One Year Ago

Things were very different a year ago. Kori was heading in to the final stretch of her pregnancy with Kyle, and had been in the hospital for the birth of our first niece.

It is amazing how much they grow in the first year.

Here’s a picture from back in late June, with Kyle preparing to feed the dog – which conveniently means he doesn’t have to eat as many vegetables.

He tries to make this warning label seem all the more scary…

Keelie enjoys taking a “bath”.

Kyle celebrates Independence Day by practicing his purse snatching skills.

He figures that as long as he smiles and wears outfits like that, nobody will suspect a thing.

We we to Aunt Vicky’s memorial, which included a luncheon at Caltech. Is Keelie contemplating her choices in high education?

Kyle makes his “old man without dentures” face…

And Keelie continues to make her pieces of art…

I’m not sure if that’s supposed to be Liberace or what. Oh… Keelie just told me that is Minnie Mouse. Liberace, Minnie Mouse… it is easy to get them confused. As Kori pointed out to me, it is obviously Minnie Mouse. Before the addition of the black bow, it had been Mickey Mouse - notice the white gloves, the red shorts, and the yellow shoes? Speaking of art , Keelie has started taking dance classes as of this month.

Thanks to Auntie Kim and Uncle Mike, Kori and I slipped away to see “Weird Al” Yankovic at the Orange County Fair. Yankovic and his band have long been my favorites. We don’t get a lot of nights out, so this was a rare treat.

Kim and Mike took the kids to a park, and I think that was Kyle’s first time to play directly on grass. So we didn’t quite get the same reaction when he took him to the park later that same weekend…

Keelie, of course, is a veteran of the park, so she can show Kyle the ropes… literally.

Kyle just got his first haircut!

Kyle is starting to walk. Keelie walked much earlier, but Kyle picked up a few American Sign Language signs before Keelie did. Kids develop at their own rate, of course. Kyle has been very good at crawling, while Keelie had not crawled much before she took to walking.

Thanks for stopping by. Let us know how you are doing and what you’ve been up to. You can comment here or e-mail us a KEPellman [at] yahoo [dot] com.

Summer is Here!

Since I last updated this blog, I had a birthday, Keelie had her third birthday, and my nephew Macon graduated from my alma mater. On a sad note, we lost Aunt Vicky. No, not my sister. The woman who married my mother’s late uncle. She was Aunt Vicky long before that, though. She had been in declining health and had defied the odds for a long time – her death was not unexpected, but still sad.

She’s the one in red in this picture…

When she saw the picture later, she asked, “Did I really wear red to your wedding?!?” Of course, it was December and reds and greens were part of the look of the wedding. She was like a grandmother to me, though she hated to be called that, so it was always “Aunt” Vicky.

On to happier thoughts… like playtime!

Yes, we have a playpen full of colorful plastic balls.

The next five pictures were taken by Kori’s father, who definitely knows his way around a camera.

Keelie is getting into animated features, so I get to watch some of the DVDs in my collection. “Toy Story” and the sequel are favorites. She sings “You’ve Got a Friend in Me” and she also likes “Mary Poppins” and will sing the songs from that movie, which goes along fine with the Sherman Brothers songs she knows from Disneyland.

Kyle is quite the crawler, and he’s learned to stand up without holding on to anything and sit back down.

The whole family relaxing in the hot tub…

Kyle has been in the habit of nibbling on his own toes. When I try, Keelie says, “No Daddy! Kyle’s toes are yucky!” They aren’t yet though, since he’s not walking. Well, he was doing his thing and his cousin decided she wanted to try…

…ah yes… one of those pictures that will come back to haunt both of them.

Keelie and Kyle got decked out in Tiger Orange for Cousin Macon’s graduation.

I went to SPHS, as did Kim, Vicki, Chris, and Blaine.

There’s Cousin Blaine holding Kyle, Autie Kim, Cousin Macon in his gown, Nanny, Uncle Mike, Aunt Vicki, and Keelie.

Keelie contemplates turning 3.

For Keelie’s birthday, we had some people over for a party – it was mostly a family event, but when you have families the size of ours, that’s a lot of people. We’d only hosted one such event before since moving in. Keelie had a lot of fun and certainly enjoyed the presents and cake. So much so that fives days later she informed Kori that she was ready to turn 4, have everybody come back, and have me bring home another cake – but one with four candles. But she also talks about going back to being 2 and thus getting her crib back.

Kyle hams it up for the camera as we watch Keelie enjoying one of her presents…

Keelie points to where she’s going to hit the ball.

Well, there you have it. Thanks for stopping by to check out this latest update. Leave a comment here or e-mail us at KEPellman [at] yahoo [dot] com.

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Spring 2010

Okay, so the updates here are getting less and less frequent. Maybe it is because we’re out painting the town red. No, that can’t be it. Maybe it is because we’re too busy Facebooking, or because whenever I try to work on an update when Keelie is around, she demands to get between me and the screen and then “requests” to see pictures of certain people.

But here we are… another update. And looking back since our last update, I am reminded what boring lives we lead. That’s a good thing, I suppose. To give you an idea, one of the most exciting things in the past couple months was that the bank contacted us to propose a refi of our mortgage; they covered the closing costs. It made a lot of sense and lowered our payments. See – not much excitement. But there are plenty of cute pictures!

We celebrated the anniversary of our first date - which is close enough to Valentine’s Day that it covers that, too – by going to Pasadena. We spent time with Grampa Pellman and Grandma Kathleen.

