No Pictures of Kids. Weird.

Hello!

There is some road construction near us that has pushed my patience with Brandon and Sioux Falls to the brink. I don’t mind road construction. In fact, I support it and yearn for the day when someone replaces the “road” that we live on. To summarize, there are sheets of metal on the road to keep the road in good condition where the truck crossing is. The speed limit through this area is 35 mph. Fine. Works for me. We do not need to fly through this construction zone with a corner, near a hill, I get it. What I absolutely do not understand are the people who insist on going over the metal sheets at 4 mph. SERIOUSLY. These bumps are not life threatening! Drive down ANY of the roads in the older part of town and you will find dozens of pot holes deeper  than those sheets are tall and much more out to get you. Drive, people. DRIVE. I’d like to say my rant is over, but it resets at every commute, so yeah, I might need to drive to work a different way.

This was taken at the end of our epic hike. I was enjoying the cool water on my feet and I looked up, snapped a quick pic and got the heck outta there.

Dan and I took a vacation for our anniversary this year. A real vacation: not a family trip. It was great. We went to a friend’s wedding in Fargo for the first half and then went out to Teddy Roosevelt National Park for the second bit. If you’re curious, the North Dakota Badlands are MUCH prettier than the South Dakota ones. So beautiful. We went on this stupid long hike that killed me (a Dan and Dorisa National Park Tradition) but it was stunning and at least we reached our destination- unlike the ill-fated hike in Glacier. We saw all the animals that the park boasts about, except for rattlesnakes and let’s face it, I’m not complaining. While the kids enjoyed a week with grandma and grandpa, Dan and I walked around Medora without a stroller. And we ate while sitting down. And we didn’t wake up to a crying Elena or either kid crawling into our bed. And we golfed Bully Pulpit, which was amazing and beautiful. Having children really helps you appreciate the time you spend alone.

I thought this picture was going to be so cool. Turns out I was too far away and the main subject is peeing. Can't win 'em all.

Oskar has started kindergarten and from what we can tell it is going well. He does the after-school program as well and has only gotten 2 head injuries there so far, so do with that information whatever you would like. He gets so mad when we come to pick him up. It’s a little annoying. I thought he would appreciate not having to stay at school so long, but I was quite wrong. Dude could stay there all night and be fine apparently. He is currently taking a tap and ballet class with a couple of his friends and complains that the class is too short, so that’s good. 

Baby bison!

State Fair/Renn-Fest/Zoo weekend went well. Although I have never seen Oskar break down in quite so epic a fashion as he did when we had to leave grandma and grandpa’s house on Labor Day. He actually fell asleep weeping once we got in the car. Meanwhile Elena was smiling and waving saying, “Bye-bye grampa, bye-bye gramma!” They are different. Oskar has some work to do regarding transitioning.

Elena is at once the sweetest and most evil child in the whole land. As she’s getting older, she’s becoming a little less mean I suppose, but is still a bit manipulative. I realize evil may not be quite the right word, but it’s the best I have right now. She is too strong, too daring and too trusting to understand that she could ever be hurt. Luckily, she has toned down on attacking others. When she actually does get hurt she only cries for about 5 seconds. I don’t think she actually really ever feels anything. Might need to look in on that. I am NOT looking forward to taking her to the dentist this fall. Oh, you poor, poor hygienist, you have no idea what is coming. she did great during he early childhood screening, although I think she thought she was just putting on a show. She was asked to balance on one foot, did so, and then turned her head with this giant opened mouth grin.

On our way out of the park we finally saw ALL the bison. It was like this in every direction. Felt a bit bad for the dude on his bicycle, but hopefully he knew that there was a chance of running into some wildlife.

This was good timing. Bad lighting, but good timing.

For those of you who were around when I hurt my rib 18 years ago, yes, 18 years ago, I am absolutely thrilled to announce that it is still not better, just as the doctor said it wouldn’t be. I was speaking with another doctor the other day and it is our belief that pregnancy only made things worse with all the loosening of tendons and whatever else which is why it has gotten so much worse in the last few years. As much fun as it is to be sitting at my desk and suddenly not be able to breathe due to my rib randomly moving and causing excruciating pain with the expansion of my lungs, I decided that it is time to improve my situation. Physical therapy starts next week my friends. We are searching for any and all exercises that will help hold my rib in place that don’t cause pain to my rib to complete; should be super fun. I talked to the woman who runs our gym and she gave me one exercise to start with so at least I know that there are possibilities out there, but I’m not overly optimistic about it since I also know that this is a freaking rib sprain that I was told I would suffer from for the rest of my life. I just completed my Trunk Assessment for the therapist; I did not score well.

This place was amazing. Even the golf carts were orange. Perfect.

Dorisa forgets how to be a person

Ice cream on a hot and windy day.

And then it was July. Just a warning, this post is a mess. Hopefully the pretty pictures will distract you from the terrible writing.

