• Obligatory Halloween post tomorrow!!

A handful of you have been asking about Brady’s work van situation. I’ve only touched on it briefly here in hopes that he would get around to writing a guest post about it. However, work has been crazy busy (which we are SO thankful for) and that paired with our already busy life, it just hasn’t happened. So while its not quite as good, I’m here to tell you what headway we’ve made since last week when Brady’s van died.

We’ve had the pleasure of using a friend’s vehicle since Brady’s Astro caved, but we were actively on the hunt for something of our own. We looked at two cargo vans on the weekend but they were no good. We had a couple other ones in mind, but they either fell through or had far too many red flags attached. There were a couple we thought we’d try to see during this week, but one freed up a bit earlier than expected, and we made a plan to see it on Sunday.

I waited in our vehicle with the kids and Brady went to see the van behind the owners little townhouse complex. He was back there for a decent while before he came back to join us. He seemed hesitantly optimistic. After seeing a few duds, we didn’t want to raise our hopes or settle for something that was going to break down right away. However, this van had no visible leaks, better mileage than the others we had seen, for less money. Brady said he wanted to take it for a test drive, but it wasn’t plated. There was NO way we were going to buy it without driving it, so we thought quickly and made a plan. We pulled our vehicle into the guy’s back driveway and pulled the plate off. Brady stuck it on the other van and he and the current owner went out for a drive.

They were gone for a good while, but when they returned, Brady was excited. I could tell he was trying to be very careful and not get too excited, but he was bordering on giddy. He really, really liked it. Apparently it drove pretty nice, with no weird sounds or concerns. They had stopped at a gas station to put a bit of fuel in it, and Brady gave the whole thing another look over. Still no leaks or concerns after driving it! YES! He told me the price they had negotiated, and I agreed that it was a good choice.

Except. Having not exactly expected Brady’s van to die as abruptly as it had, we didn’t have all the finances in order. We had just paid down a debt and were not eager to wrack it back up again. So we took a bit of a risk and left the guy a chunk of money as a down payment. He happily agreed to hang onto the van for us until we could get it. We told him we’d have it figured out by mid-week.

And we did!! We are now the proud owner of this beast.

Yup. You heard it here first. Or maybe you didn’t. But we now own TWO huge vans. We are officially that family. We have our bus, and our bus 15 years ago.

Today was Brady’s first day driving this new van to work. He is SO happy! This is what he has to say on the subject.

I love it! It’s like the work version of switching from the minivan to the bus. 🙂 miles better!
It’s a little rough on the highway right now cuz it needs an alignment and tire balance but it will be smooth and solid.
The cargo area is 11’+ by 5’+ so there room for all my tools and materials if need be. As well as shelving down the sides in the future.
Rumour has it that if properly maintained, this van should last another 250,000-300,000 kms which would equal out to about 10 to 15 years of commuting to and from work.

There you have it! Brady has a van that we hope and pray runs a heck of a lot better and stronger than the horrendous Astro. If anyone wants the seats, speak now! They’re currently living in my driveway and I’m pretty eager to ditch them. I feel the same way about the Astro, that is also living in my driveway. That, however, we’re hauling away next week, never to be seen again around these part! Thank goodness!

Have a happy, safe Halloween! I’ll show you everyone’s costumes tomorrow!

In reality, today is a day where I’d say we have nothing on the books. A coffee date this morning got rescheduled, and that was the only thing really on the calendar today. That, and Laela had a dress up day at school. But that’s really all.

Yet here we are, haha!

The dishwasher is humming, and laundry is in full swing. We’re not badly behind, but in our house, that means we have at least three or four loads waiting. The one that needs doing is in, and we’ll see how far I get on that. Also, a days worth of dishes doesn’t come close to fitting in one load, so I need to be diligent and do a second load to keep up. Ideally, I’ll do that while the kids eat lunch, so the dishwasher can act as some background noise over nap time 🙂 Until then, I have two busy little boys to wrangle and referee. Their little sister adds virtually no work to our day, but we can’t exclude her in this breakdown. She’s napping. But before she was…

Brady is working his tail off to finish today’s job in good time. After work, he has a few errands to run, and unfortunately they’re not errands I can do for him. He needs to renew his driver’s license, and vehicle insurance, and his business licence. He needs to go to the city, to our insurance place, and to the bank. Thank goodness at least one of those places is open slightly longer than regular business hours!

