Let Go My Legos

Des loves playing with his Legos these days. He is pretty good at connecting them together. It is so funny to watch him put two pieces of Legos together. If the pieces are not aligned perfectly, he will still try to jam them together with all of his strength until somehow the pieces shift positions and click together. One time, he was in the midst of trying very hard to jam two pieces together and Dada and Mama were watching him and Des finally realized we were watching him and he looked up and just laughed and threw the Lego pieces in front of him...he is such a goof. We all cracked up laughing!
The following two shots were taken by Mama while Des was sitting on her lap.

Model Girl

Mama decided to do an impromptu photo shoot today and took a whole bunch of pictures of one of her favorite subjects...Stella. (Des didn't want to sit still for a photo shoot.) There were so many pictures we liked, but we will post a few of our favorite ones of Stella.

Stella insisted I take a picture of her rainbow clips that she picked out to put in her hair when she got dressed this morning.

Stella the Bookworm

One of Stella's favorite activities is going to the library and checking out tons of books to read. She and Dada went this morning after breakfast. When Dada first told her that they were going to go to the library, Stella said "Oh, this is so exciting!" Dada said that she was such an angel at the library, picking out her book, sitting down to read it, and being quiet and not bothering anyone. Her favorite books are by Mo Willems. (the Gerald and Piggie series as well as the Pigeon series). She also got some Olivia (the Pig) books...she's a riot. Last time, she checked out 19 books and she read them all. This time, she checked out 23 books.

She said "This is so exciting" again when she and Dada were in line to check out books. When they got in the car to come home, Stella said, "I can't wait to show Mama my books". So sweet and so adorable!

Desmond is 18 Months Old

Father Time keeps on ticking and our children keep on growing. Our little man is a year and a half old today...what!?!? Where did the time go? We cannot believe he will be 2 years old in 6 months. Well, let's get started with a summary of what Des has been up to lately?

Language
Like we stated in a previous post, his language skills (especially verbal communication) are really taking off. He uses a lot of multi-word phrases that contain a combination of a noun/pronoun & a verb to get his thoughts and wants across to us.
Sometimes he whines and uses a combination of verbal and body language to communicate to us. For example, Mama was in the kitchen making breakfast one morning and Des started whining and Mama asked him what he wanted. He took Mama's hand and pulled her forward and said "walk" and led Mama to the pantry. When Mama opened the pantry, he said "yaaay" and started clapping his hands. Then Des pointed to the Cheerios box and said "cheeios". Mama said, you want Cheerios and he very promptly and definitively said "yesh". Desmond's pronunciation and use of "yes" is probably one of the cutest things ever.

Another funny story...in the past, When Dada was driving and made a sharp turn or braked hard, Mama would often say "Wow, wow, wow, easy Daddo". Stella has picked up on this and will say this phrase to Dada now instead of Mama. Well, who else do you think was listening and picked up this phrase? One day, we were all in the car and Dada had to make a quick and jerky left turn out of our housing complex due to the traffic and when he did, Des pipes up before anyone and says "Wow, wow, wow, ease Daddo". LOL! Dada said, "Great, that's just what I need, another backseat driver!!!"

Mama was keeping count of Des's new words after he turned 16 months, but soon, Des's new words got to be too many to keep track of. Here are a list of new words that Mama did write down before she lost track:
tutle (turtle).............tchin (chin).............ease (easy)......................awmost (almost)
ticker (sticker).........eers (ears)..............appy (happy)................fute (flute)
wock (rock).............Tewah (Stella)........Demand (Desmond).......hand
mouse.....................horse.......................cat.................................head
feet...........................fall........................bird or birdie.................house
Mama's....................hot........................wash...............................me
sausage....................bacon....................oh no..............................fun
beans.......................puzzle....................bug
Pete (from Mickey Mouse Clubhouse)
Mittey & Minnie (Mickey & Minnie Mouse)
Ernie, Grover, Zoe, Abby (all characters from Sesame Street)

Singing & Reading
Desmond continues to love singing and will sing along in the car to the various children's CDs we have and will ask for certain songs to be played over and over by saying "adain, adain", meaning "again, again". Some of his favorites are: Muffin Man; Lullaby and Goodnight; Frere Jacques; Apples and Bananas; and Itsy Bitsy Spider.

Desmond also loves reading books with us and his attention span for sitting through an entire book is getting longer. He also loves to read by himself (emulating his big sis), opening up a book, and saying out aloud what he thinks the book says.

