"Shining the light on the darkest places..."

Our little rockstar: Chelsea dances around the living room to MXPX.

Christmas already? UPDATED!! NOV. 1**

I'm not sure when I got bad at keeping up with this blog..

Chelsea is doing very, very well. She's picking up so many new words (um, I am ashamed to report she's also picked up a few not-so-good words from her Mother...) and at 1.5years old, has started back-talking. Allow me to set the scene:

*Chelsea throws milk cup at mommy*
Mommy: *shock!* We do NOT throw our milk cup! Is it time to go to the crib for a nap?
Chelsea: *pure malevolence and defiance* MOMMY. NOT HAPPY. *glares while regathering her cup to take to the kitchen*

What can I say? She IS her mother's daughter.

I also haven't been able to put up any new pictures because that awesome new camera I got for my birthday? Yeah. Not so awesome. It lasted me a whole 15 uses and has quit working altogether. Eventually I'll return it, but I haven't yet.

I can't believe Christmas is coming. I know a couple of people have asked me about making a christmas list for Chels, so I thought maybe I would post it here for everyone to see.

CHELSEA'S CHRISTMAS WISH LIST

I generally don't like to ask for too many toys, simply because she already has a room full of them that she never really uses. Again this year I am asking for books and clothes, mostly.

Books
- Where the Wild Things Are - Mercer Mayer
- There's a Nighmare in my Closet - Mercer Mayer
- Jennifer's Rabbit - Tom Paxton
- Anything by Robert Munsch
- Fairytale Compilation books... (the good old fairytales)
- Roald Dahl books
- Shel Silverstein (we already have "The Giving Tree")
- Beatrix Potter mini books
- Animal books (she looooooves animals)
- Colouring books with chubby crayons
Really, the more books the better. She loves them - she has been taking them to bed with her at night lately. You are absolutely not limited to following this tiny list.

Clothes
I have a hard time finding Chelsea pants; She is very tall, so what fits in length often doesn't fit in the waist. Please, if you're thinking of buying clothing, try to find those pants that have the elastic adjusters inside the waist so that she will be able to wear them for some time to come, and so that they won't fall off of her when I insist she wear her new clothes before they fit properly. Hahaha. That said, she really needs long warm pants (jeans/cords) for winter.

Also, Chelsea really needs warm winter shirts (hoodies, long sleeved t-shirts, sweaters) for this season.

Pants - size 2 for immediate wear and size 3 for near future wear.
Shirts - size 2 for immediate wear and size 3 for near future wear.
Dresses - the same..
Tights - I'm not sure about the sizing of these, but I like to have nice thick tights for her in winter.. not picky about colours or patterns - the wackier the better.
Shoes - Size 8 or 9
SOCKS!! She really needs socks!

Toys
I won't tell anyone NOT to buy her toys, though. If you want to, please do.
She loves:
- baby dolls
- stuffed animals
- learning games (age applicable, obviously)
- cars
- horses (OH-SIES!! OH-SIES!!)
- kitties
- art supplies (finger paints, chubby crayons and markers - those Mr. Sketch ones are great.)
- stickers and stamps

October 25, 2008 Update
** Music
Chelsea LOVES music:
- the Wiggles
- Franklin
- Raffi..
and I really want
- Babies Go Oasis, um, for Chelsea of course.

But really, any music that seems fun and cute is great. She loves to dance too, so if it has an upbeat tempo you can't go wrong.

November 1, 2008 Update
**Other
- Small, practical (easy to move) bookshelf with 2-3 shelves.
- A set of 'family dolls'.. barbie size or slightly smaller - you know, a mom, dad, kids set for a 4' dollhouse Chelsea has.
- small, inexpensive CD player for Chelsea's bedroom.


That should be a pretty good list to work with for now. I'll probably add to it as time passes.

Oh, and for those of you who will need our address to mail things:

Please send to:
Chelsea Olson
c/o Bobbi Olson
Box 67
Gainford, Alberta
T0E 0W0, Canada

And now, I am off to bed.
-J. <3

.. while my crabby kid sleeps, a much needed new picture for the kitchen!

