I am no Pinterest mom, but I love the cute fridge organization acrylic containers as much as the next guy. They look so crisp and lovely when they’re all freshly filled. However, these people with their one tiny container of blueberries just…I don’t know…that isn’t going to work for my family. So I never tried to have that aesthetic, even though I loved the idea of it.

You may have noticed we have a decent sized family over here, and school lunches are one of the things I truly hate putting together. I dislike making lunches the same way I dislike car seats, outerwear, and potty training. They are my least favorite parts of having children 😅 So I set up a bit of a system where the kids know what categories to take, if that makes sense. However, believe it or not, they all like different things 😅 Punks, lol! Having opinions and such. So. I stocked the heck up. And we’re not restocking anything until that thing is GONE gone. As in all things in that category. It’ll make sense. Hear me out. And don’t come for me if you don’t like my options or think some of it is junk. I’m aware. We have balance, and the kids eat really, really well. Promise ✋

So. We have yogurt. Cups and tubes. I think we’ll mostly stick with cups for the next while, the novelty of the tubes has worn off a bit. This last time I bought Activia with fibre. Not everyone likes the little grain bits so we’ll likely buy something different next time. Or maybe two kinds, so they eventually do get the extra fibre, lol! Since I wouldn’t restock it until it was all gone. See what I’m doing here? Also not pictures is lactose free yogurt for the lemon drop. But I foolishly put the babys name on the container so you’ll just have to take my word for it.

Then I made a cheese box! This has been eaten from for a while now, so all the fun new ones are pretty eaten down. The Babybel anyway. I have learned that the kids don’t love the swiss ones. And most of the kids HATE Laughing Calf, which is hilarious!!! 🤣 Solly actually cried when he ate it, hahaha! I don’t mean to laugh that he cried, but man, you had to be there. It was SO funny. He was so upset! Nooooo Laughing Calf for Sol! 🙅‍♀️

So don’t come for me and my plastic bags. I know. Its wasteful and unkind to the world. I get it. But it saves my butt and makes this one part of having five kids in school simpler. I hacked up a big pack of celery, and bought a couple of containers of grape tomatoes, and bagged them into little veggie packs! Some of the kids love celery, and some love tomatoes. Once they’re both gone, I’ll restock with something new. Or, the same stuff if kids want that. But we’ll see. There’s still time.

Apples, always. I bought a couple of big bags of clementines and they actually peel and taste SO nice! Like, Christmas orange style! As you can see, we’re already low on them. But kids will have to eat apples once they’re gone. Kiwis won’t last long either. They’re a favorite for Rowan and sometimes a night snack, also.

Ok. We’re in the pantry now!

I have a huge stack of oatmeal packs. I mostly have them for the babies. Sometimes for Brady. The other kids don’t love them. Though I do wonder if Dekker would take one in a thermos or something on cold days. We’ll have to see.

The next drawer down is apple sauce. Its simple. I don’t love it. The kids do, though. Its an easy snack.

Then granola bars. I have shirked my granola bar making duties for quite some time, so for now, I’m just buying them, and thats ok. Usually I have two kinds going, but they demolished the Quaker yogurt bars. Just nutrigrain left!

And then fruit cups! Originally these were only for the babies. Now that the morsel eats everything, they’re for everyone. And yes, that is the last lone jello fruit cup that I bought by accident, lol!

This top drawer is actually non school snacks that more so show up in the evening. Cashews, pistachios, and dried apricots.

And lastly, squeeze pouches and fruit to gos to throw in a diaper bag for a baby.

In the freezer exists a crazy amount of banana bread. This is around half of whats left in there. I like for everyone to take one each day. Once they’re out, I’ll likely make something else. Or just tweak it slightly. Maybe the next round will be pumpkin bread. We’ll see.

