Thanksgiving Photos and Videos

Here are some videos of the kids playing. You'll notice in the first one what a gentleman Max is when the car breaks down.

And the Winner is...

85% of my readers will be glad to know that I told Lisa "dead as a doornail" was in fact a more common expression than "dumb as a doorknob." And at least one reader will be glad to know that I promise not to pick on Lisa any more on my blog. For a while anyway.

Rockin' Around the Christmas Tree

Christmas is upon us and I need to get into the Spirit. Will all y'all let me know what your favorite Christmas carol is and who's version you like best so I can download them? Thanks!

Perfect Arches

Here is an unexpected and quite funny exclamation I just heard:

"Shawn, get up and go to bed! Do you want me to tweeze your eyebrows first?"

I immediately signed into my blog so that I wouldn't forget to record it and Lisa let me know I was the only one who would find it funny. I beg to differ. Shauri, can I get a witness?

Thanksgiving Game Night 2007

Here were the parameters:

1. Create a commercial selling a product of your chosing
2. The commercial has to involve the random object you are given
3. The commercial has to involve the holiday season

And here was the result of group 1's efforts:




Abram's commercial wasn't that funny (No offense Group 3) so I'm posting his dance from Duck Beach Game Night 2007, which is in fact, very funny. The theme that night was So You Think You Can Dance? The answer: a resounding yes.

Rock the Vote

You may have noticed my new poll. This is a result of a heated discussion with Lisa about a insignificant topic (surprise surprise). Left without any social scientists to tell us what they think, we are leaving it up to our blog readers to decide who wins this argument.

Lil' C Ain't Got Nothin' on These Kids

For the SYTYCD fans: click here

Please, Thank You and Sorry

We have been diligently teaching Max to be a gentleman. To that end, we have consistently required that he say please before he get anything from us, thank you after receiving something from us, and sorry whenever he has hit someone or spoken meanly to his parents. We are proud to say that Max would pass for the finest of southern gentleman. But we're not sure he completely understands.

For example, whenever he plays with other children he thinks "please" means give me whatever you have and if you don't I will scream. "Thank you" means I'm very happy that I now have what I want, leave me alone. And "sorry," -- we're still not sure. He says it all the time. It makes us think we've required that he apologize too often because now we'll tell him to put his shoe on his other foot and he'll say "sorry" as if he were consciously trying to bug us by putting the left shoe on his right foot, or we'll tell him to please give his mommy kisses and he'll say "sorry," as if he should have thought of this idea all on his own.

We're not sure how to deal with his politeness, but we'll let it work itself out.

Lil' C Ain't Got Nothin' on These Kids

For the So You Think You Can Dance? fans: click here

Saturday Pants

Many of you know about Abram's blue Adidas pants. He named them his Saturday pants for obvious reasons. Every Saturday (and Sunday really) he slips those babies on to start his weekend right. Today I remembered something I haven't thought of in a very long time: Dad's yellow sweat pants. Suddenly I realized that in a few years, Abram and I are going to have some major issues to deal with.

For about ten years of my life my dad wore the same yellow sweat pants every Saturday (along with his Blacktops, but that's another story for another time). As you can imagine, after 10 years they were paper thin and had several holes in them. My mom would frequently tell him it was time to get rid of the yellow sweats, but he refused. So finally she did what she had to and stole the pants and put them out in the garage to send away with the garbage man. The next Saturday, out comes my dad in his yellow sweats. Shocked, my mom asked, "Where did you get those?!" Equally bewildered he responded, "Someone put them out in the garage!"

I'll make sure to post about it when that Saturday comes for us.

There's a Witch!

I know we write a lot about Max and his fascination with sharks and witches, but I couldn't resist posting this video. Check out his face at the end when I tell him there's a witch in the room.



I'll just put a little disclaimer here. I swear I'm not being mean, he always wants to play hide from the witch, but I think I surprised him here since he hadn't just told me to do it.

