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!