So. This is how we rock lunch these days. Its been fun and interesting giving them more options and seeing what everyone likes and dislikes. I certainly cannot cater to everyones exact preferences every time, but its helpful to know, and I know they’re enjoying the variety as well. So each day, the kids each bring banana bread, something fresh, and a cheese. The rest, they can fill out as they’d like. Its all snacky, which is easier for everyone, though its not all trashy convenience food. Some of it is, for sure, and I’m comfortable with that, lol! I have way fewer lunch items come home at the end of the day. Way less spoiled food tucked away. So I’m here for it!

While all the cute moms making reels have these little organizers, I finally found the right products for us!! They are from Walmart, and they are clear plastic shoe boxes!! 🤣 I kid you not.

There are different sizes, and I never use the lids, but they are perfect! I use the boot ones in my freezer and the regular ones in the fridge. Aaaaand they’re cheap! Between $10-13.

And then, in the pantry, those clear drawers are right along the same lines.

There are really big ones, and slightly more narrow ones. They’re not super heavy, so they bend a little if they’re overfull, but they’re the same cost as the shoe boxes, so its feasible to just have maybe a couple more and spread things out a bit. I also have these in my bathroom to make up for the storage space I had in the last place that I do not have here. Oh and I hold unfinished crochet projects in some as well. They are good for so so many things, and again, affordable!!

These exist in Walmarts kind of by the cloth storage cubes, near some of the laundry baskets, entrance mats, step stools, etc. Do you know the spot? They’re over there somewhere. Hidden gems!!

Plastic gems, perhaps 😅 but gems nonetheless!

I work pretty hard not to dwell in a grumpy places, or with a downer attitude. Believe it or not, I defaulted that way for years and years, and worked intentionally to turn that around in myself. I am not immune to things that upset me, bad memories or happenings, or feeling moody and sensitive. I am still indeed human. But, I say for the third time, I try really hard. Its an intentional effort for me.

But sometimes, foster stuff stirs up my heart really big, and its hard to just brush off. So many people have told me they couldn’t foster because they’d get too attached. And to that, I say yes, you will. And you should!! Thats the whole point! The children need that soft love and connection and attachment, especially while so many things in their lives turn upside down!

It isn’t easy. No one fosters for ease. No one. I assure you.

All that to say, sometimes, the heart feels particularly tugged, and I have a hard time just getting on with the day. Those tend to be days where, rather than picking up a coffee, I pick up a milkshake, haha! Not because I need to eat my feelings (not every time, lol) but just to differentiate it and acknowledge within myself that I feel stronger. I don’t know if that makes sense to you, but it does to me.

Today, I definitely felt some kind of way, but it was too cold for ice cream. So I went with a holiday cookie from Tims instead.

My dark sense of humour wished it had a worse face on, all dilapidated and grumpy, but alas, the stinking guy is happy as a clam. Probably the best looking smile cookie I’ve ever gotten, haha! They’re usually a bit of a mess, but not today!

Anyway. Sometimes, yes, I pout. I ache and grieve for the possibilities of what the beautiful children I’ve fallen in love with have to go to, or may have to go through in the future. And where they’ve been.

But God is better. That is ALL we can hold onto these days. I don’t know how we would survive these hard things without faith.

I was texting Cher right before church began, so when I sat down after the opening songs, I saw a message from her asking “Are you at church?” My response was simple.

“Yes.”

And she responded by judging our rebellious message from church.

I’m totally kidding 🤣 but I got a chuckle out of her cute face.

Church was especially restful today because Laela was on the schedule for nursery helper! So that meant our Morsel, who is recently resistant to being away from me during the service, stayed happily in the back. Meaning I could stay happily in the service! Heyooo! I could even *gasp* LISTEN!!!

Aaaaand the last detail – I killed a maple bug on my neck while I sat in the service. Made me feel all itchy. And now, writing about it is having the same effect.

I’m ready for bed. Pray there are no maple bugs in here….. 👀

I couldn’t tell you why, but this stupid little funny really got me when I read it. And it has come up a small handful of times over the last couple of days. Just a random thought, but man, it is SO funny to me.

However.

