First Father's Day

Sam's birthday was yesterday... one quarter-century down, three or four more to go, I hope! We spent the weekend relaxing at the Nicholson house in Atherton. It was an excellent weekend, as expected. For her birthday, Sam received a Flip Mino. It takes videos and is the size of a cell phone. Here is a video she took of me while we watched Cody Keefer's baseball game today. It is fun to tell people that it's my first Father's Day. Some people try to argue that I'm not really a father yet, but they're wrong. :) Happy Father's Day to our amazing dads (Nicholson and Sorbello), as well as our dear friends who are also dads-in-waiting: Forester, Nelson, Bandel, Shabaglian, Armstrong, Ganyo, Burton, etc.

The Karate Kid

Siena is quite the active little girl... and she only weighs about a pound! She has been practicing her karate moves (jump kick, karate chop, numchuck skills, etc.) with Sam's bladder/stomach/liver as the targets. It is especially fun when we can see the kicks on Sam's belly. I have come home from work to find Sam laying on the couch, with her stomach exposed, watching for kicks. To use a Sarah-ism, it's a lot like star-gazing... only different. :)

Also, Sam is finally showing "for reals." Now that she is visibly pregnant, however, she has changed her mind and would like to put off showing for a little bit longer. Too bad.


Out of sympathy, I have been working on my stomach-contorting when I lift weights during lunchtime. As I often say (to the chagrin of Sam/fam), "Do I look bigger?" :)

It's a Girl!

Well, we went to Kaiser on Thursday for "the big ultrasound." The ultrasounder (there must be a technical term for that nice lady) knew after a few seconds the sex of the baby. She asked us if we were ready to find out and, after we said yes, she announced that Baby Sorbello is a girl! Given that I was one of the few people I know who expected a boy, I asked her if she was serious, and she reassured me, "We don't joke about these things." Below are a few of the ten pictures we left with...

Here is a picture of the heartbeat, which was fast and furious (144 bpm). The dark spot in the abdomen is the baby's stomach...


This is a picture of the spine, which the ultrasounder noted was "very pretty." I'm not sure if she was just being nice or what...


This one is creepy. You can see the baby's head and eyes. The lenses of the eyes are visible if you look close...


The ultrasounder also commented about the prominent bridge of the baby's nose, which is definitely visible here. Do we have an Italian in the making?


We are pretty set on a name: Siena Grace Sorbello. Siena is a beautiful Tuscan town, which we loved visiting on our trip to Italy shortly after we got hitched. Here are some of our pictures from Siena, Italy, back in the summer of 2004...



The plaza in Siena (where we are seen eating above) is the scene for a famous horse race, where teams are created based on neighborhood, ornate flags and uniforms are in abundance, and dirt is dumped onto the brick plaza of Siena for a spectacular event... Sam's parents took this picture...


Sunday marked the end of a loooong, but fun, intramural season at UCD. Sam managed to get in on some action, despite her bum ankle and blossoming belly. I've posted a few pictures of some of our teams this season...

Here is Sam, ready for the next whiffleball offering during the 24-hour Whiffleball Palooza at UCD... she pitched two scoreless innings for her team and had several at-bats.


Here is Sam's championship team in their victory t-shirts. They are oh-so-elegantly posing pregnant to match their captain, who needs no artificial belly-stuffing...


My team won the tournament on the men's side. It was a great weekend, because my long-time friends David Forester (now a busy dentist and father-to-be in Fresno) and Peter Nelson (youth pastor and father-to-be in San Diego) joined Justin Smith (teacher and hubby-to-be in Woodland) and I for the tournament. We had a great time hanging out and talking about weighty issues like fatherhood, faith, and fantasy baseball.


Luke Steidlmayer couldn't join us for whiffleball, but he was able to make it to Davis for UCD's annual 3-on-3, outdoor basketball tournament. Joining Justin, Luke, and I was Charles Warne, a defensive monster.


A goofy picture of our coed AA softball team... Sam played on this team a little bit, but primarily starred as the league's best photographer and scorekeeper. She gave us extra runs whenever we needed them. :)


Here's our AA men's championship softball team... Sam played the first inning of the last game at catcher because we were short one guy. She did great - ankle, baby and all!


We probably won't ever play this many IM sports again, which is one of the many sacrifices that parenthood will surely involve. The competition and camaraderie are great fun, but they take up lots of time, especially during the playoffs.

On another note... Bethany and Richie announced recently that they are expecting bambino #2 in January. We are very happy that there will be another cousin for Siena!

Sam's last day of school is tomorrow, and she is looking forward to having some downtime this summer. But she will miss all (well, most) of her students, too.

Whelp... this was a long one. That's all for now.

House and a Baby, What More Could We Want?

Whelp... below is the house we purchased this week. My co-workers in Yuba County are appalled by Davis real estate prices, but we feel like we got a decent deal. $415k is about as much as we could afford, but it's a single-family home (albeit 960 square feet) on a good-sized lot, in great shape, with a two-car garage, in a great neighborhood near a park, and a few blocks from my parents.


Below is Sam's healing ankle. The cast was removed in favor of a walking cast. The scars are remarkably hard to see, but it's weird to feel a metal plate in her ankle. She is very mobile and motivated to get her right calf back.


This is a shot of the inside scar... this one was made by the bone popping out of her leg (not a scalpel), so it's a little more visible.


Swollen and white, but much happier without a cast...


Sam's starting to show, but I think she's sucking it in a little bit in this picture. She tells me that she has one pair of pants that fit, due to stomach-enlargement.


This is more like it, but she's sticking it out now...


I too am starting to show (not).



Jen Jarvis (housemate) posing with the prego wifey...


Tomorrow is Sam's first Mother's Day as a mother! To celebrate, we are going to tour our new house. I haven't seen it yet, choosing to trust Sam's raving review of the house, but she wants me to go inside "so I can be more excited." Sam's giddiness about the house is balanced by my nervousness about having such a huge financial commitment. We know God will provide, though.

Happy Mother's Day to all!

Baby Update!

The latest: Baby Sorbello is happy and healthy and a whopping 7 cm tall! The nurse practitioner let me see the little "it" on another ultrasound on Monday, and it even waved at me! Here are some pictures with captions below:

I emailed this to Shiloh before I called him post-appointment and his first comment was, "It looks even less like a human than the first one." I guess you had to see it wiggling and twisting and turning to really define where the little head ends and belly begins, or which splotch is an arm and what's a jaw. This picture shows baby laying on his/her back with head on the right, one arm raised in the air, and a little belly bulge.

Here baby shows us just how tall he/she has gotten by turning its back to us so we can measure top of the head (right) to tail bone (left). Did you know that if baby is a girl, she already has over two million eggs in her ovaries? At 7 cm! AMAZING.

And finally, my favorite of them all, baby stopped wiggling for a moment to wave at me. If you look close, you can see little fingers. Baby apparently also has finger prints already.

This whole baby-growing process has been pretty wonderful. I scraped by the first trimester without any morning sickness, only a little fatigue, and that minor ankle injury.... The nurse practicioner reported that I am anemic right now (iron deficiency), but it is probably a result of blood loss from the injury. I'm taking an extra iron supplement to combat the problem and have beef and barley stewing in the crock pot for dinner. (red meat = easily absorbed iron)

Coming soon: nasty ankle pictures from last Friday's re-casting. Stay tuned!