A Way Overdue Update

Okay, okay, so it has been way too long since we’ve updated this blog. My excuse is also the reason we should have been updating the blog more frequently – our two precious little darlings.

Now that I think about it, there really isn’t much to say. It’s the pictures we have to share. As much as we were wallflowers before, we have been even more so now. Mommie and baby need a lot of time at home resting, if not sleeping. There’s the lack of sleep, the high-energy-crying-at-the-top-of-his-lungs, the diapers, the feedings… not much time for anything else, really. Ah, parenthood.

While I was still taking time off from work, some of the folks at the office threw us a mini baby shower of sorts by taking all of us out for lunch at Claim Jumper. Grandpa Pellman joined in. That was so sweet of them.

Other folks at the office, as well as friends and family, have also made quite a fuss over Kyle while also including Keelie. Thanks to everyone – your thoughtfulness has been heartwarming. I truly didn’t expect anyone to make a fuss over the birth of our second child.

As any parent of more than one child can confirm, they demonstrate different personalities from birth – or even before. One of Kyle’s traits is that he just LOVES his car seat. See?

He’s about three weeks old in that picture. For comparison, here’s Keelie in the same car seat at about six weeks or so…

Another difference is that Kyle will let us know if his diaper needs to be changed. Keelie didn’t care.

Keelie has been friendly enough to her little brother, who has certainly changed her life. She briefly toyed with the idea of joining a monastic order, as you can see in this picture…

Kori is tired but happy.

Unlike his sister, Kyle took well to breastfeeding. He’s definitely packing on the pounds.

Kyle has had his first Disneyland trip, though it was a short one. Here we are getting ready to enter Disney’s California Adventure with Nanny, who can’t resist feeding Keelie.

Keelie loves to run around and climb at the park’s Redwood Creek Challenge Trail.

Puma and Granddaddy have had us all over for dinners, as usual, where Keelie keeps her grandparents, aunts, and uncles entertained.

I’d like to get more shots of Keelie’s beautiful eyes and smile, but she will often squint when she knows a photo is coming, and drop the smile.

We’ve been able to make one trip to Pasadena to see my side of the family. Here’s Kyle looking up at his grandmother.

Keelie, like her mother, enjoys her sweets…

Kyle in a milk coma after a feeding…

I like moments like this a lot more than when Kyle is trying to make me deaf…

The kid gets the hiccups frequently, which is no surprise, since he had them often while still in the womb.

Ah, such a little cutie…

We finally made it back to one of the monthly get-togethers at Hometown Buffet the other night, to see some of the people I used to work with at Disneyland.

I try to get Keelie out and about to get her some exercise and a break from her screaming brother. With the days shorter, I don’t get her to the local park as often, but I have been taking her to walk around the Disneyland Resort, spending more time in Downtown Disney than anything else. Fairly regularly, on one of my days off, I’ll take her to the resort to play around and meet up with Nanny.

Keelie continues to be a big fan of Oswald, Signing Time, and Elmo/Sesame Street, but has also added Clifford the Big Red Dog to her viewing demands.

Well, that’s it for now. Thanks for stopping by and reading. You can comment here, or e-mail us at KEPellman [at] yahoo [dot] com.

Due Date – Ha!

Today was the due date for the arrival of Kyle. Having had him out & about for over two weeks now, that is hard to imagine. Would have been easier for me, not so much for Kori!

We’ve been settling in and spending a lot of time at home. I’ve been running the errands alone. Before Kyle arrived, we’d either run most as a family or Kori would slip out while I was watching Keelie (who was often napping). It is nice to be able to take some time off.

Nanny came over and spent some time with Kori and the kids and the dog while I caught up on some work.

On another day, I had to slip out for a few hours to go on-location at one point, and that gave Kori a taste of what it will be like when it is just her and the kids for several hours.

Later, Nanny and Aunt Vicki have dropped by so that Vicki could meet Kyle.

Doobie, Rebekah, and Gideon have also dropped by. Gideon has quite a personality and is very cute. Watch out for that guy. It was nice to meet him and see our friends again.