Growing up going to Waskesiu every summer, watching little outdoor theatre plays about the local animals, and stopping the vehicle for literally and and ALL animals ANYWHERE within our line of vision, it seems like I should know the answer. I think I do know, because home building and whatnot, but it does seem fishy. (HA! Thats probably part of the reason!!! 🤣)

But here we are. And I’m sure there is an intelligent answer out there. And you can share it if you want to. You can. But really, I like the joke so much even without knowing the truth.

This feels like a very reasonable question to me. Why. Are beavers. Such. Weirdos.

🦫

I was able to go OUT this evening with my mom, which has not happened in SO long and felt like a total treat 💜 And with that super lovely outing, my body is POOPED because it so rarely goes out 🤣 The energy I did have left went to trying to make AI type a blog post for me. And it WON’T! Slacker AI is not so I, if you ask me.

Guys. This is why I should always blog in the daytime 😅🥱

Goodnight, all ✌️ Happy weekend!

You guys were so kind and warm to me in regards to yesterdays post 💜 It started kind of challenging and stayed that way, unfortunately, until the end of the day. Still, I am grateful for how the day wrapped up, and I was glad when it did 😅 You guys can understand that, I’m sure. Sometimes, those days come along, and the best you can do is be content with the day until it ends. So I did.

Today was a bit of a recovery day for me, which was SO lovely. It was fairly quiet, and I got to crochet in my chair while the babies slept in, and then later on while they napped. I don’t have any big exciting details to share, but I’ll show you my top three highlights.

☝️ Christmas lights!!!

I bought a couple of boxes when I got my order delivered the other day, and I had meant to get more but apparently those clicked didn’t clack, so my mom went today for herself and snagged a couple more boxes for me. I cannot wait to have lights all over the inside of our house!

✌️ Wavy went up another reading level!

She is a total keener, and always has been, but she resisted reading in kindergarten, which was totally fine. So she started at level A in grade one with most of her classmates, and we celebrate every time she goes up another one! She is super brave about working on sounds out loud, and she always tries before she asks for help. Today’s book had the word “laugh” in it. Thats a hard one!!

🎶 I’m calling this symbol three because emojis are still behind and don’t have the hands holding up all the right numbers. Isn’t that such an obvious miss?? Also, muffins. Where is the muffin emoji at?!

Whoops. Sidetracked.

🎶 I made broccoli cheddar soup!

Ok ok, before you look at it though, it doesn’t look great. I learned. I increased the liquids on the fly but not the thickener, so its a thinner soup than it should be. And the cheese doesn’t look very melty, but it super was. It doesn’t look delicious, but I can assure you it was. Even the kids ate it happily!!! Win win! Oh and the bread was two of the $1 baguettes from Walmart. And we had leftovers!! Win win WIN!

Ok. Those are my highlights. Or perhaps the three things I’m most grateful for. At least the ones I can put on the blog.

I praise the Lord for my beautiful life, even when its struggly. There is really no one else I’d rather struggle alongside.

I’m pretty careful to talk about what triggers my anxiety. Sometimes, I think some people use the term a little too loosely, and its almost become a trend to be “triggered.” Please don’t take what I’m saying to mean that I don’t think triggers are real. They absolutely are. I’m just careful. But I’m going to tell you about one of mine today.

Brady’s spinal surgery was a huge deal. It was an incredibly challenging time for us. You may or may not remember, but we did not know he was going to come out paralyzed. We knew it was a risk, of course, but we literally thought he’d be in the hospital over the weekend, but he stayed for nine long weeks. Many rude awakenings.

Brady had a pulmonary embolism shortly after switching hospitals. He had a blood clot shake loose from his ankle (since he wasn’t able to walk after surgery) travel up his body, pump through his heart, and land in his lung. People absolutely die from this. If the clot lodged in his heart, that would’ve been it.

So as you can imagine, we thought a lot about the possibility of death and dying. I remember pulling over and calculating how long we could stretch our life insurance policy if Brady passed. There was a LOT of fear for a bit there.

