I arranged our nap routine a little differently today for a couple of reasons. Number one is that Dekker is in an incredibly whiny stage right now, and I couldn’t bear to push him to stay up any longer when he was so clearly ready for a nap. Number two is that I had an leg wax appointment in the city at 4:45, with us needing to leave shortly before 4:00, which would mess with naps. Yes, Dekker naps into the late afternoon and still sleeps at night.

So as soon as Laela woke up from her morning nap, I put Dekker down. Normally I hold him off and they go down together at 2:00pm, but it sometimes takes Laela a while to fall asleep, so I figured she could stay up and sleep in the van. It worked for the most part, though Laela was quite exhausted by the time we left, and I still ended up having to wake Dekker, which he wasn’t impressed about. I digress.

While just Laela and I were downstairs, I gave her a bottle, which she didn’t finish. She did ok, but definitely not a full feeding. She wouldn’t take more, but she was still seemingly frustrated and unsettled. So I brought down a little ziploc container of cheerios and asked if she was hungry.

“Laela, would you like a Cheerio?”
*nods*

I had to laugh, because Laela nods at the funniest things. “Are you a goober?” “Do you think daddy is crazy town?” “Do you want to build a snowman?” All yeses.

She would chomp away at her Cheerio and then eye the container suspiciously. I’d ask her again. “Laela, would you like a Cheerio?” And she’s nod. I tested this out for probably the next half hour or so.

If I would offer too soon, she would stare at me blankly. If I still tried to feed her a Cheerio, she’d bat at my hand. But as soon as that Cheerio was completely gone out of her mouth, she’d stare down that container. “Laela, would you like a Cheerio?” And she’d nod!

Another scenario is based on me not paying attention. If I wasn’t offering her a Cheerio when she wanted one, she would crawl onto my legs or wherever she could get her hands on me, catch my eye, and nod. “Oh,” I’d say, “did you want a Cheerio?” Wide-eyed nodding. Crazy little girl! She’s already communicating so well!!!

By the end of our snack date, she was sooo tired, and if her mouth wasn’t gumming a Cheerio, it was hanging open, crying itself hoarse. Poor dude. So we ended up leaving the house early. Getting to my appointment early. Getting in early (Love my waxing girl, Jenn! She’s always ahead of schedule!) and getting home early 🙂

We had fried perogies in sour cream for supper which was divine, and now the kids are in bed and we are running a cool bath to save our ridiculously warm selves from our 30C house; Poor us. Don’t worry!! I don’t want snow! I’m not complaining about the heat! Just a little stinky in here…

Guesswhatitsmybirthday!!! See what I did there? I made it seem like I said those words really excitedly, where in real life, I’m not particularly thrilled with turning twenty six. I know I’m not old, but I still remember high school well enough to feel like I just left there. Yet, in the years since, I have went to college, moved to Winnipeg and back, gotten married, and produced two fabulous kids. I have filled my years, and I’m happy with my life. But still…

Brady is younger than me. Did you guys know that? Just by a little. He was born mid-October, so its like two and a half months, but I remember when I turned twenty and he was still a teenager. Gross, right? And then I was in my twenties while he was still only twenty. I hit mid-twenties first, and now I’m passing mid-twenties without him!!! Not ok with me. He’s so young and carefree. Sigh. To be young again.

I’M OBVIOUSLY KIDDING! No, I’m not thrilled with aging, but I know I’m at a good place at a young age still. I spent the day with the cuties that are my kids…

 

And my cute mom. I just don’t have a picture of her from today :/ Oops! We had a super delicious lunch of soup and grilled cheese (isn’t that always yummy every day of the week?) and then played and played with the kids until they were positively droopy. It was perfect actually, because Laela didn’t have a morning nap, so they were both equally wiped and slept for a really long time. My mom and I visited in the living room pretty much the whole time, which was exactly what I wanted. I know we are blessed to live close and see each other often, but it doesn’t always feel like we get time to just sit. We’re always doing stuff! So this was perfect. She even told me my birth story. As I kid, I vaguely remember rolling my eyes jokingly and laughing at the stereotype of the emotinoal mother blubbering her way through the birth story, but I love hearing it now. I have more questions and want to see how we can relate. I learned that my first cries sounded a lot like Laela’s big cries. I like knowing that.

