Trust me. I know the weather this season hasn’t been ideal. I know that it will mess up a lot of things in the upcoming seasons. I know it could make for a really challenging farming season ahead, and that touches just about every facet of our lives whether we realize it or not. I know there are many things that will suffer as a result. And I don’t pretend that isn’t important! It is!

Its been a strange weather season of ups and downs, where I’ve really enjoyed the mild while positivelhy detesting the ice cold snaps.

However.

I’m not mad that there are birds chirping in my trees.

I’m not mad that the kids are really enjoying playing in the snow in our front yard.

I’m not mad that I can open the windows of the vehicle when the sun is out in full force.

I’m not mad that I can enjoy an iced coffee and without shivering.

I’m not mad that, during a week that feels WAY too big, WAY too full, and pretty stinking overwhelming, I can drive my van without letting it run first. That kids can run outside in hoodies. That I could wear a tank top this weekend!

Somehow, this lift in weather makes things feel so much more doable. This week is busy, and the rest of the month will likely be even busier. So I am relieved to have these busy days fall during a time where I feel stronger, and more capable, and generally better than others.

Of course, my strength if not found in the weather, or even within myself, but in Christ!

And in boost, when I need a little extra 😅

Thank you, Lord, for the weather this week ☀️

It has been a wild weekend! And not in the fun rowdy “going out late and making questionable decisions” kind of way. Much more so in the “getting no sleep while managing a second foster baby with high needs while diving into a new therapy and finishing up a home renovation ” kind of way.

😳

So ya. Its been a lot.

At least we were OFFICIALLY APPROVED as a higher level foster home as of just last weekend!! 🥳 That is something to celebrate, as we’ve been working at it for what feels like forever. We made it, guys. We are finally “qualified” to take care of the morsel we’ve had since June 😅 Aaaaanyway.

I realized very late in the game that the kids have tomorrow off of school! Go figure! It’s one that I apparently missed on all the kids’ schedules, therefore it didn’t make it onto my calendar. Ah well.

With tomorrow being a day off of school, there was some fancy footwork put in today to figure out how to make the day run smoothly. The girls are heading in one direction tomorrow morning. The boys are staying home with my mom, as is one baby, and I’m taking the other baby along with me to an appointment. After lunch, the boys are heading out, and the babes and I will have a meeting at the house.

Somewhere in there, Brady also has an appointment, but luckily its just a phone call.

After a VERY busy weekend, the week of appointments begins! Goodness. I don’t remember the last time we had this many appointments in just a weeks time! Ack! We’ll have to prioritize some downtime in the coming days. At least there were a few moments of rest today.

Maybe the babies will even *gasp* SLEEP sometime this week!!! 😱😅😩

Gonna be a gooder. I am just so sure of it 💜

Three of our kids got to pick up new glasses! Its kind of funny, but they all chose glasses very much like the pair they had chosen last year. On one hand, I wish they branched out a bit more and explored new styles, but also, I love that they loved their glasses that much! Win!

Dekker first! He previously wore a matte finish black pair of glasses that were a bit of a softer square shape, and now he has these!

I like these a lot! I like the shape of them, and how they’re more rounded but also have some subtle edges along the bottoms. Super cute!

Laela is next! She struggled to find a pair she liked, and she kept saying she felt like she was being picky. However, all of us including the staff reassured her that she needs to love her glasses 💜 They ended up ordering a pair for her, and thankfully, she loved them! (Apparently Dekker was really feeling them, too…)

They have a very slight cat eye shape, but much softer than she had before. They are light purple, and shiny and pretty. The color is much more visible in the sun, but you’ll have to take my word for it. She feels very pretty in them 💜

Rowan didn’t need new glasses this time around as he rarely wears his, and they’re still in perfect shape. Good thing he still loves them!

Solly is last this time around. His prescription hasn’t changed too much but his glasses have been through it and it was an appropriate time to replace them. He got virtually the same ones as last time – the unbreakable ones – except the lens size is larger and the shape is maybe a bit rounder.

Frankly, I like these a lot more than the last pair, and I think its just the size! They are SO nice on his face! He is neutral, though. His priority was the “cwip-ons.”

Aaaaand he got them, so he’s happy, hahaha!

One more year of glasses done and done! ✅ I’m so grateful for such a lovely place to go for vision care as Warman Eye Care. For staff to come and hold my babies, know my children by name, make exceptions for them, and ask intentional questions about our lives. We are so fortunate 💜 Thank you, Lord.

