Month: April 2008

These months are still just flying by…and each one seems to get better and better! 8 months hasn’t brought too many changes, but the changes it has brought are fun. Mostly Dayla is just seeming more and more like a person than a baby. She is “talking” all the time, she can now very successfully do the “army crawl” getting from one side of her blanket to the other, and she has just started eating a whole new variety of foods. Some of the new foods she has enjoyed include: cottage cheese, yogurt, blueberries, pork, rice, zucchini, summer squash, cheerios (see last post) and crackers. It is such a blast to try feeding her off our plates and seeing what items get the lean over (for more) and what items come right back out accompanying a disgusted face. Her 8 month picture shows her with some strange vegetables because this month the whole family have been trying lots of new vegetables for the first time. (We mentioned a CSA box in previous posts…this is a box of yummy vegetables we are getting from a local farm. We are doing it mostly to force ourselves to try some fun new foods!)

Dayla at 8 Months!

It’s been over two weeks since our last post so I guess we’re due. Dayla, Ginette, and I have all been afflicted with various sicknesses in the preceding weeks. I had a nasty 24 hour cold last Sunday which I promptly gave to Ginette. Unfortunately for her it last 8 days. Dayla got her first case of pink eye. Squirting medicine in your screaming daughter’s eyes while forcibly holding her head down is a ton of fun. After all this I got another cold today and came home from work after toughing it out for 45 minutes in front of my computer.
Enough complaining.
Here are a few pictures we took recently. It’s a bit of a mish-mash but we wanted to try out our new lens.
*begin camera nerd talk*
We love our 50mm 1.8 but found it was just too close for indoor shooting and group shots. We did a ton of research on a good wide angle lens. We have the Canon 17-85 IS which works well for landscapes but we really wanted something faster than the f/4-5.6 this lens offered. After much deliberation we went with the Tamron 17-50 f/2.8. The lens got great reviews and had the narrow depth of field we were looking for. I have been very happy with the quality of the pictures so far (see below) but have yet to put it through its paces. Hopefully this will be our new “main” lens and I can keep the 50mm in the bag.
*end camera nerd talk*
Dayla and James hanging out at Grandma’s house. James is great about letting Dayla mess with him and has only bitten her once.

Dayla in her “playroom” (i.e. the living room, front room, family room, den, foyer, etc) with afternoon sun.

Dayla just started eating finger foods like peas and Cheerios this week. She licked these Cheerios and stuck them to her cheeks all by herself. I swear.

We have been getting some pretty weird vegetables in our CSA box. Last week we got red chard. I didn’t know people actually ate that stuff. I thought it was purely decorative, like parsley, or cauliflower. Anyway, we looked up this recipe at allrecipes.com and gave it a go. We thought the end result looked pretty so we took a picture and submitted it. Check out our picture on the recipe page.

When we were up in Whittier this last weekend I went through some boxes of old stuff my mom saved. You are looking at my blanket, or binkie. It started its life as two separate blankets but eventually merged into this single entity. It didn’t fall apart in storage, it has just always looked like this. At least as long as I can remember.

19 days ago, we were on the 19th of March celebrating Dayla being 7 months old! I don’t know how posting this one slipped by me, but don’t you worry, we didn’t forget to take a 7 month old picture. If you look closely we payed a little tribute to the fact that we were in Texas on the 19th of last month. And of course since it was the month of Easter, we took it in Dayla’s beautiful Easter dress (courtesy of my sis Danielle)
The best part of Dayla’s 7th month was that I was able to be home with her and enjoy her everyday. We have been on lots of adventures together (see below for more pictures) which is not only so fun, but has really felt like a huge blessing from God that we are able to do it.
New 7 month tricks:

Top front tooth breaking in after two very painful little nights. That makes 2.5 teeth!

Lots of “talking”, ba ba, da da, and our new favorite…moving her tongue in and out of her mouth like she is sticking out her tongue at you and then taking it back (sounds like blahalala)

Sitting up very sturdy, rocking the body…but no crawling yet

Scooting herself around like a champ on her play mat, pulling out her basket of toys from under the coffee table then pulling out each toy and tasting them one by one. Very amusing!

When we are playing on the floor, she will sometimes lean over, grab my pants and pull herself almost into my lap. I take this as a sign to cuddle with Mom and read a book.

Splashing in the pool! Dayla has been to the pool several times now and loves it and seems to love and splash in her bath more and more too.
And onto the pictures:

7 Months in Easter best

Playing with friend Kalilah (Her mom and I worked together at Starbucks! The girls are 1 month apart)

Loving the bath

James and Dayla on the swings

“Check out our CSA box!”