Once the boys started making their way home, supper began to come together. I requested barbecued chicken, mashed potatoes, and green bean casserole with the yummy mushroom sauce and crunchy onions. Everything was sooo good! I ate my body weight, I swear. My mom had prepared a yummy lemon birthday cake for me as well, which is an obvious favorite, if you know anything about me. LEMON! Delish. My parents gave me some cashola that I now have to be smart with and decide what to buy!!, and Brady gave me…drumroll please…the Naked3 palette! Beautiful eye shadow that I’ve been drooling over for months and months and was planning to buy with my birthday money originally, so I couldn’t be happier with that 🙂 Hopefully I’m good at it!

A couple other notable things about today are all actually centred around Laela, but I have to share. Firstly, this happened…

Yup. Thats poop. Aaaaall up her back. We had no idea what to do with her, as this was our first real blowout ever! But honestly, I know the fact that we’re three years in and have only had one blowout means that no one will have any compassion for us. So we wiped her up with blankets as best as we could, and Brady washed her off in the tub while my mom ran all the poop covered garments through the wash. Thanks guys, for not making me participate too much in the poop touching on my birthday!!

The other exciting Laela news is that she can climb stairs. Lets recap. Two weeks ago, she started crawling. One week later, she was pulling up. And now she does stairs. It would appear she is incredibly eager to keep up!! I love her. She is fantastic and exciting and I can’t wait to experience her childhood with her.

Ok, the end. I am still full to the brim from supper, and my hair hurts from being pinned up all day. Time to let myself down now. Tomorrow brings lists, potentially laundry, and finally getting my legs waxed! Should be a good day, busy with things I can pretty much do out of the comfort of my cool basement, with an outing at the end.

Anyway, happy birthday to meeeee! Thank you for all the Facebook love as well. I feel it <3

I think a vast majority of people appreciate summer heat, since it tends to come and go around here. I know I do, anyway. But part of the reason I love it even more this year is because I have a bitty little girlie who wears soft little dresses and gets curls in her hair when she’s warm.

Can you see why?

We ran some errands in the city today, and finally got a few things accomplished. Not everything, but some. The kids were sooo tired and slept on the drive home. Not nearly long enough though. They were both crabby and upset once we got home, so we put them down for…

the most useless nap there ever was!!! Not one moment of silence. Dekker was crawling around his bed, hanging his legs over the side, standing up and bugging Laela, who then got up went all around her crib, grabbing the rail and bouncing and bouncing and bouncing. It was hilarious to watch, but it did precede a fairly long evening.

Dekker went down shortly after 7:30 and Laela is just going down now after her bottle. Deks is already fast asleep. Weirdly enough, she handles her fatigue quite a bit better than Dekker does, and will sooner just sit in one place and rub her eyes, while Dekker gets louder and louder the more tired he gets.

Our evening was hands on enough that Brady and I will only get supper after the kids are both tucked in, and I’m looking forward to leftover pasta! That was sooo good the first time, and I have nigh hopes for the leftovers. Yum! Supper and The Bachelorette sounds like the perfect end to this day. I hope you all have a great evening as well!

I’m gonna get right to the point tonight. Dekker cried basically from before supper til 7:30 when we gave up and put him to bed. Yes, it started with supper, but supper was sooo good!, and even he liked it! This really delicious creamy spaghetti that isn’t super heavy but just sweet and light and incredible, and garlic cheese toast. But he whined through most of that, and threw fit after fit afterwards. Therefore, I am sooo ready to be done with the day. Brady and I are just gonna have a phone date with his parents, and then its a relaxing soak and some Drop Dead Diva for me! And maybe a freezee. I feel like something cold like that tonight. Plus I’m still full from amazasupper. I’ve got my coconut leaves candle burning, and the fan blowing. Its +33 outside right now, at 8:00pm. Time to get comfy.

I don’t have anything specifically significant to talk about today, so here are two topics that came to mind that we’ve worked on a bit today.

