While it doesn’t specifically feel like yesterday zoomed by, I feel like this week is WAY fuller than I thought it was!

I took Dekker to school today. They’re messing with the roads around the school, so the streets are all blocked off. So I found a different way to take him in this morning. It was brusque outside! Brrr! When I dropped him off in his classroom, he had a little cry at his table, which surprised me! He hasn’t had a hard time with drop off since his first day, so that was a little bit sad, but I brought him a kleenex and he put on a brave face, and I left.

Kim and I had coffee together this morning, while our oldest were in school and her middle son was at preschool. She was down to one kid! I still have three, haha, but it still felt quieter and more relaxed and low maintenance. I opened my Ipsy bag for the month and it might be one of the best I’ve ever had! I even got a dry conditioner. If you know me well, you know I almost never wash my hair, haha! Like its embarrassing how rarely. I love me some dry shampoo, but I had NO IDEA that dry conditioner was a thing! I may never wet my hair again! 😉 I tease. Sort of. Beyond that, I got a lipstick, a fuchsia nail polish, a mineral blush, and a mascara. All pretty great sizes, and pretty much all things that I’ll use! Maybe not the lipstick? I have others like it. But seriously, it was a great bag!

Now, I’m home with the three kids, two of which are sleeping. I’m working on blog saving but I’ve hit a bit of a roadblock for the moment. So I’m doing this and going over my week.

Tomorrow, Dekker has a haircut, and then Jerilee is over for the evening for Bachelor in Paradise. I know, we’re behind! No spoilers! (I already know them all anyway. Merp.) Then Thursday is PICTURE DAY! I’m so excited for it, honestly. I’m curious what Dekker will give the photographer to work with, hahaha! It’ll be interesting. And then Friday is a big day! Breakfast is being served at his school for all of the students families, and then there is a Terry Fox walk around town in the afternoon. And then in the evening, Brady and I are attending and playing some background music for a local cafe night! (If you’re interested in tickets, get in touch with me! I have connections!) With that event coming up, Brady and I spending time every day playing guitar and singing together, trying to get practiced up! Its actually a lot of fun. I miss singing with him! Most of our spare moments have been filled with that. But with our week being quite so full, unfortunately Brady is working on Saturday. It was a good decision, I know this, because he managed to piece a few days together and get a whole additional house worth of work, but I always miss him extra when he works Saturdays. I think my mom and I will date, though. I’ll be plenty occupied. 🙂

This may not seem busy to you but its just busy enough for us. We don’t prefer “busy” very much, so this will work just fine. I hope you all have reasonable levels of busyness this week. 😉

I know. Cough candies need to be used in moderation. I know. I know they’re not that good for you. If you feel strongly about this, you may cringe a little bit during this post.

While our colds are lifting around here, I spent a good chunk of yesterday evening coughing. Cough isn’t a big deal until you’re trying to sleep. And forget me! When my baby boy isn’t feeling well, and is sleeping lightly, my coughing became a much bigger problem. Its at that annoying point where I just have a constant tickle in my throat. Constant. We’ve been sick SO much this year, and I’ve been prescribed codeine a small handful of times, one time specifically because I was coughing constantly on absolutely nothing, and the only thing that would bring healing would be to stop coughing. Therefore, the medication helped me sleep through the night and give my throat a chance to heal.

I will admit that it crossed my mind last night. I debated taking one, to guarantee a better sleep for myself, as well as my husband and baby boy, yet it seems pretty extreme to take codeine for a common cold. So instead, I just popped a cough candy. I fell asleep partway through it, which was fine. It happens.

We woke up with Solly after a while, and I still had a piece of the cough candy tucked into my cheek. However, being awake, I sucked on it some more, and finished it off. The second it was gone, I was hacking away again. I couldn’t stop it. So I went against what I’ve been told, and popped another one.

And THAT is how I got through my night. I would wake up with a tiny little shred of candy left in my mouth, it would dissolve, and I would start coughing and coughing.

