We are officially home!! We LOVED being at the lake, and while a part of me is always aching to go back, I’m so happy to be home. I love my bed, and my tub, and being able to control the temperature of my house. I LOVE the lake, but I LOVE our home. Two wonderful places that both have such warm, soft places in my heart.

We woke up a bit earlier this morning in an effort to pack and get out the door at a good time. Around 8:00, I bailed on Brady as he packed and Jerilee and I walked to the bakery for breakfast. We got our round of baked goods and brought them back to an eager gaggle of children. Everything was delicious and it wasn’t long before breakfast was all gone and packing continued. My mom and Jerilee had their unit cleaned out and their vehicles packed long before we did. When they were done, they came and retrieved our kids so we could finish up without having anyone to wrangle. By that point, everything was already organized, tubbed up, and ready to be loaded into the van. However, the loading of the van isn’t exactly the easy part. Brady took that task upon himself and I went to hang with the others. Wavy wasn’t letting me be helpful anyway.

He made it happen, though! Right at 11:00, checkout time, our van was full and kids were getting shoes on to go. We figured we’d attempt one more outing with them before we left town, since last night had ended up being indoors with the cold rainy weather. We loaded the two littlest into the stroller and the rest of us walked, and we made our way to that little side beach to search for more rocks and treasures. It was SO beautiful!

But it was windy as all get out and I was FREEZING. Wavy was in her seat under her cover but was crying and gasping, so unfortunately we didn’t last super long. But it was still fun 🙂 I’m glad we tried that one last time with everyone.

Our last plan in town was to grab some food at the local asian restaurant. We had a gift certificate for $50, and I was SO anticipating the cantonese chow mein! Aaaaand the sign said it was only open at 5:00pm. So, instead, we left Waskesiu and began our journey home and planned to stop for lunch in Prince Albert.

We got our McDonalds on for a pretty late lunch, but the group was happy, albeit sleepy. Our three vehicles – ours, Jerilees, and my moms – had been convoying up to that point, but we all said our goodbyes there. Jerilee was going to split off and go home, we were actually going to duck into the city quickly for milk before going home, and mom was heading home.

Upon hitting the city, we drove to our ultrasound place and FINALLY got to introduce our beautiful little Waverly to the tech that kept my sanity functioning for the first half of my pregnancy. It was a sweet little reunion. I’m SO glad we went! It seemed kind of funny to choose today for that visit, but with all the holidayin’ and all of Brady’s work looming, today kind of had to be the day! We visited for just a few minutes before we ducked out, bought milk, and went home.

Home was wonderful. Everything about it. My mom brought supper over, for one thing. We picked up the mail and in it was our letter telling us that Laela has been placed in the kindergarten class that we had hoped for! We also received mail for Waverly, making her officially official! She now has a birth certificate, a health card, and a SIN number. Woot! Our house had been cleaned and beautifully cared for by Cher, who house sat for us while we were away, and there was a trail of balloons through our house that spelled out a birthday message. There were a couple of cards/gifts that loving friends have dropped off, packages brought in, etc. The whole vibe upon arriving home was just SO filled with love and comfort. I’m SO happy to be here.

Tomorrow, Brady is back at it at work full time, and he’s even working Saturday. I’m trying not to already be discouraged about that, but I’m SO thankful that he’s coming back from such a long holiday to a solid work load!!! So we’ll roll with it. He’ll go to work, and I’ll work around here. While we are already somehow almost already completely unpacked, there is laundry coming out the wazoo, and THAT will be my day tomorrow!! Wish me luck!

I feel SO fortunate these days, you guys. SO many of you have reached out and blessed me in the recent days and weeks, and I am quite undeserving of it all. But I’ll take it! I’m SO thankful for you!!

Its good to be home.

Today, I’ll admit, was quite up and down for me. In case you missed it, today was my thirtieth birthday. I’ve not been looking forward to it, and was hoping that being at the lake would be a great distraction. It was, and I’m so thankful I’m here! I have my husband and kids readily available, plus my mom, and Jerilee even came for the day! What more could I ask for?? I have some fun new goals and ideas brewing, and some high hopes for the coming year, and hopefully long after that. So, lets hope I have the gumption to get on them, the help I’ll inevitably need to make things happen, and the years of life to live them.

We started the morning off with another delicious breakfast at my moms unit. We ate very well, and took our time. When we did finally get moving and get outside, it was already fairly close to lunch.

