Happy New Year 2008

Happy New Year!

We hope you and your loved ones are doing well. Thanks for stopping by.

The holidays were nice, but busy. Keelie has a lot of adoring family nearby, and everyone wanted to see her.

All three of us, plus the dog, spent a night at my mother’s place so that Kori and Keelie could be there all day on Christmas Eve while I went in to the office. That way, I didn't have to drive home after work and double back with the ladies to my mother's.

When I returned to my mother's place on Christmas Eve, we enjoyed Mexican food for dinner and exchanged gifts. My little sister was working, but my brother, other sister, brother-in-law, and nephews were all there in addition to Nanny.

Christmas Day was a long day. We were late getting over to Puma & Granddaddy’s for the morning session (yummy food), and thus we were late in getting up to Grampa & Grandma’s for their brunch (more yummy food).

Here's Keelie with her Grampa Pellman...

And here she is with Grandma...

The usual gang of Kathleen's family was there. It was nice to see everyone again.

In the evening, it was all the way back to Puma & Granddaddy’s, where everyone had reconvened – Kendra & Steve, Troy, Toby, Kirby, and more. We had dinner (more yummy). Keelie was exhausted and I took her into a different room while everyone exchanged gifts, so she could nap in my arms. What a feeling that is.

I was supposed to be back at work the next day, but ended up needing to recover, so I took the 26th off.

We were back at Puma & Ganddaddy’s again Thursday night to celebrate Steve’s birthday.

Friday night, we joined up with our friend Tony and the gang for dinner out and then some Christmas cheer back at his place. Everyone took turns playing with Keelie, who loves flirting with the guys. We didn’t stay too late, of course. It was a nice time and it is always nice to see everyone who makes it there. For the first time in years, we missed Dave & Jason's annual Crappy Gift Exchange, because I mistakenly thought it was on Saturday, despite Dave's mastery of EVites. Keelie would have had a blast there.

Here's Keelie taking a break from the flirting...

The next day, we were hosted in a very lovely home of a fellow LaughingPlace.com contributor and his family for a lunch along with Dave M and Doobie & Rebekah, who were in town from Florida. It was great to see them again! I liked it when they lived nearby. So many of you have left us here in SoCal!!!

This update is like a really easy game of Where's Waldo?, only with Keelie.

Doobie was getting some good practice.

Sunday brought another dinner at Puma & Granddaddy’s.

Our friends Craig & Kristen and their daughters had us over for a while on New Years Eve to have dinner and exchange some gifts. Their 2007 baby is walking! And she was very affectionate towards Keelie.

Craig is holding the walking, hugging, "older" girl of 2007, and Kristen is holding... take a guess...

For the turn of the year, though, we were home and taking it easy. We also took it easy on New Years Day. Keelie and I had a lot of good bonding time.

Keelie is almost crawling (she rolls instead of crawls) and very clever. She seems to understand that just because something is out of sight doesn't mean it went away. Also, she figured out that it is easier to pull a blanket closer to her to get something on it than it is to crawl. It is a little scary. She responds to her name and gives kisses. Since she hasn’t mastered crawling, her cheeks often get rosy from friction as she climbs around and as she propels herself with her legs. When she gets tired of me and starts to fuss, her absolute favorite thing is for Kori to take her off of my hands so that as she sits on her Mommie's hip, she can look down at me where I'm sitting and smile.

Keelie is trying different foods. She loves oatmeal.

Kori snapped a bunch of pictures yesterday when Keelie wrapped herself up into a Keelie burrito...

Thanks for coming by again. You can comment here or you can e-mail us at KEPellman [at] yahoo [dot] com. Let us know how you are!