Photos

I forgot to say forever ago...maybe I already mentioned this, I can't remember...but if any are interested, I have a blog with some of my photography on it at chelseasattic.blogspot.com.
More Christmas pics and joy to follow in the near future.

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Here we go!
I am looking to pick up some work that wouldn't require me to be away from home too much, so I am in the beginning phases of setting up something of a photography business. Because I'm just a beginner and can't afford to buy a nice camera quite yet, I am offering photo sessions for cheap. If you're looking to get some nice pictures of your kids or your family before Christmas (or after), I'm offering any session up to two hours including a CD with 30-50 shots on it for $50. I could also make 4X6 of all of the shots for extra, just to cover to cost of printing them (I will pretty much do any printing job you want for cost of printing upon request). I do indoor and outdoor photos, however many people you want at a time. If you are interested in seeing my work, you can look at chelseasattic.blogspot.com until I get any sort of website officially up and running. I do family portraits, kids, babies, engagement, bridal, graduation, and wedding pictures (if you require more than two hours, I would charge $50 an hour after that).
Please contact me on the blog or by email if you are interested (chee_mar@yahoo.com).
Thanks and hope all your holidays are bright and merry. :-)

Newest Addition to the Family

World: Meet "Bee-bee"

We bought Chloe a baby doll for her birthday, and holy cow does she love that thing. It goes with her everywhere. She feeds it, burps it, dances with it, puts it to bed, wakes it up again, changes its diaper, walks it around in its stoller...you get the picture.
Her birthday was fun (now that it's a month later)- she was spoiled with lots of family and lots of presents and lots of cake. Here's a couple of pics from the event...

The cake design was supposed to be for a clown, but I only had certain colors, so I did a princess instead. I think it tuned out cute, if I do say so myself, for an intermediate cake decorator.

Even now a month later, Chloe walks around singing "Happy Day!" (Happy Birthday) and wears her birthday crown all the time.

In the meantime, everything is busy as usual. I finally got my classroom all packed and moved into my "real" classroom. Hopefully I'll remember to take my camera to school so I can blog about it. It's a lot bigger, and they hooked up my internet to the classroom today, so life is good.

Also, for anyone interested, I set up a "photography" blog, for anyone who's interested, where I'll post pictures I've taken of my kids and other people's kids, and so on and so forth. It's at

chelseasattic.blogspot.com. I got the idea from my sister-in-law, and I thought it was really cute and a good idea.

Until next time!

Pumpkins, Pajamas, and Pirates, Oh my!

I realize that it's a week after Halloween, but I had to post these at some point. It makes better sense now than at Christmas. :-)

Chloe went with Grandma Ellingson and Uncle Brian and Aunt Bonnie and the boys to a pumpking patch on the Monday before Halloween to pick out some pumpkins. Bonnie took some pictures for me so I could share in the fun, even though I couldn't make it with them. She sent me this one over email.

It looks like she had fun. :-) Anyway, because we had things going on pretty much everynight that week, we didn't get around to carving pumpkins until Haloween morning. So instead of getting Chloe's clothes all mucked up, I left her in her pajamas and she helped me carve the pumpkins. She was all excited as I stuck the knife in the pumpkin and started cutting out the top. Then I pulled it off and showed her all the insides, thinking that she would love to get her fingers into that. The second she saw all the pumpkin innards, though, she stopped and said "Ewwwwwww!" I urged her to stick her hands in, showing her what to do as I pulled out some seeds and she backed up and put her hands up and said "NO!" Didn't realize I had such a pansy for a daughter! Seriously. Anyway, she was a lot more excited about it after I cleaned it all out. For all who are wondering, incase you can't tell, I carved candy corn. It looked cooler all lit up.