Personality
Our little Des is rambunctious, mischievous, and 100% BOY. He does things that Stella has never ever have even thought of doing. For example, Des either breaks or pulls the tips off of markers; he scratches shavings off of crayons with his fingernails; he destroys books (ripping pages out and tearing off covers) that Stella has kept in good condition for the past 3 years; likes butting his head against ours, etc. He loves to climb, climb, climb and will often use Mama's body to perfect his climbing skills. If Mama is sitting on the floor, he will come up behind her and literally start climbing up her back. If Mama is lounging on the floor, he will climb on her back and will stand up and balance himself on the most uneven of surfaces (i.e, one foot on Mama's shoulder & another foot on Mama's hips, etc.)

Des is also very mischievous in so many ways. This is probably one of the biggest ways that he is different from Stella. For example, when Stella is watching a TV show or DVD, Des likes to go over to the TV and turn it off and run away despite the many gentle and not so gentle warnings Mama and Dada give him. Although, this is pretty frustrating for Stella, we have to admit that it is pretty funny to watch this little guy trotting up to the TV, turn it off, and trot away as fast as he can with Stella yelling at him and chasing behind him.

Desmond also pulls Stella's or Mama's hair (usually Stella's), hits us on the head or face, and pinches our faces, not because he is malicious, but because he thinks it's fun and doesn't realize it hurts. He used to listen to us when we raised our voices and told him strictly that this is a "no-no". He would usually stop and be on the verge of tears with his bottom lip out when we yelled at him to stop. But nowadays, when he does these things, he knows he is doing a "no-no" and fully expects to get yelled at, and so when we do yell at him, he doesn't care and just sort of smiles or smirks at us or makes funny faces trying to make us laugh, and five seconds later repeats the "no-no". We have tried so many things like not yelling at him, but telling him to be "gentle" when he hits our faces, but so far, he just hits harder while saying "gentle, gentle". We have put him in his crib for a time out, but that doesn't seem to be working because when we yell "no hitting" or "no pulling hair", Des just looks at us and says "crib?", meaning "you guys are going to be put me in my crib now?"

We realize that part of it is that it is fun for Des to get the reaction he does, especially from Stella, when he does these "no-nos". And part of it is Des taking out his frustrations on Stella for all of the things Stella does to him, like snatching away any toy Des has and always telling him what he can and cannot do. In the meantime, all we can do is try to tell Des what is acceptable and not acceptable when it comes to his antics.

Desmond also has a very funny and fun-loving personality. He will often do silly things and laugh while saying "funny, funny"! He doesn't seem to take himself too seriously! He loves wrestling with his Dada and loves to roughhouse with him on the bed. Des also loves to get attacked by the tickle monster (aka Dada) over and over again.

Playing
Desmond loves to play outside and will often go over to the door leading out to the deck and backyard and ask, "outside, outside?". He absolutely loves animals and gets so excited over birdies, cats, squirrels, and a groundhog that we see in our backyard. Lately, we have been seeing a bunny in our backyard, and Des just gets so excited when we spot him through our kitchen windows. Des will stand at the kitchen window, watching the bunny and saying "Bunny, Bunny, Bunny Hi". And when the bunny finally hops away, he gets very sad and says "Bunny, see?" (meaning can I see the bunny?) and Mama has to tell him that the bunny went to his house. Then Des will say, "Bunny hop away, Bunny house". Then hours will pass, and Des will bring up the bunny again, and Mama will say, "I don't know where the bunny is Buddy. Where did it go?", to which Des will respond, "Bunny house" (meaning the bunny went to his house just like you told me earlier Mama). LOL! It is so fun having these little conversations with our little man.

That's a glimpse of our little guy at 18 months. We love you Bud Bud!!!

Body Painting

This morning at breakfast, Des decided to try out a new method of body painting...with blackberries. He was successful in getting it all over his hands (front and back) and up his arms all the way up to his shirt sleeves.

Boys will be boys!!!

Sella & Her Dada's Glasses

A few days ago, Stella swiped her Dada's glasses from the bathroom counter and decided to try them on. She looked so funny that Mama just had to take some pictures before she did the correct motherly thing and advised Stella that it is not a good idea to play with Dada's glasses.

How silly and cute does she look?

Mama and Des were laughing so hard at Stella which then made Stella laugh even harder.

Stella's Progression in Writing & Drawing

Stella has started writing letters of the alphabet and numbers all by herself lately . We have seen her write the following letters and numbers but we think she can write others as well: a, b, c, d, e, f, h, i , l, s, t, 1, 2, 3. If she thinks for whatever reason she can't write a letter or number perfectly, then she won't, no matter how much we ask and encourage her to...she is a little perfectionist at heart like her Mama.

