Five is a big number.

Eleanor had a birthday! How is she five. And now, of course, she's had enough birthdays to know what's what. 'And when I wake up, there will be balloons in my room! And I will wear a dress that I've never worn before!'

Balloons balloons.

Party hats for breakfast, sprinkles in your cereal. 'I'm a narwhal!'

Birthday tree, birthday gifts.

'Can we take down the gingerbread house for my birthday?' Heck yes.

And then I sent them to Go Bananas with Joel and just like sat around for a bit! Decorated the cake! Put party hats on some rogue skeletons!

We got Eleanor a loft bed for her birthday, which Joel spent nap time setting up, so I made Eleanor a nest in our bed. Birthdays are arduous!

And then in the evening I just invited my in-laws over and made everyone nachos. 'Welcome to my PARTY!' says Eleanor.

When I asked her what kind of treat she wanted for her birthday, she said A PINATA. I'm like, Ok. So we went to the dollar store to pick up plates and party hats and things, she was like, LOOK PINATAS I WANT THE PIRATE SHIP. And I'm like, Ok, do you want to look arou- THE PIRATE SHIP.

So we got the pirate ship! And we were like, Eleanor gets first whack, and then everyone gets one whack after, even if it breaks open, everyone still gets one whack. YOU GUYS IT TOOK SEVERAL ROUNDS OF WHACKING AND FINALLY SOME GROWN-UPS TO WHACK IT OPEN that is one srs pinata. Anyhoodle. It was full of stickers and tattoos.

Oh hey look there's more stuff under the birthday tree now!

And then we had cake, the end.

And THEN! (I know!) The next weekend, we took the skytrain into town for Eleanor's Birthday Adventure!

Science World, here we come.

Look at this science.

Look at THIS science.

Look at this ice cream sundae!

Look at these IMAX theater sharks omg.

Eleanor is wearing two party hats and getting her arms painted. Living her best life, basically.

Yassssss.

Pulley-based science!

Body heat science!

Come over here, there's more science!

Cat science. (I dunno.)

My favorite room growing up was the Shadow Room, where a light flashes and freezes your shadow on the wall, and you try to time a jump so that your shadow is in the air. We couldn't find it, and I thought it had been removed, until right at the very end when we saw it tucked back into a corner. I had to drag Eleanor away from the Shadow Room by her toes, she was that into it.

Highly successful birthday shenanigans, all around.

Christmassss

We did so much things! How to even. I'm going to have to go back and take this chronologically.

It has been snowy and bright and I have been bombing around town in my 4-wheel drive and my winter tires, wearing my parka and my excellent snow boots, all like Yes this is the weather I understand, I can cope with this. It is so SUNNY and everyone else is complaining but like I am not even wearing a scarf! BUT! It has been too cold to make snowmen! The snow doesn't pack! So we made snowmen out of playdough.

Lookit them creepers.

We went to the holiday train at the garden center!

This is the one you ride on.

We went to the holiday train at the other garden center!

This one, you just look at and exclaim about its tiny marvelousness.

I took out ALL our nativity sets one day (we have FOUR).

We made ornaments of all sorts.

I cut some trees out of posterboard and gave the girls some glitter pens and whatall. Pompoms and scraps of lace and things.

Geneva has never been allowed freedom of glue bottle, and she was drunk on her power. 'Just one more fing I need to gwew on.'

Eleanor's:

Geneva's:

Grandma took Eleanor and her cousin (and their moms) to The Nutcracker!

'Look, you can fold yourself up like a sandwich!'

We went out afterwards to White Spot and Eleanor got her first Pirate Pak, with which she was well pleased.

Look at these two turtledoves.

We did Grinching, hot chocolate, and stockings at our place on the 23rd

and then went to my parents' on the 24th.

Let me tell you this. I thought it was going so much of a muchness being near family (both families! ALLLLL families) over Christmas but it turns out that not having to carry an entire holiday yourself, just showing up somewhere with armloads of gifts and, like, an enormous cheese platter, it's so relaxing.

Also relaxing is when your mom gets three children their own playmobil and then silence reigns for like an HOUR while they put all the tiny persons in their tiny beds and set the tiny dishes on the tiny table.

We did Christmas morning at our house, which didn't take long because the girls each got a book, and then they had an ornament to open together (it was a MERMAID because I'm taking them to THE LITTLE MERMAID later this month!) and a board game!

And then we just bumped over to Joel's parents' for brunch! And MORE stockings!

Yessssss tear into it.

Present supervision.

Thank-you hugs.

Balloon fights!

Geneva is never taking this backpack off.

Eleanor on Boxing Day is always like OK, This is the day we put things into boxes! And so both girls box up their ornaments and then Eleanor's like, Can we help you with yours? GENEVA, today you get to HANDLE MOM'S ORNAMENTS. So we did that and then went to Joel's extended family gathering in the evening, and it was GREAT because there were SECOND COUSINS GALORE and space to run around in.

And then my extended family gathering was on the 2nd, and I have no pictures of this because I was busy chatting with my cousins while other people took my kids upstairs to pet the dog. And I dunno. I have this latent, like, UGH about family gatherings, but I think it's a holdover from my late teens/early 20s when I was too dumb to appreciate them. Because it was so fun! I was so delighted! All my cousins who used to be so young are now basically my age, how did this happen!

Everything was amazing, basically.