Our first move after getting outside was to go to the candy store! A friend gave each kid a $5 gift card for Pine & Fancy to buy some treats at the lake. SO thoughtful! The kids loved going in and picking treats 🙂 Laela insisted on buying me a treat for my birthday, and spent half of her money on me! So I am the proud owner of a pink squirt gun currently filled with gum balls <3 She is SUCH a sweetheart.

After they hauled their candy, it was clear they needed to run it off!

We hit up the playground on the beach for about a half hour. The kids were so happy to be there, running around in the blazing sun. Rowan lost his footing at one point and was hanging onto the top bar of a ladder for dear life. I ran for him as fast as I could, Wavy in my arms, shouting for Ro to hold on. He tried, but couldn’t quite save it, and took a good spill. He was scared, but not hurt, thank goodness! He landed exactly right, and was completely unharmed. I passed Waverly off so I could check Rowan over and snuggle him for a minute, and the moment I stood up with him, he grabbed the bars again. I put him on the ground and he climbed right back up the same place and ran off. How amazing is that??

We didn’t last too long at the playground before walking over to the bakery and getting some lunch. Everyone made their pick and we headed back home to eat. Not long after we sat down, Jerilee arrived!! It was SO lovely to have her join us!

We spent the kids nap time chatting and trying to stay cool on this HOT day. My mom was doing a few things back in her place and invited Dekker to come play games with her for a bit, so Brady, Jerilee and I just caught up through the afternoon. When the others woke up from naps, it was coming up on time to eat supper.

My mom had asked previously what I’d like to eat for supper on my birthday, and she had brought along all the delicious things that I had made mention of. We had barbecued chicken, mashed potatoes, and corn on the cob. It was amazing!!! One of my favorites, for sure! Drumstick cake for dessert, also! Have you guys had that? It tries to pass as ice cream cake, but its creamier and smoother! Ice creamier cake? Yup. There it is. Again, amaaazing!!!

Our hot sweaty day turned into a rainy one, so sadly, we couldn’t go out in the evening like we had hoped to. But once the kids were in bed, the four of us adults (and Waverly) sat together in the living room and chatted and laughed and had SUCH a nice evening together. We pulled out some whine, cheese, cherries, fudge, etc. and treated ourselves and each other. I really really enjoyed spending those hours with some of my favourite people.

However, it is now LATE, and the time of birth thirty years ago has passed. I am officially thirty. I’m so thankful to have spent the day with people who mean so much to me and who are present and invested in my life. I am so fortunate to have everyone and everything that I have.

There are many more pictures I’d like to add to this post, but it was a full day, its late, and lots of the other pictures were not taken by me, and therefore are not in my possession. Maybe another day 🙂

This was the best way to spend our last full day here at the lake.

We kicked off today at my moms condo, which is just next door to ours. She made use a HUGE breakfast of sausage, hashbrown casserole, waffles, and fruit. It. Was. Amazing. We ate until everyone was solidly full for the morning, and headed off to the beach to take advantage of the promise of a bright sunny day!

The weather man delivered! It was beautiful on the beach! We swam, tanned, snuggled the baby, built sand castles, dug holes and then simultaneously filled them with water. We don’t have as many pictures from this one because we were just too busy playing.

We planned to eat snacks on the beach to prolong the morning out, but we decided to quit while we were ahead and brought everyone back to our unit for a nice snacky lunch. We needed to get those little sweeties out of the sun.

Lunch was delicious, and Brady, mom, and I spent the nap time hours visiting in our sitting area in the dark. We closed everything up and blasted all the fans in an effort to keep it cool. The only light was a lamp that we set up on the table so Dekker could color. (Just wait until I show you guys the booklet he’s making about our trip. ALL his idea! He’s SO cute!) We chatted about the year to come and some goals we have. It always feels good to run ideas and dreams by people you trust at a time when you’re feeling vulnerable.

When the kids finally started to lull, we decided on our supper plan, which was that we wanted to go out for supper once with my mom. So we hit the nearby restaurant again!! However, it seems we didn’t quite get Solly out of the sun early enough, because he was wildly off his game, didn’t want to eat, etc. Pretty clear he had at least some heat stroke. But we powered through it, and once we got some supper into him, he perked up a bit.

Ice cream for dessert!

