Move Over Sister

So, since Dylann is sitting up so well, I decided to sit her on the couch next to me while I worked on my computer this afternoon.  While she was sitting there, Murphy came sauntering over and looked at me, her, back at me, and then proceeded to get on the couch in front of Dylann, turn around and sit right in her lap.

Obviously, some one still has some jealousy issues... and big love for 'his' spot on the couch. :)

I love this sequence of pictures, hilarious!  

Hey, look Mom, the doggy is sitting in my lap! 

Hey wait a sec, that dog is sitting in my lap.

Yo dog, you are kind of in my lap...

Um, Mom a little help here?

Ah man, he stank it up! 

Sitting Pretty

All smiles and sitting pretty!

Dylann and I have officially signed up for 'Mommy and Me' classes at The Little Gym across from our neighborhood in Mount Pleasant. We go for an hour on Tuesday mornings and so far it is a lot of fun.  It's great to get out of the house and meet other moms in the area, and it's fun to spend special time with baby D.  She is currently in the 'bug' class which is ages 4-10 months.  This means she is the youngest in the class right now, but she has a blast watching the other kids and loves listening to mommy mess up the goofy songs.







I have been taking some of the activities I learn in class home and they must be working because in one week Dylann is sitting up like a big girl all on her own!  She started to hold her self up for little bits at a time over the weekend and then on Monday it just clicked and she was sitting up for about 15-20 minutes before tipping over.  Now, end of day Tuesday and our second class, she is sitting up solid and using her hands to play with toys and reach for mommy.  Yay!  I am so proud! :)  (please excuse the mess on her shirt- she just ate a slice of orange for the first time in her mesh pacifier thingy! yes- that's the technical term :-P)

Happy Valentine's Day!

Don't you just LOVE her??

America's Sweetheart??? :-)

Thanks to Aunt Lindsey for the sweet red dress!  It goes perfectly with her candy cane leggings from Aunt Pam. :-)

I hope all of you get to spend the day with those you love!!!

All our Love,

EJ, Kyle, Dylann, and Murphy

Move over Gerber!

Today I made my first batch of HOME MADE Baby Food!  Yay!  It was actually really easy and I got a lot done in a shorter amount of time then I thought.

What a big helper! 

The Before...

I chose some of the basics to start with, one, because Dylann is still on Stage 1 foods, and two, because they are easier. ;-) I went to the the grocery store with Dylann around 9am this morning and bought organic green beans, butternut squash, bananas, avocados, and carrots.  Today was also the first time I brought Dylann in without her car seat to sit in the front of the cart like a 'big girl'! She did great sitting up, but I did have to put some things around her to keep her from falling to the sides.

When we got home I put D down for her nap and got to work.  I decided to bake the squash in a baking dish with about an inch of water in the bottom.  This took about 40 min at 400 degrees.  While that was cooking, I watched a DVRed show, shredded and chopped the carrots and snapped all the ends off the green beans. (And just for Grandma B, I saved all my trimmings for compost ;-) )

From there, I steamed my green beans while I blended the squash in my Cuisinart.  I added some of the water from the baking dish to make it a little more mushy.  After I steamed my green beans, I reserved the water from the pot to mix in with the beans and carrots.  (I read that carrots have more natural nitrates than other veggies and these are not good for young babies, so you are not supposed to use the steamed water from carrots.)  Finally, I mixed up a bunch of bananas with some breast milk and a squeeze from a slice of lemon to ward off browning (which didn't work very well-as you can see).  Right now I have the food in Tupperware, but I am going to go get some ice cube trays tomorrow to distribute the food into and freeze.  Then I can just take a couple of "cubes" out at a time and microwave them for meals!

The After! Looks appetizing doesn't it? ;-)

All in all, I spent about 4 hours cooking, mixing and cleaning all the dishes/mixer I used.  It was very easy and I got a ton of food out of it.  I spent $14.21 on organic fruits and vegetables and made about 20 oz of green beans, 20 oz of bananas, 32 oz of squash and 24 oz of carrots (I only used half the carrots I bought).  I also bought the same things in organic Gerber 'jars' so I could compare price. I got 10 packages of 2(2.5oz)jars equaling a total of 50 oz for $13.90. That means 31 cents for 46 ounces MORE!  That's almost double-Yay! 

The food I made this morning will probably last me a month or two, which makes me realize I can make my own baby food maybe once a month and be set.  Not too hard after all.  Anyway- feeling very healthy, motherly and productive today. :)

My camera assistant, su chef, and inspiration.

5 months old!