When Brady gets home, all five kids will be up and at ’em! I’ll have helped them through their homework already, and supper is already planned and easy, so thats good! After supper, we’ve got a pumpkin to carve and pumpkin seeds to roast! Might try and leave the seeds for tomorrow… Is that a thing that people do? I’ve never made them.

Once bedtime goes down and everyone is settled in for the night, Brady and I have his quarterly report to finish up. But I think thats it.

I can hear my washing machine singing! Off I go!

Let’s talk about baby genders for a minute.

I go all different ways on this subject. I don’t see any shame in having a preference. I’ve had one from time to time, even. But other times, I truly haven’t cared. Its gone something like this.

Our first time around, I wasn’t concerned AT ALL about the gender, but I thought we were having a girl. And then we found out he was a boy! And we were elated! Because FIRST BABY!!!

Second time around, I really hoped for a girl. And I got her!

Third time around, I super didn’t care at all, and we had a boy!

Fourth time around, I guess maybe I would have preferred a girl (??) but I knew right off the hop that we were having a boy, so I never entertained the mindset of “evening the score.”

Our next pregnancy, I knew in my gut we were having a boy again, right off the hop. That pregnancy ended too early to have the gender confirmed, but if you’ve been around for a while, you know I confidently say “he” about him.

My following pregnancy also ended in loss, and again, as you know, we had another boy! But I swore he was a girl the entire time!

This last pregnancy, I was sure we were carrying a boy, and it was very likely because we had FOUR in a row there!! I was positive our fifth baby was destined to be a boy, and I was totally happy with that! I was joyfully expecting a boy, and was blown away to find it was actually a girl! A very happy surprise!

So like I’ve said, sometimes I cared and preferred, and sometimes I didn’t. And like EVERY mother will say to ANYONE on the subject, it was so unimportant because I would LOVE whoever came out of me to the ends of the earth, regardless of their gender.

When we told the world Solly’s gender, we had a few people apologize. Literally. “Oh sorry, guys! You were probably hoping for another girl.” And in the moment, I found that SUPER off putting. Don’t apologize for my son!!! I was incredibly clear around that time that I was so grateful to be able to experience having both a daughter and a son, and that if I never ever had another girl, and I went on to have ten more boys, I was thrilled with my little girl! She was all the little girl I would ever need!

Something about that made me almost forget that I could have another girl. I never really pictured what two girlies would look like in our family. But I am LOVING every minute of it!

I know we’re sort of on the “big family” track, yet I know its possible that my children may make different choices than I have. And thats FINE! But Laela insists she wants to have babies, and hopes so much to have a big family 🙂 She’s going to ace it, when the times comes.

I know there will be days that they’ll fight and I’ll tear my hair out over my girlies, but I feel SO fortunate to have my two girlies. And my three little boys, for that matter! And for whoever else is still to come 🙂

I’m so tired of talking about the whole debacle with the van, but its been somewhat all consuming. So much so that I didn’t tell you guys some exciting news! The electrical in our basement is DONE! I’m SO thrilled to have that finished and taken care of. We have light switches in every room now rather than just a big one at the bottom of the stairs that turns on the whole basement.

The goal I sort of had in mind was to have electrical done by the end of October, and I’m super thrilled that without me having to be pushy and stressed out, we still reached that goal!

We’ve also got a good chunk of the plumbing done! Its not quite finished yet. We still need a utility sink plumbed into our laundry area, but the bathroom is all set up with running water. What a relief!! Won’t be too much longer on that home front!

With the van doing what it did, we likely won’t be able to shell out the money for drywalling right away here, but I’m so thankful to have done what we do already!

