Pumpkin acquisition

Let us go back in time! To last month. Chilliwack has this amazing Corn Maze slash Farm-Based Family Fun, but it is kind of expensive so we never go. But long story short, Joel's parents got free passes and took us ALL and it was a-maze-ing.

You know I'm never going to not make that joke. There was a corn pit! Which you may recall we first encountered last year in Rosthern, SK for the first time. Corn pits are hilarious.

THEY WERE IN THERE FOR LIKE AN HOUR. Also, this chair is humorously sized.

It stayed clear until near then end and then it rained and nobody minded because we have new umbrellas.

Look at us share those umbrellas!

You guys my brain was not exaggerating its remembrances of the rain. It rains every damn day: if the morning is nice, the afternoon rains. If the morning rains, the afternoon still might rain. Hgnnnnnnngh rain oh well LOOK AT MY KID LEAPING OVER A HAY BALE MAZE LIKE SHE IS A GOAT.

Also they had s'mores and when we are camping, we put Geneva to bed before we make s'mores but THIS WAS THE MIDDLE OF THE DAY so baby's first s'more.

Anyhoozit. That's where we got Joel's pumpkin. And then Eleanor's preschool went on a field trip to the pumpkin patch! We took a hay wagon out to the patch

('Wookit dis widdle pumpkin, I'mma bring dis pumpkin to ower house.')

and took the train back

to where all the bouncy castles and enormous lego piles and dress-up clothes were.

A+, would patch again.

Halloween night!

The older my kids get, the better the holidays get (I'm gonna assume this continues on an even trajectory; do not dare to disabuse me). Eleanor wanted to be Zita from the Zita the Spacegirl graphic novels by Ben Hatke, and I wanted to LET her because those books are fantastic and I recommend them to everyone. Strong female protagonist! Various misfit companions! Derring-do! Anyway. I took this suuuuuuuper sketchy ghost costume I got on the cheap

and turned it into a tunic and glued a Z to it. Made her a cape,

dyed her hair 'black' with some awful spray-on dye I got at the dollar store (it turned her hair a powdery grey and got all over EVERYTHING but she was like, My hair is so black! I'm just like Zita! So basically it worked) and bought her a pair of sick boots I was going to buy her anyway.

Geneva was Zita's animal companion, Mouse. I took a rat costume that we had lying around, made the eyes and ears bigger (and one ear tore up, because Mouse is an outlaw who has seen some shit), gave her a collar made of a toilet paper tube and some pulled-apart Christmas ornaments, and a saddle that ended up being more trouble than it was worth. Presto, instant Mouse.

I let them run around the yard in their costumes for a while, pretending I was the bad guy.

Look at these two pals.

My parents asked to come out for Halloween, which would never have occurred to me because I keep forgetting that we live near people we know, even though we see them all the time. But it was so damn magical.

Joel was working late, so it would have been me alone with the girls, like every other year, and they were being so adorable. Literally every woman who opened the door to Geneva-as-Mouse crooned, Ohhhhhhhh, aren't you cute. Especially when she's like, Twicka tweet! Fank you, happy Halloween! And Eleanor and her Everyday Excitement cranked to eleven, and I had other people there who love my kids to be like, Yes this is excellent, they are being excellent.

IT WAS MARVELOUS. Because the reason I've kept this blog going for so long is for the same reason any parent will tell you long-winded stories about their kids, because we just want to SHARE OUR KIDS with like literally anyone will do, but primarily with the people who care about us and our progeny.

Also, there was a house down the way with a fire pit and marshmallows, and that ain't nothing.

We met up with the girls' cousins and some other friends near the end of the night, and a mad horde of children darting from house to house (with Eleanor in the lead, and Geneva bringing up the rear and telling other kids, 'Das enuff' when she thought they were taking too much candy from the bowl) is everything I wanted it to be.

We got home LATE, but I let Eleanor stay up an extra half-hour to peer out the window and hand out candy to trick-or-treaters. Most of today was spent sorting and re-sorting their candy

and crowing over their loot. I have eaten so many tiny Oh Henrys I can barely see straight.

Oh hey look it's Dinovember already.

Pumpkin Day

Halloweeeeeeen I love it. I love holidays so much. I like things with TRAPPINGS, I like pomp and also circumstance, and I like Geneva running around calling things 'so sapooky' because she's still working on consonant combinations.

Anyway. Yesterday was Pumpkin Day. We had pumpkin waffles and 'whupp cream.' The girls both have pumpkins from a field trip to the pumpkin patch (about more which anon), Joel's pumpkin is from a trip to the corn maze (anon), and DO YOU REMEMBER MY RAZZLE DAZZLE PUMPKIN FROM THE APPLE ORCHARD? I bet you do. I have gotten all nine dollars worth out of that pumpkin. For a while there, it was a Cinderella coach (being driven by a shark, natch)

and when October rolled around, the bone spiders took over.

Last night I CUT INTO IT and ok on the one hand it was a mile thick.