BUT! It worked. Hopefully just for one night, maybe two if necessary. I don’t care for this method, really. My mouth tastes vile in the morning, my tummy hurts, and I have little burn spots inside my mouth. But we slept a bit better than we would have!

So I salute you, Strepsils. I couldn’t be sleeping if not for you!

The fam was improving a bit yesterday, so we figured we’d attempt to run a few necessary errands together as a family today. Nothing crazy at all. Costco and Walmart, to be exact. Both stops were successful, and I was very happy to see that the three big kids are officially on the mend. So they were happy for the change of scenery, for the most part, and attitudes seemed good.

Only a few minutes from home, I completely deflated. I don’t know what came over me, but I overheated and felt nauseous and dizzy. I turned the cool air on in the van, but that angered my throat, so now I’m a coughing monster. Its great, really. My body is telling me I overdid it today, but I barely did anything! I feel like this has just been my story this year, which is terribly annoying. I feel like I need to seriously boost my immune system and get my body in gear, because it seems to be failing me over and over again.

All of this being said, I’m very thankful that today is still Sunday, and that Brady has been home for it, because tomorrow, its four to one again, and I need to be stronger for that! Wish me luck!

Yet again, our plans for the day changed thanks to being sick. Kims middle son’s birthday party was today, and we had to back out. While I’m hesitantly optimistic that an upswing is on its way sooner than later, Solly and I are still down and out. Solly isn’t eating very well, and therefore isn’t sleeping well. Not being able to breathe and drink makes is hard, and then when he does finally drink a bigger feeding, it seems to give him some pretty serious tummy pain. The screaming is tough on his throat. And on everyone. We’re all just sick of being sick.

The big kids seem to be on their way to mending, so thats good. I am doing everything I can to make it through the day medicine-free, in an effort to let my sickness run its course, instead of suppressing it. That being said, I just got out of the tub and am enjoying my few moments of breathing through my nose. Bliss.

One thing I accomplished today is Christmas present planning! If you don’t remember from last year, we like to base our gifts off of a list I heard about a few years back. Four gifts each – something they want, something they need, something to wear, and something to read. Beyond that, we get a gift for the kids to share, and then each kid gets a couple new pairs of jammies. So today, I listed out their names, and then the names of everyone else we’ll likely buy for this Christmas, and I brainstormed. And I came up with just about everything!! I’m SO excited to already have those decisions made. I hope Brady and I can somehow find a way to get a full day kid-free, and to just go and blitz the shop! We have time, but somehow I’m already super duper organized, so once it starts, it’ll likely get finished pretty quickly! Eek!

I feel like, from my current spot, all tucked into bed, I should be saving blog posts and continuing that project, but I think I deserve a day off from that. I am proud to have completely saved a FULL YEAR of posts!!! It will be printed off into two books, and I will have them forever, regardless of what happens to this blog. Instead of saving posts, I’m going to watch YouTube and rest my eyes a little bit before rejoining the fam jam.

I hope you’re all feeling good this Saturday!

This cold came on quickly and aggressively, WOW! Dekker, Laela, and Rowan are all snotty, Solly is fevered pretty decently, and I’m at that fun point in my cold where you can hear in my nose when I swallow. Or when I TRY to swallow. Brady is still healthy somehow, so pleeeaaase pray that he stays that way!

I feel like we’ve been far too sick far too often this year, and I’m (ready?) sick of it. I know, I know, you don’t even have to tell me. “Dekker is going to bring EVERYTHING home from school!” I already know. We’ll build up immunities at some point, or thats what I keep telling myself, anyway. We can’t just keep doing this over and over.

On a completely unrelated note, thank you all for your feedback about proofing my posts before printing. I feel completely encouraged, and supported, and my decision is made. I’m not going to worry about it. I plan to look back on it fondly, and hopefully see how far my writing has come. Right?? Haha! Or if nothing else, not proofing it will save me a butt load of time, which is also a pretty significant pro. Saving them all has been SO interesting to me, though! I didn’t remember that the whole flooding disaster took place just a few weeks before Dekker’s eyes crossed! That was such a crazy time! Glad to see it go, and MUCH happier where we are now!

