I'm a Saver

I don't usually blog about good deals, but I'm a thrift store shopper and I just have to say that I LOVE the Savers in Ft. Collins, and if any of you are in the area and for some strange reason haven't gone there for all your thrifty needs, it's great. Here's what I like about it:

• First and foremost: There's a lot of stuff. I hate it when you go to a thrift store and comb the entire store over to find that one skirt that worked for your daughter or one pair of shoes that you ended up paying $10 for instead of the $3 or $4 you were hoping for. I walked in and the first four or five items I saw were in the cart, and the rest was just deciding what I could reasonably fit in the cart (okay, a little exaggeration there, but you get the idea...).
• They have $.99 days instead of 1/2 off days. The ARC does 1/2 off days, which can be nice at times. I like 1/2 off days, but a lot of times I find something there I just love, but still have to pay $4 or $5 for because that particular colored tag on that day was originally double that. Here you pay a buck, no matter how much it was to begin with. I personally think that's a better deal...(DUH!).
  
• The selection there is amazing. They are nice, cared for items. Sure, anyone can buy a faded hideous tee-shirt that's been worn by eleven people before it made it's way to the thrift store, but I would much rather buy a shirt for a buck that STILL HAS THE ORIGINAL TAG ON IT. Saw a lot of those....
• Last but not least, it wasn't swarming with people. I've been to the ARC in Greeley or Savers in Boulder and you have to skip isle after isle because there just isn't room to fit another person filtering through a bazillion shirts in the tiny lanes they have there. Although the Saver's in Ft. Collin's isn't huge, I was able to paruse the toddler girl's section for a good 15 minutes without another soul even peeking around the corner. Not to mention that, but they also placed the toy section ideally in a clearly visible spot from the children's clothing section, so I could let Chloe wander to the end of the isle and poke around without fearing I'd never find her again.
  

So: I purchased 13 items of CUTE clothing for my daughter, who's last year summer wardrobe is rapidly shrinking as her legs are beginning to grow like a beanstock and her tummy pokes out of most of her shirts because her torso is also lengthening, one cute pair of Sunday shoes for Mommy that I couldn't pass up, one electronic game of Battleship that Chloe couldn't put down, but has no idea how to play, and five books for $36. Oh that's the other thing, they're children's book section is ENORMOUS (well, bigger than the one shelf I've been to at the ARC in Greeley) and all books are $.69 a piece! I let Chloe pick out five of them, but I really want to go back and paruse them some more, and they were all in good condition, no crayoned or markered on, no frayed corners of the hard backs, and no ripped covers or pages. Amazing.

Just had to share that with you all. The clothes are in the dryer right now, but I may post some pictures of them on here just so you can see the selection later. Happy thrifting to you other thrifters out there. You know who you are.

Trip to EXIT (in Spanish)

...which means "Salida" in Spanish. Above, here is our descent into Chaffee County. Gotta love those gorgeous mountains. My Grammy Brown flew in from Rhode Island to spend some time with us Coloradans for a couple of weeks. She's been staying with my Uncle Tim and Aunt Casey in Salida, so since they have this big festival every year in Salida called FIBark ("First In Boating the Arkansas, river that is), and it happened to be last weekend, the stars aligned so we all packed up our things and drove the 200 miles to Salida. First "road trip" we've taken with the kids, and all things considered they did fairly well! No puking in the mountains, no scream fits, mostly, and Linus even slept some. It was nice to get away a little bit and visit with my family. I have to apologize because I went through all my pictures the last couple of days and I realized I hardly took any pictures of my family. I have a couple of pictures of the kids, a couple of pictures of Craig, and none of my family! What was I thinking? I don't know. But enjoy what I got, I guess!
Linus smiling at me because I'm looking at him. When I turned around, he wasn't as happy, so I spent a lot of time in the car facing backwards- it was amazing that I didn't puke!Chloe chillin' like a villian.


The first night there we had this AMAZING sunset! I got more pictures, but I loved the colors in this one. We didn't do a whole lot of FIBarking, the kids were ready for bed, and honestly a lot of it was just boozin' and cruisin' and so we would rather have been home enjoying this beautiful scene calmly on the back deck of my family's porch.

I have to say that I LOVED Tim and Casey's house! They built it a few years ago and I just loved every nook and corner of it. Here's the back patio, and Craig and Chloe enjoying themselves...