Chloe dressed up as a pirate. She only wore the hat for the pictures, and didn't much want to wear it while we went trick or treating. Without the hat with the skull and cross bones on it, she looked more like a bar-maid than a pirate, but oh well. Craig found a banana costume and then we saw a monkey costume for little babies, so Craig went as a banana and Linus went as a monkey. Except he had to hold Linus when we went trick or treating otherwise people didn't really get it. We just went around our block and then over to Great-Grandpa Ellingson's house and home. Chloe ate too much candy and had a real hard time going to sleep that night because she had a tummy ache. That's sort of our own fault, though, one for letting her eat all that candy and two for never really letting her eat sweets outside of special ocasions so we get to a holiday like Halloween and she gets a little overloaded. I'm sure she would have done it again had she the choice, though. :-)

Linus has his six month checkup next week and I'm a little nervous because he's not sitting up nor is he rolling over. He's almost sitting up and the rolling over thing happens on accident sometimes when he's on his stomach, but he just isn't real motivated to get out and move around quite yet. I think he's developing just fine- he comes up with interesting schemes to get his face next to mine so he can get a good taste of my cheeck or a fistful of my hair- I just don't like the raised eyebrows the nurses give you when they ask you why they're not solving E=MC2 or compising sonatas in C# minor yet. I finally got some pictures of him sucking on his two fingers. It's always the same ones and that's pretty much how he puts himself to sleep. Craig and I are scratching our heads about this: on the one hand, we don't have to worry about losing a pacifier or making sure we have one wherever we go incase he needs it, but on the other hand, you can take away a pacifier when you want him to stop using it at a certain age, and as far as I know chopping off his fingers would be illegal...not to mention painful. Anyway, the scratching of heads stops when you look at how funny he looks choping away at those fingers. Also, he finally started eating solid foods the last couple of days and oh my goodness was he ready for it. He eats and swallows every bite of his rice cereal. We didn't even have to start with some in his bottle or anything at night. By the end of the first food I fed him he was gaping his mouth open for more after every bite- I couldn't get it in fast enough! He just is a food man I guess. He's also dangerously close to fitting into size four diapers already...Chloe is in size four diapers. I'm holding out as long as I can, but holy cow! He's a monster. But a cute one, so I guess we'll keep him. :-P

Opening Night

So Opening Night for the Av's was last week and Craig was so excited to pull out Chloe's old outfit for Linus to wear. We didn't have anything for Chloe, so Craig put on one of his shirts on her and she wore it as a "dress". It was an exciting ten minutes of our day, cause then they went to bed after that. :-) Too bad the Av's lost that night.

I had to add this picture in- if you can see, Chloe slept on her braids one night and woke up with one of them sticking straight up out of her head. She didn't quite know why Craig and I were laughing at her that morning anc kept scowling at us through breakfast as we'd snicker at her hair.

So Linus had his four month check up about three weeks ago and I never posted about it- he's in the 95% for everything. He weighs over twenty pounds already. I have giant callouses on my hands from lugging that stupid carseat with him in it everywhere. I thought Chloe was a chunk, but she didn't weight 20 lbs until she was nine months old. He still drools like a leaky faucet, but he's also testing out his vocal capacity with loud piercing screams whenever he feels like it. I swear I hear all the metal in the house ringing at the same timbre when he's through. Good news is (or bad news, depending on who you are) his horn is slowly fading away. Unfortunately the magical powers associated with it are also diminishing...
...but at least he doesn't have to get it removed, for the next little bit anyway.

Chloe has croup right now. Well the doctor said it was croup, but I always thought croup wasn't contagious and whatever she has, her cousins had it the last couple of weeks too, so we're pretty sure she got it from them. Everyone tried all we could to keep it from her (cleaning toys, being watched during the day at our house instead of theirs, keeping her out of her cousins' play areas, etc...) but how do you keep three very active toddlers from interacting in the same house day in and day out? It was inevitable, pretty much. Friday night when I picked her up to go home after school, she excitedly ran across the lawn to our door and was wheezing audabley and gasping for breath by the time we made it inside. That night she started fevering and didn't sleep much and worried the heck out of her parents with her death rattle breathing. She's doing much better now- still has no voice, but she's breathing fine and running around getting into trouble as usual. But now Linus gets to sleep in our room until she gets better- we are crossing our fingers that he doesn't get it, I'm not sure how well a five month old would take a viral infection like that, even a twenty pound five month old.
And that's our update. Hoorah!

Back in Middle School...