We’ve lived here for about two and a half years. When we got here, Rowan was just starting to walk, and Solly was brand new. So we had two walkers, a toddler, and a newborn. Today was have four runners and a baby. We need more liveable space soon, lol! But we’ve gone this long without it, so delaying it another few months isn’t going to hurt too bad. Hopefully. 😉

The last thing I’ll say is that I’m sorry for the lack of pictures. Its SUCH a mess downstairs! When there are walls, I’ll show you guys around in photos, while inevitably moving the mess from room to room to get cleaner pictures. #realtalk

We laid out plans this morning to go take a look at a work van for Brady. Like I’ve said, we’re kind of in a time crunch, but would like to end up with a good van as opposed to a cheap piece of junk. We have a few prospects, but one seemed more hopeful than the others. We called the small dealership to ask a few questions. They were hard to get a hold of, but we remained optimistic. The man then told us they weren’t open yet. It was 9:30 and he said they only opened at 11:00, which was a bit curious with their Facebook page hours stated they opened at 8:00am, and Google said 10:00am. Again, we tried to stay positive. Our kids were already dressed and scratching at the door, so we made a quick Costco run first.

Wavy held the bread.

We got to the dealership around 11:15 and no one was there. However, they pulled up basically right behind us. Brady did a thorough once over of the van and very quickly discovered this place wasn’t worth our time. Not only was the van overpriced according to the black book value, but he noted how many different things were leaking. The salesman wouldn’t entertain a price drop, and wouldn’t look at what Brady had found, so we just left. Which sucked.

On our drive to the dealership, however, we noticed another cargo van on someone’s property with a “for sale” sign on the windshield. So we backtracked to check that out. It was virtually the exact same van, same year, slightly higher mileage, but even higher priced. So we gave up for the day and headed home for lunch.

Lunch went quick and naps were quiet. About mid-afternoon, Cher showed up to help us get ready for – drumroll please – round two of family pictures!! Round one was incredibly successful, and I’m SO excited to make a Christmas card up with them, but we didn’t get many candids at all. We also realized after the fact that we should’ve done a few other combos, like a boy picture and a girl picture. Things like that. So we figured we could dress everyone the same as last time and go run them around outside a little 🙂

The pictures look they were taken on the same day, however it was SO windy today and therefore, quite cold! Not everyone was totally on board, lol! But we rolled with it and got a good handful of super cute pictures! You’ll see all kinds of them soon enough, but not quite yet! I want to choose whats going on our card first! (Who waaaaants one??)

We’ve spent the evening eating perogies, watching a movie, and playing immature games with Cher’s photo shop. While today wasn’t as successful as we had originally hoped, it was still a lovely day, and a nice way to wind down at the end.

Wish us luck tomorrow, as we have another van to check out. The sooner we solve this problem, the better. But we have to be smart, too. Gah!

It’s REAL Friday today rather than just feeling like Friday like yesterday, and I’m so happy about it. I love Friday. Friday means sleeping in tomorrow. It means everyone is home tomorrow. And lucky for me, Brady is home today, so that’s a little added bonus 🙂 I was able to go to a wax/nails appointment this morning while Brady worked on his quarterly GST report. So we’re all getting stuff done today!

This weekend won’t be the most standard weekend ever, though. You guys have probably seen on my Facebook, but Bradys work van died. It died HARD the other day. (Trust me, I’ve been nagging him to write a post about it, but there just hasn’t been time.) We were lovingly offered a truck to borrow for a couple of days, which saved us this week, but starting Monday, we’re kind of on our own. We need a solution, and we need it fast. We’re in no position to shop for a good deal either :/ Unfortunately, we just need to find something. He can’t just not go to work. So that leaves us likely dropping at least a few thousand dollars this weekend that we weren’t originally planning to. While we can make it happen, its obviously less than ideal when you’re not prepared. Merp.

So rather than coffee in bed, waffle brunch, puttering away at laundry, and maybe a little errand running, we’ll likely either be split up, with him van shopping and me wrangling the kids, or we’ll all go together to look at vans. Not ideal, but not the end of the world.

With all of this in mind, Friday doesn’t feel as fluffy as it often does. But when the times get tough, we don’t get to just bail. Rather, we buy vans. Because we have to. Because ours caught on fire 🔥

I’m pretty familiar with taking the kids out grocery shopping, errand runs, and whatever else. Its so nice when I can tag team with someone, but I am also capable of going on my own, of course. However, we’ve been getting better and better at limiting our errand runs to maybe once a week, in an effort to save money, so we often go in on a weekend as a family.