She has also been putting letters together and writing actual words all by herself (she doesn't even ask us how to spell these words):

Lately, she is also been really into eyelashes and drawing them on the faces she draws. When she is watching a cartoon or reading a book, she will point out all of the girl characters based on if they have eyelashes or not. And she doesn't understand why some girls (i.e. Dora) don't have eyelashes. In Stella's mind, if you are a girl, then you must have eyelashes =:) Too funny!

"Help Me"

That's what the Gup said on Sun night when he lost his matchbox car underneath the door to the closet. He came to Mama and said "help me" and mama said , what do you need help with and he said "car" pointing to the closet door. Sure enough, when Mama opened the closet door, there was Desmond's little car.

We are so impressed with his language skills and his use of multiple word phrases these days. Some of the other phrases in his repertoire are as follows:

• There it is, I found it. (He often says this when he finds a book or a toy he is looking for)
• Mama, where ayoo? (when he comes looking for Mama)
  
• Look, found it.
  
• Uh oh, dropped it.
• Uh oh, broke it, fix it. (often said when he breaks something, which he does quite a lot liking ripping pages out of books, breaking crayons, etc)
  
• Eat it.
• I did it (with a proud look on his face when he has done something challenging)
  
• Look, spinnin'. (When he is spinning around in circles)

Desmond's got other phrases, but we just can't remember them all right now. Having a chatterbox of a big sister is helping Des with his budding language skills =;)

He is getting to be such a big boy!

Razorfest 2009

We went to Razorfest today, an annual family friendly event to support the University of Arkansas football team. The weather could have been better (it rained on and off) but the kids had a lot of fun.
Stella and Des were thrilled to get Mickey Mouse balloons and lollipops from the Disney booth as well as some pink bunny ears from the Energizer booth.

There were lots of other booths giving out free stuff like candy and luau necklaces, but Stella's most favorite thing were the gigantic inflatable slides they had set up outside.

We didn't take a stroller so the kids did a lot of walking. We love this pic of Des walking with such purpose!

Des was so exhausted with all of the walking he did that he fell asleep within minutes of getting in the car.

Desmo Is Here

Des wanted to get in on the Elmo action (since Stella seemed to be having so much fun with it) and brought the costume over to Mama and said "put it on me" because he has heard Stella repeat this phrase to Mama when asking for help with getting the Elmo costume on.
But once we got the costume on him, Des didn't think it was so fun anymore and cried until we got the Elmo costume off.

Climbing

Des is officially a climber now. Last Fri, Des climbed up on top of the play table all by himself. When Mama saw him on top of the table, she immediately picked him up and put him down on the floor and went into the kitchen for a second and lo and behold, Des was back on top of the table again. So she took some pics. He first climbs onto the chair and then from the chair to the table...he does this in a matter of seconds. He has been enjoying climbing on to the couch all by himself for a few weeks now, but I guess the couch was not challenging enough =;).
His main motivation for climbing on top of the table is to get at the PlayDoh and other things that he is not allowed to play with like Stella's paints and scissors. So now all of those things have been removed from the table hoping that it will deter our little table climber.

Easter Egg Hunt

Easter Sunday brought lots and lots of rain for us so we had to improvise and do our Easter egg hunt inside the house rather than outside. While the kids were napping, Mama filled Easter eggs with goodies like M&M's, goldfish crackers, or mini peanut butter cups. Then Dada hid the eggs in our living room. Armed with their buckets, Stella and Des set out to find their eggs.

Stella was all about the hunt and would find an egg, put it in her basket and then look for more eggs. Des, on the other hand, was all about the treats inside the eggs! He would find an egg, then plop down to open the egg, and eat the treat inside before looking for more eggs.

So he didn't get very far in accumulating a lot of eggs, but Stella was nice enough to give him all of the blue, yellow, orange, and green eggs she found, because she only wanted the pink and purple eggs (her favorite colors) =:)

We love this next series of shots that capture Des in the very serious business of getting at the treats inside the egg.

Step 1: Open the egg. ....................................Step 2: Eat the treat.

Step 3: Get another egg and repeat steps 1 & 2.

When Des was going through his eggs, he would take an egg out and shake it. If it didn't rattle, he would toss it aside and move onto another egg and shake it, until he found an egg that rattled, and then he would open it. No one taught him this...it's just sheer instinct!

Rainbow Easter Eggs

After breakfast Easter morning, Stella dyed eggs with some help from Mama and Dada. Since Stella loves rainbows, she had told Mama that she wanted to make rainbow eggs, and Mama was able to find a recipe for rainbow eggs!

The Gup, surprisingly, sat quietly on the kitchen counter top by Ommy's side watching Stella dye the eggs without ever really reaching for the egg dye containers.

It took some trial and error, but we eventually perfected our methods to yield these beautiful rainbow mottled eggs.

These two were Mama and Stella's favorite ones.