I’ve said a number of times how happy I am that the house next to us is being built 🙂 The sooner the better! I’m ok with the earlier starts, even, because we’re getting into the swing of early mornings around here with Dekker starting school. Plus, the loudest part will be the exterior. Once its framed and sided, the inside stuff won’t be as big of a deal. Still noisy, but muffled. We can do muffled. No big deal.

But. We’re all sick. Today, I’ve joined the party. I felt completely fine yesterday evening, but then sometime between 10:00 and 10:30 last night, it hit me, and I am officially down and out. Trying to keep my spirits up, but feeling pretty icky. VERY congested in my head :/ Rowan is still sleeping, Solly is napping, and Laela just got up. She’s in good spirits, for the most part, but is very snotty, and she is not the most cooperative she’s ever been, to put it politely. Basically, we’re all feeling it. Except Brady, thank goodness! He somehow bypassed our last batch of colds, so it would be a welcomed miracle if this one skipped over him too!

In other news, I need some feedback! I’m going through the process of saving my posts, and I’m starting to question whether or not its worth the massive proofread ahead. On one hand, I think it would bug me years down the road if I read through it all again and it was just a huge mess. I don’t expect to catch EVERY mistake, but if it really messed up, I’ll likely be pretty annoyed that I didn’t try. Yet, judging by how the saving has gone so far, and averaging it out, if I save everything from my starting point up to the end of this year, that will be a few THOUSAND pages. 8×10 pages, single spaced. That is ENORMOUS. So the question is, is it worth it to proofread? Should I just leave it and laugh about it later? Remember how lazy I was to NOT proofread as I posted each day? Or do I proofread so I’ll be happier with the finished product, but run the risk of getting bored and losing momentum? Will it really matter if I made some punctuation or spelling errors? HELP!!

The kids are sick!! I know, if you’ve been on my Facebook or my Instagram, you already know this. I bet a lot of you are tired of my lamenting about our sickness, and I’m sorry for that, but I believe most of you are here to read about our day, and that is just what today is like!

So all of the kids are struggling. Solly’s not too bad. Yet. But he’s teething, which is just mean, but it has to get done! Solly takes after Dekker in SO many ways, I hope he cuts teeth just as easily! He’s not super snotty like his siblings, but I can tell by his poops that he’s feeling sick 🙁 These poor little kids are really feeling it. But we’re doing our best over here!

Something we have going for us is all of the construction next door! I know the noise isn’t ideal, but I’m actually really happy that the house beside the kids bedrooms is getting built so soon. That will be the noisiest time in the next few years of construction ahead of us, and I’m glad it’ll be out of the way so soon. Plus the kids LOVE watching from Laela’s room. They plunk down on her bed and stare out the window while people come and work. Its a great distraction for them.

I was SO pumped the other day to have neighbours, but we’re pretty sure its actually a builder just putting up a spec home that they’ll try to sell. That being said, who wants to live next to us??? We would LOVE neighbours, so if you’re hoping to buy a new home and to have some say in the process, and are hoping for some wicked awesome neighbours yourself, take note!! The foundation is poured, and once the basement walls are formed, we’ll know for sure what style of home it will be 🙂 Either a raised bungalow or some kind of bi-level like ours.

This blog has to end. The noses and dripping and the laundry is flowing. Wish us luck!

I firstly want to thank those of you who got in touch with me one way or another about yesterday’s post. I really appreciate the encouragement, and that so many of you see so much value in what I’ve been doing. Not that everyone finds every day super interesting, necessarily, but that the record is something that perhaps, one day, my kids can enjoy, and potentially even their kids. And thanks, Hailey, for offering to help with proofreading! She has a HUGE job ahead of her, so if anyone else cares to help, that would be fabulous, hahaha!

If you’ve spoken to me at all about Dekker’s school experience, you know I’m very happy with Dekker’s teacher. Today has only amplified that appreciation.