This morning, the little boys were at each other, and Wavy was up and happy. I figured it was an ideal time to go out for a bit! While getting them ready to go, I realized that I have NEVER taken out just the little ones on my own!

The little miss had the right idea. All the cool kids wear sweatsuits!

Today was a whole new world 🙂 The boys were so psyched to be out and about, and Wavy was pretty much perfectly content the entire time. It was just a small trip in, which sometimes feels a bit fruitless, but today it was just right!

We went to Walmart for a very short list of things we needed. I bought two big bags of bananas (We need to start buying those things by the ten pound box or something) and some coleslaw for tonights supper. We snagged a couple small things off of our list, but the main stop was in the dairy aisle. Sigh. Guys, I think Ro is lactose intolerant. Which sucks. So I’m on a mission to figure that out, and bought him a carton of his own milk. He is SO excited to have something that no one else is allowed to have, haha! Let’s hope it makes a difference. I’ll talk more on that once this “experiment” is over. Next week, probably.

We bought our groceries and went back to the van. Our only other plan was to go get coffee and bring one to Brady. We don’t do it too often, but sometimes, if I’m in the city with the kids on my own, we go and stop and have a ten minute coffee break with him. Its breaks up the day for all of us, which is really nice.

We were sitting in the bus, sipping coffee, when one of his sight supervisors stopped and rolled down his window. I hadn’t seen him since before we had Waverly, and his wife had a baby right around the same time. We had a brief chat before another site supervisor pulled up next to the first. We all rolled down all the windows and had a chat before they drove off. A very confused man in a truck eyed us all suspiciously before driving past us and on down the street. Apparently we were blocking someone by accident. Whoops! It was a funny interaction tho.

We’re now home, and everyone is napping. Supper survived its time unsupervised in the slow cooker, and Brady shouldn’t be too much longer at work. Tonight holds some Bachelor in Paradise with Jerilee (We are SO BEHIND!!!) and some more work being done in the basement! The electrical is in full swing, and might even get done tonight, and plumbing is well on its way, thanks to a helpful, diligent friend coming and working last night.

Tomorrow is Friday, and hubs is even home for the day! Guys, its basically already the weekend!

I don’t consider myself especially freshly postpartum anymore, but I realized recently that I haven’t been back to see my physiotherapist since a few weeks before Waverly was born. While I don’t have any big problems on the horizon, but I’d far rather be safe than sorry when it comes to things like my abdominal wall and my pelvic floor.

I am SO happy to report that everything checks out! ✅ My abdominal muscles are nice and tight together, and functioning well. My pelvic floor also appears nice and strong, and I can easily do kegels without any other muscles interfering.

Some very basic investigating showed my only lingering “issue” is that my pelvis is still mobile, as in the ligaments and tendons that loosen like crazy while I’m pregnant haven’t tightened back up to 100% just yet. While thats not super ideal, its also not surprising with my history of symphysis pubis dysfunction. Frankly, even without my history, the general rule with this is that it takes between 5-8 months before everything is back up to full strength. And obviously I don’t always give it that time. So I guess its allowed to still be a little wiggly a few months down the road. I forgive you, Hailey’s pelvis.

I’m so relieved and encouraged by all of this information! While nothing is ever guaranteed, I am in pretty decent shape in some really important ways, at least considering what I’ve put my body through over the last seven-ish years.

As our appointment came to a close, she told me very daintily, that IF it were to be the right choice for our family to go through all of this once again, and we decided to have another baby, she wanted us to feel like we could go forward with confidence 🙂 I told her we very likely would try for another, and she smirked and said she kind of figured. I love having the support of such a well-educated medical professional. She, as well as my family doctor and resident doctor have ALL told us they’re in full support of us having another, and that they’re excited for the day they hear our news. If I’ve said it once, I’ve said it a million times. We have the BEST people in the world of medicine!!

My physiotherapist is very knowledgeable in terms of womens health, and she recently started up her own women’s wellness clinic. I’d love to share her with anyone who’s in the market for a fab physiotherapist!

