Last colorful moments before Emilia arrives

Here we are... the last website update before Emilia arrives. So breaking news: her name will be Emilia. :)

The last few months have been HURRY UP preps (painting rooms, assembling bunk beds, setting up nursery, prego belly cast, etc.)... but now, we are tapping our toes and checking the calendar saying "okay, you can come out whenever you want!" Emilia is officially full term, with due date technically just over a week away. She could come at any time.

In the meantime, we have enjoyed a very quick rush of Fall colors. First frost occurred this morning. Most days have been sunny and warm, most nights - and bus stop mornings - have been chilly. The kids have recently gone on hikes in Putnam County Park in Eleanor, and Kanawha State Forest. Mark even managed to squeeze in a couple mornings of mountain biking (also known as his final moments of freedom before Emilia arrives) thanks to our neighborhood friend Chris Wheeler; while also joining the "over-the-bar" club. This entailed the bike abruptly stopping on a tree root, and Mark careening over the front bar of the bike. No broken bones; just a bruised shin! :)

The kids are geeked (perhaps somewhat anxious, too) about the next several weeks, which will include:

• Birth of Emilia
• Halloween
• Visits from family
• Daddy's B-day
• Thanksgiving
• Start of Upward basketball (Evan will be on a boys' team, Autumn on a girls' team).

Wish us luck... exciting yet tiring times ahead!

-The Pellfam (Mark, Marisa, Autumn, Evan, and Emilia-to-be)

Baby preps being rushed to completion

About a month or so to go until baby arrives! Everything lately, outside of the normal day-to-day school/work routine, has been focused on getting the house ready for her. We have been here four years, and with the changes we have been making to house, we keep asking ourselves “Why didn’t we do this years ago?” I guess a baby really brings out the nesting instinct in all of us (i.e. getting the nest ready).

So far:
-Kitchen de-bordered and painted in new colors.
-Master bedroom redecorated and painted.
-Evan moved in w/ Autumn; new bunk beds for the kids. Evan’s former room now nursery.
-Nursery re-carpeted and painted. Crib/changing table/rocking chair all set.
-Our miscellaneous room downstairs now has Autumn’s old queen size bed, ready for guests.

In progress:
-Living room and hallway being de-bordered/prepped. Painting to take place during next 1-2 weeks.
-Kids’ bedroom “personalized” with painting of designs on walls; finishing touches to room underway.

Our “someday” list:
-Repaint bathrooms
-Repaint stairwell

Also in progress: Picking out a name! We were overwhelmed with our list, which had grown to about 18 possible names. We very democratically narrowed it down from 18 names to 4… final name, and spelling, still TBA: Krista/Christa/Krysta, Emilia, Karina/Carena/Karena, and Savannah. For those of you who didn't see the video on Facebook, you can view it by clicking here or accessing it on the top-right.

Last week, Autumn and Evan attended “Big Sib Class” at Cabell-Huntington Hospital, where we will be having the baby. They brought stuffed animals and used them to learn how to change diapers, swaddle, and hold an infant. Very cute! They also toured with us to see the rooms for labor/delivery/waiting/etc. Through a window, they even got to see a newborn wrapped up in a blanket!

Labor Day weekend, Mark took the kids to Hawk’s Nest State Park, so they could enjoy one last day trip before our lives become totally baby-dominated. This included an awesome boatride down the New River, with a gorgeous view of the New River Gorge Bridge. This is that famous bridge on back of the WV State quarter.

Hope y’all are having a good transition into Fall! Let us know if you would like to use the guest bed downstairs sometime! :)

-Mark, Marisa, Autumn, Evan, and Baby-to-be

P.S. The other recent big news: Autumn finally lost her first two teeth... a year and three months after Evan's first tooth. However, they had to be ushered out by the dentist! Her new ones were growing in BEHIND (not under) her baby teeth, so they weren't pushing the old ones out. We were hoping the Tooth Fairy would leave some help $$ for Mom and Dad because of the extraction fee, but no luck!

Summer's done... School's begun... Growing bun!

Update: Forgot to include video from July, when Autumn and Evan participated in an archery tournament! They did a super job learning through weekly practice at Charleston First Church of the Nazarene during the first half of the Summer, and the program culminated in this event. Enjoy!



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1st Grade is underway! Here are the kids on the way to the bus stop this morning.

Click here for an album of 6 first day of school photos.

