Well, my freedom was shortlived....

Just as I thought Elise was down for the night, I crept my tired bones into bed at 10 pm, which is precisely when she woke up. I couldn't get her back asleep until after midnight sometime.
Then she slept pretty solid...only waking up once or twice to nurse.
That is, until about 6:30 am, when Lola stormed into the room like gangbusters and woke us right out of our fitful sleep.
I was pretty drowsy and slow-moving this morning, but I made myself run at the lake and now I feel pretty energetic. I'll probably hit a wall here pretty soon. We're going to a padre game tonight so I doubt there'll be an early bedtime for me. Maybe I can sneak a nap in somewhere....

On the plus side, Elise looks much better today and isn't warm anymore. She is pretty cheerful and smiley.

nak. again.

So, if you're someone that I talk to on even an irregular basis, you're probably already familiar with my nursing complaints and are currently rolling your eyes at the prospect of yet another bitch session. But I'm serious!! I'm sooooooo getting tired of this. It really, honestly wouldn't be so bad, if not for the insane FREQUENCY. In the past 24 hours, I don't think I have gone an hour without nursing at least once. Granted, Elise had a fever last night, but today was hardly much of an exception. She's like this most of the time. I had this brilliant idea that I would simply forsake sitting down...either at the computer or simply to relax on the couch. I even started eating standing up. The mere image of me sitting would send Elise into a nursing frenzy. But now she's caught on to my ruse....she doesn't care that I'm not sitting down because she will go to whatever chair is closest to me and start crying and banging on the chair with her fists until I sit down to nurse her. Occasionally, she will rest her tear-stained face on the chair, in complete despair, just for a moment to catch her breath.

In my mind, she is still very much a baby and too young to wean, but I am in the early stages of setting some limits. I really want to make it until she is 2, but at the moment, I'm questioning my strength. If it could just slow down a bit....

Any advice out there?

Elise has a fever

Poor thing. I feel so bad for her. She's nursing like a fiend and not wetting her diapers that much, either. I'm trying to keep her very hydrated.

On another note, scroll down and check out the photos from my previous post. I just noticed the one where Lola is sitting on her grandma's lap, next to Elise and Cecil. The resemblance between Lola and grandma is quite striking in this photo!

Baby Cecil and a picnic

Saturday, we went to a multi-family picnic at Lake Murray. Who knew it would be sub-zero temps? So random! Anyway, the kids didn't care that it was freezing but I sure did my fair share of bitching and moaning. We had fun, though. The other families were doing hot dogs, hamburgers and ribs so I made homemade bbq beans, a roasted potato salad with mustard vinaigrette and brought veggie burgers. The food was all really good.

Dan's brother, Phil and his family came too, so Lola & Elise really enjoyed hanging out with their new cousin Cecil.

They were obviously really tuckered out after all that fun because Lola fell asleep on the couch at 7:15! Elise followed shortly afterwards. With both kids passed out by 7:30 pm, I got lots of painting done!

Lola & Elise's room

It's not finished yet. I've been busting my hump all weekend getting these rooms painted and done with, but I hit a speed bump when I realized we don't have the bed frame we need for the new headboard/footboard. And the white blinds that I took down from the old playroom/new guestroom don't fit in Lola's window. I was really counting on using those, so now I'm researching other options. I will probably just find drapes since I already have hardware for that. The color scheme will make it a bit of a challenge, but I'm down.

We used a VOC-free paint for this room and the shade is pretty nice, but a bit hard to describe. It's like a light pinkish purple. Lilac, maybe? Even lilac, I think, implies more of a purple tone and this is not very purple...just a bit purple-y. Her new bedspread is awesome. I can't wait to see what it looks like on her bed. It's chocolate brown with big white flowers. Again, organic and affordable. Thank you Linens n Things!

Room makeover updates

Here's the before and after for the old playroom. We decided to make the upstairs loft area the playroom, therefore, freeing up a bedroom downstairs for guests. Previously, we made our guests shlep it upstairs on a pull-out couch in an otherwise completely bare room with nary a window covering. It sucked. Plus the temperature up there is at least +/- 10 degrees from the rest of the house. Meaning, if it's 75 in the house, it's 85 up there. So, I can't imagine our guests were very comfortable on a crappy pull-out mattress in extreme temperatures!

When we first opened the paint cans for our new guest room, I about had a heart attack. The color is really that bright! I mixed in a bunch of white and that mellowed it out some, but you can see from the photos that it is still obnoxious. Surprisingly, though, once we got the blinds and furniture in there, it really started to come together and now I wouldn't change a thing. PLUS, the new duvet cover and pillow shams were organic and affordable. I feel I can't ask for more than that!

