The Sorbellos

December has flown by! Shiloh has been REALLY enjoying coaching as the Davis High JV assistant basketball coach. The head coach, Bob Silva, is wonderfully organized, invested in the players' lives, enamored with the game, and humble as can be. What a great model! He even lets Shi do all the substitutions during games. I've been able to watch a few games and look forward to more once season begins.

My tutoring and photography continue to keep me busy, on top of life with the Busy Bee herself, Miss Siena. She is growing up SO fast. We've had some challenges - trying to night-wean; preventing her from pinching faces, poking eyeballs, and drawing on the walls; and a variety of other things. All in all, however, we are terribly, terribly proud of her. We love her fuzzy, blonde afro; her developing vocabulary and "trick" repertoire; and her bubbly, people-loving personality.

We've had a good month because it has been full of time with friends and family. We spent Christmas Eve with the Nicholsons and then zipped back to Davis for Christmas morning with the Sorbellos. Look how much fun we had:

Copper and Ruby duking it out in the back yard:

Copper, happy that Ruby is not pestering her right now:

Ruby, concerned that Copper is coming after her bone:

In the wee morning hours (7am):

We started off the Christmas (Eve) festivities with stockings:

Crosswords are a Nicholson staple:

Andy is clearly ecstatic about his new polarizer:

TJ grubbin' on some Christmas Eve stew:

Grandma helped Siena open some of her presents(Playschool people!):

Siena soon figured out how to do it on her own:

This is where Ruby opened her presents:

In the evening, I tried to get Siena dressed for MPPC's Christmas Eve Service (great message):

Workin' the beret:

Balcony shot of the sanctuary, courtesy of TJ:

Siena is still wholly entertained by pushing Katie around in her chair:

(Insert late-night return to Davis and 6 hours of sleep before...)

Zeke finds "Fork Man" in his stocking:

Siena checks out Luke's new rat. Ewww:

Bethany loves her wee-little-bird:

Per Luke's request, we sang "Happy Birthday" to Jesus and blew out a candle:

Siena is learning some "baby signs" quickly these days. Here's "thank you":

Sara Claus:

Pandemonium!

After a short intermission at home, we headed back to the Sorbellos' for dinner. Siena tried out one of her new hair ties from Aunt Bethany:

Dinner. Yum!

Gracie's Christmas gift to all was a tap dance performance:

The Namesake Auntie never stays in town long. So Siena bids her... :

Some older stuff:

Siena wearing her new Christmas headband from Target's dollar bin:

Siena and Ruby playing safely in the living room:

Siena continues to love both baths and toothbrushes:

More headband action:

A shot from a trip to Dixon's Silveyville Christmas Tree Farm:

*Auld Lang Syne

It's Monday again. Our Hawaiian vacation is over. Intramurals are over. 24 -hour babysitting service (grandma) is over. Being dog-less is over. And do you know what? It's not half bad! Being home can be sooooo nice sometimes.

Up at 6:45, Siena and I had a bath and started the laundry that had accumulated over a week of vacation and one crazy day of intramural playoffs and finals. I was putting in a load while Siena was collecting rocks in the side yard when I heard it: BOOM, *pause*, "waaaah!" Poor baby fell over into Shiloh's bike spokes and got a little scrape on her forehead.

After some consoling, we took Ruby on a walk around the block because Grammy and Poppy finally inaugurated her two-walks-a-day regimen while we were gone. Ruby is getting HUGE! And she has finally mastered "sit," "down," "leave it," and "stay." She's obviously still a puppy, however, with occasional puddles, frequent chew holes, and intermittent "bad dog!"s to prove it.

When 9:50 rolled around, Siena was feeling a nap. I put her down and got to work on some PhotoSoBello business that had been waiting for me all week. Later, we went to CostCo to restock, and Siena busied herself in our new Radio Flyer wagon from the Pannells while I unloaded the car. Again, I was shuffling things around in the fridge when I heard: BOOM, *pause*... and I ran out to the garage where Siena was laying on the ground before the even bigger "WAAAHHH" could begin. Note to self: Toddlers should never go unsupervised. I'm pretty sure she had climbed up on the seat of the wagon, stood up, and toppled over. I've had to tell her to sit down several times before. Oops. I should have known better!

As I was driving by Woodland Christian HS on my way to CostCo, I gave it a little wave and said, "Hi, old job!" The two blue-roofed buildings made me stop and think about how different my life is now, and feel really happy about my new job as Siena's mommy. She's growing up so fast! Everyone told me that she would, but those first few months seemed to drag by so slowly that I would just smile and nod and mumble something like, "Yeah, that's what they say..." though I didn't really believe it just yet. Now I have a sweet little girl - no longer a baby as Uncle Andy likes to point out - she's a toddler now! She does just that: she toddles around, rocking back and forth like a tiny, tipsy, old lady with a fresh, platinum perm. She smiles at almost anyone and readily waves while saying a sweet "hhhhiiii" or "bahbyyyye." (over and over and over)

Her vocabulary is growing and now includes: NO, noonoonoo (a much sweeter way to say no), dog, meow (cat), on, off, ite* (light), or fan* up (meaning down or up), in, uh-oh, ow-I (outside), bird*, ball, mama, grandma (sounds just like mama but doesn't mean me!), dada, mono (monkey), dodo* (dirty), mOH (more), good dog, there it is, and now hi ruby (though the last three are fairly unintelligible and recognizable only via intonation). I started working on please today, and she's already gotten the baby-sign for it down, though I'm not sure she fully understands the concept.

*accompanied by a baby sign

She's SWEET tempered and very flexible. Unless, of course, you cross her will. In such a case, our sweet toddler will scrunch up her nose, YELL, and either try to bite or bash her head on something. Sometimes she even punches herself in the face! Isn't she too young for temper tantrums? I guess not! She's also old enough to know what I mean when I say no, because sometimes when she's feeling a bit defiant she'll do something, hear me say no, do it again slooowly while looking at me to see what I'll do. Thus, the sweet babe is old enough for a little swat on the leg to let her know that I really meant no.

Our week in Kauai with the Nicholsons was great fun, really relaxing, and fully documented by at least 7 different cameras. Alas, all of the files are awaiting distribution on T's laptop. Stay tuned.

Kauai was inconveniently overlapping most of intramural playoffs, but despite our commitment to our teams, Kauai wins. We arrived home late Saturday night and Sunday was semis and finals day. Between Shiloh and I with CoRec Soccer, M Football, CoRec Football and W Football, we were at the fields from 3:45 to 10:30 without a break. We managed to eke out new t-shirts for championships in CoRec soccer, and both men's and coed flag football

Shiloh has started assistant coaching the Davis High JV basketball team so the next 10 weeks are going to be busy!

There's too much that's happened since we last blogged, so I'm not going to try to catch up in many words. Here are a few pictures to tell the story!

10.18.09 Apple Hill

10.22.09 Love for Mono

10.27.09 Chillin' with Ollie Holleman.

10.30.09 Cool Patch Pumpkins (Corn Bath")

Halloween costumes: Sam = Siena, Siena = Shiloh, and Shiloh = Sam.

10.31.09 Halloween at the Reeces'

11.1.09 Ruby

11.06.09 Team Handball Tournament

11.07.09 Kindall's Shower

11.10.09 Basketball with Luke

Also, business for PhotoSoBello has been pretty good! Check out photosobello.smugmug.com for more and sign-up for a Christmas card shoot for $50!