The first day of school was preceded by a (crazy) month of frolic and fun. Haven't started a "Pellerito Summer Christmas 2010" video yet but here are the rest...

Cottage Collage 2010


Cottage Cousins 2010


Chicago Sidetrip

In other news, our minivan bombed at the end of our trip, and we had to get another one. When we got home, our washer bombed as well, so a new one of those. Add those to fixing drainage problems around the house, and having to get a new heating-air conditioning unit in the Spring... and well, let's just say we'll have to pinch pennies especially with baby en route! We're moving the kiddos into one room with bunk beds, and will be rushing the nursery to completion the next week or so.

-Mark, Marisa, Autumn, Evan, and TBA

Poor, neglected blog...

Hello all,

In this age of Facebook, the blogsite has become harder and harder to keep updated! Sorry! On that note, yes, the pellfam blog will be staying alive in the form of a repository of links to all of our videos/pics/etc. But Facebook has become our primary day-to-day pellfam medium.

Here are the latest vids and pics...

Our recent trip to Carolina Beach, NC! (late June)


Ultrasound in early June, when we found out we're having a girl!


And links to our latest photo albums (available to non-facebookers):

Camping at Watoga State Park (late June)

Summer begins! (including New River Gorge Bridge)

Early May

The kids recently saw their first fireworks ever and were completely enthralled. It's already been a great Summer, and we're looking forward to our other upcoming trip end of July/early August: Chicago, Grand Rapids, and Rogers City! :)

-Mark (+ Marisa, Autumn, Evan, and Bun-in-Oven)

Lotsa stuff, and big news

Lots of things going on in the last month or so. Kids doing cheerleading/basketball, busy times with work, a visit from the Deckers, etc. Oh yeah, then there's this:So, holy guacamole, we have some planning to do!!! This is actually a picture of our pregnancy test from several weeks ago now, but we saved announcing it until after confirmation that things looked more definite this time (we miscarried last year). We are happy to say that our ultrasound last week showed a healthy growing peanut with a heartrate of 160 beats/minute, so everything is going good. Autumn and Evan are extremely excited at the prospect of being big sibs. The baby is expected in late October.


Here are some highlights going back into last month... Mike, Rachel, and Lauren Decker dropped by on their way back from Florida. We were very happy to see them and just kick back together for an evening.

Also, Marisa took the kids to downtown Charleston for an art craft session with a local artist. They then brought home their masterpieces, where they remain on display.

Autumn and Evan also just finished a season of cheerleading and basketball through the "Upward" Program, after one of Marisa's co-workers started up a league at their church. The kids really got into it, and I'm pretty sure we'll be doing something like that again. In the last game, Evan made two consecutive free throws. :)


Finally... I just got to Boise Idaho for annual training that I do with work (incident meteorologists). Beautiful flight! Autumn and Evan keep wishing they could see what it is like to ride in a plane - guess they don't remember our epic journeys from when we lived in Montana - so kiddos, here is what it looked like!

One is of a portion of the Great Salt Lake from about 15,000 feet elevation. The two smaller ones (click for large versions) show the Ozarks which just recently had snow, and the Rocky Mountains with a winter's worth of snow. Finally, a 3D picture... go ahead and try ifyawanna. Those of you who can get it to work (cross your eyes slightly to get the two halves to meet in the middle) will see a neat 3D image of the Wasatch range, from just before landing in Salt Lake City. :)

Pellfam Hamsterdance

Enjoy! :)

...and then, there was only one.

Our noble goal of one hamster EACH was thwarted within just a couple of days, when Amy and Blaze (named after characters from "Mario and Sonic at the Olympic Games") began to relentlessly attack each other. Or, to be more precise, Blaze repeatly attempted to eliminate Amy from the premises. Blaze vigorously defended her territory, which won her a trip back to the pet store! Lucky for us, Autumn and Evan hadn't yet identified which hampster belonged to whom. They were also persuaded to only having one hamster, through the promise of trading Blaze for more hamster toys! Almost two weeks now into hamster ownership, we have been very pleased at how fun she is... playing with her toys, running around the house in her plastic ball each evening, entertaining the kids, and giving them a good first step towards real responsibility. :) Autumn and Evan also enjoyed the completion of the Thanksgiving-Christmas-Birthday season with their 6th birthday party at the Bowling Alley. For many of those who came, it was their first time bowling.