This morning, I passed Kim on her way back from dropping her son off, and she commented quietly to me that the kids had all been shuffled around, and that Dekker wasn’t sitting beside Em today. I appreciated the heads up, since Em is something of a constant for Dekker. He’s a familiar face, and a friend. Yet I knew the shuffle was inevitable, and very important in learning, and making friends with other kids. We definitely can’t always stay in our comfort zones! Once Dekker was in the class, out of his jacket and into his shoes, his teacher came to greet him and we had a little visit. We had recently written her a letter about Dekker, to help her know him a bit better. She had clearly remembered some of the info, and asked him some questions about his siblings, which he answered, albeit quietly and from behind me. She didn’t even flinch, and responded by telling him about her daughter. “You know all about two year olds, don’t you, Dekker?” It was so warm. I love when people go a bit further than they need to, and it really seems like she does. I was sort of dreading taking him to his spot at his table and seeing him get all stressed out and scared about sitting with unfamiliar kids, but before I had to even think too much about it, she said “Well, why I don’t take you to your table, Dekker?” He took her hand, and off they went! She turned around to say goodbye, and I thanked her. She seems to be strangely all-knowing, haha! Its not as though she didn’t know this would be new and a bit scary for him, but it had to be done, and I think she is just graceful enough to make the transition (and likely many many more transitions) as smooth as possible. I have such confidence that this is a very good match!

Now that Dekkers gone to school, and Elvira is in the air, heading home, the boys are napping, and Laela and I are watching some Octonauts. The basement forms are being built for the place going up next door, and I’m expecting a “buy and sell” pick up soon. Once I pick Dekker up, the whole group of us will head to the city for some grocery shopping. Its a strangely relaxed and busy day, all at once. So much going on, and SO much change, but I’m feeling so good about this change! God has certainly been good to us!

I’ve been working away at saving my older blog posts. I know, I’ve talked about this before, and I’ve tried to save it at least two different times in two different formats but they just haven’t turned out nicely, and I eventually stop, because I know I wouldn’t be happy with the outcome.

A long time ago, a friend had suggested a website to try out, and I finally got around to checking it out. And it is PERFECT! Its going to be a ton of work, but its going to be pretty decent. However, its going to be HUGE. I have saved July through November of 2012, and its 250 pages. No lie. 8×10″. Sooooo its going to be pretty massive, and likely a large number of books by the end of it, but I’m really hoping it’s worth it to save. Could definitely use some reassurance on that…

Looking back on those older posts, though, has been SO fun! I’m trying to be pretty efficient with the process, but I’m eager to actually go back and read about some of those times again. I’m seeing so many memories and stories and I can’t wait to revisit it all. That being said, I could REALLY use a proof reader or two, as my program doesn’t pick out all of the spelling errors. Help! You guys all have time to sit down and read thousands of pages, right??

We all slept in really nicely this morning. When Brady and I went down to retrieve the kids, Rowan was still asleep. He stayed asleep for a good long while still. In the meantime, Elvira arrived, we made waffles, and ate breakfast together. Rowan woke up towards the end of the meal and got in on the goodness. It wasn’t long after we were done eating that we got our notice that Brady’s grandpa was on his way over! We knew we’d see him sometime today, since he’s been out visiting for this weekend, but we weren’t sure when. The timing was great, since everyone was actually going to be awake during his visit, which doesn’t happen too terribly often.

We spent a nice hour or so visiting with the kids’ great grandpa. The kids were pretty shy, specifically Dekker and Laela, but by the end, Dekker was sitting on my lap, listening to his stories. And grandpa was very understanding of the kids being so shy, reassuring us all the way “I’m a complete stranger to them, its just fine.” He blessed us before he left, and told us he prays for our entire family by name, along with the rest of his family, every day. In case you didn’t know, that is a solid hundred people to remember!

Grandpa headed back to the family he was staying with, and Elvira took him, so we’re on our own for the rest of the day. Ro and Solly are down for rests, and the big kids are playing Lego and watching a bit of tv. Should be a pretty relaxed rest of the day. I have a few things I’ll try to complete, but standards are low, haha! I hope you’re all having a “Saturday” like mine!