Stella Can Draw!

Stella drew a closed circle yesterday all by herself. Mama was reading her Parenting magazine and there was an article about the development of artistic skills in children broken down by age. It said that by the time a kid turns 3, most are able to draw closed circles. So this article made Mama test Stella's artistic skills. Mama showed her how to draw a circle and then Stella drew a few all by herself. Mama then drew different types of smiley/sad/angry faces and asked Stella to draw in the eyes and mouth on circles Mama drew for her and she did. In the pic below, the smiley faces in brown are the ones Stella drew. She told me that the brown face in the top left is happy and the brown face on the very bottom left is sad.

This is a huge leap from the scribbles and straight lines she has been drawing up until now. Needless to say, we are very proud of her.

Desmond is 7 Months Old!

Desmond turned 7 months old 2 days ago and the following are the things he can do:

• Can army crawl very well.
• Can get whatever toy he wants. The other day, he crawled over to the Lego container, took the snap on lid off somehow and dumped out all of the Lego pieces onto the floor!
  
• Gets into all of Stella's toys much to Stella's chagrin.
• Getting better and better at sitting upright by himself.

• Loves cords esp electrical cords.
• Complains if toy is taken away.
• Likes jumping in his jumperoo.

• Loves solid foods. So far he has had: rice, oatmeal, and barley cereal, sweet peas, sweet potatoes, squash, green beans, carrots, applesauce, sweet corn, sweet potato cereal puffs, and apple wagon wheels.
• Very impatient when it comes to food. As soon as you put him in his highchair, you better have his food ready.
  
• Picks up his fruit cereal puffs with pincer grasp well...releasing it into his mouth is still more of a challenge. He gets so excited when we take out his container of fruit cereal puffs.
  
• Looks at our plates of food longingly and starts whining. When Mama was holding him in one hand and eating chips with the other, Desmond got so excited at the food, giggled, and placed his mouth on Mama's mouth in an attempt to eat the chips out of Mama's mouth...silly boy!
• Can hold his bottle but usually likes to play with it rather than drink it.

• Sleeps from 9 pm to anywhere between 6-7 am
• Starting to really love interacting with his sister. Stella can make him laugh like crazy and that just lights up Stella's world. We can see the two of them being the best of friends as well as getting into huge battles over toys.
  

Twinkle Twinkle Little Star

Stella played "Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star" on the piano all by herself perfectly yesterday. She has inherited Daddy's musical abilities because Mama sure doesn't have any! Maybe Stella is the next Mozart=:) Since the toy piano she plays on has numbers on each key, we just thought Stella memorized the numbered keys in order to play "Twinkle, Twinkle". But we were wrong, because at school, Dada witnessed Stella playing "Twinkle, Twinkle" on the xylophone that does not have any numbered keys!

G.I. Joe Desmond

For the past week, Desmond has been such a rolly polly olly, rolling all over the place intentionally to get whatever toy he wants. In addition to rolling, each day, he has been moving forward to get whatever toy or object catches his interest. Initial attempts at moving forward took a lot of effort and included Desmond basically army crawling inch by tiny inch as he pushed off with both feet. Now he will bring one knee up to his belly and propel off with his feet to move forward. The funny thing is he will go after a toy and once he gets that toy, he will then see another toy and will then drop the 1st toy to go after the 2nd toy and so on. With his new found mobility and the freedom that comes with it, he is like a kid in a candy store and doesn't know where to go and what toy to get because little man wants them all, much to Stella's chagrin.

Although he is not crawling in the technical sense, he is still moving forward and getting places. We can't leave him alone to even step away for a moment because he ends up in places we don't want him to. So this weekend, Dada erected the baby jail to contain our little mobile guy on occasions when we can't supervise his army crawling.

The Next Mozart?

Desmond loves playing with his sister's piano. Is he the next Mozart? I guess it's too early to tell, but we sure are enjoying watching the little man sit and play/pound on the keys...it is so cute.

Mother's Day 2008

Today is Mother's Day and we celebrated by keeping things simple and relaxing. Mama got to sleep in a little this morning. After breakfast, Dada and Stella left to go get Mama's Mother's Day gift and card while Mama got to stay home and spend some quality time with the Gup. Stella presented Mama with a sweet card from her and Des that Dada helped picked out and gave Mama a bottle of her favorite sparkling wine. Stella also made this beautiful necklace out of pasta for Mama at school...so cute that she can make things like this now! Later that evening, we went to dinner at one of Mama's favorite sushi restaurants. Mama had a great day spending some quality time with the 3 people she loves the most!

A Visit with Friends

Yesterday, we went over to Griffin's house to see Sarah, a friend of ours from Duke who was in town visiting, and also got to hang out with Soma and Basil and their baby, Kadyn. We all had a great time catching up with our friends. (We forgot to take our camera along so we had to steal these pics from the Kalbs.)

Stella was shy at first and didn't want to go inside the house, but once inside, she was thrilled to play with all of Griffin's toys.

Griffin came to investigate why his Mommy was holding Desmond but quickly warmed up to the little man. Griffin was very gentle with Desmond. Desmond, on the other hand, is starting to develop stranger anxiety, and didn't like it when anyone else besides Mama or Dada was holding him. Here he is giving Rebecca the look like "Who are you and why are you holding me?"

We had laid out a blanket for Desmond to roll around on and soon all the kids joined Des on his blanket. But getting a picture with all of the kids looking at the camera proved to be impossible.

Baby Kadyn is about 5 months older than Desmond but we soon realized that he had outgrown her in height and weight. I guess we got a biggy fry on our hands =:)

Picnic Time!

May 6, 2008
David's lab had their annual picnic for their employees and families today and our clan had a good ol' time. Des was very sleepy that day and spent a lot of his time napping at the picnic. Stella quickly made friends with the adults and even got a gift bag from one of Dada's colleagues. The gift bag had Strawberry Shortcake lip gloss, glitter pens in fun colors, and ponytail holders. Stella loved these things so much that later that night she went to bed clutching her lip gloss in her hand! Desmond got some cute pig and cow wrist rattles that he slobbered all over in no time. Stella also got to ride on the carousel, eat popsicles, kick the soccer ball around, and "play" badminton. As is the case with any outdoor activity, Stella was very sad to leave.

Mmm, popsicle!

Check out Stella's curly ponytail! She is wearing the Strawberry Shortcake ponytail holder.

Friday Night Out

May 2, 2008
It was a beautiful day here today and when Dada got home, we went out to have dinner alfresco at an Indian restaurant at the Rio (a place with restaurants with outdoor seating and shops on a boardwalk built around a lake), one of Stella's favorites places to run around and look at the ducks and geese in the lake. Stella got to wear her giraffe dress that Appachen got her and Desmond got to wear his red polo shirt and denim shorts that Mama got him. Des looks like a such a little man in his big boy outfit!

Sweet Peas for our Sweet Pea!

On, April 27, 2008, Desmond had his first taste of a vegetable...sweet peas...and he loved it, eating it up without spilling one bite! In fact, he ate two containers of it. Mama, Dada, and Stella enjoyed chicken kabobs, rice, pita bread and hummus for dinner at Moby Dick, while Desmond equally enjoyed his dinner of sweet peas.

Dude, I am not sure about this green stuff you're bringing towards my mouth!

I'll try anything once.

I guess it's not so bad.

More please!