.. update!

Well, apologies to those of you who read this: I've been so busy with work and school that I haven't had much time at all to keep this thing up to date.

I have to have the most of my coursework done by next Tuesday, so I've been in a mad rush to get everything emailed in and completed - who knew that taking two courses could take up so much time and be such a hassle when working a full time job and trying to be a decent parent? Anyway, I've got a good handle on it now, I just need to work hard for the next week and I will be finished. Whew.

I've also been trying to get my apartment in order to have a new roommate come in. My friend Gillian wants to stay until December or January, so I've been trying to sort out the office and figure out how to switch rooms around so that she's comfortable here. So far so good - I just need some more hours in .. every.. day. As soon as I have some more time, I will write a new post.

Chelsea is good. Biting kids left right and centre at daycare, but good.

-Jen.

.. New Birthday Present!!

Well, it turns out that all this time Sean was really paying attention - and for my birthday he bought me a new camera! That means a) I don't have to borrow his anymore and b) updating this blog will now be much more colourful and fun. Weehaw!

Anyway, we went out to Tony Roma's and stuffed ourselves full of riblings and chocolate lava cake and took a few pictures before the battery died off...

I look just like my grandma!

I love chocolate milk! Rar!

Om nom nom.

We also caught a photograph of an altered billboard sign, but a baby-update blog is hardly the place for something like that. Haha. INAPPROPRIATE.

-Jen.

Good News!

Chelsea is finally snot-free! This new anti-biotic has fully taken away her cough and all of the gross congestion in her throat/nose/face. A big relief. Now I just have to figure out a way to get rid of her awful diaper rash and we'll be set. (A big part of that must be the heat.)

Speaking of this heat... I was unaware Calgary sat in the very mouth of hell. Today the high was something ridiculous like +32.. lucky for us, our apartment stays very cool and comfortable - but at work today we took 30some kids to the zoo for 5 hours and we were all exhausted by the time we left. No tiger is worth that kind of torture, I'm afraid.

Otherwise, things are going quite well. Chelsea is loving summer - has some really cute new dresses and things from Grandma Spongebobbi - and she's doing well with daycare and her friends there. I am quite stressed out with lots of things, but hopefully it will all settle down in the next month or so. Or at least I'll just keep my head up until it does.

Anyway, it's time for bed. Here's a picture of the day I took Chelsea to the zoo.. (a few weeks ago).



-Jen.

Lunch break at work..

Chelsea has been very sick since Monday night. We've visited the hospital a couple of times and the clinic, only to be prescribed more anti-biotics, an inhaler and a couple days worth of prednisone (a steriod). Anyway, the final diagnosis was 'a touch of pneumonia'.

Tonight Kimberly is coming to pick us up for a weekend visit as Chelsea is feeling a little bit better. I think it will be good for her to be up and doing something rather than being trapped inside the house and sleeping the entire day. We haven't been up to see Kimberly and Emily's new apartment yet so that will be good. Come to think of it, they haven't seen my place either. Good thing I've had a few days to clean my house. Haha! On Sunday night my Mom will be driving Chelsea and I back to Calgary and possibly spending the night - will also be nice because Chelsea loves her Grandma.

Anyway, I'm off to lay the baby down for her nap and to get myself ready before I have to leave. Hope everyone is doing well. Shall update again when we're back home. :)

-J. & C.

.. Big Hill Springs ..

A few weeks ago my ex boyfriend Sean and I took Chelsea to a place just out of Calgary called Big Hill Springs. It's actually a really great place to take kids and alot different than I expected it to be, as Sean described it as "A spring. On this big hill..." Upon arrival I knew it would be a little more exciting than that because the surrounding area was GORGEOUS. It looks a bit like something out of The Lord of the Rings. Haha. Only, more hilly than mountainy and much less hobbit roaming about. Of course, pictures are horrible at showing scale.. so just know that everything was MUCH taller than it appears in these shots. The picture you see on the left is the view from the parking lot.. staring straight down the valley. Big Hill Springs is behind this view.