I’ve spent the evening with our latest foster placement on my lap and in my arms. The fourth child to be placed with us. A teeny tiny person who is so deserving of love. And stability. And security. And peace. As they ALL are!

As I sit here, I am reminded to be grateful. For the health and wellness in our lives. For the security and stability we have. For the love I feel, and the peace that surrounds so many areas of our lives. As a foster parent, I can sometimes offer some of these things to children who don’t otherwise have them at that time. Not every story is the same, of course, and even just with the four children I’ve had in my care, there are such varying degrees of each of these things.

Something to remember is that not all birth parents have these things, either. How can they provide what they haven’t had themselves? I am the first to say we can overcome our things, our pasts, and work through our struggles. It is possible. But it is not easy. Even with ample support, you can’t just turn trauma off.

It is always an honour to welcome a new little voyageur into our home, for however long they may stay. Todays placement has once again brought us into new territory, and while we don’t know our way, we are positively here for it. We may have a headlamp along. Some hip waders. MREs. And chapstick, because you know, its dry out…

My kids aren’t big on sports. It’s not surprising. I’m not either. And Brady was once, sort of, but mostly as a kid. Neither of us are especially competitive, and our kids represent varying degrees of competition. Anyway. Sports are not a huge part of our lives, and that’s fine.

However, Dekker has found a sport he’s enjoying more! Badminton! I don’t think I was really introduced to badminton until a bit further into high school, but he is already into it, and he really enjoys it! He’s even talked about it doing it after school as an extracurricular activity!

I don’t ever want to forget, however, his adorable mispronunciation of the name. Batmitten.

Today, I took it a little further and made a joke about bat mittens. And he laughed SO HARD because he can take a joke, and I love that!

So whether you see that like this…

Or like this…

(Not my work but can’t find the artist to credit!)

Both are right, I’m pretty sure. And while I wish there was a gif of bats playing badminton with mitts instead of birdies, these will have to do.

This is about how invested in sports I am… 🦇

Did you get it? Gottanottavoid?

I have to stop avoiding jobs, hahaha!

I planned to prep supper early in the day so I didn’t have to think about it later on. But I completely avoided it because my entire kitchen is ATROCIOUS. I don’t mean that it’s dirty or that the dishes are stacked sky high. It isn’t, and they aren’t. But with the renovations going on, everything is incredibly out of place. My island is smaller than I’m generally, used to, and now it has things stacked on it to get them off the floor and out of the way of the work being done, so it is MUCH fuller. And my stovetop is on my island. So food is just hard right now. So. I avoided it.

But. I gottanottavoid it.

However.

Today has been really nice. We had one quick outing this morning, but since then, I’ve sat in my chair and crocheted. Resolved yesterdays issue.

Wavy has colored and read and played in my vicinity. We’ve chatted and had a calm afternoon. The morsel has slept a good amount, making for a very low key time.

So maybe it was perfect that I avoided food. Or at least it really worked out.

Once kids get home, dishes will be done and I can be in the kitchen, in the midst of all the action, and supper will come together quickly. I should really tell you guys how I made my bomb spaghetti. Its SO good, and its on the menu for tonight!

Mmmmm. Thinking about food now has me feeling more eager to get to cooking. Maybe this really did time out just right. Thanks, guys! 🍝

Its been a while since I crocheted good and proper!! I did pump out a baby blanket the other week when our Spoonful was getting ready to leave, but beyond that, I’ve been busy with other things! And really, I still am busy with other things! But its really really nice to crochet. I’ve missed it. And these days of being snowed in have motivated me to get back into it! So I have!

I began crocheting a blanket I plan to donate to the camp for an auction they do each summer. I was asked to donate an item last year, and I hadn’t even really considered that before! So I plan to do the same thing this coming summer! It’s a small way I can contribute anyway.

As of yesterday, I was half done the main body of the blanket, and guys, its turning out really nicely!

Untiiiiil I got into the next section and my count was off!! Since I clearly improvised the “Kinasao” section, and had multiple colours going at once (which, in this method, is a lot trickier than it sounds) I somehow lost a stitch or two. I went to dig back and find my error and found it in the FIRST row of that section!! I went about starting the process of pulling out 15 ish rows, but that colour I used for the Kinasao does not pull out nicely, and snagged and snagged and snagged. So rather, I gave up on the section altogether.

*sigh*

The upside is that there were a few things I wasn’t happy with about how it had turned out the first time, and now, I have the chance to redo them. I didn’t like the trees beside the word. I didn’t like that colour scheme. I had crocheted it a bit too tight. It just wasn’t right.