I had such a bizarre experience this morning that I have to share with you guys!

It was odd right from the start. Waverly woke up and cried around 6:30. I went to make her a bottle, and of course, she was back to sleep as soon as it was ready. So I lay in bed in the dark and played on my phone. I always make the bad choice of dozing off for another half hour or so and then I’m a total zombie trying to get up. This time, I felt more awake and chose to stay that way.

As I was looking on my phone in the pitch dark, my bedroom door creaked open. This will never not be creepy. Lucky for me, I know its always one of the kids. So I whispered “hello?” into the darkness.

I was met with Laela’s chipper voice at full volume. “I pooped.” *sigh*

Me: You pooped?
Laela: Ya.
Me: Ok. And you came to tell me?
Laela: Ya!
Me: Why? Wait, did you poop in your pants?
Laela: Ya!
Me: Oh! Shoot, thats too bad! Do you need my help cleaning up?
Laela: (laughs) Ya, I do.
Me: Ok, I’ll be right there. Go wait for me in the bathroom.

I watched her little frame exit my doorway and head down the stairs. She was waddling. Gross.

I headed down the stairs after her moments later, and was surprised to see bright lights on, the boys bedroom door open, and a bunch of crashing sounds from the bathroom. Apparently Rowan was awake, too, and was taking this exact opportunity to pull his potty seat out from under the sink, crashing everything else under there out with it. I closed the boys bedroom door and just stared at Ro for a second.

I couldn’t really compute what was happening in that moment. I didn’t see Laela anywhere. Had she misunderstood and gone back to bed in her mess?? I headed into her room, and she rolled over groggily to see who was at her door. “Mommy?” she asked. She seemed confused. Solly was sawing logs, fast asleep.

I glanced back into the bathroom, where Ro was cheerfully standing around, seemingly waiting for me. And then it clicked.

Laela was actually Rowan, not Laela at all.

My goodness. What an odd moment that was for me! I had a full conversation with a child, thinking it was a different child! I’m thankful for the outcome, though. Ro had apparently been in a dirty diaper overnight and it needed fixing up, and I’m happy that Laela didn’t have an accident! But seriously, it was SO strange! It took me a while to piece it all together! Mystery solved, haha!

I hope you guys has a smoother, less weird start to your day!

Knock on wood I’m not jinxing anything but calling this an ideal week, but as it looks on paper, its going to be a gooder!

I’ve learned my “perfect” level of busyness is lower than many other people’s, and thats fine. I’m happy to have a commitment each day, but one feels like enough. I can do more, but as I’m sure you can imagine, our regular day to day is pretty busy on its own. Extras often feel like too much. But I’m learning that, if I can keep them to one a day, it leaves me anticipating something! They also often break up the day, which we can all appreciate, I think.

So this week, we have something up each day! Tonight, I’m out for a chunk of the evening, wearing a pretty dress for a couple of hours. Meanwhile, Brady and our electrician friend are going to put their heads down and get some work done in the basement! I’m SO happy about that! I had previously talked about wanting to set some goals and timelines for the basement, but considering that we’re counting on some connections and friends to help us with these next steps, we can’t exactly force them to come work for pizza! However, even without the push to be finished by a specific time, our people continue to come through, and we’ll likely soon be done electrical and plumbing rough-ins! We already have the insulation, so as soon as plumbing is in, we can put that in place, and I believe the next step is drywall! I admit I’m a bit nervous to stall out when it comes to that part, because drywall is going to be more expensive :/ That, and the fact that we WILL be hiring out mudding and taping, which will also be expensive. It seems like most of the next steps are going to be more costly, so they’ll happen a bit slower, and I’m nervous we’re going to lose momentum. But! We can only do what we can do! And right now, thats electrical and plumbing rough-ins! And BOTH of those are getting some time spent on them this week! YES!

The rest of the week consists of a couple of day time appointments for me, seeing some friends, and more basement work. Something good every day!

Currently, the whole house is napping. Aren’t her jammies SO cute?!?!

This girly has the right idea. I’m off to put my feet up.