Sort of retro playground

We went to the playground in Clyde Park today. It had the sorts of equipment that they don't put on playgrounds in this day and age because they're allegedly too dangerous. Fina's favorite thing was the merry-go-round. I took the picture on her first ride, but later she was looking way less scared and doing such things as standing and yelling "push faster, minon!!"

I thought I took more pictures but apparently I just took one pic of each thing because I was too busy playing with the kids.

Here's Eloise refusing to ride on the chipmunk, and instead playing in the sand with a broken bucket that she found. I like how it looks like derpy horse is sneaking up on her.

Fina's second favorite thing was the teeter totter. Probably because there were no other kids her size so she sat on it while I slowly pushed her up and down and it wasn't too scary. Also, top of the teeter totter is the best place to take a picture of a kid because you get that blue sky in the background and the face of pure joy.

Fina sat down on this swing and said, "huh, they don't make swings like this anymore!"

Eloise thought Fi had a great idea so she asked me to push her in the baby swing. It was super high up so I didn't have to bend down to push.

Another teeter totter picture, just because they're so great. I put Eloise on the end of the teeter totter that I was pushing and held onto her and she screamed at me the whole time. She doesn't know what she's missing.

Yard Sale Haul

Went yard saling with my mom today. She was looking for things she could possibly sell for a profit, I was looking for summer clothes for Fina (and various other things.)

Arguably the best deal of the day, this sale was selling clothes for $1 a bag. We were kind of meh because the clothes were pretty well worn, but then we found the super cute black pants and were like "well, these are worth a buck, may as well buy all the clothes in her size." 5 shirts, 1 pair of pants, 3 shorts, 2 skirts, and 3 pairs of pajamas later, we paid our buck.

Various treasures, easy bake mixes, little people king and queen, trucks, peek-a-boo tiger, stuffing, baseball mitts.

3 dresses and a pair of shorts for Fi, a short overall outfit for Weez, (currently too big) 3 dollars for all this.

2 dresses nwt for Eloise, $1 for both.

Cake pan and various stuffed animals (mostly to try to sell).

The big crap, $5 pack n play and a cd rack thingy that we can use for displaying quilts or something.

Pretty good day.

Just Eloise

My mom and grandma took Serafina to Yellowstone park with them on Monday, and Eloise and I stayed home with the dogs. It was a gorgeous day so I suggested we go fill the pool.

I tried to show her how to play with the hose but she wasn't having any part of it, while the pool filled she just sat on the picnic table and frowned at me. 

 

She got over it quickly though and had great fun dipping her hands in and rubbing the water on her arms.

She was playing daintily, she had to hold the towel in one hand and then she'd dip her hand in

Then she would dry it off with her towel.

Eventually she decided to just skip the middleman and dunk the towel in.

I love this goofy face.

This was the reaction after she licked a dandelion.

Working hard sweeping the lawn.

Playing with the water toys.

Drinking from the boat.

She played with the pool for quite some time, although she never actually got in it that day. The next day she got in and was swimming but she had stripped naked so there's no pictures of that. She's a little water baby.

Birthday Cake

Fina has been begging to bake for weeks so we took it upon ourselves to bake a birthday cake for my mom. Fina kept coming up with "recipes" she wanted to try like "Mommy, wouldn't it be delicious if we added goldfish crackers to the cake when we make it?" But I'm the sort of jerk that just kept shooting her down.

I let her decorate it with minimal input though. She was trying to spread the frosting by mashing it down really hard and she tore the middle of the cake so I helped her with that part and then let her make some designs with the tube of icing she had picked. (Doesn't she have wonderful handwriting? j/k I wrote the words.)

Eloise was the official taste tester, although she cried and ran away when I first tried to give her the spatula I used to spread the frosting, she came around when I said "ok, I'm going to give it to Fina then." She looks all sugared up, this was after we were done and she was eating sprinkles plain.

She helped a little with decorating the cake, her job was throwing fistfuls of sprinkles on while her sister carefully placed them one by one on the other end.

It's very festive. Hopefully it tastes good, it was the prettiest cake I have ever baked before I frosted it, it was perfectly smooth on the top and not creepily lumpy.

No Training Wheels

I'm the world's newest believer in balance bikes. I was watching Fi zip around on Eloise's birthday bike yesterday and I said "You know, maybe we should just take the training wheels off your big bike."

She said no at first. Then she got her big bike out and rode up and down the sidewalk with her training wheels on. Then she said "I changed my mind, take the training wheels off." So I did, and then she was too scared. So I said "try riding like you do on Eloise's bike, just use your feet and don't bother with the pedals."

And she tried that, and then she got the little balance bike back and rode it a couple times. And then she said "let's do this. You hold my bike while I get going."

So I gave her a push and off she went. She still won't try starting off without me pushing and she'll only ride in a straight line, but as she builds her confidence I'm sure she'll be whizzing around the neighborhood in no time.

And here's a little clown wearing her sister's pants. She thought it was the funniest thing that ever happened.

Cute Day

This morning I was informed that it was "cute day" and we had to dress in cute clothes, and hairbows were a necessity. Of course they've lost pretty much all their bows and barrettes through the course of Fina being in preschool for a year, so I decided to dig out my ribbon. I considered just tying a bow around their ponytails and being done, but since it was a special occasion and all, I dug out the glue gun too and googled "hair bow tutorial" and clicked on the first one that looked good to me.

Fina was a little disappointed with my choice, because she wanted "a bow that looks like a bow" but once I got Eloise's done she decided these wouldn't be too bad. Of course hers had to have a little more flair than Eloise's.

