SoCal Allens: Welcome home to our long abandoned blog

A friend recently reminded us that our last entry in January promised more frequent updates. We must respond that "more frequent" is a relative term.

Our sister blog NorCalAllens, which follows the dreams and aspirations of our favorite niece Daphne, has not been updated since July 4, 2007 when it posted a non sequitur on liberty.

With that said here is a very lengthy update that takes us through the end of 2007. We hope you enjoy.

Not surprisingly Miles has many friends who are roughly the same age, which means that we celebrated a number of first birthdays last year.

On this day Maren was the center of attention.

All the little ones enjoyed the bubbles and the friendly clown.

Maren and her mother Colleen particularly enjoyed the tickles from the clown's hand puppet.

Miles and his friend Ronin enjoyed some time chasing each other around the park. We forgot to bring a camera to Ronin's birthday so Happy Birthday Ronin!

Before we left the party Miles signed Maren's birthday card with his foot. Why do we outgrow this custom?

Here is Miles saying goodbye to another beautiful day in Southern California.

On another day we celebrated Sofia's first birthday at Gymboree.

Miles and Sofia are fast friends from daycare so every time we turned around Sofia was climbing on Miles to hug him and kiss him. Apparently girls grow up fast in Calabasas.

Miles also enjoyed spending time with one of his caregivers Sandra.

In the days before Christmas the family had a triple baptism for three of Miles' cousins. Miles and his grandfather each sported a sweater vest for the special occasion.

At church we snapped a shot of the three babies with their parents, godparents, and grandparents.

Then we continued to photograph every possible combination of family and friends. Here are the parents and godparents.

The grandparents with their progeny.

Moms Kimberly, Marcela, and Leslie with Ava, Iliana, and Gavin.

Then of course we needed to capture the proud papas. Roger, Rodolfo, and Lee conveniently lined up in the same order as their wives so you can piece together the families quite easily.

Miles enjoyed the photo shoot as an opportunity to stretch his legs.

We enjoyed his cute outfit as an opportunity to get a nice picture with dad and Abueloca.

Now that we covered birthday parties and baptisms, we can move on to holiday celebrations.

Here Miles is at a Christmas party in Manhattan Beach with his friend Sophia and an unknown bespectacled girl. We will call her Jezebel.

Back at his grandparents' house, Miles readied himself for the excitement that is Christmas Eve.

Iliana was awestruck by the number of presents from Santa Clause.

Gavin looked adorable in his Baby's First Christmas outfit.

Miles enjoyed a nice glass of wine with his grandpa.

Soon thereafter Miles' step was just a little less sure footed. We joke of course, Los Angeles Department of Children Services.

The older children enjoyed an impromptu wrestling match with their new lucha libre wrestling masks. Clockwise from 12 o'clock is Peter, Lee, Rodolfo, and Roger.

When Miles grew tired of the festivities he found his perfect resting spot in mom.

The next day on Christmas we dressed the little ones in monkey shirts from Kimberly and Roger. From left to right is Monkey Miles, Monkey Ava, Monkey Gavin, and Monkey Iliana. They like bananas.

Before seeing Roger, Kimberly, and Ava off at the airport, we stopped by Manhattan Beach for breakfast. Here they are at the pier.

Here we are at the pier.

Here is Jill and Miles at the pier.

And here is the pier in what we think is a rather cool photograph.

The rest of these shots are a hodgepodge of personal favorites from the end of 2007.

In this one Miles is showing his cousin Gavin how hilarious it is to smell dirty socks and then make a funny face. You can tell from Jill's enthusiastic reaction who taught him this little trick.