Thanksgiving - 10 month old Sienna

So I haven't sent anyone updated photos of Sienna since, like, September (sorry, gotta work now!), so I thought I would post her most recent "birthday" picture. Thanksgiving was her 10 month birthday, which explains her stylish pilgrim turkey head decor! She has changed so much even since then, and has quite the little personality. 6 teeth, 4 on top and the 2 on the bottom (I think I sang "All I want for Christmas is my 2 front teeth" enough that they finally came in!). And she's practicing her walking moves for all the family members that will be around her for Christmas, so watch out! Her balance improved so much just from yesterday, I think she'll be running by New Year's! :)

Party girl!

Sienna's 1st presidential election sure was a historical one! We threw a party at our house to celebrate the likely outcome together with friends (thanks so much to everyone that came, it was a great time and so good to see some of you that we haven't been able to hang out with for awhile!). Sienna was so happy and entertained with all the people in the house, it was awesome. She is such the social butterfly!

Maybe Sienna will be as patriotic as mommy when she grows up too!

Yesterday was also important for Sienna because it was her 9 month dr. appointment. She weighed in at 18 pounds, 8 ounces (41%), and is 28 inches long (62%). I think she's longer than that, the nurse was really quick about it, but it's not like I'm going to bust out the tape measure to see for myself! She is such a cutie, laughs alot, clicks her tongue, gagaga, plays a version of hide and seek/chase me around the coffee table, etc. Again, I have tons of pics that I've been meaning to send out from the month of October, so hopefully I'll do it before we leave for Arizona this weekend!

Happy Halloween from Sienna

Our Little Pumpkin!

Sienna turned 9 months old this week, and enjoyed her week of Halloween festivities. We went to Strawberry Farms' pumpkin patch the weekend before, and then on Halloween hung out in the house with our "little dragon." To explain the costume, 1) it's funny, and 2) she does this growl sound on occasion, so when Chris saw the costume he had to have it (even though it's for a boy!). No trick or treating, we will wait until next year! Besides, mom and dad have enough leftover candy since NO kids came by our house!

Happy Halloween!

New "stuff"

Sienna is growing up so quickly, so lately we've been packing up toys she's outgrown, and purchasing things for the "next stage." Well, not much, but we bought her a new car seat (which doesn't fit in Chris's car properly of course), and lots of new pjs and some fall season clothes, bigger jars of food, etc. We saw this cool bilingual table thing at Costco, but we are holding out for now...

We also wanted to show off Sienna's new toy box, made especially for Sienna by Grandpa M! Maybe we will paint something on the front of the box one day, but for now she is liking pulling up on it and banging the top. Oh, and of course she is most interested in the dangerous corner edges, which she tries to chew on. Lovely. All of these pictures are from last night - her jammies are still a little big for her, but she's in between the 9 and 12 month size clothes right now! She has a runny nose again too - I'm tired of trying to clean snot off of a squirmy baby!

The last new thing we are getting (delivered tomorrow) is a new washer - how exciting! :) If you already know the story, it makes more sense, but it's been broken since Memorial Day. They got it working, but not properly, in July, and finally Best Buy has done what's right and is replacing our lemon washer. I feel sorry for the guys that will have to pull out the old one, and put the new one in, since everything is upstairs! So wish us luck that everything goes smoothly.

Looking forward to our first Halloween with Sienna! You'll have to wait to see what she will be dressed up as...All I have to say is "Chris picked the costume!" We plan on going to Strawberry Farms soon to show her all the pumpkins, so hopefully that will happen in the coming days, and we will share the photos as soon as possible!

Adios!

Time flies!

Hey all,

It's been awhile since I've posted updates on "baby Sienna," and even though I emailed everyone photos recently, I thought I should catch up on what's been going on in our lives since the beginning of August! In sum, Sienna is like a little kid now, crawling, standing, and sitting with ease, and beginning to try to stand up without holding on to things. And finally at 8 months she is cutting her first 2 teeth, the bottom right one, and the top left one, but not the top center left one (if that makes sense!). She is so active, but lots of fun, and easy to tote around places.

So for those that don't know, I went back to work in September, after being off for over 8 months! Going back to work was easy, being in the classroom again was not odd at all, but finding the time to get anything done is the tricky part. I am constantly in a hurry on my free time at work, then rushing off to pick up Sienna from the sitter (which has been going well, it probably only took her about a week to adjust!), then playtime with Sienna basically until she goes to bed at 8pm. And by then I'm so tired, it's hard to get myself to do work. I do if I absolutely have to. It's pretty much impossible to work while Sienna is awake, since she'd end up eating students' papers, or try to knock down the TV while I plan lessons. :) Sure, Chris could watch her, but he's just as tired as I am, so we try to just spend time with her together, and take turns chasing her around. Overall things are going well. But I am looking forward to the holiday season for sure!

