We have not fallen off the earth

She slept through lunch after going to the zoo and
me holding her while we were moving her car
seat after lunch didn't please her, so this happened.

I have recently been informed on multiple occasions that I have not posted in a while. I apologize for my absence. As always I have been busy. Here comes a scattered update riddled with errors and way too many pictures because I doubt I'll have the time or energy to edit this like I normally like to do.

First day of school.

 

It has been a crazy, mostly good summer. I don't even know where to begin really. Oh wait, yes I do. We had a bad storm here a few days ago and when I woke, Dan asked if I heard the storm. I said I didn't. Want to know why I didn't hear it? BECAUSE WE GOT NEW WINDOWS!!! That's right- three years of windows that leak but don't open, rattle when the stupid truck with the subs goes by, shake obscenely when there is thunder and block absolutely no sound whatsoever. They. Are. Gone. FOREVER. We can get a massive breeze throughout the place now and it is absolutely glorious. They are also REALLY white. Every time I come home it's like my house is looking bug-eyed at me or like it's surprised. It is probably surprised. Like, "Holy crap my windows open! I'm so happy! I'm freeeeeeeeee!"

Because there is nothing else to do at Mt Rushmore except for dance.

We are also getting some lawn treatments done so hopefully next summer the grass to weeds ratio is more in our favor. Downside is that the lawn is going to look worse before it looks better. And boy oh boy does it suck. Luckily the worst of it is in back so we can mostly keep it a secret.

So, the sun is a spotlight and he couldn't stop dancing.. That is what is happening here.

My babies went to Mt. Rushmore! Oskar was way over tired when we got in the car and kept on saying that he didn't want to see the mountain with faces. He had a short nap in the car and when he saw it, he spoke a genuine, "Wow!" Elena was less amused. The 20 minute nap did not work well for her and she remained pretty crabby throughout the trip.

My babies also went to camp! Oskar was not a big fan at first and that made me laugh a bit. Could you just imagine if Dan's kid hated camp? That would be some seriously comical irony. So funny that I almost wish that sentiment remained, but alas Dan sent me a text saying Oskar said he wants to live at camp. Apparently he also picked out a new dad. I wasn't able to stay the whole time, but luckily we had some surrogate grandmas from church who were also at the camp and who were able to help Dan out.

Brother-sister first day of school.

Boating Booga.

Oskar started Pre-K this year and from what I can tell he is having a blast and doing pretty well. He came home from the first day and said it was the best day of his life. I was happy to hear this, but I was also a bit sad because in the preceding two weeks we had gone to the state fair, renaissance festival, mn zoo and the sea life aquarium. Yes, it was exhausting, but it was so much fun to watch them eat such.

Before

Before

Our upstairs bathroom has been remodeled. This was not an expected update. The little pull thing that turns the water from the spout to shower head broke, so obviously we had to remodel the bathroom. I know it seems extreme, but it really did make sense. It of course took a thousand times longer than we thought which wouldn't have been that big of a deal except we have just the one shower in our house right now. We had a couple weeks where we had kids bathing at friends' houses, in sinks or just wash cloths. Dan and I had more difficult time. One good thing to the whole having to shower at the gym was that it actually made us go to the gym, so although the whole thing was annoying I guess exercising is beneficial so that can be viewed as an upside. Oh my goodness it was so annoying. And tiling a shower? Never again!

After

After

Dorisa Gets a Job

Oh my goodness I'm such a blogging failure. Pretty sure on Facebook when I said "blog coming soon" that was like a month ago. Whoops. This might not be as well written as usual, if you consider the typical post well written. If you don't, keep it to yourself.

I was able to get one decent picture out of a billion attempts.

Okay, so here is the story of how I got a job.

First of all, it must be noted that in 2008-2009 I sent out about a billion resumes with almost no response.