Keelie is at an age where she really enjoys climbing around on stuff in a park. She also requests to see various family members.

Keelie surveys the park, plotting her domination…

Kyle takes a more relaxed approach…

“These aren’t the droids you are looking for.”

From there, we went over to my mother’s. Kori and I escaped to have dinner at Gus’s BBQ in my home town, South Pasadena. Even though I’d been by the place thousands of times over the years, I’d never been there. I think my parents might have gone there eons ago and weren’t impressed. However, I’d read that the place had been completely overhauled. Sure enough, the place was doing a lot of business, but they still managed to give us a booth table (meaning a table for four) so that we could sit next to each other on our anniversary. I enjoyed the meal - and especially the company, of course.

I don’t think we’ve been on a date since. Can’t imagine why…

Oh… right.

Keelie was inspired by the Winter Olympics. No kidding…

However, I’m not sure what this arrangement is about…

Perhaps she is taking care of her doll the way Mommie takes care of Kyle?

Most indoor pictures we get of Keelie these days have her squinting, because she knows when the flash is coming. But we did manage to snap this one…

But, of course, she usually has food on her face and resists us when we try to wipe it off. Kyle, unlike his sister when she was his age, is a drooler, so he always has a bib.

Naptime…

Keelie’s godparents, “Oma” and “Opa”, spent some time with us Easter weekend. They live next door to Puma & Granddaddy, so we spent some time in the park across the street with them before dropping in on the Keel house.

They gave Keelie a stuffed bunny, and she was convinced it was THE Easter Bunny. She even tried to feed it the carrot we left out for the Easter Bunny. We had to explain to her that it was a doll of the Easter Bunny, like she has dolls of Mickey Mouse, Minnie, etc.

Mommie and Kyle share a moment when he’s awake…

And here is Daddy and Kyle sharing a moment while Kyle naps…

If only Kyle would stay asleep like that through the night. He’s done it once or twice in his life, so we know he can. He’s no dummy… he works it so as to get the most interaction with Mommie throughout the night.

He’s got the Pellman eyes, to be sure. The lids hide under another flap of skin.

And now, the moment you’ve been waiting for…

NUDITY!

Yeah, we finally got the bathtub fixed. We’d been using our shower all of the time for the kids, as the bath wasn’t getting hot water. But a couple of days of professional work and $$$$ changed that. Exciting stuff, huh?

Thanks for stopping by and looking over our annoyingly “proud parent” pictures. Leave a comment here or e-mail us at KEPellman [at] yahoo [dot] com and let us know how you are doing.

Two Kids and Holding

Hey everybody – we’re still alive and kicking, but busy as we deal with the realities of a two-something-year-old girl and a boy who is hurtling towards six months of age.

The cousins-born-nine-days-apart are getting along just fine…

Keelie enjoys exploring her artistic side…

Sunday, January 17th was a special day. Kyle got baptized at the church where her Puma and Granddaddy sing in the choir, and where Kori used to go, and where his big sister was baptized!

This was an even bigger deal than Keelie’s baptism because cousin Lainey was baptized at the same time. People came in from all over the country to be here with us.

Above you can see Aunt Kirby holding Keelie, and Aunt Vicki in the background.

And below, both babies are walked around the congregation after being baptized.

Grampa Pellman holding Kyle…

There was a nice reception back at Puma & Granddaddy’s.

Aunt Vicki and Auntie Kim holding Lainey and Kyle…

Aunt Chris (Kyle’s godmother), Puma, Paddie and Beth…

In addition to the 80-degree winter weather SoCal has been experiencing, we have had our cold and rainy days as well. We actually got a lot of rain for the area, causing mudslides in wildfire burn areas. But we got a rainbow, too…

Earlier this month, we met up with one of Kori’s MommySisters (a group of women who have been talking since they were all pregnant and due in July 2007) at Disneyland, to spend a few hours with them during their visit. Heather also had a baby in August of 2009, so while Keelie “hanged out” with Annabelle, Kyle and Genevieve enjoyed looking at each other from their respective strollers.

Kyle mostly likes to stay in his mother’s arms, but other locations are becoming more acceptable to him…

He does NOT like this teething business.

Now where have we seen that before? Ah yes…

That’s an old picture of Keelie.

Some people see a resemblance between Kyle and me, especially pictures of me as a baby…

What do you think?

We’re celebrating the anniversary of our first date, so I wanted to take this short stroll down memory lane.

Six years ago, we met for our first date in the bookstore at Downtown Disney Anaheim. The bookstore was convenient, because if one of us was delayed, the other could browse.

Disneyland was not only the venue for our first date, it is where I proposed to Kori.

Since Kori was such a big Snow White fan, I correctly guessed that the Snow White Grotto & Wishing Well would be a good place to propose. I timed it out so that Snow White would be there, which also conveniently allowed for cameras to be present and in use without spoiling the surprise of what was going on.

We married in Pasadena, in a beautiful church along famous Colorado Boulevard…

And then, two and a half years later, Keelie came along…

With Kori looking like this when pregnant…

…and with Keelie being such a bundle of joy, we tried for a second baby, and now we have Kyle, too.

It is hard to believe it has been six years since that first date.

Thanks for stopping for this installment. Let us know how you are doing and what you’ve been up to. You can comment here or e-mail as at KEPellman [at] yahoo [dot] com.

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