Keelie likes coloring these days, and she also likes putting crayons in that cup and dumping them back out again.

Okay, by popular demand, a couple of more pictures of Kyle…

Notice that in none of these pictures are his eyes open.

Thanks for stopping by for this update. Write us! You can do so by commenting here, or by e-mailing us at KEPellman [at] yahoo [dot] com or by finding us on Facebook.

From 1 to 2: The Past Few Weeks in Review

We had finally gotten into a routine with the new house and a two-year-old girl, but now we’re adjusting to life all over again because of our baby boy. I have been taking time off from work. We’ve had a series of doctor appointments; everything seems to be fine now.

Keelie was so carefree and unaware that her life was about to be turned upside down.

Here she is below thoughtfully composing music with the piano we recently bought on the cheap.

Here she is meeting adorable Cousin Lainey for the first time under the watchful eye of Uncle Steve, with Kori still pregnant…

Here I am with newborn Kyle…

Keelie meets Kyle face-to-face for the first time…

A kiss from Keelie…

Keelie looks after PJ, the doll Kyle gave her as a “hello” present…

The whole family…

Cousin Macon and Nanny with Kyle…

Granddaddy and Puma with Kyle and Keelie…

By popular demand, more pictures of Kyle…

Thinking of his next milk fix…

Keelie likes to hold her brother, which she can only do under strict supervision…

Poor Shelby. She used to be the baby…

That’s her “freshly groomed” look. Keelie went with me to drop Shelby off for her grooming. Keelie must not have seen that before, because she was very upset when I simply gave Shelby away to a stranger. I turned to Keelie and said, “Look, we have a new baby now. Every time we get a new baby, we have to give away the oldest. You’re next.”

Okay, so I didn’t really say that. I explained that it was like when Henry, a character in one of her favorite shows, got his haircut.

Here’s another shot of Kyle…

Kyle sleeps a lot in comparison to Keelie at this age. Then again, he knows how to nurse, so that helps. He HATES having his diaper changed and screams like heck the whole time. A couple of nights, he has woken up every hour or so, wanting to nurse for five minutes, as opposed to the “standard” 15 minutes every three hours. Other nights, he has mercifully slept through most of the night.

We’ve had a few visitors. Our friend Chrissy dropped off dinner one day (bless the Hampsons!) and Carla dropped off some baby stuff as her kids are older than ours – bless you Carla and Steve! Kim, Mike, and Macon dropped by to visit and brought donuts – bless you! And thanks to all of our family and friends and coworkers who have been supportive and congratulatory and have even sent gifts. It means so much to us.

That’s all for now. Thanks for checking in. Feel free to comment here or send us an e-mail at KEPellman [at] yahoo [dot] com. Find us on Facebook if you haven’t already!

Kyle is Born

At 7:34am PDT this morning, without having slept in the past 24 hours, my wife Kori gave birth to Kyle. I was by her side and so was her mother, who had just ended her shift in that wing of the hospital.

There’s the happy grandmother! (Puma).

Kori was amazing.

So far, everything looks good. Kyle weighed in at 7lbs., 7oz., and measured 20 inches long. He also has quite the head of hair.

My father made it to see Kyle. There’s the proud Grandpa!

More to come, but if you’ll excuse me, I must get back to my wife and son! Thanks you, everybody, for your assistance and well-wishes.

Our Niece Has Arrived!

The big news around here is that while Kori is still pregnant with Kyle, Kori’s sister and brother-in-law, Kendra and Steve, have welcomed their first child, Lainey!  Yay!!!

Ain’t she adorable?!? Her grandmother “Puma” sure thinks so.  Congrats to Kendra, Steve, and Lainey!!! Kori was able to assist Kendra during the birth – what a blessing!

It has been forever since we last updated this blog. I think this has happened for two reasons:

1) Facebook. We’re on Facebook. This is Kori’s page, and this is my page. I also Twitter. Now you can know about it every time I sneeze! Okay, so I don’t use Twitter THAT much. However, Kori and I do tend to update our Facebooks every day, and I suppose we’ll do so until the next big thing comes along and MySpaces Facebook. Connect with us there if you haven’t already.