The Master Plan. Part 1.

Ok, my master plan is begin the night weaning process. The girls bedroom is getting painted today (along with the playroom and our bedroom) and we are going to fix it up nice'n'pretty in hopes of luring these little munchkins into their bedroom to sleep at night. Oh, how nice would that be????

So. Phase One is to get the room all pretty. Here's the "before" shot. I'm going to chronicle the whole process.

I just love my girls!

Our first major heat wave

It's been crazy hot here. Too hot to go to the park, even. The kind of hot where everything sticks to you. Yuck. Just a prelude of a hot summer to come. Here's the kids learning how to beat the heat. This was Elise's first time in a kiddie pool and boy, did she just love it!

SLEEP.

Oh how I miss it. So why am I here at 10:30 pm when I could be asleep? Because this is the only free time I get, so I insist on taking full advantage of it. Sometimes, it means I just put pj's on, wash my face and go to bed. Sometimes it means I hang out on the computer for a bit.
Anyway...what I really want to talk about is my lack of sleep. The fact that Elise kept me up from at least 2:50 a.m. to about 6:15 a.m. last night. And how pissy I am about the whole thing. I mean, c'mon!!!! I nursed for about 2 hours straight, before I finally couldn't handle another minute and stuck her in the Ergo, kicking and screaming. I blasted some music and she fell asleep quickly, only to wake up again 10 minutes later, wanting to nurse....AGAIN!!!!
I really feel like some change has to happen. This weekend has been dedicated to getting the girls' bedroom painted and somehow decorated so that it's exciting to them. Ideally, I'd love to put them down in that room instead of with us. I love cosleeping, I really do...but....I've been doing it since October 2003 and I'm kinda getting over it. In a nice and loving way. Of course.

Skillet Millet

Ok so I made up the name, but it totally fits.

I toasted 1 cup of millet in a dry skillet, then added 3 cups of water and a pinch of salt. I let it simmer for about 20 minutes, then stirred in some raisins, slivered almonds and agave nectar. I let it simmer for another 10 minutes. It was yummy, especially with some cinnamon sprinkled on top. Even Lola liked it and she is not a fan of hot cereals.

Blast from the past!

Elise likes to do this silly grin face whenever you try to take her picture. It's hilarious and really cracks us up! We kinda wondered where she was getting this goofy grin from....

That's when I found this old picture of me at the same age, 16 months!

um...guess we figured out where she gets the goofiness from.

Our first attempt at gardening...

Lola and I planted some seeds in our little garden. I'm a total novice at this and the task has always seemed too overwhelming to me. I've always lived in apartments or condos before this house and even when we moved here, I didn't really think our backyard had gardening potential. There is a little garden area off in the side yard. You can see evidence of a garden there from a previous owner. There were little plastic markers still there...apparently, there were tomatoes, peppers and lettuce there at one time.
We planted mostly herbs, some carrots, a few tomatoes and some pumpkins. We'll see what happens!

Lola helped me and she is really so excited to see what grows. We check on it everyday. She was REALLY hoping that she'd be eating our carrots by now! How cute!

Baby Cecil is on his way!

Dan's brother and his wife are within a day or two of having a baby! The doctor pressed them to induce so they packed up their hospital bag and headed over to the hospital tonight. Little did anyone know, Kristina was already having contractions and didn't know. The doctor has held off the induction and is having them just stay there the night. Hopefully, she kicks off into labor on her own. I'm keeping my fingers crossed. This is their first baby and I know Kristina is really scared. Hopefully, I will see them tomorrow. Please send good birthing vibes her way.

I've got balls!

Coconut covered fruit balls. I made them today by processing some dates, raisins, figs walnuts, mixing with some OJ, then rolling them in coconut.

Duh...what did you think I meant???

You've got your minds in the gutter, people!

However....quite accidentally, it seems I have a little theme going on here. Maybe I need to re-title my post about vegetarian sausages....hmmm....

Vegetarian Sausages!

I finally made these! After seeing the photos and posts from Day to Day Vegan and Urban Housewife, I just had to try these for myself. They are pretty good! We stuffed them into whole wheat subs and poured marinara on top. The only minor problem I had with this is that the sausages are basically seitan (vital wheat gluten & water), which has lots of protein and a decent amount of iron, but little to nothing else. I'm used to eating a lot of veggies at dinner so I threw in a side of roasted brussel sprouts and we were good to go. Everybody liked it, even Lola. I'm planning to slice up the leftovers and scatter them onto a veggie pizza. Mmmmm!