Chloe was tired. I was playing with my lens. Good times.
Craig is embarrased that I posted this picture, but he's so handsome, isn't he? Best darned tootin' husband a little ol' girl like me could get. Hands down. No fibbin'. Love ya, honey.
Oh yeah, the other part of our adventure was that we decided to go camping! After much deliberation, I just wasn't comfortable doing a real camping trip, so Tim and Casey were gracious enough to let us do it in their backyard. Here are our quarters. It was nice and toasty inside and the kids slept great. I even got some sleep, which I don't do much of on camping trips! Maybe that's cause we weren't "really" camping...You can't park your car in the fire lane, but you can park your kayak.
This was a sickening ride at the festival aptly named "The Tornado!" I didn't go on it. Looking at this picture makes me dizzy enough...
The mighty Arkansas.

It was a great trip all in all, I was glad to see my Grammy and glad to spend some time with some family I haven't seen in a while. It'll be nice when the kids are a bit older and we can go back without having to worry about chasing them down every two seconds. Looking forward to our next "Exit"...
Tune in next time.

Not in a Van, but down by the river...

Poudre river really is a pretty place, especially since it's been raining and everything is so green. I had this vision of bringing my kids down here wearing white and khaki and getting some perfect shots of them together. The reality was a little less so. Individual pictures were slightly more successful, but getting them to BOTH look at the camera AND smile was asking a little too much. Especially since I didn't think about the bugs. Oh my goodness, were there misquitos EVERYWHERE! It kinda freaked Chloe out, as you can see from the last picture, she had had enough of them by the end. Now if these weren't my kids, they would have been perfect, but they are so used to that stinkin' camera in their faces all the time, that trying every trick in the book to get them to laugh was near impossible. Out of the 180 or so shots I took, these were the best of them. But alas, I shall not give up...


Literally THE ONLY shot where both of them were looking at the camera. I'm going to have to experiment with head swapping on photoshop here...
Okay, okay, I admit it, I really like this one. Probably because he is my son, but that's okay. If I enjoy it, that's really all that matters...

And here's where the minor annoyance at the bugs turned into a full-fledged meltdown. I love how Linus is looking at me like "Um...am I supposed to be upset too? What's going on?"

Green thumbs...or toes...

It's been rainy the last few days, but despite the weather, we finally got around to weeding the jungle in our front garden. And I don't use the word "jungle" lightly. While digging out some of the monster dandelions (seriously the biggest I've ever seen!) I kept waiting for one of them to sprout open and start singing "FEED ME, SEMOUR!" Nonetheless, our strawberries that have run amock throughout the jungle now have a little breathing room, and if we can manage to keep those pesky birds in our yard away from them, we may actually have a sizeable crop of fresh homegrown strawberries this year.
Chloe was outside with us and after watching us for a few minutes was determined to get herself some tools and help out. She would point to my spade and say "Mommy, I need it". After we were through with most of the weeding (THANKS AMBER, DANIEL, and SCOTT!!!) we let her have a go at weeding. It was quite humorous to see her use the tools like salad tongs trying to get whatever vegetation was closest to her into the bucket, be it weed or not.


I especially like this pose. Gardening on your stomach must be some secret trick or something...Our spoils:

I just loved the way the dew collected on the corners of the strawberry leaves, so I had to share it with you all. :-)
For all you with greener thumbs than me, happy gardening this year!

A boy, not a baby!

Our little man has just turned one! I can't believe it. I know I've already had that transition once with Chloe, but it just doesn't seem possible that Linus could be entering toddlerhood here shortly. Every day I look at him he looks more and more like a little boy and less like a baby, which is both exciting and frightening. Before I add pictures of the main event, I just want to take a moment and say the things I love about this special little guy:

• When I get home from work the first thing he does when he sees me is flash me the biggest smile in the world and immediately hold his arms up for me to hold him. When I pick him up, he gah's gleefully and puts his head on my chest as if to say "I missed you!". That's about one of the greatest moments of my existence from day to day. :-)
• He loves to immitate any sound you make. So far he's learned how to say "Da-da", "Ma-ma", "Day-doo" (thank you), "supwusupwusupwusupwusup" (which we're pretty sure means "what's up"), and "Hey-doo" (Hey dude!), which are phrases and words that we say to him frequently.
• He learns SO quickly. Well, obviously it took him a while to get his motor skills developed, but now that he's crawling, it's been three weeks and he's a maniac on the floor. He gets going so fast that he trips over his arms all the time and falls flat on his face, but then he just pulls himself back up and continues on like nothing happened. When we come up with a system or blockage to keep him away from things we don't want to get into, he figures out how to get around it as soon as we install it.
  