So I have to share this most embarassing story with anyone interested. I am teaching at a Charter School right now- halftime music. I teach Kindergarten-Second Grade and then two middle school music classes (choir and individual performance) and an advisory class for about 12 sixth graders. Today in choir I realized that of my thiry students, none of them know each other and I didn't even know all of them by name and it's four weeks into the semester, so I decided to play a name game. We were all having a grand time and in the middle of going around our circle and playing the game, a giant sneeze came on and so I cupped my hands over my mouth and sneezed a ginormous gob of snot onto my hands. I sort of left my hands there on my face for a minute because I knew if I took them away, I'd have a big line of snot sticking from my nose to my hands, but I didn't know what to do. Do I get up and draw attention to the fact that I have snot splattered everywhere or just leave my hands there? I decided to get up and grab a tissue and as the kids noticed, I just made a joke out of it "Sorry guys, gotta get the boogers off my hands!" (middle schoolers get a kick when a teacher uses a word like "boogers"). So now I had the classes attention. Here's the worst part. I blew my nose while walking to the trash can to make sure I got everything out and unfortunately also let out a very audible fart on my way. I usually have very good control of my flatulance, but for whatever reason, it just didn't work so much this time. I paused and for a brief desperate moment as a few giggles started to burst forth I thought maybe I could like try to drag my foot across the ground and get another "toot" sound out of it and pretend it was just my shoe, but it was too late for that- everyone heard it and as a few giggles slipped out, soon the whole class was roaring with laughter. So what do I do? Get stern with the kids for laughing at my most embarassing moment probably in history? Try to play it off on one of the kids? I ended up just going with it to save face and to try as hard as I could to NOT blush "Whoops! Well we all do it, don't we? I'm only human. Okay, get your laughs out and lets move on with class". That ended up being a bit of a mistake because once the students saw that I thought it was okay that I, a teacher, farted in class, soon it was schoolwide news. After the bell rang for school to get out, I stood outside my door to monitor the kids walking out in the hallway and I could hear it from the other end of the hall "DUDE! Mrs. Ellingson farted in class and it was HILARIOUS!" If I had gotten stern, they might have at least shared that morcel of news in private instead of rocketing it down the hallway. I even got high fives from a few eighth grade boys on their way out. I won't see that class again until Monday, so I'll just cross my fingers that they'll forget about it by then...

At least this morning was better- got a few more shots of my kids, although I'm still working on trying to get a good one of the both of them together. This first one was okay, but it's still just a little fuzzy. And it would have been nice to get one without my lamp in the background. But I guess something is better than nothing...and yes, by the way, Linus really is that big. I think one of these days he'll be beating up Chloe.

Unbelievable Update

Okay, so maybe it's not unbelievable, but it sure is an update! This week's update is: we have cute kids! I tried to take some more of my world famous "glamour shots" with the kids, but the older Chloe gets, I've realized, the harder that is to do. She does not sit still for more than two seconds, especially when I have the camera out. She'll stand in range of picture taking for point two seconds, not long enough for me to even focus on her, and then she comes right back onto my lap to look at the picture I didn't get a chance to take of her. And she doesn't like me taking pictures of Linus either. She would much rather be in the picture herself for point two seconds and then try to come over and look at the other picture I didn't take. Nonetheless, I did manage to get a very small handful of cute photos. Hooray!

So I started doing the potty thing again with Chloe- this week we tried underwear. She can wear them just fine! She can also pee in them just fine too! The good news is, she hates it when she does pee her pants, but she hasn't quite figured out that the way to solve that is to tell Mommy to go to the potty and then do it before she wets herself. We sit on the potty for lots of time every day and she has a grand old time reading books and telling me what color all the hairties in her hairtie sorter are, and then she stands up and dramatically looks in the potty as though something would magically appear there. Someday I'll catch it right I know, but in the meantime I'm doing laundry almost every day!