Fast forward to a Friday in late March, 2017. I had had a cold and just returned from a MOPS meeting where we talked about organization. I was all gung ho about getting organized and getting stuff out of my house to sell at the rummage sale. Meanwhile, I'm was also trying to sell something on the Brandon Rummage page. I hadn't heard anything from this woman who said she was interested, so I decided to check my FB inbox because FB doesn't alert me when someone who isn't a friend contacts me. Lo and behold I find a week old message in there from a guy saying he needs help at his firm and he was talking to his neighbor (a congregation member) who said I had a degree in architecture. I texted him back (that's what he said to do) and while awaiting a reply, I took my sick self and climbed back into my pantry and kept cleaning. He texted me back and asked if I could come in for an interview THAT AFTERNOON. I pondered this option while hacking away and covered in dust in my pantry and asked if we could please do Monday instead. Went in Monday and had a job in about 30 minutes.

She knows exactly how cute she is.

I didn't commit to it right away because I had a few things to figure out:
Daycare
Another car
Car loan
Clothes that are appropriate to wear to work and FYI The Limited went out of business
Shoes that one can wear to work
Figuring out if the money will cover everything and be worth not seeing my kids as much
A part time job to quit

After realizing how lucky I was to have this job fall in my lap, I e-mailed him back later that day and said that I was going to do everything I can to make this opportunity work for me. I told him that if everything came together, I would be able to start on April 10. He said he really needed help soon and asked if I was able to move it up anymore. I said, okay I'll shoot for the 3rd. For those of you keeping track at home, that gave me 6 days to get my life in order. And I had a cold. And both my kids were sick. And Oskar wasn't in daycare yet, so I had the privilege of taking him all around to every little thing I had to do. I also want to add that this was a situation that I wanted to bounce off my parents a bit, especially going about the car loan bit (since the last car I bought, I didn't buy) but this was literally the one time in recent memory that they were more than an e-mail away. They were on a Caribbean cruise without internet service. Good timing.

I love this picture of my kid wearing a thermal while playing on the beach.

Luckily, my daycare provider had enough room to take Ellie 1 more day and add Oskar for 4 days. Dan still stays home with them on Friday. We know someone who runs a bank, so I texted him our credit scores and he set us up with one of his loan officers. We searched around the internet for a car, decided on a Honda Fit, got to the dealership and it had just sold. Got a Honda Insight- less expensive, better mileage and now I know a good salesman at Vern Eide Honda if anyone needs one.
Went shopping that Friday and figured out some clothes and shoes. FYI at this point the kids still had colds and it was waaaay past bed time. It was a crazy week and life has not calmed down since. I told my appraisals boss about my job opportunity and he was very excited for me. I continued doing a bit of work for him for a while so he could train in some new help but it soon became too much and I had to stop.

My tiny baby in her baggy swimming suit.

As far as I can tell, the job is going well. I like the people I work with and I like what I'm doing almost all the time. And my boss is even an NDSU grad. It was and at times continues to be a very hard adjustment but we're making it work. I think it was hardest for Oskar. And me. I don't think Ellie noticed anything changed except maybe that I get dressed in real clothes when I wake up now.

A brief moment of sibling cooperation.

I think that Oskar has grown an inch in the last 2 months. He's real big. He recently finished soccer. It wasn't the best. My conclusion is that either soccer won't be his thing or he was too young to start. Or both. He just wasn't interested. Or good. But it's over now and our Wednesdays are better.

Ellie is spunkier than ever and is finally talking and eating more. We found a hairstyle that suits her perfectly. Pikey pigtails. (Pikey is how Oskar used to say spikey.) I wish I had a picture, but I'm sure I'll get one sometime. She is now wearing the pajamas Oskar wore at a year old. She's 18 months. So cute.

Sometimes they are quiet and playing peacefully by themselves.
I try not to look at them when this happens, lest it throw the mood, but this a moment I had to capture.

Dorisa Returns!

Don't worry! I haven't forgotten about my beloved blog! It has been a long time though. I just got to thinking it would be a tragedy if the masses didn't have anything to read on a snow day (where applicable 😊). Warning: This post is heavy on photos and video, not so much with on words.

Elena got a chair for Christmas. It is very soft and she loves it.