Little Delsa

Abram likes to call me Delsa when I do something that reminds him of her. Usually it's very flattering because you all know how I hold my mom in high regard. Well, unfortunately I may gotten just a smidgen of absentmindedness from my dear mother.
Case in point, today. I took Aviva to the doctor for her 2 month appointment and shots. They weighed and measured her, the doc came in and talked to me about her developmental progress, and then she said goodbye and that the nurse would be right in to give her shots.
Somehow in the short time between receiving this directive and watching the door close, I went from thinking, "time to wait for the nurse," to "time to go home." So I proceed to get the baby dressed, pack her up, take her out to the car, look at the clock and think to myself, "Wow, that appointment went so fast!" (really, I remember having that thought), drive halfway home, and hear my cell phone ring. I pick it up and hear Dr. Palmer, "Mrs. Ellis, this is Dr. Palmer."
"Yes?
"I think you forgot to get Aviva's shots."
You can imagine the rest of the conversation. Of course for some reason instead of keeping these follies to myself, I immediately call Marianne to tell her what I've done. Somehow I feel like the way to get rid of embarrassment is to share it with as many people as possible. Doesn't make a lot of sense, I know. Of course the person I really wanted to call was my mom, but since she was sound asleep in Australia, I made a couple of other calls. And obviously I'm not completely over it since I'm now letting the wide world know about it as I blog.

Aviva's Baby Blessing

Today was Aviva's baby blessing. It was beautiful. Abram and I both felt so close to her and so blessed to have her be a part of our family.

Photos courtesy of Amy

Aviva and Daddy

Friday Night Lights

Are any of you Friday Night Lights fans? Abram bought the first season on DVD and I love it. Love it, love it, love it. I think I cried through all 21 episodes. What I've seen of season two isn't as good as season one, but it doesn't matter. Season one can stand on it's own. I don't even need it to go on. Though I'm glad it does.

Apparently the critics love it, but it hasn't gotten the fan base it needs and no one's sure how long it will stay on the air. So here is my grass roots effort to increase the viewership. It's on NBC on Friday night at 9:00. But don't just start watching now, watch last year's season first. You can watch it for free at: http://www.nbc.com/Friday_Night_Lights/video/episodes.shtml

P.S. I love the relationship between the coach and his wife. She is played by Connie Britton and she is fantastic. Best crier I've ever seen.

Photos of Aviva and Max

Max calls Aviva "B" for baby.

The Last Time They Won

In honor of the Red Sox I thought I'd post a photo from 2003. I don't think it's too hard to guess who this superfan is. The only question left is whether he was watching game four this year on a couch in Australia with a big red B on his head.

Sunday Night

Aviva slept for 7 hours straight last night. It's been a beautiful day.

Sunday School

I'll tell you what I hate. Playing hangman with a bunch of 7 year olds that can't spell. "Johnny, are you sure there are no vowels in this word?"

Max's Dancing Debuet

Check out Max's dance performance in Mary's blog. For those in the know, when you see his solo at the end, am I crazy or do you get a distinct Grandma Brown vibe too?

Lucky Duck

A couple months ago at work, Abram won a night out on the firm. So tonight we went to The Capital Grille with the Hales and the Virays. It was beautiful. I had a few moments of food ecstasy, fantastic adult conversation, and an extra hour of sleep tonight. Who could ask for more?

P.S. Check out that chocolate cake. That was after I ate half of it.

P.P.S. I had few bites of calamari (completely edible and of course deep fat fried) and a bite of a crab cake (gagged twice).

Yes, the Ears Are Crocheted

I've never claimed to be crafty. I've never even secretly thought it. So why I thought if I attempted to create Max's Mickey Mouse costume it would turn out better than the costumes I found online, I'll never know. Luckily, he's so stinkin' cute he can pretty much make any goofy thing he wears a hit.

One of Max's favorite things to do is pretend there are sharks or witches coming, and then hiding from them with us. Then we shake our finger at them and tell them to go home and leave us alone. Well, you can imagine Max's shock when we were trick or treating and he looked up to see a real life 10 year old witch standing next to him. He nearly wet himself (actually, he probably did for all I know) and leaped over to my leg, clinging to me for dear life. I kept trying to tell him it was okay, but he didn't get brave until we parted ways on the sidewalk and he screamed ferociously over my shoulder, "GO HOME WITCH!"