Firstly, passports. Both Brady’s and my passports and completely expired, past the point of renewal. We figured that one day, we’ll find a great last minute vacation to go on, and then we’ll be screwed. So we’re getting our passports done. Not for the kids yet, though. Laela would sit ok for a picture but Dekker wouldn’t. So we’re starting with ours, since we’re not going anywhere anytime soon, and we’ll go from there. Plus, the kids ones don’t last as many years, so we’re not in a rush. But we’re filling ours out anyway. All thats left to do is ask references, hit up someone to be a guarantor, and then bring them in! Yay us! I’ll probably get the kids signed up for their SIN stuff then too. Double yay!

And next, prayer. Two parts. Part number one is that my girlfriend had a baby girl the other day. She was just shy of 27 weeks pregnant, resulting in a teeny tiny little micro-preemie baby girl. While she looks waaay better than I thought she looked, and she seems to be doing well, she needs lots and lots of prayer! So, if you think of me, think of them, ok? Secondly, something sweet about Dekkr has been that he prays before bed, and has for a while. He thanks Jesus for everyone in our family, one by  one, and anyone else he’s seen that day. Then he asks Jesus to be with him tonight, tells Him that he loves him, and says amen. Its adorable, and while its a memorized thing, I think its still very wonderful and pleasing to God. However, for a week or two now, Dekker doesn’t want to pray anymore. Brady often lets him have his quiet time instead, and just says his prayer for him, but if we push him at all, he really really complains and cries. What do we do, guys?? Have any of you had a similar thing, or just any ideas for us? I respect him wanting to take a break every once in a while, or just the general fact that he goes through stages, but this is something we view as a priority in our house. Any thoughts would be appreciated, as we really don’t want to leave it too long and have him just not want to put in the effort anymore.

On that note, both kids are in bed, tub is run, and bottles just need to be washed before we can start winding down. What to eat for snack – that is the question. I really want to bake cupcakes. Marble ones, I think…

These are definitely my topics of the day! They’re not in order of events but I’m just gonna roll with it.

Flowers

In one row of our garden, we put in five sunflowers. They’re between our row of potatoes and in amongst some corn as well. I’m very sad to say that I pulled them out today 🙁 They never got a chance to flower, but they did have a significant go at suffocating the rest of my garden with their height. I’m sad that they’re gone, but I’d rather that than have my veggies not thrive. We’ve had one successful crop since living here, and two complete fails. I want this one to work! I have to say that sunflowers are beefy, though! I had no idea! Each one I pulled out was like three trees that I couldn’t actually close my hand around. They were way heftier than I expected them to be. C’est la vie. I have enough sunshine in my day without flowers.

Bath time.

Saturday is always a bath day. Today, the kids napped way earlier than usual, so we bathed them pretty quickly after they woke up. That way, Dekker still had all evening to play and basically recover instead of him having a traumatic bath experience and then going to bed ten minutes later. It worked out great! Brady has taken a new approach to bathing Dekker and has completely stopped pouring the water over his head. He just uses his hands and wipes the suds out forever until its as clean as its gonna get. This will not be able to be a forever thing at all, as we can never get his hair completely clean that way, but he didn’t cry during his bath. We want a few of those so he can get comfortable with the idea again. While they bathed, I took pictures of Laela in her pre-bath naked state. I know some people are incredibly offended by even baby bums, so I’m not sure if its ok to post them on here or not, but I’ll tell you this – there are little coconut oil bum prints all over my living room, and I LOVE it!!!  Once the boys were done, I went to get Dekker and bring him to his room to get all changed up. When I got to the bathroom, he had dismissed his towel and was ready to go naked. Dekker hates being naked, and I really want him to like it so that it doesn’t seem so strange to take his pants off to use the potty. Does that make sense? Good theory?? So I praised him up and we ran to his room together. Once we got there, he wanted to run back and see Laela get her bath, so we ran back with him still all naked. He really liked it! While we were in the bathroom, I asked him if he wanted to sit on the potty while he was there. He said no. I asked if he had to pee, and he looked up at me, and started peeing. It seemed to catch him off guard, so I right away said “Oh, thats great! Dekker has to pee!” and lifted him onto the toilet. Well. That was clearly not what he wanted, so he cried. But I picked him up and Brady and I reassured him that it was sooo ok that he accidentally peed on the floor, and that we’d figure it all out. He smiled into the mirror and said “Right!” So while he definitely did pee on the floor, I felt successful somehow. He really cheered up fast, which doesn’t always happen in foreign situations. Yay Dekker!!!