• My other favorite moment of the day is when I come into their room in the morning and he's standing in his crib and shrieks and laughs hysterically when he sees me he's so happy that we're awake. I love it!
• His giggle. When you start tickling him, he curls up into a ball and grunts out this little boy giggle with a giant smile on his face that just makes you laugh to hear it. He learned how to laugh at about two months and we've loved every minute of it since then.

He's just a ball of fun and we're so luck to have him in our lives! Now if we could just learn how to get him to not screech so loud and so high at the top of his lungs that even Chloe covers her ears and says "Mommy, Yi-sus screaming, ears hurt!" and I walk around hearing a high ringing for hours afterwards, we might just have the perfect child. Or something like that...:-)
So here's a few pictures of the festivities. We had a great evening. Grandma and Grandpa Bardeen came up with Aunt Rose and Uncle Addison and everyone from next door came to celebrate too. Well actually, we all went next door and celebrated over there so the kids would have a little more "crazy" room so we wouldn't feel so crunched and caustrophobic over at our house. Linus loved all his gifts. He got some fun toys that even Chloe can't keep her hands off of, and we got him (well, for Chloe too, really) a big wagon we can pull them around in (it's got seats and cupholders and everything, and you can buckle them in so they don't fall out of the wagon as soon as you start pulling it, ha ha). He got lots of CUTE clothes from Grandma and Grandpa Bardeen (seeing him wear those grown up boy shorts and polo shirts just makes him look so old!) and he got a tree swing for out in our backyard from Grandma and Grandpa Ellingson. It was a wonderful evening and we had lots of fun visiting with everyone!

He actually let us keep his birthday hat on his head for a while. Then he tried to eat it so we had to take it away. Notice the strap on his ear- nice touch, huh?
This was him post hat removal. I know, I'm a horrible mommy for taking a picture of my son with this pitiful pout instead of holding him, but he's even cute when he pouts. I'm sure no one else thinks so, but that's one of the perks of being a mommy to your own kids. :-)
We had to force feed him the cake before he realized he liked it. Then he dug in with heated fervor.
I meant to take out some frosting before I put the cocoa powder in it so I could do some different colors, but I forgot to. So we had lots of brown. But that's okay. As you can clearly tell, I made a sprinkled blanket, because Linus likes his blankets. Just incase you couldn't clearly tell, there's a label to remind you.


Linus enjoying his new swing in the backyard. :-)

Calling all Mom's!

Happy Mother's Day!!!
I don't usually like to "advertise" on this blog, however, since most of you all out there apply to this (meaning most of your are Mommies!) I need to spread the word! I saw another photographer do this, and I hate to steal her idea, but I thought it was super duper. In celebration of one of the most important holidays of the year, I'm offering "Mommy Shots" to any Moms out there for $35 a shoot. This can include either just the Mommy, as in a sort of vignette in commemoration of her beauty and radiance, or they can be Mommy and Kids, which celebrates the same only with the children on board as well. I love this time of year because everything is in bloom and there's no reason that all of the mom's out there that I respect and love so much shouldn't do the same. Daddy's, this is a great opportunity to get her something that will last through the years and that she can look back on fondly. So through the month of May (for all of you belated-gifters as well) you can take advantage of this deal. For information or availability, email me at c.ellingsonphotography@yahoo.com!

Now if only I could take my OWN Mother's Day pictures....

Good News, Everyone!

I was so excited I had to post something today. It is about two weeks out from Linus's FIRST BIRTHDAY and today he officially started crawling. For all the energy this kid has, it's been so surprising to me that he's been a slower mover (Chloe wasn't early by any means, but she started crawling probably around nine months and was almost walking by this time when she was his age). The last couple of weeks he's figured out a few new things, like getting from his tummy to a sitting position and getting comfortable on his hands and knees, and today something clicked when he realized that he had to move his legs a little too, and he crawled all the way across our family room all by himself this morning! I was thrilled. Also because I bet Craig a blizzard earlier this week that he would be crawling by the end of the week. No weasling out of it, Craig, I WON FAIR AND SQUARE.