I am made of laundry.

We went to Cuba!

It was everything I wanted. But we got in at 1am and I was up at 6 because I DUNNO, bodies are weird, so I gotta put my little sun-soaked and water-logged self to bed. 

A-seep. 

Rear face

This is a thing they do when I'm done getting them dressed and am putting my own boots on.

They do this and they glance over at each other and laugh.

They're not licking the wall.

I've asked.

A catch-up.

How are things. How are things with you? How are things with us. Things are sort of all over the place. We are going on a trip (so excite) so I spent Friday morning dragging my kids to six different stores looking for, like, walking sandals (we have flip flops) and sun hats, IN THE DEAD OF WINTER in Saskatoon. We had zero luck (duh) and ended up at Walmart because last ditch, also I needed buns, but also we were starving and grouchy so we had poutine first, ALL OF WHICH IS TO SAY, here's Geneva in a McDonalds inside a Walmart, with marker on her face from some days ago, having smeared poutine gravy into her hair.

Not my parenting low point, but on the downward slope. (I finally found sandals for Geneva in a 'previous shoes' bin, Eleanor will be fine in flip flops, a friend loaned me some hats.) THE VERY NEXT DAY Joel was home so we went to this extremely posh bakery that was on some buzzfeed list, and had some macarons and a lime tart for breakfast.

Lookit these fancy little persons.

What else. I took the girls to the farmer's market last weekend for the last day of WinterShines and let Eleanor feed the goats and ponies.

Geneva won't go near them, but it's all she talks about for days afterward. 'Doat! Eeeeeat! Nahm nahm nahm.'

The slide had melted into a terrifying death trap so I only let Geneva go down with Eleanor.

There were like a million things on that Sunday but Joel was working and I can only do so many things with the kids by myself. You know? So I took them out in the evening for some fireworks, but we had to run around the park for a while first

while it got like scarily dark. WHERE ARE BOTH OF MY CHILDREN oh well I will keep an eye on this one because she is smallest.

Eleanor was both delighted and terrified by the fireworks, WHY ARE THEY SO LOUD but also some of them looked like fairies.

Geneva was 100% terrified, so good game, everyone. That was a super cold day, we were all wearing like six layers under our snow clothes. BUT THEN IT GOT WARM and we built a snowman.

Geneva loves him, and sings 'Frosty' out the window to him. 'Srossssssy....ahmaaaaaaan! Srosssssssssssssssssssssy..........ahhhhhmaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa!' It's amazing.

Eleanor's gymnastics class had 'Pirate Day. Her class is half girls but I love that they didn't try to make them be wenches or whatever, they were just like EVERYONE IS PIRATES here is your mustache. Now grab a cutlass and go duel on the balance plank.

What else. We've been making some valentines.

Eleanor is just, like, a stamping machine (that is a freshly washed baby you see there).

It was like lightly sunny the other evening and everything was melting so we went out and jumped around in it.

I have a cold, Joel has a cold, Geneva has...something. Teeth coming in? Dunno. Powering through it all, though

.

Working for the weekend.

WE DID IT we made it we survived a whole week with Joel gone. I panicked a little bit before this week started because of the friction between me and Eleanor lately, so pulled out my rolodex all, Who do we know, and I overscheduled us a little. Thursday morning, Eleanor had school, and then I invited the neighbors up for supper in the evening and I'm trying to be a little more chill about having people over and not making A Thing of it, so that I do it more often, but I still wiped down the bathroom and moved some of the weirder stuff out of sight. Why is there a clay fossil on my kitchen counter? ANYhoo, we had a great evening and the girls were OUT OF THEIR MINDS (they love having dinner guests so, so much) and then the neighbors left and I put the girls to bed and my house was a disaster and I almost died because my little introvert snail of a heart was exhausted and I just wanted to lie down.

SO THAT and then Friday morning we joined some friends at a preschool dance party that the library-branch-that-is-not-ours-but-is-still-close-to-us, and it was amazing. We sang that song that goes, Peel...bananas...peel, peel bananas. Cut...bananas...cut, cut bananas. (And then mash, and then eat, and then GO.) This morning Geneva was in her crib all, Eat eat eat. Go go go! Nanaaaaaaas! So we're for sure gonna go to this again because my kids love to dance to ridiculous songs.

AND THEN Friday evening Saskatoon Pride put on a Winter Wonderland carnival at the farmer's market. We wanted tacos so bad but they were CLOSED so we ate this giant chicken leg and bowl of rice instead.

I got Eleanor's face painted (duh) and Geneva watched avidly

so I got HER face painted, and then we showed her in the mirror and then we got down and then she cried

and I can't tell if it was because she didn't like her face painting or because she wanted to CONTINUE.

Babies be confusing. Anyhoodle. There were carnival games, and the hockey ladies let Eleanor 'warm up' for like 20 minutes so that was EASILY the best bang for our buck. (Plinko took like two seconds and then they were all, Here's your prize! Enjoy your bouncy ball, see ya.)

And then we got a saskatoon berry tart!

And then we went back and played hockey some more, because those ladies were SO NICE. And then one of them was like, Have you tried the basketball! But we only had one more ticket and it was spoken for so she pulled some tickets out of her pocket and was like, Go shoot some hoops!

And then. AND THEN. Elsa and Anna showed up and Eleanor was so excited she fell down and Geneva almost died.

This hug was all she talked about today.

Eleanor was, as usual, struck completely dumb. She's SO EXCITED before and after but face-to-face with a princess she is like.....Abuhhhhhhh.

And then we got home like ten minutes before Joel and the girls were like *schlup*

because what a day. And today we walked down to the cafe, Eleanor carrying a sheet of ice she'd found in the yard,

and had a cake and warmed up because it was cold out

though so so so sunny. Being at the park all together is a thousand times more fun than taking the girls there on my own.

Such a frabjous day.

Warm wishes

At the risk of jinxing things, we have having such a good week. I took the girls in for their shots this morning OH AND THE GARAGE DOOR WAS FROZEN SHUT and so our downstairs neighbor came and heaved on it while I pressed the 'open' button but POINT BEING we got out of the garage and my girls are fully immunized and everyone was so brave and then we went to Downey's Golden Sheaf Bakery and had one of their incredible donuts.

Feed the birds.

And THEN, because it was like FOUR DEGREES, I took my bitches to the zoo.

Bitches love zoos.

Eleanor insists on pulling Geneva for most of it, which Geneva LOVES.

And when she got tired, I just stacked them and pulled them myself.

We have cougars and bears and a couple of lynx but the girls' favorite animal is the Random Zoo Cat.

Hullo, zoo cat.

And then the cat climbed a tree and Eleanor took the sled and climbed a hill and Geneva was like, Wha happen, where erebody go?

I told Geneva the eagles were scowling at her (they're so scowly!) so she scowled back.

And that was morning and then we had lunch and everyone napped like the dead and when they woke up, it was STILL WARM SO WE BUILT A SNOWMAN.

Witness him.

And then Eleanor built a TEENY TINY snowman out of shards because rolling snowballs is actually super difficult.

And THEN JOEL TEXTED TO SAY HE WAS COMING HOME and the girls died of excitement and he read to them every book I've been refusing to read because ughhhhhh reading aloud and now he and I are going to have a coloring date because I got TWO! NEW! coloring books in the mail today (blackbird!!!!!) and I am so, so excited.

Oh happy day.