January thaw now over, it's back to winter in WV. Over the weekend we enjoyed a winter hike in Huntington at Rotary Park. We wandered off the trail and found cascading icycles along the creek... which after admiring in awe, were eagerly smashed down.

The crisp beautiful Arctic surroundings (as viewed here from our kitchen window)... have led us to think about what we will be doing once it gets warm again! Plans are still formulating, but we are excited about what the upcoming Spring and especially Summer months have in store for us.

Happy February!
Mark, Marisa, Autumn, and Evan

Big Birthday for Autumn and Evan (and Mommy, too!)

Sorry we've been falling behind in blog update frequency lately, but hopefully these pictures, and the video above, will make up for it! Biggest birthday-related news is that finally, after months of pleading, the kids finally have pets (besides fish). See the video for the big surprise moment. :)

Here are some other fun images from the big birthday: The local Dairy Queen, right across the street from Scott Teays Elementary, has a long-going tradition of charging only $10 to put birthdays, etc. up on their sign for a day. With the birthday trifecta in our family, it was too good to pass up!

As part of the kids' birthday, they are "Stars of the Week" in their kindergarten class. Each student is star of the week sometime during the school year, usually near their birthday if applicable. They make posters about themselves (see pics), their parents can come in to do crafts (Marisa this Friday), or talk about their job (me today; see pic). Also, Marisa and I dropped by this afternoon with a birthday snack of cookies and milk for the class. Special thanks to Mom/Grandma Linda for hooking me up with a "weather forecaster" shirt for Xmas, which turns out to be a great one for doing school visits! :)

Finally, just a random photo I wanted to share. It has been an interesting winter in WV, in that it's been a REAL winter! We are in a January thaw at the moment, but there was a long stretch of solid cold and snowy weather from the week before Christmas, up until about the middle of last week. At the end of that stretch, I went for a nice snowy hike at Putnam County Park in Eleanor, WV. I think I like hiking in the cold months more than in the warm months, simply because of how much more you can see without thick foliage blocking the view!

-Mark (+ Marisa, Autumn, and Evan... the birthday bunch)

P.S. Got a funny call from Joe (twin bro) last night... he just had his appendix removed. Thankfully, everything went fine and he's doing great. Okay, so my dad and my twin brother both had to have this done. I've been warned... guess it's inevitable!

5 yrs old + 10" of snow = 2 happy kids

Good times in WV. Charleston's biggest snow of the decade translates to Autumn and Evan having a great time this weekend! Our hilly Timberlake neighborhood provided a great setting for sledding.

As for me, I abandoned my car at the Kmart parking lot on my way home from work Saturday morning, and walked the rest of the way. :) Not bad compared to those who ventured southbound from Charleston on I-64, only to be stuck for as many as 12 hours!

-Mark

Holidays Part 1: Thanksgiving, etc.

I could write many words about the last few weeks including Thanksgiving. But pictures speak a thousand words, so here goes... Autumn gets her ears pierced in Rochester:

The kiddos cuddle with Grandma Laurie before Turkey Day.

The kids get a life lesson at Grandma Laurie's on how Thanksgiving Turkey is actually prepared.

Evan hits the jackpot at Craigs' Cruisers in Grand Rapids, on the first try! A total of 500 tickets barfed out of the machine over the course of several minutes.

Big group photo at Grandma Linda's family Thanksgiving Weekend party!

An incredible double rainbow outside out kitchen window sometime late last week.

...but then the rain turned into SNOW last Saturday!!!

And finally, the kids as toy soldier and ballerina ornaments in their Church Musical (they had been rehearsing weekly since September)... Christmas Hang-ups! It was a 45 minute musical with many songs. We're proud of them for working so hard! :)

Hope the beginning of the Holiday Season has been blessed!

-Mark, Marisa, Autumn, and Evan

P.S. Here is an Album of 35 photos from Thanksgiving through early December.

Halloween and Fall Frolic (new vid)

Fall has delivered for us in many ways lately! The weather has been mostly dry, warm, and sunny, allowing us to make the most out of our outdoor opportunities. For one, our big oak tree on the north side of the yard recently relinquished most of its leaves. They made for the driest, crunchiest, most airy leaf pile I have ever seen. Needless to say, we managed to have tons of fun with that! Watch the video for a trip back to your youth! :)


As expected, the kids made out very well on candy during Trick-or-Treat! They were a black-and-white duo of skeleton and dalmation. Then last weekend, Joe and I had our own li'l spiritual retreat/down-time by meeting in the forested hills of Brown County Indiana, roughly halfway between our homes in Michigan and West Virginia. We hiked four miles... and then realized that the aging process seems to be accelerating! What's the deal? A few short years ago, we probably could have hiked twice that without so much as a yawn. I guess you could say we felt every bit of 32 years old... argh!!! We just turned 33 two days ago!