The sugar picked the kids up significantly, so Brady ran back to our place for the stroller, and we headed back out to the side beach to throw rocks and find some treasures. I could do that every single day, and thank goodness, the rest of my family loves it too. I swear, I haven’t changed a shred since I was five.

Getting everyone home and to bed was less dramatic than it’s been thus far, and soon my mom will come over for an evening chat. I love that part of the day. Chatting with my husband and my mom while Wavy lulls a bit on the bed. Tomorrow, Jerilee will join! I can’t wait!

Last night with Waverly was definitely better than the one before, and though we were still quite tired in the morning, it was a tad easier to get up and get the day going. I continued my newfound tradition of bringing the kids to the bakery in the morning, this time taking the three oldest with me, and Brady keeping Solomon and Wavy. Trust me, I offered for him to take a turn going with the kids, but he was happy to get some little milky snuggles in with the little girly and chat with Solly one on one for a bit.

Breakfast was delicious, as always. The kids love getting to choose from the bakery for themselves, and they ALL got cherry danishes, while Solly rocked a cinnamon bun, and Brady and I had cream cheese pockets like we have been all week.

We got off to a slower start, and with the short bit of the morning that we had left, Brady took the kids into the courtyard to blow bubbles.

I brought Wavy out, too, but we didn’t last long in the blasting heat. We hung out in the living room instead and enjoyed the fan and some good music. Our summer jams are currently The album “Sing it all Away” my Walk off the Earth. A lot of gooders in there. We also are liking “Better when I’m Dancing” and “Can’t Stop the Feeling,” which we all lovingly refer to as Wavy’s song, among a handful of others.

Delicious snacks for lunch happened yet again (I could get used to this!) and then naaaaaps!

While the kids were down, my mom showed up! She’s now in the unit next to ours, and will be hanging out with us for the duration of our visit. Woot!!

In true mom form, she insisted on bringing all the meals for everyone, so supper was at her place today in the form of spaghetti and meat sauce, and honey carrots. The kids ate lots happily. The food was delicious, but the kids were also eager to get outside for a bit in the evening.

We took grandma to the beach where the kids throw rocks, collect treasures, and splash around a bit. It was SO nice. SO bright and SO hot.

Wavy was getting pretty sweaty and while the kids were doing decently well, we wanted to try for that sweet spot and get them home and to bed before it all went downhill. And we hit it! Or at least pretty close! Kids are tucked in now, most of them happy, and I was even able to clean up a good gash on Laela that was loaded to the gills with sand. She was freaked but she handled it!

Was a lovely end to day six! How is it already day six?!?!

Last night was our roughest night with Wavy by far. I say “night” loosely, because it wasn’t so much the night as the lead up to the night. Waverly woke up yesterday evening after supper, and had some awake time, as tends to be her routine. However, she stayed awake almost flawlessly until roughly 1:00am. We. Were. Exhausted. As was she. She would cry and cry and cry, but was noticeably unsettled. Her diaper was dry, she wasn’t too hot or too cold, and she was fed. She just needed to sleep. But she wouldn’t!! So we’d make her some milk, and she’d snort all over it like she was starving. She’d appear to be drinking from it for a solid 10-15 minutes and make NO progress. But it wasn’t plugged. We checked it multiple times. But then she’d be out cold. So we’d lay her down, and she’d wake up all in a tizzy again. After hours and hours of this, we felt even worse for her because she was very likely legitimately hungry from not actually consuming any of her milk, and she was obviously incredibly overtired. As were her parents. That last time I checked her bottle, it was completely plugged. She screamed as I made her a fresh bottle, which she promptly demolished and fell asleep. Oh. My. Gosh. Brady and I flopped into bed and slept through until she woke us up around 6:30am. So she gave us a great stretch of sleep, but we earned it!!

Brady has started reading us random facts to fill some time as we’re falling asleep or waking up slowly. My favourite one is that the space between ones eyebrows is called a glabella. Guys, I have no idea if its true or not, but I LOVE it. Also, I have hair on my glabella.

So after a pretty ridiculous night, we actually had plans to drive to our friends campsite at a nearby lake. I didn’t know at first if we’d be able to make it.

It took a bit to get up and at em, but it happened! I took Rowan for a little walk to pick up breakfast, which was so nice. He is SUCH a sweet treat! He is the first kid who requested a longer date, so we took a bit more of a round about way back 🙂 We ate a yummy breakfast before packing up, getting into swim stuff, and heading out. Even with keeping our morning simple, we got to our friends place right around lunch.