I took them outside to try to get pictures, but they were less than cooperative. I love how Fi has El in like a head lock.

Do you like the props? She chose them herself.

I finally gave in and let them go play, but I kept taking pictures hoping that perhaps one would turn out.

I was going to put a pink button in the middle of Eloise's flower to match her outfit but I like daisies and besides, she can wear her bow with other outfits.

It makes me want to get some more ribbon in different colors and some proper hair clips and experiment with making them all sorts of bows. (I just used bobby pins today and they worked fine but look a little funny in the hair because they're so big, especially on Eloise's head.)

Weekend in West Yellowstone

We got to go visit John at his summer digs this weekend. We went on Friday afternoon and stayed until Monday.

Friday evening I pulled out a pair of child sized camp chairs that my mom had picked them up at a thrift store. Eloise was so excited! She dragged that little chair in off the balcony after dinner so she could sit around the living room in it.

Fina said "I need to borrow your camera!" The rainbows were really cool but we weren't so happy that it was raining.

Saturday we went into Yellowstone even though it was cloudy and rainy. John decided it would be fun to just drive around, and it sounded fun in theory but in practice it was pretty sucky. The kids got bored and the animals were all hiding from the rain. Every time we saw bison calves they would point out the window and yell, "BABIES!"

The rain let up and I convinced John to stop at a trail I kept wanting to do last year but the parking lot was always full. We didn't get to do the whole thing because we're fat and horribly out of shape it has stairs and we had the stroller. It was kind of nice that it was overcast because it wasn't too hot. But then we got done and back to the car and realized we had forgotten the water bottles at the house so we decided to drive to canyon village and buy drinks, and they were in the middle of a power outage so it took over an hour to wait in line and purchase our beverages. It kind of sucked. Then it rained a bunch more and we rode in the car until everyone was crabby, and then we went home and John was like "I've been up since 1:30. Good night, suckers!"

I made toasted cheese sandwiches and served them on the balcony. They look crabby but really they were excited. They just didn't know why I was taking pictures of them stuffing their faces. They love to sit on the balcony all evening long.

The next morning they played with the weird "daddy's house toys" while we waited for John to get home from work. I thought Eloise looked super cute in her "you look like a baby" outfit but while we were eating lunch she spilled her whole glass of milk on herself so I had to change her before we went out.

We went to the fountain paint pot trail which has pretty pools and mud pots and a few geysers, and mud pots are pretty much my favorite thing in the world. When we saw this pool Fina said to me "mommy, do you know which color is the hottest? The blue." So apparently all the trips to the old faithful visitor center have paid off. 

3 of my favorite things! One mud pot and the two best girls in the whole world.

I didn't even realize how pretty the sky was until we got home and I uploaded the pictures. It was a gorgeous day. And I even remembered the water bottles!

Serafina has to stop and take pictures of all the flowers she sees. These particular flowers turned out hilarious because someone touched her camera lens with grubby fingers so the white flowers in really bright sunlight look like they're glowing.

I tried to get her to pose nice by spasm geyser, but she was being a little silly and decided to take a picture of the sign while I took a picture of her. This day we were smart and all we did was drive into yellowstone and walk this one trail and then drive back out. I have to tell you though we were waiting in line for the outhouse after we hiked and the people who were coming out kept going on and on about how it was horrendously stinky in there and they had found that the only way to tolerate it was to put sanitizer on their hands and then hold them up to their nose while they did their business. So when it was finally Fina and my turn I geared myself up for a stinky outhouse, but as far as outhouses go it wasn't so bad. On a scale of 1-10 I'd rank the odor somewhere around a 3. Maybe those complainy dudes haven't been in as many outhouses as we have.

In the evenings I was often treated to a "shadow show". Fina would line stuffed animals and plastic horses up on the couch for an audience (leaving one cushion for me of course) and Eloise would sit on her little chair. The shows were pretty nonsensical but it kept her busy for quite some time.

After 2 nights of this, Eloise finally figured out that Fina was getting a lot of attention so she had to go get in on this. I don't mind sitting on the couch while my kids hide behind the curtains and giggle like loons. Eloise was a bear to get to go to sleep, so last night I kept her up until she fell asleep on the couch, then carried her to her playpen. It worked well.

Once she goes to sleep, she stays that way. She slept in until like 9 today.

After breakfast I cleaned the kitchen. Can you guess where Eloise's pacifier is?

Serafina went down to pick a nice bouquet of dandelions for the kitchen table since it looked so nice and she thought flowers would be a nice touch.

When the dishwasher finished, Eloise and her pacifier sat on the balcony for like an hour just watching the world go by.

It's surprisingly easy to entertain them at John's house, the wind around there is great for the pinwheels and they just love the balcony. (Note: I washed her look like a baby outfit on Sunday afternoon so I could make her wear it on Monday. When I put it on her she said "No! Not a baby!" So we have to stop calling it that I guess. She spilled on it and then changed into her birthday dress before we went home.)

We found that Daddy keeps otter pops in his freezer. Eloise wasn't sure what to do with them but after she watched Fina and figured it out, she decided it wasn't half bad. We had planned to hang out and go home after dinner, but John got home from work looking pale and exhausted so I told him we were going to just head home so he could take a nap. He argued that we shouldn't ruin our day plans because of him and blah blah, but I assured him that it wouldn't ruin our day. He and Eloise rocked in the rocking chair while Fi and I packed up all our stuff, and then we went home. Eloise was asleep before we even turned onto the highway.