Happy Valentine's Day everyone!
Dave and I don't typically do anything super special for Valentine's Day, and this year is no different. For us anyway... This is probably going to be Emilia's favorite day of the year where she gets to freely express her love to everyone with cards and gifts and hugs.
Anyway it's been another 2 weeks since I last posted. Classic!
On February 2, Dave and I got to go do a big shoot with Kimber Images/Ki.StoryStudios for an American Pharmaceutical Company. They wanted the production line of their vials being filled shot, and Dave needed an Assistant. "(Enter me!) - she said in parentheses." [Hamilton Reference :)]
We were on site for about 6.5 hours. I am limited in what I can share, so I can't show any of the super cool parts of the machine, but it was a fun (and exhausting) day working together, and the footage turned out great! Dave bought a Go-Pro for the day and that was probably the best $300 something dollars spent.
February 3 we played outside and had a games night with Jesse and Kirstin. They have a game similar to Supertock. And of course we had chips and guac! We send each other teaser photos of our ripening avocados often haha.
That's the bedtime version. During the day Eva knows exactly what buttons to push to drive Emilia (and anyone else) crazy, so that's a good time haha!
February 4 Dom looked like he might be coming down with something, so just Emilia and I went to church. She will do anything to spend time with me. It's adorable. The service was ON POINT, and in order to distract myself so I didn't cry, I watched Emilia play with her goody bag magnet game and create new animals haha. I love that they give out goody bags to kids who don't want to go to Sunday School. It's so inclusive and thoughtful. A snack, a coloring book, some little quiet games, poppers, fidgets, etc. Just enough to keep a kid quiet and busy for half an hour.
We did communion together which was a sweet moment. It was my first time actually doing Communion at Southpoint, because I'm always in the back with Eva. It was also my first time sitting and listening to a sermon in quite a while. So refreshing and soul-filling.
After church the sun came out, and Emilia and I looked at each other. "You know," I said, "we're only 10 minutes from the beach." We zipped down the hill and went for a breezy walk on the pier. She was on cloud 9. Loved it! She also never stopped talking. Ever.
On Tuesday, I reached out to Scott to see if he and Phoebe wanted to do something. We decided to meet at the W.C. Blair Rec Centre with the girls to go swimming. We had just signed Eva up for swimming lessons and I wanted to get her in the pool one more time first! She was very excited, and had a freaking blast in the pool. She's just so different than the other two kids (especially at this age). One consideration is that she's not a product of COVID I suppose. Anyway, the girls loved every second, Phoebe encouraged Eva to go out of her comfort zone, and everyone was very tired afterwards haha.
That night, Mom came over to watch Dom & Eva so that Dave could come watch Emilia's horseback riding! She was grinning ear to ear most of the time and was so proud to show off her favorite horse and her developing skills to Dad. <3
I also always love playing and bonding with the horses. Blue and I had a nice cuddle and for the second week in a row I managed to get his bridle on on my own!
Wednesday morning I went to spin as usual, and then off to work. I noticed as I walked into work that the sky was lightening already at 7am and I took a very deep breath. Spring is coming!
Thursday Gramma & Grandpa came to hang out with Eva so that I could go do some more work at the library. We had dinner with them too which was lovely! Some chicken pot pie, salad, and we tried some wine (Bask) that has 0g of sugar. Considering it has no sugar it was pretty alright! A decent alternative.
Friday night Jeff came over for some darts and a hang out. We played golf. Dave annihilated us. I lost by a decent margin, but Dave just absolutely slayed.
Saturday the whole family went to watch Dom's hockey with First Shift. The girls had a blast running around on the bleachers. Dom did great with his hockey. He was a little nervous to have us all there, but kept smiling and waving over at us. In skating lessons he sort of refused to try, and it was a bit discouraging for all of us. In hockey it's different. He has the gear, he has the stick, and when he is given a task he does not stop until he's told to stop. They were running drills in stations and most of the kids would take a break 2-3 times through, but Dom kept going. It was encouraging for us to see this drive in him! He's really enjoying it and I can tell he's very proud of himself. We're not allowed to make a big deal out of it though because that's "embarrassing" for him. Pfft. This kid will hardly even give me a hug goodbye in the mornings now! Little teenager.
In the afternoon Emilia and I finished up her Valentine's cards for school. Could they be any cuter? I don't think so.