Pizza bush pies were delicious, as you’d expect. The kids were already happy and filthy and cute. A few friends left after lunch, and the rest of us meandered down to the beach.

We spent the afternoon sitting in the shade on the beach while our group of kids played happily in the sand, rocks, and water. Four adults and eight kids. It was a good sized group and we had the beach almost all to ourselves. They spread out well and enjoyed the sun! It was SO relaxed. Very much our speed.

Things got a bit iffy as the afternoon rolled on, however. Solly had napped on the drive over, but Ro had not. Ro is a bit older and is fine being nap-free from time to time, but my goodness, he NEEDED one today! He and Solly started to lose their marbles right around the same time, and it was clearly time to head out. But first, Dekker and Laela had their first ever boat ride!!! They even each got to DRIVE the boat!!

They were hesitant, and then super pumped 🙂

Leaving was a bit of an undertaking with two tearful boys who I work HARD not to call Frick and Frack these days, but we got everyone strapped into the van and on the road around 4pm, and Ro slept the entire drive back to Waskesiu. One of the two isn’t bad.

Macaroni and wieners was supper, because easy food that no one fights was just so necessary. After supper, Brady played some guitar and I fed Wavy while the kids played. Bedtime was routine, and I’m hoping my bedtime isn’t too far away!!

Its been so relaxed and nice. I’m so thankful for today and how its gone.

Blogging the way I did yesterday worked so beautifully, don’t you think? It was a fairly seamless process. It used a decent amount of data, but we were fairly ready for it, and as long as we’re careful through the rest of our trip, we should be able to make it happen! YES!

*****

We woke up to BEAUTIFUL weather and no wind!! I started the day with Laela, to go pick breakfast up for the family. Those little one on one walks are SO special!

As soon as breakfast was over, we headed off to the beach!!! Finally!! I have been positively aching for the beach! Aching for laking? Yup, going with that. And today is was finally time!

The kids did a lot of toe dipping before they wanted to go in further. Out came the life jackets. Except Ro really didn’t want one. So he agreed not to go into the water much past his ankles, and he kept to that.

They raced back and forth to the waters edge, filling buckets with water and filling in holes that Brady was madly digging.

(I did a ballsy thing and bought a couple of bathing suit tops for this trip while I was still super pregnant, and conveniently, both worked out to fit beautifully! This one is the most forgiving, obviously.)

They found rocks, a shell or two, and a few other treasures.

It felt like a dream come true for me to be back at the beach, this time with my baby. Last year, when we booked our trip, we expected to be here with a little baby in our arms. Jamin. Its obviously been a massive year, but we did make it here, and our precious Waverly Violet made the trip with us! I couldn’t be more thrilled to have her here, at one of my absolute favourite places in the world! My happy place is definitely happier with her in it!

Even this teeny tiny swimsuit that was gifted to us was big on her! I finally gave up and just let her be soft and nudey in a towel.

I’m so grateful.

We played and ate lunch at the beach, and headed back to our place for nap time. That transition wasn’t gentle, as you can imagine, some of the kids were pretty overdone. Dekker stayed up and zoned with some tv while the other four kids slept for a solid couple of hours. The long nap suited us perfectly because tonight was the one we had planned to take them out for supper!!

What is it about chicken nuggets shaped like dinosaurs anyway? They were SUCH a hit!

Our kids were super well behaved, and enjoyed supper. It was obvious that they were really hoping we’d hit up the ice cream shop after the fact, but I think we’re going to save that for tomorrow instead 😉 Instead, Dekker asked if we could “go for a walk in the breeze.”

So we did, and ended up back at the little side beach where the kids throw rocks into the water. So we did that!

And a couple of weirdos….

SO MANY of today’s pictures are courtesy of this man <3

Brady, I appreciate so much when you take pictures! I know you try really hard to think of it so its not always just my job.

Laela gashed her leg good and proper on the walk home, so I cleaned that out and bandaged her up before bed tonight. We had a nice little quiet moment where I was able to calm her and clean her up SO gently without hurting her at all. It reminded me of a time I wiped out hard outside of our church, and my mom took me home and took such good care of me. I remember being surprised when she said I was all cleaned up and finished, because I was still waiting for it to hurt. I hope to be just a fraction of the mom she was, and continues to be.