Vans.

Ugh. Stupid vans. So the engine light on our family van went on the other day, and we blamed it on needing an oil change. Brady changed the oil today and the light stayed on after he reset everything. I suggested he go for a drive and get things circulated, and then see. After a drive, the light did go off! However, if its just a flukey thing and it comes back on, we’re planning on going away over the long weekend. We certainly can’t go with engine trouble! So that sucks. Also, Bradys work van is having an issue as well. The back hatch won’t open. That seems like a trivial issue, but he has enormous tools to load in and out of that van everyday, and dragging them in through the side doors is brutal and incredibly difficult. He can run some tests to see if maybe its a wiring issue or needs a new part, but he can’t do any of that unless the hatch opens, and its really, really persistent. So thats pretty cool. Who drives vans anyway?!?!

The end. I’m sooo ready for a bath. I wasn’t hungry really at all today, and of course, now I am starving. Always at bedtime. So I’m hoping for something delicious to eat in the tub. Ideas welcome 🙂

After being busy (good busy!) all week, today was just a quiet day at home with the kids. We did laundry and watched some TLC and played and snacked and generally enjoyed each other’s company. The weather was perfect too – blustery and dark, so the house stayed cool and the kids room was darker at nap time. It apparently helped a lot, since both kids slept just about three hours!!! We never get that kind of stretch out of Laela, so I was pretty pleased! I talked with my sister on the phone for a solid two hours this afternoon, which was so great. I love her. And miss her. A lot.

Brady brought home guilty pleasure food for supper, and we played upstairs for a little while. Most notably about today, Laela pulled up for the very first time!!! She’s been crawling for a week, and now, she is successfully pulling up. She pulled herself up on the couch I was sitting on, and once she was officially standing, she squealed and just beamed at me 😀 It was awesome!!! We clapped and made a huge deal of it all, and she was thrilled. She really, really responds to positive reinforcement. I love her.

Once the kids were solidly finished with the day, we get them all changed and ready for bed. Deks is down and Laela is drinking her milk. Soon it will be bath time, some Bachelorette, and maybe snack time. I really overate at supper, so maybe not so much snack time.

Nice to be home, cuddling with my kids.

Daytona Homes hosted its second golf day in Saskatoon today. Last year, I could only make it for the supper afterwards, and it had been fun! Good guys, good food, and a very short work talk. I liked it. I was excited to be able to go this time around for the whole event!

My parents came to our house around 9:30 to watch the kids for the day, and we took off shortly there after. We made it to the Willows about a half hour early and I met a few of the guys Brady works with. Last year, he hardly knew anyone, it seemed, but there were so many more people this time around, as the builder grows and expands and needs more guys. We headed into a sea of golf carts and finally found ours, marked for Brandy and Hailey Born. Tee hee 🙂

We all golfed in groups of four, so we were joined by Bradys J&H supplier as well as one of the site supervisors that he sees on a regular basis. I have to say, we had the perfect team 🙂

In case no one knows this about me, my hand eye coordination is laughable. Or non existent. Whichever. I cannot make the club hit the ball for the life of me. So I was just a ride along, but I walked to each and every hit with the guys, and was the moral support/eye candy/heckler. They were great sports, and only forced me to hit twice. I hit water once, and missed a putt on the other. Who’s surprised? No one. But it was funny and embarrassing and I liked it. One of the guys treated the rest of us to lunch and drinks along the way, and by the end, our score was +2, so not too bad, but certainly not a winning score. It was just really nice to get out in the SUN!, since the 80% chance of thunderstorms didn’t come. Yet. The rain started on our very last hole. It spat a little, and as soon as we were inside, the clouds opened! It was awesome!

After we golfed, we dropped off our carts and went inside for food. I hope no one hates on me here, but I wasn’t super impressed with the food last year. Yet I know really good mass produced food is hard to come by. I’m not a picky eater, but I just went into it not expecting it to be wowed. I have to say, the salads were weird. I ate a couple bites of the ones I picked, and then pushed them all together in a pile so they wouldn’t mush into my other food. However, the steak I got was INCREDIBLE! I asked for medium rare, which often gets me something yummy, but often more like a medium. But I lucked out and received a steak done to perfection. It was comically large, but embarrassingly enough, I destroyed it, and would have gone back for more had I not been where I was. I could have eaten steak and garlic toast all night.