The best part about being back at work is that it is making me lose weight! Yay! 6 pounds shed in a month, 7 more to go. Not too worried about it, but thought I'd share.

Okay, time for bed. Sienna will probably be up any minute - yes, still wakes up, once, sometimes twice. Happy October! (Can't wait to dress Sienna in cute warm outfits!)

What a difference a week makes! (1st week of August)

FYI - I wrote this blog entry back at the beginning of August, but didn't post it because I wasn't able to attach photos at the time. Life has been very busy since then, but I will try better to keep this site updated! Anyway, I thought I should still post this old entry, since I wrote so much! Enjoy!

Hi all! First off, I know you must love the velcro pink bow I found for Sienna! It will be awhile before she has enough hair to gather into a clip or a pony, so the 2-pack of bows was worth the overpriced $7 price tag! She has lots of the head band wraps, which are cute, but sometimes they are a throwback to Jane Fonda, and they leave indentations on her head! She's cutest with nothing in her hair at all though. Anyway, that's not what this blog entry is about!

Sienna sits!

Just last week when Sienna turned 6 months, she was starting to be able to sit up without assistance, but she'd usually fold forward pretty quick. Each day last week, she got better and better, and by the end of the week she was a pro! She even tries to sit herself up by getting in her crawling position and then tucking one leg under and sitting on it, but she hasn't figured out how to push all the way up with her arm, so she ends up looking like she's posing - kind of like the pose we used to have to do for high school soccer photos for our individual shots! I'll try to get a photo of her in this position, but she's usually on the move so we'll see!

6 month doctor appointment

Her doctor today said that the sitting up on her own thing is a 8 or 9 month skill, and that she will probably be ahead of the game on all her milestones since she has been thus far. The doctor commented on how social Sienna is, and active (she was eating the paper on the exam table and jumping in the doctor's arms), and remarked that it appears she doesn't have stranger anxiety (most of you know this!). She also noted that Sienna looks a lot like daddy, which is what the consensus seems to be lately! I agree! Since I'm talking about her dr. appt. now, Sienna's new measurement stats are: 27 inches (she grew an inch in 2 months, and is tall for her age, 90% percentile), and 16 pounds 4 ounces (almost 2 pounds gained since last visit, but only 55% percentile). The dr. said she is a stereotypical California girl - tall and lean!

Sienna stands and leap frogs!

Also this past week, her "crawling" has become easier and faster for her, and she travels longer distances across the living room as well. She started to crawl over my legs (they are no longer a blocking device), and in fact UP my legs, so that I will pick her up. Also, Sienna has always loved standing since she was a month old, so her legs have always been strong, but I was surprised this week when I let her hold onto the coffee table ledge to look at the remote controls that she wished she could reach, and I let go of her and she just stood there, holding on, no wobbling or buckling! I'll let the pictures do the explaining! Her favorite place to stand is on the couch, looking out the front window. We assess the weather together each morning!

Cherished moments

In sum, I know people say that babies pick up new tricks so quickly, and this was one of those weeks. I probably sound like such a new mom, oohing and awwing at the tiniest examples of development, but that's what I'm supposed to do! I think my favorite thing about her recently is how much more she is jibber jabbering and laughing, whether it's to us, or just to herself when she's playing. So cute! I will miss the mornings with her when I go back to work, that's the time when her personality really shines (and we've got such a good morning routine, darn it!) but we'll still have the weekends. But then again, she's pretty spunky and entertaining at night too when Chris and I are both home, so I shouldn't worry about it! Thanks for reading my long entry, I think I rambled because it's 11:30 at night and I should be in bed!

Sienna is 6 months old!!

