May flowers

Over the past month, and a little bit more, our life has been a whirlwind of baby-related activity and time with family and friends. As a result, we have a nice collection of photos to share with you all.

In celebration of Jill's first mother's day, here are a couple cute pictures of mother and baby enjoying the benefits of life in SoCal.
Here is Miles delivering a card to Jill.

They also spent time together in the park. Jill tends to wear this shirt to help Miles find her.

Miles also enjoys spending time with his dad. He is not quite ready for basketball, but he does enjoy dribbling in the grass.

We tend to take a lot of pictures, so Miles has mastered the art of the pose.

At the end of the month, we finally baptized Miles. Here he is in his whites enjoying Jill's warm hold.

Miles had a large crowd at his pre-party. Jill, his pregnant aunt Leslie, and his grandmother Abueloca put on their Sunday best.

Grandpa Pete and Miles experienced what must have felt like looking in a mirror.

Miles and Leslie's husband Lee share a moment before Miles' baptism. Lee instructed Miles to cultivate a "tough" image by rarely smiling for photos, and Miles tried to follow his advice in this photo.

Here are Miles and his Abueloca. Nothing makes Abueloca happier than having Miles in her arms.

At church, Miles enjoyed the spotlight before the pomp and circumstance.

Uncle Ben demonstrated tremendous skill in breathing new life into the role that Marlon Brando's made famous, while Aunt Leslie served as Miles' Godmother.

Also in attendance were Aunt Cortney and cousin Daphne.

Here we see cousin Diana's left arm, Uncle Lee, cousin Angela, Grandpa Pete, Aunt Selene, and Aunt Nidya.

Hector and Juan also made the trip to welcome Miles into the world of spirituality.

Miles broke down under the weight of the moment. Every time he tried to take a nap, the priest would wake him up with a blessing, chrism, or water. Here he is receiving a nice blessing.

The remainder of the month was a hodge-podge of birthdays, baby showers, births, and farewell celebrations.

In this picture, Jill's cousin Marcela, who is also a new mother, is demonstrating what is now bound to be a rage in LA: baby toupees.

Here are Jill and her cousin Diana with Miles and baby CJ (Leslie's friend Leah's son) at one of Leslie's showers. We're sure that Miles and CJ are going to look at these photos in the future and be shocked at what they were wearing back in 2007. At all of Leslie's shower, Miles conducted focus groups with all of the babies present to see which were the "cool toys."

Here's Miles and family friend Elvia at another one of Leslie's showers. Miles was a bit sick at this shower, but he made it through like a trooper and he spent the day entertaining all the ladies in attendance.

In celebration of Miles' 6-month birthday, we took Miles to the photo studio at Sears. One of our favorites was an oldie, but goodie with Miles using an old-fashioned bathtub as a prop.

Here is a sample of how some of the other pictures turned out.

In the past few weeks, Miles started to eat solid foods. Here he is at his grandparents' house enjoying his first taste of rice cereal. Considering that he had a camera, a video camera, two parents, and two grandparents in his face the whole time, he did remarkably well with the experience.

The only problem is that he tends to get more on his face than in his mouth, but it looks oh-so-cute.

In yet another family get-together, Grandpa Pete prepared an amazing Tuscan meal to say farewell to Tia Selene and Tio Hector who are moving to Medellin, Colombia and Tia Nidya who is moving to Phoenix to be with her daughter Marcela, Rodolfo, and her new granddaughter Iliana.

Here is Selene basking in the glow of being a guest of honor.

The next day Jill and Miles spent their time relaxing in the hammock.

This past weekend we were thrilled that our soon-to-be married friends Julie and Ben came over the hill from Hollywood to join us and fellow Santa Monican Julie on our weekend routine of wandering aimlessly around Santa Monica. We ended the day on our stoop.