You Are My Licorice: Life Updates

God, I miss blogging. I miss being able to go back and read what life was like, what the girls were doing, what stages they were at, what we did for birthdays, how we were celebrating holidays. I really blogged for myself: a journal of these oh-so-fleeting stages of the girls' childhoods and our life together. And I'm really mad at myself for letting it lapse.

Easter 2017

I've been busy, but that shouldn't be an excuse. I'll probably never fully forgive myself for not continuing the 2x a year letters to the girls - I need to start that up again. I have such a terrible memory: Emmeline says something hilarious and I tell myself I'll write it down and then I forget and then a year has passed and I've basically forgotten how entirely hilarious she was (and still is) between the ages of two and now. I missed blogging Carys's 5th birthday and Emmeline's 3rd birthday. WHAT DID WE EVEN DO FOR THEM?!? A year plus of holidays has gone undocumented...missing Halloween posts, Christmas posts, Easter posts....(there are plenty of pictures, sure, but when do I get on the computer and look at them?! Rarely.). And I miss writing. I love to write, and I think I may have forgotten how to form intelligent, cohesive, and dare I say humorous sentences. Like entirely forgotten. I used to be funny and a good writer. Now I can barely pull myself together to write down a grocery list.

October 2016

Life is so different now than it was in 2015 when I was last regularly writing. Carys is getting ready to start kindergarten this fall (deciding to wait until this year to send her is a post in and of itself). She can read and write and is the most creative, kind-hearted kid I've ever met. Emmeline's three and barely even a toddler - she's a full-on preschooler who knows letters and opposites and how to spell her name and write a (small) handful of letters and is just silly and fierce. And the picture of "doesn't give a fuck." We had Emmeline's third birthday a full 3.5 months ago - Candyland themed. We're planning Carys's sixth (SIX?!?!) birthday, and it will be Moana themed. Carys is in dance class and swim class and drama class. Emmeline does swim class and "messes" class, a toddler class at the Y where they paint and run around like maniacs.

Emmeline, March 2017 - - - - Carys, April 2017

We're getting ready to go to Disney this summer - I earned a trip for myself to Disney through my work with Usborne books and it's been a flurry of planning and research and seriously? When I earned the trip I didn't even know what Disney WAS. Like...I knew it was a theme park. But I didn't really understand if it was rides? Shows? Characters standing around everywhere to meet? If it was just rides, what made it that much better than going to Worlds of Fun that's only two hours away and probably literally $5,000 chapter? I still am completely clueless, but I now can name about five restaurants at every park, list all of the Disney resorts, and tell you the list of all of the rides in Fantasyland in order of popularity. So I'll be a well-informed clueless first-timer.

April 2017

We got a guinea pig (named Link) and a beta fish (named Azul, or as Emmeline calls him, Blue in Spanish) and we're like REALLY working on Chris to let us get a dog. The hypothetical dog is already named and the girls and I know exactly where we'll put his food and water and dog bed and whose job it will be to pick up poop and where we'll take him on walks.

October 2017

We've done shit to the house - new chairs, painted the front door, finished other rooms. There's still a lot to do (I mean it's only been TWO YEARS what do you want from me?!) but it's coming along nicely. Mostly. We haven't touched our bedroom and it's kind of making me twitchy so maybe that will be this summer's project. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Checking out baby chicks; April 2017

We visited my mom in Dubuque and went camping. We went to the zoo and children's museum and had playdates and went on a boat and oh, my god, went to an amazing, fun family reunion to Lake of the Ozarks and dude, I CANNOT FIND MY PICTURES FROM THAT TRIP ANYWHERE and if I'd been blogging I'd at least have a record on them here. What the hell. We went to California and I DO have pics from that trip but I don't think I've edited them yet. See, I need the pressure of a blog post in order to make me edit pictures!

I might go back and blog a few of the things that I want to share: the girls' birthdays (maybe before Carys's next birthday in three months!) (goals!), Halloween, vacation, I don't know. I just know that I want to get back to this space. I want to write again and document again and share again.

October 2016