I can't believe it's already been half a YEAR! And look, she sat up for the photo! (Well, only momentarily, she eventually falls sideways or leans forward, but those stomach and back muscles have definitely strengthened!) Thanks for the new dress Auntie Shannon! :) Our little munchkin is almost crawling too, she gets up on all fours and sways back and forth. Just today, she "crawled" all the way from the computer desk, out the bedroom door, all the way to the bathroom - she likes slapping the travertine tiles! No longer can we set her down in one place and expect her to still be there a minute later! She almost sat up by herself the other day too. And as the video I will post soon shows, she can say "mama" - although she only uses it when she's serious, for example, to tell us she's not going to go back to sleep in the middle of the night and mom must come pick me up, or when she is bored or fussy, like when I am taking too long window shopping at the Nordstroms Anniversary sale! She said "dada" yesterday too, but again, they are just her new sounds, we'll see when she actually uses them to call us by name. As mentioned previously, she also started eating solids this month, and started sleeping in her own room. She can also hold her own bottle, but I'm guessing she's been able to do that for awhile now and we just didn't know since she rarely feeds from a bottle! Still wakes up once in the night, oh well. But she is such happy baby, her laughs and big smiles are the best thing too see, and she is so social and curious, it's great. I will email people all of our Month of July photos soon!

New Camera!

So we finally decided to splurge and get a new camera...not that our old one wasn't good, but it was top of the line 4 years ago, and still had the 1 inch LCD screen, and the "wait 'til the second flash" issue (which you can't tell Sienna, we have so many pictures of her furrowing her eyebrows because of the flash!). We felt a little guilty since our old camera wasn't broken, but I'm pretty sure most people have a newer camera than we did! I like the new one a lot, it takes faster and clearer photos, which is NICE, and it's pretty user friendly despite having so many neat features that I need to learn how to use (mainly editing software!). Anyway, it's a little too big for the ol' purse, so I'll still tote my smaller camera around on a daily basis (you never know when a Kodak moment may present itself!) and the new camera doesn't take video either, but that's okay. The pictures on this post are from the new camera - is it me, or does it capture better shots? (You don't have to answer that question, I know I'm not a professional photographer! :)

Two Year Anniversary!

Time flies! Today we celebrated our second anniversary; it was a pretty normal day, and Chris did a good job at surprising me with a bunch of beautiful yellow with red tips roses! Instead of going out, we decided to have a nice dinner at home and share the day with Sienna. It's fun to think back: 2 years ago, we were still partying at our reception, and 1 year ago, we were 3 months pregnant and prepping for our trip of a lifetime, our Meditteranean cruise!

Now we've got our beautiful little Sienna, so technically each year of our marriage thus far has been very different, and equally wonderful! Sienna was talking up a storm tonight, and we couldn't figure out if we were hearing "mama," or "dada" or "nahnah" or some kind of babble that sounded like all of the above mixed together! Anyway, she brings a smile to our faces. Below are a couple of the many photos of Sienna we took tonight of her talking, jumping, kissing daddy and being excited. Happy Anniversary babe, mmmmwaa!

Sienna's First "solid" food!

Sunday the 6th was a big night for Sienna (but probably a bigger deal to us than to her!) We gave her her first rice cereal experience (see video!) AND it was the first time she slept at night in her real crib, in her own bedroom. The rice cereal was way too runny, but I was just following the directions for "baby's first meal." At least she seems to be eager to eat with the spoon, or maybe it was just the spoon that she wanted more than the food! What a mess, but it was fun. She didn't eat that much though. It dawned on me later last night that I will have to now feed her cereal every night, which seems like such a hassle for some reason - maybe because it's a "new" thing to add to my day, when I've become so comfortable with the way things are - but I realize it will soon be no big deal.

As for sleeping in her crib, it just seemed like the right time, since she was sleeping through the night all last week, and she has just about outgrown the bassinet! It was nice not having to kick poor Chris because he is snoring, or to whisper in bed, or to watch the television at such a low volume that we are either laying at the edge of the bed to watch it, or spending most of our time trying to figure out what the characters actually said! She woke up at 2:30am, but I didn't mind.

That's all for now!

Look how she's grown!

This entry is to get up-to-date on Sienna and her growth. She was born on January 27th weighing in 7 pounds, 7 ounces, 20 inches long. At her 4 month doctor appointment, she was 14 pounds, 7 ounces, and 26 inches long! Now that she is 5 months, I'm guessing she's around 15 pounds?? When I'm out with Sienna and I peek into other moms' strollers, half the time the babies are smaller than Sienna now, which at first shocked me because Sienna was the newborn it seems like yesterday! On the flip side, I feel like I've been a mom for awhile now, so I guess she has had time to grow...

I've attached some photos to show her growth from 0-5 months!

Finally!

Welcome to our family blog! I have finally joined ranks with other friends and co-workers and created a blog page. I figure that this is an easier way for curious people to see what's up in the life of Sienna (because it IS really all about her, right?), and it gives me something to do when I'm procrastinating! Which is the whole reason I never created a MySpace page - other than the fact that I teach at a middle school - but oh well. Enjoy!