When you enter the path you're sort of immersed in this pretty little setting with overhanging trees and a very clean little creek laid out in front of you. They have a picnic area set up amonst some big limestone formations, but we were much too adventurous to sit around and watch the water.

Every trip we seem to go on seems to just be a masked "Chelsea Photo-Op". I end up scouting places to take cute pictures of her, dragging Sean along with me. I rarely pay attention to much else, like her safety, as you'll see in coming pictures. As we ventured along, I perched her up on this big hunk of rock a few feet away from the stream. She's usually pretty happy with the idea of having her picture taken, but not so much for that trip - so, you'll notice her looking crabbier and crabbier as the series progresses.
She sat well for these few though.

You can see how great the location was... very treed, but rocky and essentially mountainous on the way up the hill. Very green, and not very busy, so it was very quiet and a really awesome way to spend the day. And in areas where Chelsea could run around on her own, she LOVED it. I usually find that the biggest problem I run into with having a small child on outings is that she gets so frustrated that she has to be held most of the time, so it's great to find places like Big Hill Springs where there are lots of safe areas for her to run around and explore for herself. It's lot nicer for her, but for me too. Gives me some time to enjoy things as well.


Moving on, we came to a gorgeous little natural waterfall. Maybe only about 5 feet high, but formed so that you could get very close without getting very wet. Chelsea loves water to begin with, so she was super excited about the tiny fall. She got close, I put her hand in it, she tromped around in the splash pools a little bit. Lots of fun.

So, the history behind the land is that it belonged to some guy, he had a house built in amongst the creek on the hill and when he died, it was donated to the Provincial Parks. I can't even fathom having a house on a chunk of property this amazing. You could see where parts of the old foundation were laid.. or maybe where they had a waterwheel, but the natural features this place has are stunning. Obviously why it was made into a provincial park. I'd be interested to dig around and find out a bit more about the place. Maybe who lived there and things. It always seems like a waste to see things like this and know nothing about them.

So, getting back to the idea of a waterwheel and the foundations and such, you'll rememeber that I mentioned every thing being an impromptu photo shoot for my kid, and here's a good example. "Sean! Go stand her in that water! It's not THAT deep. It's not running THAT fast. They're JUST shoes... go!" and with that, we have a picture of Chelsea standing ankle deep in a section of the creek running up the waterwheel channel. Also, R.I.P. Dora hat. It was at this point that I accidentally left it behind.

Haha... this is where the pictures begin to take a turn for the unhappy. I decided that I needed a picture of my daughter in this small elevated limestone cave. I knew she'd hate it, but I couldn't help myself and basically said to Sean, "I'll put her in, you snap a picture, then I'll take her out. Quick." That part was okay. She wasn't even that upset until I took her out, and while bumping her up into my shoulder, smacked her head on a little piece of rock. Nice going, Mom.

Continuing up the path a little way, we came to what I would call, the main event. A big, waterfall with this awesome moss on the rocks and lots of fall levels. You literally turn the corner on the path and there it is. Chelsea might have been a little bit scared - all I know is that she would not sit still and smile for what could have potentially been the best picture in the set. So much for my photoshoot.

After a fit and some throwing of the sippycup she finally let me carry her to a little natural wall of rock that went onto an overhang where the creek undercut the rock. We went along the top as far as I could take her before I started feeling like I was going to drop her, and then turned back to let her look around the rocks for a bit. She made friends with a pack of old women wandering by, and she seemed a bit happier after that.

The little wall of rock lead up to where the path started into a switchback up to the summit of the hill where the camera died. The next few pictures document the trip to another small cave, at a fallen tree crossing on the creek and at the top of the hill where the camera died. Haha. Next trip? Probably want to check the battery.

And so it begins...

What better way to give updates and show off pictures than to start a brand new baby blog for Chelsea? Basically said, this is Mom killing some time - but the more I think of it, the more I like the idea of having one place for family and friends to check in on their own time to see how she is doing!

As for tonight - no posting! It's late and I need to be up early for work, but as soon as I have a few minutes I'll be sure to give a comprehensive update! Stay tuned..