The sky has been beautiful lately. We took out my telescope which I received many years ago as a birthday present from Mom... and the kids not only saw the moon but also Jupiter. In fact, I also took the telescope to Indiana... where the clarity of the atmosphere even allowed Joe and I to see Jupiter's moons! Back at home, we have been blessed with many beautiful sunrises (see pic) out of our kitchen window.

We hope Fall has been a blessing for all of you as well. We look forward to our upcoming trips: Marisa going to Chicago to visit the Argentars, then all of us meeting up in Michigan for Thanksgiving. Then Mich-again between Xmas and the New Year.

-Mark (+ Marisa, Autumn, and Evan)

Fall sweeping through WV; fun with 3D photos

The weeks are flying by, with Autumn and Evan already through 9 weeks of Kindergarten. And I can't believe it took this long, but we finally had our first garage sale ever. Why didn't we do it before? We sold just about everything we wanted to, made some more room in the house, and of course a bit of $$$. The kids even ran a successful Cider-N-Donuts stand. :)

The pumpkins are out, and Autumn and Evan are eagerly awaiting trick or treat this Thursday... not sure why around here they never seem to hold it on ACTUAL Halloween. Perhaps Saturday poses too much of an adult-party-drunk-driving risk or something.

Click here to see an album of 58 photos from September-October.

With me not working this weekend, we have a fun one lined up. Evan and I are going to the Marshall-UAB football game in a couple hours, Autumn and Mom are going to "Global Village" in Charleston, which is an event featuring arts and crafts, as well as "free trade" shopping. Then we'll all be going to a Hibachi dinner with some friends of ours who live in the neighborhood. Tomorrow Marisa presents "Operation Christmas Child" to the congregation, so the church can participate this year. Then our church has its annual Fall Festival in the late afternoon, and it will be a beautiful day.

Here's a little something fun I have been trying out: 3D photos. Basically I snap a photo, take a couple small steps to the side, and take the same photo. This mimics having the vantage point of two "eyes". You put the photos right next to each other, then cross your eyes slightly to have the images meet in the middle. Then you see everything in 3D! Sort of like those crazy posters back in the 90s, where a 3D picture suddenly jumps out at you when you get it just right. Anyhoo, go ahead and give it a try on the three below (mushroom log on a hike, Kids and Mom on Wildcat Ridge hike in Kanawha State Forest, and Evan on a hike).

Have fun! -Mark (+ Marisa, Autumn, and Evan)

Getting into the School Year Groove

Hard to believe it, but Autumn and Evan have already been in school about three weeks already. We have been getting into the groove of our new routine... waking up early, scootin' to the bus stop around 6:45 am, kids coming home around 2:30 pm for an afternoon of play, then in bed usually before 8 pm. Things are going pretty well. Only frustrating thing is that for some reason, none of the other parents walk their kids to school, leaving us to "herd the cats" at the bus stop which is at a busy intersection. And when the kids get dropped off by the bus, there are always plenty of cars impeding traffic, just so they can take their children the whole eighth-to-quarter mile back to the house. It would be good for the kids to walk just a little bit after eating lunches featuring chicken patties and strawberry milk, don't you think (not to mention the parents)? I'm just sayin...

Last weekend we finally resorted to taking the kids to Camden Park, an amusement park near Huntington, WV (see photo above). I couldn't believe how sick I got... while the kids were tugging at our shirts for more and more rides. When did I become such an un-fun grown-up?

Here is our Early September Album of 18 photos, including a trip to Camden Park WV, a visit with Grandpa in Medina OH, and other miscellaneous end of summer fun.

Also, forgot to post this before... a large album of 60 photos from August including a visit to WV from the Argentars, and three family gatherings in Michigan all in one weekend... yes this was a separate trip from our one to the Lake Huron cottage earlier! Courtesy of Mel Pellerito (thanks!), here is the big "Pellerito Christmas in August" group photo. My Dad's side of the family has been holding Christmas in the summer for several years now.

Hope all is well with everyone! Gotta go... one of our shows is on, and we value what little relax time we get! :)

-Mark + crew