The Swiss Family Christensen!

It is official. We will be moving our family to Geneva, Switzerland on June 1. G. accepted the offer today. He will be working for the same company, different office. We are very excited, and have committed for two years. Henry and Elsa will be enrolled in Swiss schools next fall and speaking French. Believe it. I will be learning French. I was angry about that for about a month. Switzerland has four, but really three, official languages: German, French, Italian and Romansch(?). Seventy five percent of the country speaks German. How easy would that be. Whatever. French is starting to sound nice.


These pictures are from our visit to Geneva last week. The first is G. and Ansel in St. Croix. A lovely little mountain village. The second is me in front of the big fountain in Lake Geneva. However, don't be fooled. This was no vacation.
Geneva is beautiful. It will be a lovely place to live. Come visit.

Tent Night

Occasionally Greg sets up the tent in the living room, then takes the kids to pick out a movie at blockbuster. They have a little camp-out inside while enjoying a good flick and eating some of his delicious popcorn. The best kind of camping experience for Chicago in the winter.

The Little Booch

Henry made up a game that he plays with Greg where they run around and he calls him "The Big Booch." They've been playing it for a couple of months now. The name has a great ring and lately I've decided we might need to graduate Ansel from some of his more babyish nicknames. He is 15 months old! The Little Booch seems to be just right and is sticking nicely.
So what's the Little Booch up to? Everything! I can hardly keep up. But I know if I haven't seen him in about thirty seconds he is on top of one of his perches. As for the messes only the long wear lipstick has been photographed. The syrup and cocoa are just really good stories. We sure do love the messy Little Booch!

Wintertime!

Henry loves the winter. I love that when he comes home from school and it is so cold outside he still wants to put on all his gear and be outside. He even convinces Elsa to join him and she loves it too! Her bouts outside are usually half as long. Thursday we got our biggest storm this year, about ten inches. Henry has spent so much time outside building forts and shoveling and just loving the snow. Elsa has pneumonia so hasn't been able to play outside with him. I have enjoyed watching him from the window (Ansel just isn't ready to spend more than two seconds in the cold air), but had to go out when I saw him against this tree just enjoying a rest in the snow. I love it. Our kids are so entertained throughout their day I sometimes worry that they won't be able to just enjoy the world around them. Ahhh.

Henry Lost His First Tooth!

Henry's two bottom teeth have been very loose for at least two weeks. As a child I don't think my teeth were ever so loose on their own. I never gave them the chance. I pulled-ripped them out as soon as they resembled being loose. So I was quite perplexed by Henry's patience or perhaps fear. He was so afraid they would bleed he hardly even wiggled them! Yesterday I was talking to him and noticed a space on his bottom row of teeth. I figured the tooth was now so loose it was horizontal. Imagine both of our surprise when he opened his mouth and the tooth had fallen out without him even noticing. Wacky. He had been snacking on pretzels about twenty minutes before I noticed the space and must of swallowed it. It's still nuts that he didn't even notice the whole it left behind. Wow.

Elsa's Celebration

Last week Elsa insisted she needed to have a celebration. It wouldn't be a birthday celebration (she has been anxiously anticipating her birthday since November), and nobody should bring any gifts. The celebration however must include her dear friends, cupcakes, dress-up and balloons. How could I resist? I baked a yummy batch of cupcakes bought a few pink balloons and the girlies took care of the dress-up. They enjoyed decorating the cupcakes and Patty (my neighbor) read Pinkalicious, Elsa's new favorite book. It was a pretty fun celebration, super easy and made her quite happy. A good day.

Elsa and her dear friends: Ada, Elsa, Brynn, Emilie and Norah.

Check out my Slide Show!

We're back. . . Again!

I realize it has been a long time since I've posted. The usual stuff has "blogged" me down-sicknesses, the holidays it doesn't take much. It was nice to hear from those of you who I heard from that you missed us. I appreciate that and also realize we have many more viewers than posters. Feel free to create dialogue, it's good for us. Oh! By the way--it isn't that I forgot you on our Christmas card list, I just haven't sent any.
O.K. Come back tomorrow we took a trip to Portland at the beginning of December. I promise to post the highlights. Yippee.
It feels good to back, up late writing to myself on the computer.

Amelia and Nana Visit!

We had such a great time visiting and playing with Aunt Mia and Nana. We were so grateful they'd spend Christmas with us. Nana brought home some tres chic reading glasses from a shopping trip. She let Elsa and Ansel try them out. Amelia we didn't get any pictures of you! If you have any or Nana has any picture from this trip please send me some.

Snow People

Snow isn't a big novelty out here in Chicago. However, snow packing snowball/snowman making snow is! Fortunately Greg is still on Christmas vacation and got to go out and help the kids build these giant snowmen! Ansel watched mostly from the upstairs window, but was able to join them for a little while.

Henry the Rocker!

