Jump! Jump!

We told you before that Desmond loves jumping in his jumperoo. These days he can jump so high in it and just goes crazy. Here's a video of Mr. Des's jumping abilities. Enjoy!

Standing Tall!

This past Sat (7/5/08), as we were getting Stella ready for bed, we put Desmond in Stella's crib and he was able to stand by himself holding onto the crib rails. Desmond thought that this was the best thing ever as seen by his big grin in the pic above. He just loved standing by himself soooo much. He would fall here and there and when he did, he would try to pull up to standing by himself and would make it halfway up. A little more practice and he'll soon be pulling up to standing all by himself.

Stella's a Girlie Girl!

This past weekend, Stella had a very girlie rite of passage...she got her finger nails painted for the first time and she is proudly showing them off in the pic above. Mama has painted her toenails several times before, but this was the first time little Stella girl got a manicure. Stella went into Mama's bathroom drawer, picked out the red nail polish, and politely asked Mama to paint her nails...and Mama willingly obliged.

Lately, Stella has been very interested in all things girlie like clothes and Mama's makeup. She will often follow Mama around like a shadow, watching intently how Mama gets dressed, does her hair, and puts on makeup. Our little girl is growing up too fast!

July 4th Weekend Cont'd

Our 4th of July weekend continued with another trip to the park on Sunday, since our Stella loves it so much. And this time, we had the park all to ourselves until the very end.

Here's Stella and Desmond (from the safety of his Dada's lap) enjoying some time on the see saw.

We brought a blanket to lay out on and Des enjoyed crawling around on it chasing the bubbles Mama was blowing.

Dada took this next series of shots of Stella climbing up the ladder and going down a blue tunnel slide.

Our 4th of July weekend was filled with spending lots of time outdoors having lots of fun and we were sad to see the long weekend come to an end.

Happy 4th of July!

While it was not a sunny day here today, the heat and humidity were not bad, so we decided to take advantage of it and headed to the park. Initially Mama accompanied Stella in the park while Dada drove around with a napping Gup. Stella flitted from one playground equipment to another, climbing up ladders, going down tunnel slides, twisty slides and really tall slides, playing with the chimes and drums, etc. Stella even swung in the big kid swing without any trouble while Mama pushed. Soon, Dada and Gup joined us and Gup got to swing in a swing by himself for the first time while his sister pushed. He really enjoyed it.

Soon after, Des went back into the Baby Bjorn and followed his sister around in the park.

Here's Dada, Stella, and Des climbing the spider web contraption.

Soon it was lunch time and we left the park with a very, very sad Stella girl who wanted to play all day long in the park.

The rest of our evening and night was filled with on and off rain showers, so we headed to the top (14th) floor of the building where Dada works in order to see the fireworks. The top floor has an outside corridor lined with windows with wide ledges facing south, so we were able to see the National DC fireworks as well as the fireworks of nearby cities. We loved the fact that we didn't have to deal with traffic, crowds, and wet weather to see the fireworks. Here are some pics of us hanging out in the corridor prior to the start of the fireworks. Stella enjoyed the show and would request out loud what color fireworks she wanted to see next...silly girl :)

Both kids stayed up past their 9 pm bedtime but it was worth it!

Desmond is 8 Months Old!

Can it really be that Desmond is 8 months old? That means in 4 more months, he will be ONE YEAR OLD!?!?! How can time be flying by so fast. Well here are some highlights of what Des has done and can do since he turned 7 months old:

• Besides baby food, he has had plain white rice, watermelon, real bananas, and mangoes. He has also sucked on apple and pear slices but they are too hard for him to chew on. His sister has also fed him cupcakes when Mama wasn't looking and Des loved it =:)
• Des has also managed to eat the candy coating of an orange M&M that fell on the floor out of Stella's hands before Mama could pry it out of his hands. That boy has eyes like a hawk and managed to see and find the one M&M that fell onto a red rug that has lots of print on it.
• Des can sit upright by himself, although he has yet to go from the laying down position to sitting by himself, but he is trying. He will often prop himself on one arm/elbow while on his side.
• Des still army crawls and he is very mobile going from the living room to the dining room and kitchen in a flash. Luckily we have safety gates in place to the entrances of all of the stairs from Stella's crawling days.
• Des will often get on his hands and knees and rock back and forth but he still doesn't use this method to crawl...if only he realized that this is much easier than army crawling. But hey, he gets to wherever he wants to go using his method, so that's what counts.
• Des loves to "pam...pam...pam" his toys on the floor like a hammer. He is such a boy.
• He likes putting his mouth on the rim of drinking glasses...this amuses him so much even if he is not drinking water out of them.
• He thinks it's funny when Mama or Dada yawns...silly guy!
• He jumps so high on his jumperoo, up and down, up and down. We will have to post a video of this because it is hysterical to see him go crazy in it.
  

Back from NJ

This past week we took a trip up to NJ to visit Amamma, Appachen, and Aunt Sil. We drove up Fri night (6/13/08) and Sat, Dada took the train back to MD because he was traveling all week for work. Mama, Stella, and Desmond stayed behind in NJ for the entire week and had a blast spending some quality time with the grandparents and Aunt Sil. In fact we were too busy having fun to even remember to take pictures...sorry! Dada came back on Fri (6/20/08) and we all drove back home this past Sunday.

This was the first time we had ever been away from Dada for this long. But luckily, we had Amamma, Appachen, and Aunt Sil to keep us company. This marked the first time Dada had ever been away from his son and Des sure missed his Dada because upon Dada's return, Des just laid on his belly gazing up at his Dada, completely mesmerized. It was soo cute and sweet to see!

Dada remembered to take a few pictures when he returned to NJ. Here are a few shots of Des crawling over to get the camera while wearing his green and yellow turtle polo shirt...one of Mama's favorite shirts she bought for him.

Other highlights from our time in NJ include a trip to Chili's during which Des had serious anger management issues because he couldn't have our food, Stella playing in the big blow up pool Appachen bought for her, sitting outside on the deck enjoying the beautiful weather and getting our daily dose of sunshine, Stella going for walks with her grandparents to the bridge that went over a creek, Des getting his first taste of real, sliced up bananas and mangoes...he loved them both, and just enjoying Amamma's pampering and delicious homemade Indian food .

Our last day in NJ, Appachen remembered to bring out Aunt Sil's old electric keyboard and the kids had a blast with it, especially Stella.

Stella playing the keyboard, while Desmond tries to sneak in there. Poor guy, every time Des would come near the keyboard, Stella would push him away.

The two best friends horsin' around!