Today was full, with some big challenges and some really lovely events as well. And I’m now ferociously tired and ready to sleep sooooo I’ll leave you with these pictures I took of Wavy and Solly after they bathed and then immediately played outside.

Punks 🤣

Ah well. As luck would have it, a couple of our kids have some kind of funky virus, so it seems church is off the table for tomorrow as it is. What other reason is there to get clean anyway??

Happy dirty Saturday!

Please. PLEASE. Don’t take this post too seriously 😅 Don’t feel the need to educate me. I’m SO aware of the subject, but I feel a very small kind of way, and I’d like to share it. And I BET, within some of you, you can agree with me.

So. Into it we go.

I miss crappy plastic bags from the grocery store.

There. I said it. I really mean it, too.

I used those things for absolutely everything.

Need to send something extra to school with a kid?

Need to leave something on someone’s doorstep?

Got a smaller amount of garbage to gather up?

Packing up for the lake or for an emergency?

Kid has an accident away from home?

Kid goes swimming and has a wet bathing suit?

GRAB A GROCERY BAG!!!

When I find myself elbow deep in wild diaper blowouts, I call out for a bag to just dump wipes into, and what comes running? An entire white garbage bag. For ONE diaper. But ONE diaper that neeeeeds to go outside asap. So what’s a mom to do??? Put it in a paper bag? Or a cloth bag??

*sigh*

I miss you, environmentally-destroying plastic bags…

Ok, folks! We have some full weekends coming up, so its time to get as prepared for spring as we can. Hopefully this weekend, we can do some productive things.

The biggest thing is always outerwear. You guys probably know this about me, but outwear is my nemesis. Just my least favorite part of every new season. But, alas, seasons change and outwear is needed. Conveniently, I was very smart when we were packing to move, and I set aside spring jackets from our mess of a garages, so everyone has jackets. Boom! Well. Not the lemon drop, but thats ok. Then I got into rubber boots a couple of weeks ago. Everyone has them. Boom! Well. Everyone who walks, anyway.

This weekend, I hope to get into ALL the other stuff. Shoes. Sandals. Shorts. Swimsuits. Tees and tanks. Plus, everyone in our family needs a thing or two that are dressy. And while some people LOVE this part of the seasons, with our amount of children, I’m happy to do it, but it is daunting.

Other things that need to still come together this spring are getting the backyard to make sense. Digging out the deadfall from the flowerbeds. Planting what we’d like to plant. Getting the swing set assembled. Getting a fire pit (ie dryer drum) and hypothetically a climbing dome. Getting the barbecue onto the patio where it needs to live. Basically, the backyard looks like a junkyard and we’d really like that to change.

We need to sort out bikes for the kids. We have lots of smaller bikes, but the kids continue to grow, so its time to size some kids up. And on that subject, lake bikes! We need to figure out which bikes should stay at the lake and which should come back here and be traded out.

Thank goodness for garage sale day in a couple weeks!!

Welp. Today wound up to be fairly challenging, I won’t lie. Lots and lots of factors. I’m so beat.

This evening, I was granted a break, and I lay in bed, crocheted a baby blanket I started for our lemon drop, and watched some true crime on YouTube. I didn’t even put kids down for bedtime. What a lovely rest 💜 Thank you, Brady. I appreciate you.

I’ll leave you with a cute picture of Laela, rocking both flowers and flannel. I love this girls style.

She is the cutest little thing 💜

Ok guys. Halfway done the week. It’s felt like a long one. Bedtime!

Today, Brady had seizure clinic. And by that, I mean we went to RUH, where they flashed strobe lights at him to try to make him have a seizure, and he took a nice squishy nap with a stack of electrodes on his head. Sounds restful hey??

What it did mean was that I got to drive him in, kid free, and sit in a chair by a window, and rest my body a little. It meant I got to have a really nice phone call, a chat with my cousin who I happened to run into, and I even got to drink a delicious purple drink from Starbucks! I am an incredibly lucky duck!!

I even got to top it all off with one of those delicious greasy burgers from the mall cafe that I love so much. But it was extra good because I got to have a weird hospital lunch date with Brady 😆🥰

No results on the EEG yet. We were warned they’re a good ways behind. But that’s ok. The thing that caused the seizure is already out so the whole thing feels a bit moot. Ah well. It made for a mid week date!
Happy seizure clinic Tuesday!

What’s another thing, right??

Brady went to work this morning. Which is what I was originally going to post about. It felt weird and new and like I wasn’t quite ready to have someone else take care of him?? I don’t know. I couldn’t put my finger on it, but it felt a little funny.

Once he was out the door, the day started to settle. The girls went to aunties. Rowan and Solly went downstairs to play. Dekker was reading upstairs. I was feeding a couple of babies. The house was quite quiet. Until it wasn’t. I heard wild screaming verrrrry faintly, and Dekker and I looked at each other and we tried to listen to where it was coming from. We decided it was from outside. Not from us.

Except it totally was us.