Everyone is tucked away for the night, and its soon to be our turn! If Wavy cooperates, anyway! She is some of the cutest company, I don’t even mind if she hangs out for a bit 🙂

It was a good day. I’m feeling considerably better than yesterday. We’re finding out groove.

After yesterday’s discouraging evening, I had a big cry and a super long snuggle with Wavy, which helped. Brady and I played hangman (no joke) for a while, where he made puzzles like “I will always love you” and quotes from my favorite movies, whereas I made puzzles like “Ikea under-bed storage” and “I have a barracuda in my pocket.” Just realizing, thanks to autocorrect, that I spelled barracuda wrong. Sorry, Brady!

This morning, my head is a bit clearer, and I discovered a way to gain five additional gigs of data for only $5.50! We hotspotted from Brady’s phone, and it only took minutes to upload yesterdays pictures onto wordpress from the laptop using data. I’m not sure how much it’ll actually have used up, and our data tracker is a few hours behind, but I’m hopeful that this will be an easy solution! The internet still sucks, but this method will make loading pictures possible!! YES!

That being said, todays post will be LONG, because it will include yesterday’s pictures!! WIN!

So, yesterday…

I went for a quick morning walk to the grocery store/bakery and bought everyone breakfast. The sticky buns are a family tradition back from when I was growing up 🙂 Our kids LOVE them! Brady and I got these magical pastries called cream cheese pockets. They’re exactly what they sound like, yes. I also bought coffee filters, because while they had them at our condo last year, they don’t this year. Its been like that with a few different things. I’m wondering if maybe the people who stayed in our unit before us just left a few things behind and the staff left them for us. Makes sense. We’ve got them now!

After breakfast, we headed out for a walk.

Anyone else’s kids need to carry a stick? Ours do!

It was a cold, blustery morning, but if you’ve read on other lake day posts, our kids are completely happy to throw rocks into the lake for a while. Plus, if you know me at all, you know I kind of love stormy weather, so it made for some wonderful, windblown pictures.

We wandered the town for most of the morning and made our way back for lunch. Lunch was probably the highlight of my day. We ate SUCH yummy food! One of the bonuses of having SO many leftovers from Wavy’s party is that we could bring TONS of it along with us here 🙂 I held Waverly and snacked while the little boys napped and Dekker and Laela colored and read books. After about 45 minutes of that, we clicked the tv on and the big kids snuggled for a bit. I LOVE when that happens!!!

After naps, we attempted to go play at the playground but we had a few unwilling participants…

so we headed home.

Once we were back at our complex, we accidentally stole toys from another family’s deck (whoops) and enjoyed the few moments of sun out of the wind that we could get. Conveniently, the people we accidentally stole from showed up and were loaded down with super social kids and really friendly parents. We ended up killing a lot of time with them in the courtyard as their kids passed Waverly around and asked about all of our other kids, where we were from, etc. When it was suppertime, their kids tried to come along with us, but we agreed to see each other again later. They’ll be here all week, as will we. They were a really nice family.

Hot dogs for supper, and off to bed we were. Well, first we fussed with the internet for a couple of hours, and then we went to bed.

*****

To today!!!

*****

Today was lower key, as if thats possible, haha! I took Dekker with me to go get breakfast, which we sadly have no photo proof of. But we know it happened 😁😁 because it was really nice! We walked through the trees and took our time. When we got to the bakery, Dekker saw something he thought he might like more than a sticky bun, so he chose a cherry danish, while the rest of us got our usual stuff.

After breakfast was when we came up with the way we’re (hopefully) going to be able to make the pictures work! So we did some research and made some decisions, and somehow, while we were doing that, the kids played totally happily together and didn’t go completely bananas! That was how we accidentally stayed in for the morning! It was actually so nice for all of us. While I’m sure the bigger kids would’ve loved going out and finding something to do outside, poor Wavy has NOT been enjoying the wind and cold as much, as she cried through most of our outside time yesterday, so this morning was much more her speed. She had some good wakeful time on me 🙂 She looks a bit like a muppet here, hey?

We had another delicious lunch, same as yesterday’s lunch, and then enjoyed some quiet time and naps. When everyone woke up, it was time to get out and about! The sun was out and the wind was down. We finally put in some good time at the playground! Good enough time that we don’t have nearby as many pictures as we normally do 🙂 Worth it.

