "off", "on", and "to" and will point them out to us when we read books with her.
• Stella has known her home telephone number since the age of 2.
  
• Can sing lots of songs...Twinkle, twinkle, little star; Mary had a little lamb (her favorite); Row, row your boat; Baa, baa, black sheep; Patty cake; Sunny days; You are my sunshine; Elmo's world, etc. just to name a few.
  
• As noted before, she loves to do puzzles. She does all six of her 36-piece jigsaw Disney princess puzzles now with ease and about a month ago, she completed the 48-piece jigsaw puzzle that had 4 princesses on it.
• She loves to color and her coloring has improved greatly over the past few weeks...she is staying more and more within the lines when she colors.
• Her language skills are good and getting better and better each day. She regularly speaks in 8-9 word sentences. But most often, instead of making statements, she forms her sentences into questions because most of the stuff we say to her are questions. For example, instead of saying "I went to school today", Stella will say "Did Stella go to school today?".
  
• She loves being outside, whether at the park, going for walks. or simply blowing bubbles.
  
• Her favorite color is red, favorite animal is the giraffe, favorite TV show is the Mickey Mouse Clubhouse, favorite food is chicken tenders; favorite snacks are goldfish crackers or pretzels, favorite candy is M&Ms, and her favorite princess is Snow White.

So that is what Stella is like these days.

San Diego Trip 2008

We went to San Diego this past week (4/12-4/19) and had a blast!! We got back late Sat night and on Sunday, we celebrated Desmond's baptism. So we have been pretty busy. We decided to take advantage of Dada's conference in San Diego and turn it into a family vacation. Appachen, Amamma, and Aunt Sil came along on the trip as well. We rented a house in beautiful La Jolla, CA that was situated within a few blocks walking distance to the beach. And as usual, San Diego weather was beautiful.

Sat April 12, 2008

Our flight to San Diego got delayed several times, so we didn't get to our house in La Jolla until 10:30 PM local time. Needless to say we were all worn out but the kids were troopers and did marvelously the entire trip. This night marked a milestone for Stella in that she went to sleep by herself in a "big girl" (as opposed to a crib) bed for the first time and slept in it all night long without a problem. She was happy to share her room with Aunt Sil. Desmond also went to bed without a fuss and only woke up once at 4:30 AM for a feed and went back to sleep again until 7:30 AM.

Sun April 13, 2008

Sunday, we took it pretty easy, still recovering from the previous day's travels and jet lag. Dada went to his conference early morning and the rest of us slept in as much as the kids allowed us to. We then took a walk to the nearby restaurants for lunch followed by naps, playing in the yard and enjoying the beautiful weather. Stella thought the orange tree in our neighbor's backyard was pretty cool. When Dada returned, we had dinner in the Gas Lamp district of downtown San Diego. Unfortunately, we were too jet lagged to remember to take any pics on Sunday.

Mon, April 14, 2008

Monday, Dada went to his conference once again early morning and Stella, Aunt Sil, Appachen, and Mama walked to the beach while Amamma stayed behind to keep an eye on the napping Gup.

Stella saw and felt the Pacific Ocean for the first time and was instantly in love. She loved the beach so much that she didn't want to go back. Mama had to bribe her with a lollipop to get her back in the stroller.

A few weeks before our trip, we gave in and purchased a double stroller and here is a shot of it. We really like the double stroller and it came in very handy during this trip.

Monday night, we had a picnic dinner on Sunset Cliffs and watched the sunset. It gets pretty chilly once the sun starts going down but a good time was had by all.

That same night, the Gup got a bath in his brand new inflatable tub that we had purchased just for this trip (it folds away very compactly) and he had fun splashing the water with his hands and his feet. This was the first time we had seen him splash during his bath (b/c his reclining bath seat at home doesn't fill up with as much water like this one), but he was very serious about it and splashed the water like it was his job.

Tues, April 15, 2008

We went to the San Diego Zoo Tues morning. Stella had a blast looking at all of the animals (flamingos, monkeys, elephants, lions, meerkats, birds, hippos, etc).

One of her favorite spots was the petting zoo. Stella has not met an animal that she doesn't like and proceeded to pet all of the goats and sheep in the petting zoo.

When Desmond wasn't napping in the stroller, he was enjoying the sights at the zoo in the Baby Bjorn.

When we later asked Stella, she said her favorite animal she saw at the zoo was the Panda bear and her cub. The panda bear figurine is what she picked out for herself at the gift store.

The Gup was also very curiously observing the Panda bear.

We rounded out our day at the zoo with rides on the skyfari (the aerial sky ride). Stella, Mama, and Aunt Sil were in cart #19...

...and Dada and Des were right behind us taking pictures of us and themselves.

Wed, April 16, 2008

On Wed, we had a leisurely lunch in La Jolla village at a restaurant with magnificent views of La Jolla Cove. Afterwards, we took a walk to the nearby park where Stella was able to run free and the rest of us just enjoyed the sunshine and beautiful scenery. There is a reason why La Jolla means "The Jewel" in spanish...it is absolutely beautiful!!

Desmond got his daily dose of sunshine...


...as well as some lovin'.


Here's the Gup enjoying some lap time with Aunt Sil...


...as well as some tummy time


...and some cereal alfresco.


Mama just loves the following picture showing the brown highlights in Desmond's hair...evidence of Dada's blond hair genes trying to surface through =;)

Once again, Stella found an animal to play with and pet at the park...a cute little white dog who was just as thrilled to play with Stella.

Thurs, April 17, 2008

On Thurs, Dada and Stella went to the beach in the morning and Stella went into the cold, cold ocean all the way in until the water was at her chest level. She did not care how cold the water was and had a blast just splashing around. That is the one thing about kids...they are unaffected by climate and weather as long as they are having fun.

Here she is showing off her Minnie Mouse bathing suit and sunglasses...Stella is a huge Mickey Mouse Clubhouse fan!

In the afternoon, the whole family headed to Balboa Park and walked around the beautiful grounds and enjoyed their science museum. Stella absolutely loved the science museum...running around and wreaking havoc. Her favorite was playing the xylophone in the sound/music room.

Stella, Mama, Aunt Sil, Amamma, and Appachen watched a movie about dolphins at the Imax theater while Dada stayed in the science center with a napping Desmond. Stella enjoyed the first 15 min of the program where dolphins would dive out of the ocean seemingly into your lap, but lost interest when the educational part of the show started. But she was a good little girl and amused herself by singing and clapping for the duration of the 40 minute movie. Here she is in the Imax theater sitting with Mama waiting for the show to begin.

Desmond took a long nap in the science center but woke up in time to enjoy our walk outside in beautiful Balboa park.

Fri, April 18, 2008

Our last day started with Dada, Mama, and Stella heading off to the beach in the morning for one last romp in the ocean for Stella. Once again, Stella had a blast and kept venturing further and further out into the ocean despite the chilly water temperature.

We knew it was time to leave when Stella's lips turned purple, but she was absolutely heartbroken to leave...

Her lips stayed purple for awhile even after we got her home and got her warmed up. Mama was getting concerned, but luckily, Stella's lips returned to their normal color after about an hour or so.

Sat, April 19, 2008

No one wanted to leave beautiful San Diego, but our vacation had come to an end and we sadly headed off to the airport to return home. The Gup was still in a good mood, but then again, life is one big vacation for him as a baby. He especially enjoyed sitting in his sister's carseat at the airport like a big boy. Aunt Sil was making him laugh hysterically while in the carseat and we hope to post that video in another post.

Despite the long hours, the kids did great again on the return trip. We had a fabulous time in San Diego and we hope to return for another visit soon.