And soon, it will be. Except that I’m likely out of time for that today, and our life is about to pick up right away here! March is going to be one heck of a month!! But hopefully in between the mountains of change and work, there will be intentional downtime here and there. And then 🙌 I will crochet.

This almost NEVER happens! But as you know if you live anywhere near me, we got one heck of a dump of snow over the weekend, and because many highways were closed, they opted to cancel school for the day and give everyone a snow day! Thank goodness Dekker invited me to join him on a walk before the real cold kicked in!!

On days like today, I am reminded of how fortunate I am to be a stay at home parent whose schedule isn’t thrown into a panic when school is closed 💜 I know not everyone has the luxury of that, and its not lost on me.

However, my schedule was thrown into a bit a heap because I had a really important appointment to go to this morning that I could not attend. That was hard. And that appointment was meant to be at 8am, so I couldn’t even call ahead really. It felt BAD. In those moments, I was pretty mad at the snow day.

But, the snow day also meant Brady could work from home 💜 And I liked that.

It also also meant a low key day for the kids. Rowan built animals out of lego.

“Mom, doesn’t this lego piece look like a pug?”

The girls left Saturday morning and only got home this afternoon! What started as a super special sleepover became a full weekend event!! Ack!!

Thank you SO MUCH for having them 💜 What a riot they had!! And you weren’t kidding 😅 They are WIPED!!!! Lol!

I am just SO grateful. Our appointment will be rescheduled. It will come. Just not yet. And thats ok. Being holed up today was awesome.

We’ve eaten treats and easy food. Watched AFV. And worked on a VERY exciting renovation over here! Ack!! Just wait until you seeeee iiiiiit!!! 😍 I’m totally stoked!

Well. Happy snow day, guys. It has been over here 💜

The summer really needs to hurry up. The snow is causing people to get stuck on our street in full size trucks. I’m holed up at home and feel very idle. Nobody can go outside because of how much snow there is. Because of this my mom asked/told me to write her blog for today. This is Dekker, by the way. Here it is.

Outside is so cold. I went to get an electrical box from friends down the street and had to wear all my winter gear. Since it’s so cold it is we will have to stay indoors unless we really need something. My Mom is crocheting and Dad is building our pantry. There is nothing much to do. It feels like it will not end or even slow down. I may need to skip school. That would make for another boring day at home. Hurry up spring!!!

We are a summer family. We live at camp most of our summers. Summer has so many more things to do. We can’t have a campfire in our living room! It is so cold out there.

I like how warm it is in our house. Its all toasty and quiet in here but frigid out there. I can’t wait for warm weather. It makes life more enjoyable. There is so little to do.

We need the winter to go away. I am not enjoying the cold. Why all the snow now? Why snow in general? That is all my ranting I needed to get out

-Dekker

While the day is not done, nor is the work done, we have accomplished things today! Some wins, for sure.

First, the middle boys went outside to play together without my prompting. This NEVER happens. Being my two boys with diagnosed ADHD, and totally different types of ADHD, they butt heads fairly regularly and get frustrated with each other quite easier. Buttheads is right 😅 But today, they went out and played on the hill of snow that the town guys cleared into our front yard. I love that hill so much. Its already brought joy to our kids. And if Rowan and Solly will go play together out there without a fight, I am a happy, happy mom.

Another win. We got the gas fireplace safely removed from its spot in our kitchen, lol! Kind of a funny setup for it, but I get it, knowing there was a much smaller group living here before us. When we looked for the breaker, it was labelled as kitchen and family room. Family room. So I guess thats what we’ll call the pantry from here on out! The family room, hahaha!

Yet another accomplishment. I made chocolate sauce!

We are short a handful of kids today, so those of us that were home decided to crack into some unopened ice cream at lunch, but I realized we didn’t have chocolate sauce. So. I cook now. *tosses hair over shoulder* So I just made some. And ya. It kicked butt.

All faces were appropriately stuffed and messy by the end of it.

Last accomplishment I’ll list for the day is WALLS! After a morning of removing the fireplace and fussing with wires and electrical boxes, we finally got to walls! They’re not all done yet, because the morsel naps, but it counts for now! Just the wall with the door in it needs to go up, and framing is DONE!

We’ll see if we make it to church or not tomorrow 😬 I can’t help but wonder if it’ll just be a snow day, haha! Maybe – just maybe – we’d get the walls actually covered. And SHELVES! Ack!! Its been so weird not having a pantry, the proverbial ants in my proverbial pants are outta control!!