Happy Halloween!

Dada, the Pumpkin Artiste

Amongst my many (many, many) talents, I've always considered my creativity to be one of my strongest. But I have met my creative foe: the pumpkin. I'm not sure why, but for some reason I cannot design or carve a cute pumpkin to save my life. Maybe it's because I didn't do this when I was a kid (no Halloween in South Africa), maybe it's the orange curved canvas, maybe my hands are too little to grasp a big ole pumpkin, I'm not sure, but for whatever reason, I suck at carving a pumpkins. Last night Keith and I sat down to do some carving, and after being ridiculed for my first attempt, I turned the task over to Keith and he got to hollow out and carve all 4 pumpkins. I sat there looking pretty and only had to insert & light the candles when he was done. Come to think it it, it's not that bad of a deal for me... Keith carved one to represent each of us, and I think he did a pretty impressive job. Here is the carving master, pure concentration:

Keith's pumpkin, I could not help but notice that he gave himself a really big mouth...hahahaha. Art imitates life, right?

C-man's pumpin, showing his big open mouth grin with 6 razor-sharp teeth:

Here I am, notice that my curls do not look frizzy at all:


Finally, here is G-baby's pumpkin, complete with 2 teeth and a curl on top of his head:

Happy little pumpkin family!

Happy Halloween, Everyone!

Holy Crap, Our Kids are Adorable

Grady, leaning in to inspect the camera.

I've not been very good at posting lately, so I'm trying to pick up the slack now. Things are pretty good at the Ellerman household, babies and parents have figured each other out and are now starting to have fun!



What was not fun was Keith being on a business trip most of the week. Not fun at all. Thankfully though Miss Sara came to the rescue from Savannah! WHOHOOOO. Not sure how I would have made it through the week without her, those two are a handful. A heavy handful, at that. Thank you, Sara! As when most people visit, I only realized I didn't get any pictures of her with the boys until after she left. So, Sara, do your hair when you come the day before Thanksgiving, I'll be taking pictures!



Here are pictures I took yesterday before and during our daily hour and a half walk. Why an hour and a half? 'Cause the boys like it and Grady & Cole actually stop squealing to enjoy the outdoors. It's usually a happy squeal, but it's pretty damn loud so a break from it is always welcome.

Cole, looking cute.

"Mama" wins!

After a few weeks of rattling off "patadadatatadadada" and "uhhhmamamamamma", our darling Cole today said "Mama"! It was really more like "mummum", but I'll take it! Whoohooo! Finally something out of his mouth other than drool or green beans (we do not like green beans, don't even THINK about making us eat that has been the general response). Very exciting.

As I was leaving the house this morning, Grady started with "uhhmamamamammamama". Excellent!

I am having all sorts of trouble loading pictures lately, so keep checking back for those pictures I've been promising for a while.

UPDATE: Happy Birthday, Papi!

The boys and I just got done serenading Keith with a hearty rendition of Happy Birthday. You may not know this, but Grady can squeal ridiculously loud and in tune. He's not always singing the same song that we are, but he makes a joyful noise. Cole chose to bring instrumental accompaniment by chomping his 6 teeth onto the plastic side of his pacifier.

Anyways, we all say happy 30th birthday Papi! We love you, you rock.

Here the boys brought their first breakfast in bed offering to their dad. Picture is a little dark because it's really early. Really, really early.


Later: Sadly, birthday weekend is over! It was a great one though. We went to the Atlanta Botanical Garden, where we looked at all sorts of flowers we wanted to stuff in our mouths. Good times! Saturday we had friends and family over, and Cousin Evan even came! We haven't seen him in forever. Then Sunday we headed up to a corn maze, again fun! Enjoy some pictures from our weekend, click on the picture below to go to the album:

Keith Turns 30!