This one is hard to see, but Ro is the little teal dude sitting on the seesaw, waiting for someone to come be his friend. This is his signature move on a playground 🙂

Popcorn chicken and fries is on the menu for supper, which I’m realizing is probably what the kids will order when we go out for supper in the next couple of days. However, the restaurant we go to out here has chicken fingers in the shape of dinosaurs, so naturally, they’re entirely different, and will probably be eaten with fewer complaints 😉 I remember, last summer, I ordered fish and chips, and randomly had a dino nugget thrown in there. The kids were SO JEALOUS!

The evening was well spent, as Dekker built big duplo creations, Laela and Rowan built forts behind the chairs, and Solly alternated between both groups. Brady played guitar and he and I sang together. Wavy rocked some tummy time that she didn’t even hate!

I kind of liked it too 💜

***** WIN for today’s post actually working out! This bodes well for posting photos each day!!

I’m sad to say my picture plan for this summer’s vacay has fallen by the wayside 🙁 I have some blog goals brewing in my heart these days, most of them boiling down to plainly putting in more effort, being a bit more planned and particular, and bettering myself and my work. I am incredibly discouraged this evening, as my plan to take awesome photos and post them each day of our trip isn’t going to happen. We have literally been trying to load photos all day. We were out this morning, and tried to load photos onto the laptop all through lunch and during nap time. We uploaded one successfully. We’ve had the laptop out virtually every moment we were inside with the kids, fussing with it and getting SO annoyed when a picture would load and load and load, only to error at the very end. Its wrecking everything, which I find so disappointing, as my family time and certain writing goals are all taking hits.

So in this case, the blog is being sacrificed, because OBVIOUSLY my family comes first. But I’m bummed. I wish I was more tech savvy and knew how much data it would use up to upload the pictures that way, but I just don’t know. I don’t know how much extra I’d need to buy, and I’m sure many of you know that going over on data usage is not cheap. So, we wait, and hopefully I’ll show you pictures another day.

Trust me when I say, its been a sweet day. The weather is far from perfect, with the biting wind hurting everyone’s ears and making it hard to be outside. Wavy is unsettled almost every time we go outside, and the other kids are going a bit stir crazy inside after all the talk of swimming, playgrounds, and sand castles. But the cinnamon buns are spot on, the neighbours are warm and loving, and throwing rocks into the water always wins. Our kids got a short chance at the playground today, which was a highlight, and they also found a game to play in the courtyard of our complex in a short window of warm sunshine. We brought all kinds of delicious snacks for lunch – muffins, pepperoni sticks, cheeses from Wavy’s party, and special fruit – which is a huge hit. Its ALWAYS a good day when the food is good, right?

Despite me being a Debbie Downer this evening, I’m sure better times are ahead. Today was a hard day of settling in, and I anticipate there are better days on their way as everyone rests up and gets more comfortable. I am truly sorry about the lack of pictures, trust me. For your sake and for mine. How I wish for my blog books to flow nicer, with less talk about the day before and more thorough content, even if it takes more effort. But this is all we can do at the moment without letting it ruin our holiday!

I’m going to give up on my tearful frustration now and snuggle the baby laying ever so sweetly on my chest. This is what family vacays are for.

We made it!! We made it to Waskesiu for the vacay our family has been counting down to for so long! We booked this vacation last year, when we had had SO much fun and couldn’t handle the thought of not going the next year. Everything looked so different last summer. We were pregnant with an entirely different person who we were expecting would join our family the following January. We had joked back and forth that, maybe I’d be in the early stages of pregnancy with yet another baby in time for our next trip here! As you all know, it was very shortly after arriving home from our wonderful, peaceful, healing time away that we found out we had lost our precious baby. What did we know? Not a blessed thing, thats what. It was awful. The last thing on our minds was calling Waskesiu and cancelling our trip. And its a good thing, because the timing of this trip feels just perfect. I’m so thankful to be here at exactly this time, with exactly these people. What a wonderful opportunity.

I’ll admit, I had a few “Why are we doing this again?” moments over the last couple of days. While I was incredibly organized and have been slowly preparing and setting things aside for a solid week now, there was just SO much to pack. Nine days away with seven people requires a lot of stuff, and while I don’t love to overpack, I’d so much rather not have to fork over a fortune out here for basic stuff just because we forgot. But guys, we’ve been here for about five hours and I’m already so content. Almost Wavy-level content, which is saying something!