On the other hand, it was a pretty soft-shelled pumpkin, and it took me like two minutes to carve out a giant mouth and two beady eyes.

I got the girls to gut their own pumpkins

and they were both just like, Ick

and eventually abandoned me to read this Halloween flap book with like NO WORDS so they just sit there lifting flaps and going, Ahhhhhh! AHHHHHHH! Ack!

I had misplaced the girls' smocks (and bath robes and aprons) in the move, and I knew that as soon as I found replacements, I would find the originals, but we needed painting smocks so I picked some up from the dollar store, and NO JOKE YOU GUYS TODAY I FOUND THE ORIGINAL SMOCKS but ok fine now I have back-up smocks for guests.

Everybody painted.

Everybody ate pumpkin seeds.

Everybody went to bed and then I put one entire set of fangs into my pumpkin and texted this picture to my sister like, Should I stop now? Should I show some restraint?

And she was like MORE TEETH and I had bought three packs of teeth because REASONS and omg we made such a good decision.

I'm so delighted.

Rat School

We dragged the dress-up bin out of storage at the beginning of the month, and the girls have been putting on non-stop 'shows.' The other day, the 'show' became 'Rat School.'

They had nap time!

They had snack time!

They had outside time!

Eleanor sat Geneva down and had Rat Circle Time, where she sang all the songs she could think of from her own school but incorporated the word 'Ratty' where appropriate. These kids are slaying me.

Thanksgiving!

A while ago, Eleanor found a shiny gold bead at the park, and carried it around in her shoe until it was time to go home. She kept it in her drawer of preciouses. She spent tens of minutes washing it in the sink, and I kept saying, Be careful, our sinks don't have stoppers, if it falls down the drain then it's gone and we can't get it back.

And then one day it fell down the drain.

She was devastated. And Grandma was coming to babysit that evening, so I wrote Grandma a card at Eleanor's dictation, asking that if Grandma came across a bead in her travels, would she mail it to Eleanor (we have lived far from family for so long that this is the only way Eleanor understands to get things to people).

The next morning, I got a text saying that Eleanor might have mail at the door, she should check. It was a bead.

That was weeks ago, and she still talks about it all the time.

This is the kind of thing that wouldn't have been possible in Saskatoon, both the babysitting and the next-day hand-delivery of the bead. It snowed in Saskatoon last week and I felt so nostalgic. Snow is fun; rain is garbage weather. I still miss Josie so much. But we spent this weekend hanging out with my family,

with Joel's family,

and with our own little nuclear family, which is not the only family we have anymore.

Happy Thanksgiving.

A catch-up

Buncha photos hanging out on my computer, taking up space. Look! My father-in-law built me some garden beds!

Eleanor has reached an age of being actually helpful about stuff. I can leave her with the hose and be like, Please water everyone thx be back in 10.

We didn't plant until mid-July, for obvious reasons, but things have been doing alright. Potato patch:

POTATO PATCH! Gotta dig that guy up soon!

Tomato row:

TOMATO ROW!

(In all honesty, tomato row is not doing super well. I only managed six cherry tomato plants this year and one of them died and the rest aren't producing super prolifically, so the girls go out every day and fight over the handful of semi-ripe tomatoes and none of them ever get to red unless we are out of town for a bit. NEXT YEAR I WILL DO BETTER.)

Garden beds:

GARDEN BEDS!

My parents brought me a housewarming kale when they came to help us move in, and it died a little bit when I transplanted it to the garden but now you can see it is a MONSTER. Also monstrous are my cucumbers. Geneva loves to get her hands on a massive one and just carry it around for the day.

IT IS PRECIOUS TO HER.

I have never once managed to bring carrots to term, but I've also always been racing against the Saskatoon ground freeze. I thinned my carrots the other day and they are actually growing and I should be able to leave them for another month at least, so we might get carrots!

Other news. One of my many Sads in leaving Saskatoon is because it's where Eleanor spent her toddler years, and all of my memories are tied up with her hilarious little toddler self. I mean. Look at this little bald hamhock, can barely see out a window. 

WHO IS THIS NINE-YEAR-OLD, I'm asking.

The Olympics were a thing that happened. We made medals to celebrate. 

Eleanor, listing off Olympic sports that she knows: 'Olympic diving, Olympic jumping, gymnastics with a ball, punching, strong time...'

We ate a lot of suppers in front of the tv, and there has never been more Jumping Off Of Stuff Or Over Each Other.

Geneva would do this 'slow emotion' walk, I died every time.

I took the girls to Coneheads, ice cream parlour of my late teens/early 20s/camp counselor years.

Geneva takes the daintiest licks, and her mouth is so small, and her tongue likewise, and it was the hottest day and that ice cream dripped all over her dress.

Eleanor helped her finish it. 'Don't bite it, Ewwonah! Just WICK it! DON'T BITE IT.'

They have spent a non-zero amount of the past month decorating themselves (and each other! And ME!) with pipe cleaners.