Oh, where to even begin. Life, as always, is a bit crazy. I just went back and looked at my last post to see where we left of an oh my goodness am I behind. To make a long story short, the antibiotics did NOT work for our bronchitis (every other time I've had bronchitis, antibiotics have worked, so I was a bit annoyed) and I proceeded to not only pull muscles throughout my back and stomach from coughing so much and so hard, but to also tear a muscle that runs along my ribs in my back. I could actually feel it coming apart. It was disgusting and excruciatingly painful. I couldn't sit, stand, or lay down and it hurt to breathe and cough so I went to the ER. At 3:00 AM. With the whole family. Yea. We'll be paying for that for a while. I keep thinking that it was a stupid thing to go to the ER for, and it was, but I honestly didn't have another option. That's how bad it hurt. At least when I was in labor with my children there was a reprieve between contractions (I'm talking pre-epidural here). There is no reprieve with rib injuries if you are breathing, much less if you have bronchitis and are coughing all the time. When they discharged me I could not believe they were letting me go and I had no idea how I was going to get myself through the day, and that's without even considering taking care of children. Luckily, the body is tough and heals remarkably fast. I have now decided that I am not going to be sick any more this year. I quit illness. So far, it is working. Okay, so maybe that wasn't a short story, but the people have a right to know.

No one is as comfortable at the dentist as Oskar.

I decided to become an Usborne Books consultant because my kids absolutely love their books. Also, our MOPS group was looking for one and I thought 'Hey, I can do that.' I'm not going to badger my friends and family to have parties, but know that if you ever need an Usborne lady, I'm here. So far I've just done some fundraisers for some groups and individuals and they have been a lot of fun. Plus, free books, hooray! I'm always impressed with how much Oskar learns from these books, but it can come with a downside. For example:

"I need to go potty."
"Oskar, are you sure?" (I've been tricked before)
" 'When the bladder is full, it means the pee is ready to leave the body.' " Yep, that would be my 4 year old quoting a book, ladies and gentlemen. He also uses a different tone when he's quoting something, it is a bit amusing.

We are the proud owners of a brand new water heater! Hooray home-ownership! I think we got the best possible deal we could and at least it looks like a water heater from the future, so that's pretty neat. Also, still paying for that.

Oskar's school pictures. The coloring is better in real life.

Oskar's Ninja Zone pictures. Again- the coloring is better in real life.

We had Oskar's first school conferences today and I was pretty impressed. He can do all sorts of stuff that we didn't know about. He is also much better behaved for his teachers than he is for us. I'm not surprised, just frustrated. I know most parents have kids like that though so at least we can all suffer together. He has been obsessed with The Nutcracker since Christmas and to say that Dan and I are sick of it is putting it very mildly. One thing I have enjoyed is that before bed every night, both kids dance to Trepak in Oskar's bedroom. It is very sweet. Note: Not all Oskar's pajama pants are that small. These should probably go in the donation pile, but the technically still fit and that means I have to do laundry less often. And yes, he has little black ballet shoes. But really, they aren't very little.

Elena is... something else. She is 15 months old now, running full bore, eating all the pretzels and chocolate cake she can find and refusing to eat anything else. She will still eat baby food but this is getting ridiculous. She also won't drink from a cup. I gave Oskar a cup on his fist birthday and we never looked back. I finally thought I would trick Elena by putting water in her bottle and milk in the cup. She chugged the bottle of water and all she will do with the cup is carry it around all day. It's like when Phoebe got a bike on Friends.

I fashioned a device for holding our toys and for sitting on.
That's a touch lamp in the corner. Elena thinks it is pretty neat.

She's getting very good at puzzles and Duplos and likes to clean/tidy-up. For example. I walked over a rug the other day and the corner of it flipped up. She was following me, bent down and fixed it, then continued on her way. She's great. It's spit bubble time!

I've started occasionally taking both the kids to the open gym type thing at the gymnastics place where Oskar does his Ninja Zone class. They seem to like it. And I like not having them home all day in the house with me on Mondays. The downside is that it is at 9AM in Sioux Falls, so we kind of need to be on our game to get ready and get there. It doesn't always happen, but when it does, I can pretty much guarantee that everyone takes a nap that day. It is wonderful.

Explanation for the following video: That is my Barbie from when I was younger. He found it in a box downstairs. I figure if we have to listen to The Nutcracker nearly every day, you can listen to it too. I'm always impressed with how well Oskar sings. This is just mumbly singing too and you can still make out the song quite clearly. Dude loves his music and ballet. We limit the amount of screen time he gets, so I guess this was the next best thing.

Thanks for reading! Stay warm, local friends!