Valentine's Day surprise.

Eleanor has preschool three days a week, gymnastics one of the other days, weekends are always so busy, so Tuesday is our one day for Fun And Adventure. This last Tuesday was also Valentine's Day! So we hauled downtown to have a festive donut.

While we were down there, we popped into the used book store to pet the cat.

Geneva loves that cat (his name is Nietzsche). She'll sit there for tens of minutes, murmuring to him about her day - 'An den we had a donut, and den - you are so soft - and den we are goin to de comic book store after dis.' - or reading him a book.

AN HOUR LATER, we left the book store and the comic book store we were aiming for wasn't open for another half hour, so we popped into the Walmart to pick up raspberries for Eleanor's preschool party and also get some chicken nuggets because hi we were starving. So we've eaten our nuggets, and grabbed some raspberries, and then a woman is like, Oh here, and hands me a stuffed frog, and walks out the door.

I'm like, This isn't ours...ok. And then I look and around its neck is a tag saying, I'm lost! Please return me to the photo studio and you will get a prize.

So we take him to the photo studio, and wait ten minutes for the customer in front of us to be served, and give the frog to the lady, and she's like, Ok! You each get a sticker! And I'm like, For stickers we waited ten minutes.

But THEN she's like, And your mom gets a free portrait session and one print! Do you want to book it for another day? And I'm like, HA HA NOPE THEY ARE ALREADY MATCHING NOW IS GREAT.

SO MY KIDS GOT A PORTRAIT SESSION AT WALMART BY ACCIDENT AND IT WAS SO CHEESY AND I WANTED LITERALLY ALL THE POSES. There was one where Eleanor was sitting and Geneva was behind her, with her two little hands folded over Eleanor's shoulder, and it was BEYOND, but it was too close-up and you could see that Geneva still had sauce on her face, both girls had chicken in their teeth.

But they loved it, they loved being posed like little dolls and holding weird props and in like three weeks (I dunno, maybe they are cross-stitching it for me, or painting it by hand) I'm gonna go pick up a free print of my little ladybugs standing back to back, with 'princess hands.'

(And then for supper, because it was Valentine's Day but Joel got stuck at work, we went to A&W for a root beer float

and onion rings, and poutine.)

Snowed under.

We have been experiencing a snowpocalypse. A snowmageddon! It's been snowing again. I literally just moved here from Saskatoon and this is what I get.

Last Saturday was supposed to be Eleanor's long-deferred birthday brunch - it was actually supposed to be the weekend after her birthday, but my niece got sick, and then everyone in that house got sick and continued very sick and THEN they got better but my parents had put their house on the market - MY ANCESTRAL HOME! So the weekends were for showings and then brunch was supposed to be this past weekend but it snewed. It snew a little

it snew some more

I LEFT MY RAINBOOTS OUTSIDE HA HA WHOOPS

Eleanor helped Joel shovel the driveway

Geneva did not help. She does not care for the snow unless it is for eating.

IT SNEW MORE STILL OMG

It snew our entire average snowfall but in like 48 hours.

Get a-shovelin.

It looks like it is waist-deep on Geneva but it was actually DEEPER THAN THAT but the lower layers packed down.

Anywerd. We obviously did not drive to my parents' in this mess. We barely made it the like five blocks to a friend's house, where they had built a sledding hill (WITH JUMP) in their cul de sac.

The next day (LOLLLLL for the next week) Joel had to take my car to work, because his was entirely snowed under and also is tiny. My sister and I were texting in the morning, Sorry we had to postpone brunch, this weather is insane, how are you feeling, not great had some contractions last night, they're stopped now, I'm making stew.

Fifteen minutes later, I get a text from my dad that they're ON THERE WAY TO THE HOSPITAL BECAUSE THERE'S GONNA BE A BABY. Maybe like forty minutes later, I get another text that A BABY IS BORN.

Oh man a-living. A baby, a baby, a baby. I've always been away when the babies are being born, but this time I was HERE, except I wasn't here, I was stranded, with no car and the roads and there was a BABY. So my dad drove out to get us, drove us in falling snow and terrible roads and we couldn't even get home, from all the cars stalled on all the hills, so we just went straight to the hospital and held that brand new baby.

Look at this Winslow Marie, look how perfect her face.

We stayed and held a baby and the girls went up and down on the beds until the congestion had cleared and the cars been removed and we could get home. We stayed the night, and the next afternoon my dad drove us home again, where we've been for FOUR DAYS with no car and the sidewalks are so impassable that it took us twenty minutes to walk the four blocks for sushi and we are doing everything we can not to lose our dang minds but nobody even care, because there's a baby.