Dorisa rambles on and on... and on...

My three year old doesn't always wake up in the middle of the night, but when he does it's two minutes after I've laid down. Seriously, the instant I lay down it would be fine, but he gives me just enough time to relax and trick me into thinking I get to go to sleep and then he ruins it all. Last night he wasn't even awake. He was just moaning in his sleep about how his slipper had fallen off.

They are so sweet. Sometimes.

My 10 week old baby can roll from front to back. This isn't supposed to happen until about four months. I think it's her way of telling me not to underestimate her because of her size. She can also scoot. It looks very funny and a bit pathetic, but it's great. She is sitting pretty at the 5th percentile and honestly, I have no idea what to think about that. She is just so tiny. She is about 10 weeks old and is almost as long as Oskar was when he was born. Although it should be noted that Oskar "shrank" an inch once that weird doughnut bump on his head went down. She is very strong and very aware though, and yesterday she had a little giggle. It was hearty and wonderful.

Oskar had a play date with a friend the other day. He doesn't get a lot of opportunities to play with boys near his age so he went a bit nuts (daycare is mostly girls). There was an amazing amount of little boy craziness happening and if volume is any indication they both had a blast. Afterward, Oskar had an epic crash. Witness:

"I not hungry! I hungry!" (The crash. A big nap was the answer)
Photo credit to Dan. He made me write that.

Oskar is mostly potty trained! Hooray! It's still a bit dicey when I'm home alone with both the kids and I'm nursing Ellie. That's 45-60 minutes where it is very hard to drop what I'm doing and help him in the bathroom, but if we're lucky we make it work.

I have been going to the gym! Pretty consistently! It is tricky sometimes because of the exhaustion from having a tiny thing who makes me feed her for 6-8 hours every day, but it is definitely nice to have some time alone. I don't really get any time alone unless you count time spent in the bathroom. And I don't.

My middle name is Joy!

Oskar can finally kind of do puzzles. He has a cousin who is an absolute puzzle wizard who still puts him to shame, but he's finally starting to understand what to do. His patience isn't great. The pieces of the puzzle set we have are a little hard to get together sometimes and he often gives up in about 10 seconds. We'll get there.

In an effort to actually eat decent meals together as a family I have started preparing and freezing meals which I then heat up in a crock pot. This has been going okay. I haven't made any amazingly delicious dishes yet, but it is food and it's not mac & cheese every night. For now, I will call it a win. I have many more recipes to try so we should find some that are legitimately good. Not just edible.

So much personality.

I also have started eating smoothies on a daily basis. It is a fantastic way to get some fruits and greens in. I add in my protein powder and my omega 3 supplement and I have an amazing little healthy treat.

Play time.

Three year olds are not the best. They are so difficult. Every meal is a struggle right now as we are forcing Oskar to try new food. Luckily at times Oskar is very funny and surprisingly clever. He still has some verbal doozies. Like "Cinderbagella" for Cinderella and sometimes he says babagel instead of bagel. My favorite is when he adds a 'b' sound to mommy so it sounds like mbommy. Some other recent gems:

"You must have had a very good nap."
"That's right! I have so much energy now! To sing! Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah!" (said while jumping on his trampoline.)

"la la laaa la la laaa la la la la laaaaa... FORTISSIMO! LA LA LAAA LA LA LAAA LA LA LA LA LAAAAA."

"I can not believe it! Mommy eat my banana! That is not fair! This is terrible!" and yes, 'I can not believe it' was said like Quincy on Little Einsteins. Speaking of Little Einsteins, Oskar loves it. He sings the songs they feature on there all the time. The other day I was wondering how much he was learning about the composers so I asked him who he likes better, Mozart or Dvorak. He responded with, "I like to play with my toys." Hooray for having a normal little boy. Well, on the spectrum of normal I suppose. I do enjoy his quirkiness.

"Who else are you going to play with at daycare? Are there any boys there?"
"Ya huh. Bobby*."
"Oh yea? Is Bobby nice?"
"Yes. Bobby plays volcano with me"
"Wow, that is so cool, Oskar."
"No. It's hot."
*Not his real name :)

Dan was just trying to get Oskar out the door and kept being a frog. I told him to stop being a frog and he made his arms into wings. We get no where fast in this house.

I think one of my favorite things about Oskar right now is how incapable he thinks Dan is of taking care of Ellie. When she starts crying and I'm not around Oskar immediately says, "Mommy can help her!" Oskar knows that Dan can't do anything.

Ellie has reached the age where she is quite aware of how she gets her food. She gets this psychotic look when she is about to eat. It's hard to understand that such a tiny person can understand and have so much excitement, but she does and it's great.

"She's so sweet" everyone says. Yea. Right. Y'all have no idea.

This is a fantastic book. Read it.

Here are some pictures of updates to our kitchen. It took me so long to post these because I wanted it to be clean and finished, but it wasn't happening so I thought I would just get it done with. New paint, cabinet hardware, back splash, under cabinet lighting and curtain (which matches the dining room chairs).

NW Corner Before

SW Corner Before

NW Corner now. Still figuring out how to get a microwave and vent above the stove. Any volunteers?

SW Corner. I don't know what all that reflection is on the left hand side. It really isn't shiny paint.

Kitchen art! I might lower it. It's a bit high.

So yea, in our opinion the kitchen looks better now and I hope you enjoyed playing "Spot the Oskar." I also refinished a table to use as our dining room table. When it's treated a bit rough it's a mixture of feelings. One part of me goes, "Ugh, I worked so hard on that table/those chairs" and the other part of me goes, "Thank God I didn't spend any money on buying a new table and chairs." The second thought wins every time.

Various stages of refinishing the chairs. They had orange velvet cushions in VERY bad shape.

Table Legs Before

Table Top Before

After. There is another chair. It's not done yet.

Thanks for reading!