2) Life has been fairly mundane, which I suppose is a good thing… if you can call any pregnancy mundane.  Fortunately, Kori’s family lives nearby and my family lives a short enough drive away – so we get to see them all fairly regularly.

See? Mundane.

As I said, Kyle is still growing inside Kori. This means the next full update here will likely be just after Kyle comes home.  Here’s Kori at 32 Weeks, with Keelie pointing to “Baby Kyle”…

And here is Kori now at 37 weeks…

Pregnancy hasn’t bothered Kori much until the last couple of weeks or so. It is good that she had been able to go so long without mood swings.

Keelie likes it when I talk to Baby Kyle, so the pregnancy has been somewhat entertaining for her.

Kori has been quite the mother and wife through this pregnancy, as she is the rest of the time. She’s also been very good at stretching our dollars, as usual. (It helps to have friends and family who have been very generous with baby stuff – thank you!) I knew I needed a wife who was good about money, and I sure did find one. Her packing my lunch, as she has been doing almost all of the time lately, not only is an appreciated gesture of love, but it saves us money and it is good for me as I am eating out lot less for lunch.

We’re nearing the first anniversary of obtaining our house. The place is definitely home to a 2-year-old, but we’re marking progress on the place in general. Kori is preparing Kyle’s room, though he’ll probably be in our room for a while, like Keelie was.

Keelie has been happy and cute and completely unaware that these babies – her cousin and her little brother - are going to change life dramatically. She’s had most of her grandparents and aunts and uncles to herself as far as being the cute little kid fascinating them with what she has learned. She continues to like swimming. I wonder where she got that?

As you can see, I will take her to a local park to let her burn off some energy.//

She found these little people there – here she is holding one.

I have to stay close, because she will jump off of the equipment without warning, expecting me to catch her.

That’s Keelie trying out her little brother’s Boppy, warming it up for him. She knew exactly where to put it – right next to her Bobby!

Here’s a funny story since out last update… although I didn’t find it too funny at the time…

Keelie will most likely be with my mother while we are in the hospital for Kyle’s emergence, so we tried to get her used to the idea of spending the night at my mother’s place by having a sleepover there.

I'd even shown Keelie the episode of her favorite cartoon where the main character goes to a sleepover.  Well, Keelie didn't get the picture for hours.  She just assumed we would be going home at some point, even though we did most of the "going to bed" routines and we turned out the light and went to bed.  She wouldn't let us put her in her own little bed, and she wanted to play around with the clock, lights, jumping on the bed, whatever.  It was awful.

Finally…Close to 2:45 a.m., she got really close to Kori and said "Mommie, I ready to go home, see Shelby".

…!!!…

I told her (again) that we were having a sleepover and she needed to go night-night.  That seemed to do the trick, although she stayed in the big bed.

I still didn't sleep very well after that.  More than once, Keelie did something she must do in her crib... she stood nearly straight up and then flipped so that her head and feet changed places... without waking up.  I had to make sure she didn't fall off of the bed.

Keelie gets to spend time at the Disneyland Resort, especially California Adventure, mostly playing as she isn’t ready for rides and shows that get dark and noisy.

Here she is in a water play area, getting thoroughly soaked.

And, getting ready to go down a slide.

We celebrated her second birthday there, and rested in a room at Disney’s Grand California Hotel (thanks, Nanny).  Here’s Keelie trying to order room service, with her cousin Macon taking notes.

Who is that girl in the mirror?

Resting with Nanny at Nanny’s crib…

Looking cute…

One of her activities…

Work is going well. I’m keeping very busy, though our work usually isn’t as high profile as the previous Department I represented. Sometimes I will make a note on my individual blog when I make it into the news.

I keep doing work here and there for LaughingPlace.com and TheDisneyBlog.com.

Thanks for checking in with us. Feel free to leave a comment here or e-mail us at KEPellman[at]yahoo[dot[com]. Let us know how you are and what you have been doing.