ohmygoshimsoexhausted

We have a two-month-old now:

Now, let me be clear: To say we've been spoiled by Elka's "good baby"ness is the understatement of the year. Elka is AWESOME. Elka wakes up just once a night after going to bed between 9 and 10 almost every night. Elka is a champion napper [most days.] Elka wakes up happy and loves to lie on her back and smile at her sisters and me until she feels ready for a nap again. Elka loves to watch her green knit rattle bird that hangs from her hammock crossbar. Elka loves to nurse and so she has many rolls. I have to put powder in her neck rolls to keep them from being constantly wet. Elka has four chins.

But for all of Elka's goodness, Elka is still child #3 and while Child#3 is a champion sleeper and doesn't talk much, Child#2 and Child#1 are both very chatty and while they are also good sleepers (finally!) they have very different sleep schedules. Greta is an early riser and an early-to-bedder. She likes to go to bed at 7 or shortly after and wakes up at 7 or shortly after the next morning. Anja, on the other hand likes to stay up as late as possible and has to be dragged out of bed every morning somewhere in the neighborhood of 9:00 [or so.] This doesn't leave very many hours for "me time" if I want to have any sleep of my own. So mostly at the end of the day I try my best to do one last pick-up of the house while Martin catches up on the dishes and we fill each other in on the news of each others' days in the short time where there are no little people awake. Then we collapse into bed and it begins again in the morning.

But sleep aside, while everyone else seems to be getting back into the swing of the school year, we are still enjoying summer!  The other day I made a totally ghetto sandbox for the girls and they love it:

 It's an under-the-bed storage tub. Our backyard has become sort of "off limits" since we've had multiple HUGE branches falling in the places where the kids play. One day a branch fell on the clothesline and took all my laundry down with it, and they went into the kiddie pool where the girls had been playing the afternoon before. That was just one limb of a few, so I don't let us use the backyard anymore. Luckily, we have other places that are nice, like Battle Ground:

 We were there for the St. Boniface annual Assumption Pilgrimage. We didn't participate in the hike, but we came to help feed the pilgrims lunch and stayed out there for the afternoon. We visited the nature center and listened to the bagpipes at a little wedding going on down at the chapel. I wanted to go to the wedding, but Martin wouldn't let me. We went to a late lunch at TC's instead, down the road, and weren't we surprised when the whole wedding party came in for beers while we were there! So funny.

Here's this sillyface:

 She reminds me very much of the way Anja looked at this age. Here's a better, prettier picture:

 Elka is really sweet and snuggly. We are all enjoying her SO MUCH. The girls adore her. And so do Martin and I. Here she is giving me a big smile during a front seat diaper change coming home from our nephew's birthday party in Chicago:

 She loves nothing more than being nakey.

On the way home from Chicago this past time we finally made a stop we always talk about and never do:

Cabela's! It was sooooooooooooooooo much fun! I wouldn't have guessed that a sporting goods store could be such a great family outing, but it was!!  The place is completely full of taxidermy setups, with waterfalls and weird talking mannequins. The best part for Greta was the escalator. She is still talking about it and it's been two weeks. She calls it "that ride at Cablea's" and she loves remembering it.

We're still having a good summer! Glad we're not in school yet!