The hardest week of the year recently came to a close. It's the week where Dan leaves on a youth trip and I'm left alone with the kids. Luckily this time they headed to grandpa and grandma's for a few days. I was a single lady without kids for 2 days and I gotta be honest with you, I kind of don't know how to be a person anymore. What do people do when they don't have kids? There are so many hours in the day! And I had so much energy! If I didn't have kids oh man I would get stuff done. Don't get me wrong, I do not regret any part of having children and I got pretty rocking kids too, but I do have hobbies and goals and I wish I had time for them too. Alas, they will have to wait.

Apparently neither of my kids eat chocolate chip cookies. Elena pulls out the chips and eats them, and Oskar hates chocolate. At least they have each other, together, they can eat a cookie. 

I love this picture.

I tried to have a productive weekend without the kids. Part of that productivity included me trying to Drylok our basement to actually get it suitable for visitors down there. I had good intentions, I really did, but all the spiders of the world have teamed up and apparently they don't like me in their lair. We've come to the understanding that I will stay upstairs and they will stay downstairs. That's how we're going to live now. That's it. They've won.

Oskar and Elena have been a little obsessed with Shrek the Musical. And "a little" isn't quite the right term. They are so cute singing it together in the car. I love it. One of my favorite things is when they learn something and apply it elsewhere. I took the kids to Pizza Ranch (this happens on Tuesdays when Dan is gone because kids are free) and Oskar looked at his food and said, "I'm gonna be on you like a fat kid on cake." Oskar knows this from Shrek. Pop nearly came out of my nose. He was just so serious. 

That's no camera trick. She is that white.

Easter Sunday, as always, was a bit sucky. I feel bad saying this because Easter is generally a fantastic holiday. But it is harder when you are a pastor's wife. It is harder when you have kids. It is harder when you have two (or was it three?) songs to play for bells during the service. It is harder when your daughter gets a new stuffed animal in her Easter basket, takes it to church and loses it before the service starts. It is weirder when this new stuffed animal is a mole because she is obsessed with the mole in the Bear Snores On series. Then Oskar found the mole during the silence before communion and Elena yelled out, "My MOLE!!!" and made everyone behind us crack up. This led to a discussion post service about why my daughter is so excited about an uncommon woodland creature. And no, it was not easy for the Easter bunny to find a stuffed mole. They are apparently not very popular.

In April, Oskar lost his first tooth. I had no idea how loose a tooth could be and still technically be attached. It was nasty. And he was not thrilled about it. It was hurting him so badly which led to him not eating much for a couple days so then not only was he in pain, but also hangry. This was one of the few times when his attitude was brought out in preschool and his teachers got to see some of his true colors. During an agonizing dinner it fell out and he was all smiles after that. The second one will fall out within the week and then we only have 18 more to go... this is going to be fun.

I'm sorry, but this is just too cute.

Some of you might be happy to hear that potty training is going better. She is trained in the day, but still wears diapers at night. The picture above might be one she is mad at me some day for putting online, but she is the cutest thing and she was so punchy that night it was hilarious.

I don't know what it is about her, but she gets so serious when eating ice cream.

We've been lucky to get up to the cabin a couple times so far this summer. Not sure if we'll make it up there again this year, but the kids LOVE being there. Especially if their cousins are there. We were up there for a beautiful memorial day weekend and then a couple weeks ago for my dad's birthday. Oskar said,"This is the best birthday party ever!" and his cousin was quick to say "Oskar must not have been to many birthday parties." I'm pretty sure that any time we are at the cabin is the best day ever according to him, so that easily translated into the best birthday party ever.

Yep, that is Oskar using a straw to get the ice cream out of his cone.

When packing for the cabin I've learned to just throw all of Elena's clothes in the suitcase. Between the forgetting she's potty trained while at the cabin and the sheer amount of dirt that girl gets into, we not only use all her clothes, but even have to do laundry while we are up there.

Skip to 0:29 or so. I love her reaction to seaweed in this video. "No. No.No"
That's nature, not nurture people. She has never seen my
reaction to seaweed, alas, she feels it in her heart.

The kids and I went up to Minot in April. It was a good trip, but 4 days in a row with 4+ hours in the car each day was trying even for my travel champions. Elena and Oskar loved running around the farm and Ellie got legitimately stuck in the mud. I picked her up and her shoes were left behind. Those shoes were NOT easy to get out of the mud. I love that the kids get to spend some time with their great-grandpa and aunts and uncle out there, but sometimes I wonder if they don't bring a little too much excitement to the farm. Children literally running in circles isn't exactly the norm at the farm.

I just started watching Supergirl. Not going to lie, I love it. I get what the hype is about. Favorite line so far, "If that pot sticker isn't in my mouth in 2 seconds I will melt your face." I also love that the newscaster is Perd Hapley, but a competent Perd.

When Elena was one, I did a temperament survey on her. I read it and put it on a pile in the closet and recently I rediscovered it. It is amusing, and crazy accurate:

"Emotional reactions for Elena may be loud and dramatic, even those reactions relating to minor concerns. Even though you may sometimes feel overwhelmed by the noise and energy generated by her, she needs you to react without emotional intensity of your own. The problem is not more important because it is loudly expressed. Consider what the problem is - not the volume at which it is communicated. When you feel overwhelmed, be sure to take a breather. Intense children often have a charm and charisma which makes them very appealing."