Craig has finally started school again and I have finally started teaching. Eventually I'll post pictures of my classroom...but my classroom right now is not really done. It's a brand new classroom with a collapsable wall that folds out into the gym with a lip for a stage and everything, but I have to wait until they get the wood floors in and all. So I'm in a temporary room right now, which hasn't necessarily motivated me much to decorate it a ton since it'll all be coming down in a month anyway. Craig is enjoying school...I think. Maybe enjoying isn't really the right word...enduring maybe? I dunno. He's enjoying the fact that this is one more semester closer to being done! And I think he enjoys the change anyway. In the meantime we are having tons of fun with our kids and I have to say that teaching half time the first year should be mandatory for every new teacher- it's so great!! Okay, so the pay kinda stinks (and by "kinda" I mean "REALLY") but I get to be home with my kiddos every morning and that is worth anything.

And that's all for now. Join us next time...

First Haircut!

So I made a hasty decision the other day and decided to cut Chloe's hair. It gets rather ratty in the back when she wakes up from naps and in the morning, and although I will miss her curls (even though she didn't really have any), now it will all grow at the same length and she'll get them back eventually. I should have got some pictures of her while I was cutting it, but I was afraid to leave her on the sink to grab the camera- she doesn't like to sit still very long.

I asked Linus what he thought of it, and he seemed to like it a lot!

Out with the old, in with the new!

We had to part with an old friend last night. He's been with us since we were married and served us faithfully, but we're a growing family, and he hasn't been able to keep up with our fast paced lives. So goodbye, old clunker, we won't miss you I'm sorry to say...

We now have a new addition to our family. We call him "Monstrosity". Our TV isn't happy at all. Monstrosity intimidates him...we might have to replace him too if he doesn't shutup about it.
I had to stand on the couch to get this picture because it wouldn't fit in the frame of the camera standing in front of the couch. If anyone in the Windsor area is interested in the old one, it's on craigslist for $50 or best offer.

Well I better start looking for a good steak marinade. We got a coupon for 60% off a bunch of Omaha Steak meats, so I'm going to try the sirloins tonight. I can't wait- I'm even making real mashed potatoes with it. It's gonna be great.

Fear of pools conquered! (At least in the backyard...)

So here's some fun in the sun we've been having out here in Windsor. Craig took last Monday off because his sister Wendy and her husband Josh were in town from AZ. We filled up the pool outside and mixed it with a bunch of hot water so it wouldn't be freezing and Chloe actually liked it! We're hoping this is a good sign. Still haven't taken her to the kiddy pool in town yet...


Linus also had some fun in the pool. At first he didn't like it at all, but after sitting in Daddy's lap for a few minutes he calmed down and sat comfortabley for about fifteen minutes before the kids got fed up with having to hold on the splashing (the best part of pool time, duh!) and I was summoned to take him out. We're going back to Grandma and Grandpa Bardeen's this weekend, so we'll see if it makes a difference in their pool.

Linus' first time on the swing. He didn't seem to quite know what to make of it...

Chloe loves the trampoline. Well, she loves to run around on it, but she doesn't seem to quite get that it's for jumping, not running. We'll tell her to "jump" and mimic jumping with our arms, but she just waves her arms around right back and laughs at us.

Oh, I almost forgot- we pulled out the potty with Chloe! I put her on it a few times the first day and she loved it. The next day I put her on it a few times again and she pooped on it in the afternoon- I was so proud of her! We had a big celebration. We ate Mike and Ikes and everything. Then my sister-in-law Wendy made her this cake in dedication to the event. It was yummy, despite some of the less-than-appetizing-looking decorations. :-) Unfortunately, even though she LOVES to sit on the potty whenever I put her on it, she hasn't done anything since then, but once things settle down around here next week we're taking out the timer and every hour we'll see if we can't catch something. Today we went out and bought some underwear for when she's ready for it, which may not be for a while, but I'm sure we'll need them eventually. It's a very odd feeling once your child begins to be potty trained, it's just another one of those moments when you realize eventually your baby isn't going to depend on you for everything like they do now. But it's also exciting to see Chloe grow and learn and realize that she's not going to be a baby forever, she's going to be a hyper little girl and then a pre-teen brat and then a budding woman and then...what, a college student? Bride? Mother? (Sigh) It'll happen fast enough, for now we'll enjoy little steps, like learning how to use the potty. :-)

(Incase you can't read that, it says "Way to Go Poohey Chloe". I laughed for like five minutes when I saw it!)