The first time I couldn’t open a jar, a trigger was born. The total, irrational fear surrounding such a mundane task as opening a jar that I could not open. I remember sitting on the floor in the kitchen, on the other side of the island, separate from the kids, trying to think of who I would call when I couldn’t open a jar, even with all my grippy things. Tom? What if Tom was at work? I really just didn’t know what I’d do. It felt like something I NEEDED Brady for.

I tried really hard to be really well while Brady was away, so instead of dwelling somewhere scary, I took it upon myself to simply purchase a jar opener. One of these suckers.

And that stupid thing broke the very first time I tried to use it. So I was back to square one.

You might have noticed, but my husband came home 💜 Praise God!!! He still opens my jars. And Dekker is getting older and stronger, and can sometimes help as well.

But today. Ugh. Stupid Costco milk. Do you guys know about this?? They do NOT open!!! After positively reefing on it, and passing it around between the kids, we finally got the stupid thing open. But here I am, with the palm of my hand showing the work put in.

And it just takes me back. And not somewhere nice.

Brady, I am SO happy you lived. And then kept living. And then thriving 💜 We need you here.

We should renew our vows someday so we can include jar opening somehow.

I tried it, guys! Costco grocery delivery via Instacart. I ordered a big list of things, including bakery items, produce, all kinds of milk, and a few convenience and pantry items as well. I stocked up on a lot of lunch stuff for the kids, and some lactose free stuff for our Lemon Drop who we have recently learned needs it. I ordered a lot of produce, some that I plan to chop into lunch sized containers and lots for everything else. A new kind of buns that we haven’t tried yet, wraps, raisin bread. A ridiculous amount of cheese. Milk. All that good stuff. I placed the order, and then I waited.

Within the next hour or so, a shopper was attached to my order. Once she began shopping, I was contacted through text and told I could chat with the shopper along the way if anything was to change, and she would run anything by me that she had questions about. At one point, she sent me a picture of something that I had ordered. I responded that it looked correct to me, and she said she agreed, but that the barcode was different. I confirmed I was happy with it, and she purchased it. The next text I got was that the shop was done and she was on her way!

And then a frustrating thing happened when she could not find my house, and she called and kept me on the phone while she tried to navigate the town. She was in an alley at one point, and then at some houses with numbers in the 700s, and at one point she really strongly communicated that she saw a sign for 1st St, which is not at all where I live. I suggested taking my house number out of her GPS and just looking for my street, and finally, she found me.

She dropped everything off, and Cher helped me bring it into the house and put it away. It was so lovely to have it all brought to me, but I’ll admit, it was pretty irritating that I had to stand in my driveway for quite so long, trying to help her find me.

However, when I told Brady about it, he looked into it and while our address was marked properly, Apple Maps directions were all over the place, and definitely drove her right into the mess. It wasn’t her fault. And it helped to know that.

All in all, I’d absolutely do it again! I’d order from Costco. You are expected to tip the Instacart driver, which is included in your grocery bill, but if you just think of it as a delivery cost, it was definitely still worth it.

However, you better believe Apple Maps will be getting a report from us, lol! We do NOT live in a back alley!

You may remember we moved in January over that absolutely frigid weekend where no one wanted to actually leave their houses. We had a willing group of people jump in to help us get things from the old house to the next house, or, if you will, the new house to the old house, if we’re going for age of house. We had a LOT of stuff, being that we are a LOT of people. So with the frozen weather, and the insane amount of work to do, lots of things made it into the garage that could’ve gone into the house. Not complaining!! It was a TON, and people moved FAST. But the garage was absolutely full to the brim.

Then, you may also remember, Brady had a seizure two weeks after that, and everyone’s energy went out the window. Speaking for myself, all my mental energy was taken up with brain tumours, surgery, Bradys new meds that really really sucked and made him so unhappy, helping the kids process and cope, all the while keeping things rolling as normal as possible.