I swear we've never let him watch MTV, yet he plays the part of rock star quite proficiently. I'm sure he doesn't even know what the word rock star means. Henry has definitely got groove.

Hair Cut

Like good Solomon, I have found strength in growing my hair long. Let me explain: Having a baby is a glorious thing and takes a lot of time. Many of you have heard me tell how after two I thought I'd sacrificed all my time and energy so three would just have to be more of the same. Wrong. There was still my hygiene to give. Growing my hair made it easy to just put it up and go.
Ansel is now 14 months old and I'm ready to reclaim my hygiene.
I'm sure all those around me will be glad.
Greg made me take before and after pictures. The new cut isn't anything new-I've had this style a gajillion times!


I made these small because they are of me and I look like Allyson Janey from the West Wing-which really doesn't make me happy. Who cares anyway it is just hair.

The Mania Continues

Every day is something new for a mother. That sounds so trite-I'm pontificating about things obvious to those who have experienced it and probably annoying again to those who haven't. Anyway, this morning I was down stairs reading with Henry and Greg was in the shower and Ansel was standing in the toilet and Elsa was apparantly taking care of him. She managed to lift him out both of them pretty wet from the event. I'm pretty bummed I didn't get up there quickly enough to see him standing there, but very grateful he was just wet.
His toilet passion is annoying and almost as exciting to him as the garbage cans. We've managed to "successfully" keep them out of his reach for about a week. rah rah rah. So after the climbing in incident I thought I better buy those toilet locks. When I was out running errands I spaced it. I remembered right after Elsa, Ansel and I had just finished a little tea party in her room. I walked away to go get something-maybe a drink for Ansel-I can't really remember. When I heard splashing I knew I was in trouble. Ansel decided he was going to get his own drink. Remember, I said he was independent? The toilet bowl was of course where he was filling up that tea cup. Even worse the last child to go didn't flush. How disgusting. He was as thrilled as could be and looked refreshed.

Not walking. . . but climbing.

In true Christensen fashion, we've got another climber! To our surprise Ansel hasn't started walking yet (Henry and Elsa were both walking before their first birthday). He is well on his way and accepting no help from anyone. If you even suggest you help him, he just sits down. Does that say anything about his personality?





The other day I left the bathroom to get Henry and Elsa in the tub. When I returned I found Ansel in the tub with his pajamas on, he had scaled the tub! Yikes.

Ansel is 1!

I can't believe it. An entire year has already past. We sure do love our little guy. It usually takes a while to acquire some nick names. Ansel has a few:

1. The Champ (Daddy)
   
2. Bugaboo (Mommy)
   
3. Baby Cakes (Mommy)
   
4. Baby Goo (Michelle)
   
5. Chubbers (Grandpa)
6. Sweet Cheeks (Mommy)

He had a great birthday. We gave him lots of kisses and sang many anthems.

Ballerina Girl

Elsa loves loves loves ballet. I'm not quite sure why. I always thought it was kind of boring. Maybe it is because it is her first dance experience. Whatever. She loves it. I've noticed she is always the first one ready to get to class when their teacher, Miss Ashley, comes to gather the chicks.

Henry, Ansel and I got to watch their class yesterday. Elsa enjoyed showing off her passion for ballet. We were impressed.

The Dangerous House

Typically our children haven't seemed very accident prone. We don't go through band-aids very quickly and just don't see much first-aid action. . . until last weekend. Friday afternoon Ansel cut his pinky on a can that fell out of the recycling bin. It doesn't look too terrible, but it took a good ten minutes to stop the bleeding. We ended up taking him to the Dr. on Saturday because it just kept reopening and bleeding. It's pretty difficult to keep a band-aid on a little one. It was a good move. The Dr. glued it shut and diagnosed him with bronchitis. I love those two for one visits! Sunday Elsa fell off the chair and pulled a huge iron bowl on top of her. Yikes! Warning this picture looks like we're taking the picture in a fun house mirror, but we didn't. She is however, obviously still terrorized from the fall.

Elsa's Many Faces

"Elsa, what should I say about this picture?"
"NOTHING!"

Nana visits!

Nana came to visit a couple of weekends ago! Thanks for coming Nana. We got to spend a night in Chicago (everyone) while she was here. It was a lot of fun. The art museum in particular was a surprising delight. They have recently become quite family friendly. We were escorted into the museum by "Arty the Lion." I guess not very many families have heard of the change so when they saw us--they were very excited. We ended up staying over an hour longer than we had planned, because the kids were having such a nice time.


The fun house photo is taken in "the bean" or really "the cloud gate." That is a newer sculpture at Millenium Park that has become quite a tourist spot.


Henry's zen pose is a tribute to Aunt Milla who spends many a waking hour like that. Great souls think alike!

new house

Our house got a bit of an update. . . new roof and siding. Improvement? We hope so. Everyone thought black shutters would be awful. I think they're alright.