Dave set up some drills for the kids to do outside for fun. Dom was practicing his stick handling. Emilia was scootering and "doing a workout." She is 39 pounds and DESPERATELY wants to get to 40 so she can go to a booster seat. She does her "workouts" and eats more than usual lately just trying to build that extra bit up.
Saturday night we went over to Scott and Ashleigh's, but had 20 minutes to kill before hand, so we popped over to Trading Post because I had a free flight coupon! Yum yum. The autumn IPA was my favorite that day.
In the afternoon we dropped Dom off at a birthday party at Morgan Play Centre. He came home SO sweaty!
On Monday Eva decided she'd like to potty-train. We had dropped the kids off at school and she saw underwear on the counter at home. She gave it a really good try, and did manage a success (sort of). Mostly she just held it until she couldn't hold it any more. I was not mentally prepared for potty-training, but I spent every waking moment with her. Right next to her.
At 5pm I took her to her first Parent & Tot swimming lesson. She loved it. She was hilarious. We were in the tot pool which is too shallow for her (only coming up to her belly-button), but she did everything the instructor asked and was fully engaged the whole time. She's a pleasure to do new things with.
Tuesday was more of the same. I went to spin in the morning and skipped my shower so that I could be with her from the moment she woke up. We dropped the kids off at school and I threw a pull-up on her. She took that opportunity to pee of course. The rest of the morning I stuck right by her side, we cheers-ed and drank lots of water together, we baked together, we did puzzles, we played games, she sat on the potty, she did a pee-dance for over an hour, etc. You know how it goes... Finally I really had to pee, so she followed me into the bathroom and proceeded to pee as I was peeing and trapped and couldn't help her to the potty. I decided this was not going to work if she just held her pee until every opportunity where she could get away with not releasing on the potty. There were no tears or outward frustration from either of us, so it wasn't a stressful experience. I just think maybe we'll try again another day :). She agreed to that, we shook on it, and we carried on with our day after nap time in diapers! No harm done. There's really no rush anyway. She doesn't have to be trained until September when she starts preschool.
We had an early dinner of tacos (a taco bowl for me which was to die for!) and then Emilia and I were off to horseback riding again. Afternoons are busy lately. We got a surprise when we got there and found out she wouldn't be riding Blue as he had a day off. I did not know how this would go. She's been on Blue for a couple months and is loving him. In the past she's been very nervous about new horses. Blue is the only one we (I) have tacked too. As it turns out, she was assigned to French Toast, a little horse I didn't even know existed.
Back to French Toast. He's so adorable. His size is between a pony and Blue. His back is about as tall as Emilia. He was lovely to tack. Calm, engaged, curious. Emilia confidently petted him and walked him out of the stall to the barn. Riding him was a very different experience from Blue. I'm sure Emilia was a little hesitant, but he was also quite certain he was a wild stallion that had to be tamed. He was stubborn and goofy and Emilia had her work cut out for her. She did great though. I mean he's still picked out for beginners, so he wasn't SO wild, but just definitely not as seasoned as the others she's ridden. She smiled lots, and I was very very proud of her for doing it even though it was an unexpected surprise and a brand new horse and that may have made her feel nervous. She says she likes Toast, but was a little frustrated and hopes she's back with Blue next week.
We're thinking we may take a break for the summer. Life is getting really expensive and busy, and I don't want to worry about squeezing in make-up lessons if we're away for a week. We will talk and think about it more, but that's the thought for now.
Continued musings about the seasons:
As I get older and go through each season, I am recognizing the patterns. I know the November time change is going to be hard. I know it's going to be dark, and wet, and we will be getting cabin fever. I count down the days until the Winter Solstice because then I know it will start getting lighter! I feel a brief moment of hope on that day. We made it! The weeks following New Years are harder. School is back. Holidays are over. I start feeling a slump, a stress, a tension, an irritability, a lack of motivation. I notice it in Dave and the kids, too. I wonder if it's me. I wonder why I have such a hard time getting out of bed. I wonder why I can't seem to think of a single thing for dinner. I wonder why I feel alone. Then we have one day of sunshine and I realize... it's the season. I remember what I am truly like! I am motivated, I am energetic, I love to cook, I can breathe, I am strong, I am a good friend, I am a hard worker.
This one day of sunshine is the encouragement I need to get through to Spring. The days will get longer. The air will get warmer. The trees will be green again. We're almost there!
Anyway that was an un-planned aside. Here are a few other random photos from the week:
"Kilring (colouring)"
Me too, girl. Me too.