What I liked about being at this event that was obviously more geared towards men was that, once everyone had eaten, they got to the talking, and then it was over. I like visiting, but not for hours and hours on end with people I don’t know very well, so this was good. They announced winning teams and gave prizes, and then drew a few names for other prizes. Very few things on the table were things we would really want or use, except the job site stereo. Brady reeeaaally wanted that. So I won it! When they called me, our table burst out laughing, and I went to claim my prize. We had a great table of guys, almost our exact same table as last year actually, plus two hilarious guys added in. It felt good to be rooted for anyway 🙂

Once all the prizes were over, we headed out and ended up walking with another man from J&H. We had such a nice visit, talked family a little bit, and at the end, he said he really enjoyed our company and would love to see us for lunch sometime. I loved being involved in that. I think I even asked “Me too?” And he said yes! Its just so refreshing. I don’t want to be rude towards anyone, but at Bradys last home builder, there was no trade appreciation, and people weren’t warm like this. I felt awkwardly welcome, and while I was definitely the only spouse invited, I felt like I fit it. I don’t remember the last time before tonight that someone from work hugged me.

It was a really really great day. We grabbed some ice cream and headed home to our beautiful kidlets. They were up for about a half hour before we tucked them in and let our parents go on their way. Now for a soak and some Netflix. What a great way to end a wonderful day!!

Stay safe tonight, everyone. Tornado warnings everywhere!!!

While we had a great trip to the lake, I was very much looking forward to being home in my house with my family. I can pretty honestly say that I felt lighter at the lake 🙁 I’m not sure if its some psychological thing or what, but I already feel heavy, and I’ve only been home for a few hours. Hopefully that passes once I settle in and get back in the groove of my life. But so far, I just wish I were still at the lake. On that semi-pessimistic note, PHOTO POST!!!

 

At least the little sweetie slept part of the way to the lake! The other part, she cried.

 

 

Hanging on the beach with these non-swimmers.

 

Could have done without the engine light… Pretty sure we’re just due for an oil change though. No biggie. 

 

Playing in the condo with the kidlets.

 

 

Feeding Laela was a highlight for both mom and I. Dozy little girl.

 

Anyone’s kids get massive red marks along with mosquito bites? Dekkers turn into these enormous bumps and spread like crazy, but they don’t bug him at all. Laela’s little bug bites stay tiny. Go figure.

 

Dekker: “Oh, donty!”

Someone is happy to be home!

Upon arriving home, I put my two exhausted children down for a nap. Child #1 slept like a log, while Child #2 wailed her face off. So she came up and played with me instead. Then she barfed everywhere. Then she went to bed. Now I can’t get Dekker to shut up, as he chatters away in bed.

It would appear we’re all still coming down from holidays…

 

My doctor heckles me about making everything into verbs, or what I like to call “verbing.” See what I did there? Yet I’m not sure what other word could convey exactly what it is I’m doing here. This is what I’ve learned.

Being at the lake, this time around anyway, is not actually about being at the lake, ie the water, the sand, the umbrellas. While that is all incredibly fun and an experience we should all have at some point, I am seeing that being “at the lake” is more about lake life. This morning, being at the lake meant laying on the futon in the living room until noon while the kids climbed all over the room and played toys. We hit the beach right at nap time, haha, and lasted just less than an hour. We brought their little red bodies in and put them straight down to bed.

Dekker was out like a light, while Laela wailed and wailed. She wouldn’t have it, and she didn’t. I finally got her up and she had some milk and watched some home buying/selling shows with the ladies. She didn’t nap at all, which made for a pretty hands on evening. But we didn’t surface. We kept an incredibly low profile and stayed in. One notable thing about today is that Laela is the best little puppy in the world. She sits on the floor next to my chair at the table (I didn’t bring a high chair) and eats little bits of whatever I pass her. She also LOVES to drink from a glass! That mouth hangs open like a baby birds in anticipation. And the water soaker her shirt doesn’t bother her a bit. I can’t believe how much she’s grown up!

Not willing to forfeit the ice cream tradition, my mom and I are settling in for some while we pick a movie. What a perfect evening.