The Schaellings

Here I am, alone again, as Erik goes to work for the evening. But we found out last week that he'll be moving to days pretty soon. Another manager is transferring from Montana, but they've had some problems with paper work so he can't start yet. He actually wants overnights, so Erik get to move to days. Hurrah!!! I'll be glad when he's not trying to sleep while the three of us are going about our day. I've felt bad the couple times he's actually had to do it when Laddie runs around like a mad dog or Lillian gets tired and fussy. Have you ever noticed that if you're trying to be quiet, you seem to make so much more noise than you would have if you'd just been acting normal? You bump into things that have been there forever or drop more stuff. Anyway...I know he'll be happy to go back to a normal sleep schedule, too. With how things have worked out, he's never really gotten in an overnight schedule, so he's tired when he goes to work; but he's not quite on a normal schedule either, so it's been a little rough.

Lillian has been kind of grumpy the last couple days. She has a little bit of a runny nose. I don't know if she's sick or finally teething. It seem like she gets teething symptoms at least once a month and then no teeth come of it, so I don't even try to guess any more. She doesn't seem sick other than the runny nose, but she is grumpier than usual so something must be going on. It could just be she doesn't like that we've started feeding her meat. We tried turkey for the first go, and the face she made was priceless. Not to mention the involuntary gagging that resulted! The next time I went for the chicken, which didn't cause gagging, but she still doesn't seem too impressed with it. I try to sneak some in with the sweet potatoes or green beans so it's not so bad, but I think she's figured it out. She's a lot more reluctant to open her month, that's for sure.

I know it's early, but we bought Lillian a Halloween costume today. We saw a monkey one in a catalog we really liked and then Erik saw that they had an identical one at the Brigham Walmart for half the price. When we went to the Logan Walmart, they hadn't even put the costumes out yet, so we couldn't get it. But then while we were at Old Navy today looking for some new work pants (and spending more money than we should have--you'd think he'd learn not to take me in there), we found the cutest chicken costume. Yes...a chicken! It comes with orange pants with attached shoe covers and a what's basically a chicken coat with a hood for the comb. We were afraid it would drown her since the smallest size was 6-12, but I put it on her when we got home and it fits great. It is a little big, but in a month and half it should be fine...or at least it won't look four sizes too big. We'll make sure to get pictures.

Speaking of pictures, I realized I never posted the shots from her last studio session, so here are a few. And I'll leave you with that.