Month: June 2008

Northern California Trip

I realize that I did not follow through with my promise of posting one post a day till the end of June. My apologies. My excuse is that we went on a road trip to Northern California to have quality family time. The trip was a blast, filled with lots of loved ones, memories and adventures. And we got to put our “new” 2001 Toyota Camry to the test! I hope this GIANT post will make it up to you. (A BIG thanks to all who made our awesome trip possible by hosting us along the way!)

Our New Family Car (don’t worry orange Volvo fans; it replaced my two door Acura Integra “Mr. Green”. Sad face.) that took us on the road trip!

First stop, Aunt Amy and Uncle Al

The most awesome highchair ever.

The view from their home in San Miguel

Next stop Aunt Debi and Uncle Stu

Then we spent some time with my sister Suzanne and her awesome husband and family. Look at my sis rockin’ the two baby thing like a pro!

This is the super cute (cousin) Gianna. This is my favorite pic of the whole trip!

At first Gianna wasn’t sure about Dayla but it didn’t take too long for her to fall for Dayla’s winning smile. They we so cute, following each other everywhere.

This is Gianna’s new baby brother Dominic. He’s 3 months old.

With Gianna’s help Dayla realized for the first time that the baby in the mirror was HER! And we got it on film. It was an awesome moment of crazy excitement.

We got to see even more cousins! Madeleine was so cute; she was SO excited to “feed the baby”.

…and Matthew wanted to play with “the baby from the computer”. Apparently Dayla’s blog has made her famous in some circles!

Last stop was my parents. I totally neglected to get a picture of them, but I will share a few others of my favorites with you. This is a pic of the beautiful house that I was blessed to grow up in. I am at a point now in my life, with a new family and thinking of houses for “one day”, that I feel I can really appreciate it. It really was an amazing house!

This hill is right behind my house. Although I have NO intention of leaving the perfect setting of San Diego, I sure do miss the golden hills and oak trees of Northern California.

and for those of you who can’t get enough pics you can find more pictures of our awesome road trip here: http://picasaweb.google.com/sundins/NorthernCalRoadTrip

Toilet Paper- DISCOVERED!

Dayla is on the move discovering new things and it is bringing so much fun to our days. A couple days ago she discovered the toilet paper roll for the first time. I noticed it was very close to the end of the roll so I decided to just let her go for it and I grabbed my camera. We both had a lot of fun.

what is this stuff?

wow this is fun…

…tastes good too.

If I stand up I might be able to get more…

Uh oh! did she see me?

I better get out of here, this place is a mess

Caught! Sorry mom.

(the after-math)

100th POST!!!!

LEAVE A COMMENT to celebrate this 100th post on babymeatball!!!!
Whether you have never left a comment or you leave one every time, give us a little shout out this time to help us celebrate! We would love to know you are enjoying this journey with us!
We thank God everyday for our little meatball Dayla. Thank you so much for coming to this site and sharing in the most amazing part of our lives.

It all began with…

…and grew to…

…one week old…

…to now.

Bath Time With Dad

Dayla usually takes baths in her little plastic baby bath we put inside the big tub. Last night I decided to throw on my shorts and jump in the big bath with her. It was a tight fit but lots of fun. We need to get some sort of non-skid surface for the bath since Dayla was sliding all over the place.

Helping Dad

The other day Daniel so graciously volunteered to help put the baby locks on all the “dangerous” cabinent doors now that Dayla is on the move and so very curious. Of course as he was working she was very curious what Dad was up to, so she crawled into the bathroom to investigate. Here is how it went:

“Hey Dad, whatcha doing in here?”

“ooo…I have never noticed this before.”

“I can pull up on it…”

“I can bang on it too! That sounds great! Dad doesn’t know what he is missing!”

Captain Drool

I know that all babies teethe and all babies drool when they teethe, however Dayla is definitely the most “slimy” of all of her baby friends. She has earned nicknames such as “the drool monster”, “slimer”, and “puddle mouth”. My favorite was when a ten(ish) year old girl from Dayla’s daycare asked if we had buckets around the house to catch Dayla’s drool. I said, “Buckets?” and she replied, “If you don’t have buckets under her chin to catch all that drool, you guys may drown!”.
So, when our good friends the Higgins gave Dayla a “captain drool” shirt before they left for their mission in Austria I couldn’t wait until she was able to fit into it! Here is Dayla sporting her shirt on, you guessed it, a particularly wet day.

Post Per Day

For the last two weeks or so, every day with Dayla has been an incredible adventure (more then ever before)!! For about a week she has been crawling and pulling up with incredible ease, like she has been doing it forever. This new mobility has lead her to all sorts of new places which means new discovery of things and new activities. It has been SO fun to watch her find new “toys” (ie the toilet paper) and to learn things through trial and error (leaves don’t taste too great, but dad’s racquet ballracquet tastes fantastic). That being said, I would love to share some of these new adventures with our loving Dayla fans.
Until the end of June I will do one post per day!
HOWEVER, I am not going to send you a notification every time I post, as I do not wish any harassment lawsuits upon myself. If you are one of Dayla’s loving fans please log on daily and check out her new adventures. I hope that it will brighten your days as much as it does mine!

Dayla and Friends

For some reason these last couple weeks I have been doing a lot of babysitting. I am not sure if it God’s way of re-assuring me that I can handle 2 kids or something, but I have sure been enjoying the challenge a lot! The best part is that Dayla really enjoys it too. It is amazing to see that she has a heart for others so much already. When I am holding the other baby she hasn’t yet gotten jealous. Even if I bounce the other baby to make them laugh she will laugh too just watching them have fun. (WARNING…unrestricted mother love ahead) In case you were doubting it before…I really am blessed with an awesome baby. Yes, I know that every mom thinks that about their own child, but my thoughts were confirmed after receiving an email from my friend Kristy the other day. After watching Dayla for me all afternoon one day I got this email in my box. It warmed my heart. (shared with permission)

“Just thought I’d share somethings I noticed about Dayla after spending some quality time with her yesterday:
First off, she is MUCH more laid back than my child (but who’s comparing?)
She is one of the smileliest (not a word but maybe it should be) babies I know
She is also super wiggly. Those arms never stop flailing!
Yes, huge open mouth for food. Never knew a spoon could so easily go into a baby’s mouth?
Have you been doing yoga in front of her? Because twice I caught her doing a pilates style yoga move”

I just had to share! 🙂 For more on Dayla’s day with Kristy, check out the awesome story on her blog here: JeffandKristy
Another perk of babysitting is that I get to practice my photography skills! I just love shooting pictures of these little people! (unfortunately I only got to take pictures of 3 of the 5 different kids I watched…I guess I will have to babysit more if you want to see them all).

Dayla and Tabitha

Tabitha (Kristy’s daughter)

Ysabel and Dayla (Dayla is jealous of Yssy’s hair though)

Kalilah

Kalilah and Dayla

“Got your nose!”