5 Months Old!

So, I'm a few days behind, but Happy FIVE Months sweet Dylann!  You continue to amaze me and change everyday.  Your little personality is starting to emerge and you are very sweet and flirty, while continuing to be laid back and easy going.  You love to sit in your bouncy chair and watch mommy dry her hair, and you love grabbing your toys hanging over your play mat.  You had a lot of firsts this month including rolling over, finding your feet, and eating solids.  You also started using new toys, like your johnny-jump-up and your exersaucer.  You LOVE your jump-up and jump around like crazy when we put you in it and say "Bouncy Bouncy!"  It is definitely your new favorite past time.

Bouncy Bouncy!

You have rolled over a few times now, but usually only in frustration, you still do not like tummy time, AT ALL.  Hopefully once you realize you can get up and crawl around from there, you won't mind it so much.  You have started to sit up on your own (with a little strategic propping up) and you love to "fly" over daddy's head.

Look how big I am! 

You are eating 4 times a day now, with solids at 3 of them and then a night time nursing before bed.  You continue to sleep 10-12 hours at night, although you have started to wake-up a little earlier.  You also take two 1.5-2 hour naps every day.  I have started letting Murphy go in and get you up from your nap when I hear you on the monitor.  I say "Where's your baby girl Murphy?" and he goes running into your room and looks over your crib edge to see your big smile!

Surprise! 

I can't wait to see what *surprises* this next month has in store!  All I know is that every month I love you more and more!

Boone Hall Oyster Roast

I guess if we had a theme for this weekend, it would be "FOOD".  Friday night we went to dinner with our Boot Camp Instructor team for a little 2011 pow wow.  We went to Red Drum in Mount Pleasant and as always the food was amazing!  We were going to get a babysitter for Dylann, but at the last minute we decided to just bring her since we were going fairly early and she would just sleep through it.  Sure enough, we put her in her car seat to head there and she zonked right out, she slept all through dinner and Daddy easily transfered her from car seat to crib when we got home without her waking up.  I felt a little bad about having my baby out past 9pm but very glad we saved that $40 why we still can!

On Saturday we had some skydiving friends from NC come to town for a visit and to go to the Boone Hall Oyster Roast on Sunday. We met up with them downtown Saturday night for dinner at Blossom.  I've heard great things about this place, it is in the same family with Magnolias and High Cotton, but I'd never been.  It was wonderful and the atmosphere was fantastic.  Definitely will be going back there again soon. On Sunday they came over to our house in the morning where we polished off a couple to many mimosas and then we piled into "Shirley" (what we have named our soccer mom pilot) to head to the Roast.  Boone Hall Plantation is only about 3 miles from our house, but it took us almost an hour to get there down the 2 lane road.  Just goes to show how many people were going to this thing! The Boone Hall Oyster Roast is the largest Oyster Roast in the world... over 65,000 pounds of oysters are eaten each year by a couple of thousand oyster lovers.  And yes, it was a zoo.  Tons of people head out there early to set up shop for what ends up looking like a cross between the biggest tailgate/modern day Woodstock you have ever seen.

Boone Hall Oyster Roast 2011

Tables are set up everywhere that you can bring your 'beer' buckets of oysters to, or you can bring them back to your little personal village and shuck away into one of the many oyster recycling bins.  The weather could not have been more perfect.  70 degrees and sunny with a nice light breeze.  It was just the break we all needed from the winter dull that is hanging around.  We ate EIGHT buckets of oysters between the 6 of us, and honestly could have gone back for 4 more if we wouldn't have run out of tickets. haha.

Yummmmmmm!

Dylann did great and we got a lot of compliments on what a cute baby she is.:)  At one point we had her striped down to her t-shirt and diaper because it was so warm.  She ended up skipping her afternoon nap because of all the action, but the minute we got back in the car she was out!   We had a great time with our friends and will definitely be making this an annual event for the Starck family!

Our new jogging stroller, The City Mini Jogger- we LoVe it!  

Mommy and Dylann at the Oyster Roast

Our first Veggies!

Today, 3 weeks after starting Dylann on rice cereal, we started Vegetables!  Yep, it was a big day at the Starck household. ;-)  I decided to start with an orange vegetable, squash.  She loved it!  It was funny to see her expression when she first tasted it, "Whoa, that's not rice cereal!"  She tends to have a flair for the dramatics when she eats with big open bites, almost like she is making a fishy face.  Cute, but with these extremely runny veggies, they tend to go flying in all directions if I don't get the spoon all the way in her mouth before she chomps down.  Now I know why Aunt Lindsey always de-clothed Emma for meals. :)

I only gave her half of a small jar just in case she had any allergies to it, but so far, she is doing fine.  We will stick to Squash for the next 3 days, eventually adding it in to lunch and dinner and then on day 4 we are going to introduce a green vegetable... drum roll... green beans! Oh the excitement. Here is a picture with her first veggie... sorry for the red eyes, it is from my camera phone.

More Squash Please!