So those months after a move where everyone putters and ever so slowly gets at least the majority of their boxes unpacked, we spent recovering and struggling under the weight of the impending surgery, and the immense mess that comes with moving, where you don’t know where anything is or how anything works. It was just a lot really close together. It was hard times.

For this entire year, our garage has been filled to the brim. We had friends come help a couple of times, moving tools downstairs and doing some two person stuff that Brady and I can’t manage. And that has helped tremendously! We could actually form a PATH! But as winter approached, Cher and I have been starting to get into the garage with the goal of getting Brady’s work van parked inside. We got the kids their lockers. We got the place heated. We just needed to organize enough to get one half cleared out.

The “before” is kinda wild.

Yup. Thats the best its looked since we moved in. See where my super stroller wagon is? That path is all we had going for us.

Today, Cher, Brady and I spent 2.5 hours this morning working in the garage. We loaded all the recycling into the minivan, as well as some garbage that needed hauling. Cher took a load of things to her place to put out for free on her front lawn. We were able to compress some things. Stack some other things. Move some things into the house into storage or into the shop. Cher did TONS of the legwork of carting things up and down the stairs into the basement, and Brady and I did a lot of organizing. Our garage is well fitted with lots of good storage already, so we put up lots of the camping stuff, Christmas stuff is organized on its own shelf, well within reach, and we tucked Bradys golf clubs up as well. I hate the ladder. Brady knows. So he “helped.” The way a man helps.

And guys, we CRUISED. The three of us worked until we all ached, and we got that whole stinking side cleared out 🥳

It wasn’t even a case of shoving everything to the side, either. We worked! It makes sense in there! Its a bit stacked over on the other side, sure, but things that belong together are grouped together. It is not hard to navigate it at all! And its all a lot more within reach. Of course there is still more to do, but if we didn’t move a single additional piece all winter, I am still totally happy with how it sits today.

Because 🙌 now the van can fit 💜

My family can be warm, and safe, and cared for 💜 Brady doesn’t have to fuss with trying to brush his van off in the mornings from his chair. Mission accomplished.

What a perfect way to spend a morning 💜 Thank you, Cher, for working SO hard this morning and doing most of the heavy lifting. And thank you, Brady, for bending your back for so long, working like a dog on your day off. If not for you guys, this place would still be completely unusable.

Praise the Lord for willing arms to carry loads. For a home that has all we need within it. And even a warm indoor space to provide ease to Brady every single morning. Praise the Lord for achy muscles soothed in a hot bath, and supper in bed 💜

Ok guys, here are some random pictures, giggles, memories, etc. all rolled into one post. Enjoy!

First – A GHOST!

And then some innocent darkness 😅

I took Rowan to parkour last week! It was honestly SO fun!

Wavy likes to practice writing on the boogie board, and the other day when she went to retrieve it, she found – ANOTHER GHOST!

This seems painful, but also, I laughed.

Ok, backstory to this food picture. Rowan doesn’t like chicken. Chicken breasts, specifically, since they’re a bit drier. I’m all for him having preferences but we like to eat chicken. So I’ve made it a bit of a mission to find chicken in a way that he likes. So I tried this the last time.

Boneless chicken thighs, fried in a pan, seasoned with salt, pepper, onion, and garlic. While he still really didn’t want to say he liked it, we agreed that this is a way he dislikes less and would willingly eat in the future. Boom! I’ll take it!

This was a morning where I was gifted a double time back scratch!

And an unrelated time when the kids found swimmies in the back of the bus and blew them up while we were out somewhere.

Out shopping, Laela saw this dish rack and exclaimed “This is all they used for a whole meal of dishes?!”

I sliced and bagged banana bread while I watched a murder show, as I tend to do. Oh and I drank coffee. A GHOST!

Aaaaand last but not least, we watched Despicable Me 4 as a family the other night, and ate corn dogs, lol! I even got a prized Beetlejuice Fanta from Cher 💜 ‘Twas delicious and a great end to the week.

It was a big week, but a good one, I believe. Brady is home tomorrow 💜 Happy long weekend, friends.