I'm thinking about putting it on a poster. Or maybe a tattoo on the back of my hand to give myself a reminder of how to deal with her. She is hard work, people.

Girl likes to fold, but apparently is not a fan of stacking.

That's all for now. I will try to be better and post more often, mostly for my sake because these take forever to write when I wait so long between them. But also for you. Thanks for reading!

Do you remember? The 23rd of ...

Pondering the universe. Literally- watching a show about space.

SEPTEMBER?!? I haven't posted since SEPTEMBER 23RD?!? I even wrote something in October but never actually posted it. Slacker. I really miss writing, if you can call my ramblings writing. But between working, kids, exercise and sheer exhaustion, it just hasn't been a priority. I feel bad because apparently people actually read what I write (blogger counts for me). Like, hundreds of you actually read this. Astounding. I didn't even know I knew that many people.

This post is going to feature my tiny baby Booga. Many of you have not met her, or see her very seldom. She is interesting. She is tiny- still only around 25 pounds. Pretty sure Oskar was 25 pounds at 6 months. Shortly after she learned to walk, when she was about 9 months old, she followed me around the house. I kicked up the corner of the rug and she bent down to fix it. For while she was really into pretzels and would leave them in places around the church. I think she was squirreling them away. There was one day when we were leaving the nursery and she said, "I get pretzel" and runs over to the toy kitchen and gets a pretzel out of the oven. Another time Dan texted me a picture of the baptismal font with a pretzel on it and asked if Ellie had been there. Apparently she had, but I had no idea. She LOVES basketball. There was a phase where she would line up EVERYTHING. This lasted for about a year and the habit still makes an appearance some times.

  

To understand her overall temperament, watch this clip from Guardians of the Galaxy 2 starting at min 1:45. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zjPe9gcXtT4&t=17s  She is Baby Groot. She definitely has a rage problem and loves to dance and yell. Completely oblivious yet somehow simultaneously tuned in to everything around her. Her voice has always been deafening and remains so. This movie has great music and we listen to it on Pandora. We had it on tonight while we were getting ready for bed. Keep this in mind.

The tiniest helper of them all.

Dan and I had a meeting on Monday and the kids were in the nursery and we heard her yelling, "DAD! DAD! DAD!" Girl had climbed up on the counter and holding her arms victoriously in the air, said "I pooped!" Now that you know all about Booga, enjoy an adventure in potty training. 

Sometimes Ellie gets swallowed by furniture.

She was potty training really well last fall and then she just stopped. Super annoying and she has been uninterested ever since. UNTIL... tonight. No joke, I was cleaning up and the magical Mr. Blue Sky (the song from Guardians of the Galaxy) came on and I heard Ellie yelling from her room that she had to go potty. We've had so many failed attempts lately that I almost ignored her. Realizing this is impossible due to the volume of her voice, I went and helped her use her little potty. She asked for privacy, sat down, peed, waddled over with her pants around her ankles and got toilet paper, wiped, and went to get her potty and dumped the contents into the toilet, still with her pants around her ankles. What the hell? Where did she learn to do this? I'm thinking maybe daycare but holy crap that's initiative. I'm really hoping we are on the road to ridding ourselves of diapers. Knowing her, I guess I'n not surprised that she went all out, but still. Crazy.

Hiding redheads on the beach.

We went to Bonita Springs, Florida in February. Buying plane tickets was probably not the best use of our money, but we had free lodging and we needed a vacation badly. The kids had a lot of fun and it was fun to take them somewhere warm. We were even able to prevent Ellie from getting a sunburn! Both the kids loved spending time with their cousins and I got to go on a 1200' parasailing adventure with my sister-in-law which was fantastic. Although, our toe dip in the water toward the end of the excursion was most definitely a butt dip. The only bad hing about the trip is that between the one million stairs in the house, the stone floors and walking on the beach my lower legs hurt SO much the entire time we were there. I was prepared for it this time because it had happened before but MAN it hurt so much. And no, I was not alone in my suffering. Others felt it too.

This is a story from what I was going to post last October.

We were shopping for clothes for our family pictures when Oskar picked up a tiny dress and said it was a beautiful dress for Elena.

"Oskar, that is too small. It's for a baby."
"When we get another baby..."
"What?!?"
"When we get another ba-"
"WE ARE NEVER GETTING ANOTHER BABY. NEVER." I hope someone overheard it and found it amusing.

I'm very anti-additional baby do to my inability to exist as a self sufficient human while pregnant, much less do a job and care for children. But that got me thinking, would I want another kid if I had better pregnancies? I doubt it, I only ever wanted 2 kids- a boy and then a girl. I got what I ordered. But I honestly have no idea if I would want another kid or not. I just found that interesting. Sorry if you disagree.

Must sleep.

Bye guys! Thanks for reading!