Vacation

Last weekend Craig and I took the kids to go see my mom and her husband John at their house. This was the first time we've gone anywhere this summer and so we tried to live it up as much as possible as it may well be the only summer vacation we get. Well, at least Craig did. I was excited though, as was my mom, because I think that the kids are really going to enjoy going to visit Grandma and Grandpa Bardeen as they get older. The second Chloe stepped in the door she was comfortable and happy and completely herself, which she rarely does outside of our house. The first night we just had dinner outside in the backyard and decided that we would take a quick evening dip in their lap-pool in the backyard before bedtime with Chloe. This was the first time Chloe had really been in a pool since last summer and much to our dismay, she hated it. She screamed in terror when we were in the pool with her and when we were out and tried to slowly coax her back in, she would just say "NO!" and walk away as quickly as she could. We thought maybe she was just tired, so we put her to bed and thought to try it again the next morning. We spent the rest of the night visiting (my brother Addison was there for the night too, so it was good to catch up with him) and then we watched a movie downstairs on their big projector- John set up a sweet little theatre down there with leather couches and cupholders and everything. Craig was excited about that. The next morning I went to the store to get breakfast with my mom while Craig hung out in the backyard playing with Chloe and Linus slept in.


After breakfast we all took a walk down to Washington park, which is a few blocks from their house. There was a neat little playground there near the lake and Chloe had a ball with Daddy playing on it.

After the park, it was time for another attempt at the pool. We all got ready and came outside to enjoy the sun. Linus came out for a little bit too to play with Grandma and Grandpa.
I just bought this swimming suit for her near the beginning of the summer- I should have known better- good thing I bought the bigger size instead of the smaller one because she was a bit snug in this one. She was still dang cute in it. :-)
Obviously the second attempt at getting her in the pool was no better than the first. She just really did not enjoy it, so we let her just play around the pool a bit before she ate lunch and then went down for a nice LONG nap- all that pool time sure wore her out.
After we put Chloe down, Craig decided to try and see how many different ways he could jump on all the pool toys in the pool. His favorite game was to attempt to land on them without flipping over. Here he is doing a belly flop on the inner tube.

It was so nice to be out in the sun and playing with the kids and was a much welcomed break for Mommy and Daddy, even if it was only for a night. We already planned the next time we'll come down before school starts for the both of us and are eagerly looking forward to it.

The Joys of Parenting

Big news in the Ellingson family!

First of all, Chloe is FINALLY starting to talk! It is the cutest darn thing you'll ever hear (yes, I'm partial, I know). So far we can adequately understand a few things such as "Gackie" (Cookie), "Hoo-wassat?" (What's that?), "Shoo-shoo" (shoes), and "NO!" (too bad that one has to be the most distinct...). She's getting much better at mimicking words as well and loves to go around our room and point at things while I tell her what they are, and then she attempts to repeat me. She babbles like crazy now, especially in the car, except she has to do it at the top of her lungs so Craig and I can barely get a conversation in sometimes. And she just understands a lot more so I can tell her something and she knows what I'm asking (whether or not she does it is another matter altogether...). It's crazy how fast it happens, and I'm sure in another couple of weeks she'll be that much better at it.

Secondly, Craig caught this on camera the other day:

That's right, boys and girls, we officially have another smiling baby in the house. He's so cute when he does it because he's usually cooing a lot right before, which Chloe didn't really do until she was about 6 months old. And we weighed him the other day and he's about 14lbs already! I couldn't believe it- he's definetly a little chunker, just like his sister. That's okay, though, we like chunky babies.

Also just had to add this photo- Chloe LOVES to give Linus kisses, even full on the mouth kisses like this one. She won't go to bed unless she can give him a kiss, which is adorable. We still have to remind her that she's not old enough to burp him (she seems to think that smacking him on the face will help), but at least that's the worst of it so far. I go to bed every night thinking I'm the luckiest mom in the world to have such great kids!