I will say, however, that the wifi sucks so pictures are taking forever to load, hence the late post. But I don’t love always been so far behind with pictures and doing a big photo dump at the end of a trip, so I’m going to try really hard to keep up with them and accept that the posts will just be later in the days. Lake time, guys. Lake time has NO deadlines, haha!

Todays play by play goes like this 🙂

Everyone got up, ate breakfast, and got dressed. Dekker and Brady accidentally wore matching shirts.

Then we threw some fresh sheets on the bed in preparation for a friend, but the kids put them to use right away, because naturally, our fresh bedsheets were for their benefit.

I bathed Wavy after the kids had finished breakfast but while Brady was packing the back of the van. It was close to a tear-free bath, which I’ll take! She was probably happy with herself knowing she was peeing in my sink. But thats cool. Baby always wins.

Then I peed, and she watched me 😑 #momlife

I got Wavy dressed and ready for the day. The moment the kids saw her all fresh and curly, it was over. They touched her hair until it was solidly flattened again. What can you do? Prove it with pictures, I guess!

Our van has never been packed this full, but we got on the road around when we planned to with a bunch of happy, excited kids!! Poor Ro is SO hard to see back there, yet he manages to be SO cute still!

When we finally arrived at our destination, the owner wasn’t there to let us in. She was about twenty minutes away :/ So we listened to some tunes and fed Miss Waverly. She liked it.

The great unpack began!! The kids solidly explored the place before settling on the futon in the middle of the living room and getting their baby snuggles on.

Pre-bedtime walk, and the biggest fail of the day so far! Somehow, our first family selfie from our much anticipated lake trip does not include Laela! I’m so sorry, honey!! We LOVE you! But SO WEIRD how you’re somehow not in this picture!! You were RIGHT THERE!!!!

Our evening walk was short and sweet, and easily put out a few of our group. Wind has that effect oftentimes. It was a quick transition from outside to jammies to bed, and I’m ready to join the rest of the gang and snuggle in to sleep. But first, the fight with the wifi continues. And it could be worse, but I have a husband beside me, and a Wavy completely cashed out on my chest. I’m so content already, even with the wind and the chill in the air. Lake life isn’t really about the lake itself. Its about the atmosphere.

I LOVE it here.

I have solidly enjoyed this last week. It has been filled with good things, some of which were planned in advance and some shorter notice. Wavy had a really good appointment with our doctors. We’ve been counting down to the lake with the kids. We’ve gone to the city lots in order to gather up all we need for our trip. Things like that. But we’ve been humbled by the amount of people who have come over to our house to celebrate Waverly. I don’t even think I’ve mentioned each visit on here because they just kept happening! Its really touched my heart to know how many people have invested their concern and love into our family, and this morning was no different, as another friend of mine made her way out here from the city to snuggle Wavy, bring her a gift, bring the other kids some treats, and visit for a while.

It was during this mornings visit that I realized Wavy’s party was JUST LAST WEEKEND!!! I don’t know about you guys but it feels like it was eons ago to me already!! I think its probably because the lead up was SO exciting and pretty all-consuming, if we’re being honest. It was fabulous, but a LOT to think about! I went straight from party planning to lake planning, so I think the shift of gears is what makes the party feel SO long ago!

Cher took these beauties (and many others) for us last week! Isn’t she lovely?? Also Wavy… 😘 See what I did there? Its Cher’s birthday, by the way! Send her a bit of love!!

Regardless of how crazy it feels having Waverly’s party a week ago, we are officially in lake mode over here! Our house is a total mess, but I’m choosing to think of it as organized chaos. There are tubs and piles of things aaaaall over the place – in the kids closets, on dressers, on the island, the countertops, the beds, etc. A mess. BUT!! My packing list is exceptional, if I do say so myself, and things are getting done! All the clothes are picked and pulled out. Toiletries and first air stuff is coming along, and Brady has most of the bigger stuff (playpens, stroller, high chair, etc) out by the van, waiting to be fit in between the tubs we’re filling. Half of the backseat of the van is even removed. Its happening!!!

Four out of five kids are currently asleep, and Dekker is loving his quiet time playing Lego, as always. I almost don’t want to get up and keep moving, just for fear of waking everyone, but the show must go on!!

Gah!! Cannot finish blog!! Things I forgot to put on the list keep coming to mind!!!! Guys, don’t let me forget water bottles, or travel mugs, or duplo, or my bras from out of the dryer, or coloring stuff, or phone chargers, or playpen mattress sheets, or………….