The middle boys flew into the living room. Solly was bleeding really good and proper (he’s really cleaned up here already) and Rowan was wild eyed behind him, carting a box of bandaids.

As the story goes, they were digging for treasure in the backyard, perhaps a little too close to one another, and Sol took a spade to the forehead. I gave him a good, safe opportunity to say whether or not it was an accident, and he confirmed with certainty that it was not on purpose. So at least we had that!

I immediately took some pictures and texted them out to some nurse friends of mine to see what to do. We’ve NEVER had stitches before over here, and I had no desire to drag him into the city for a bandaid. But it became pretty clear that we were looking at needing some extra care.

I paced the house and made some phone calls. Meanwhile, Rowan sat on the floor in the middle of the living room beside Solly. He had wipes out, and he was cleaning the blood from Solly’s hands. He had a book beside them, and he read Sol stories and was so close and kind and soft to his brother 💜 It was really nice to see him not be defensive, and to see Sol being so forgiving and receptive to the help.

Cher arrived with bells on, and I basically high fived her on the way out! Solly moved his booster seat up to sit in the row closest to me, I gave him a piece of gum, and as we drove, I let him know he might end up with stitches. He had a cry, and processed a bit while we drove, and then I let him choose the music. With Family Force Five blasting, we drove to JPCH.

His gash and my eyebrow match lol!

We waited in emerg, but it wasn’t too busy. He wasn’t in tons of pain anymore.

Close up gore 🚨

Once he was checked in and waiting for a room, they lathered him up with lidocaine ointment to freeze the area up.

We made it to a room and he was assessed by multiple nurses. Everyone who looked closely at him said they weren’t sure if he would need stitches, and that glue miiiiight be sufficient. It was hard to say. He ate a popsicle to pass the time.

Finally, a physician came in and decided quite quickly that stitches would be ideal. She said with where it was, and the fact that it was as long as it was, and gaping as wide as it was, that sutures would be best. Sol cried. He was afraid. And then he was promised a second popsicle, while they did the stitches. That was the straw that STRENGTHENED the camels back! He was ready!

To clarify this picture up here ☝️ he is only bleeding in the one spot. The bit underneath his eye is blood that ran with the freezing ointment. No wound there!

He really wanted me to take pictures, which was adorable, and also not the doctors favorite idea, which we totally understood! So we have a prepping picture…

… and then after!!! Popsicle still going, stitches all in place!

A close up of the beautifully placed stitches! They look fabulous, and besides some twitches while he held my hand, he was perfectly calm and still through the entire process. Which is NOT how I thought it would go!!

Lucky duck got to follow the whole thing up with a third popsicle!!! Luckier duck, I got one too!!

The yellow ones are the best one. IYKYK.

He held my hand as we walked back to the van afterwards. He mentioned to me that he thought it would be SO bad but that it actually wasn’t so bad at all. This is giant success for Solly, if you know him. God’s hand was covering him – covering us – without question!

In order to make this possible, I had three friends help me and offer opinions and advice. I had my doctor texting with me as well, telling me I could call her from a few floors up, if I needed help. I had my remaining six children spread out amongst three different caregivers. My village is over and above what the average person could ever dream of, and for that – for you beautiful people – I am overwhelmed with gratefulness 💜

Ok. I really really hope this is it for stitches in heads for 2024. Feels like we’ve already had our share this year…

Last night, we managed to get longer stretches of sleep! With those, however, came longer wakeful stretches in between 😅 Always a trade off with a baby!

But the sun really helps. This kind of weather gives me so much hope 💜 Even though I know where I live, and weather is always a roll of the dice, I’m feeling excited for the upcoming warm season.

We are definitely still managing day by day with Brady’s recovery. He is one month post-op today, and it feels like he’s overcome the biggest challenges and is on to the part of recovery centred around getting some energy back. In many ways, it feels like his surgery maaaaaybe didn’t actually happen? But I’m pretty sure it did. Though his scar is already pretty tucked away!

Here he is, making baked oatmeal for lunch for the family 💜 Just like he always used to. I love that normalcy.

We skipped church this morning in an effort actually rest, while also possibly getting a job or two done here, as well as having some intentional outside time. I ran outside briefly in the morning in a tank top, and I wasn’t even uncomfortably cold! And if you know me, thats saying something, being as I am almost ALWAYS cold.

The morning was restful, as a couple of kids slept in and a couple woke up a little snotty. Lunch was delicious. And now Brady is starting a project! I hope to crochet a bit in my chair while watching a little true crime, and making some summertime lists and plans! Have to figure out how to sleep nine people in our camper…

Happy Sunday, guys 💜

Facebook has been showing me a few pictures of my little cuties when they were even littler cuties! Unfortunately they are not all represented in these pictures – no Wavy. But come on now. She has had PLENTY of the spotlight! So let’s skip her today and check out the others, lol!

Baby Dekker is first! There was this one particular day where he wore a puffy vest and he just was the cutest thing I have ever seen! Look how giant his head is!! My sweet big little boy!

Here is Laela, in all her glory, rocking that barf beard like a boss.

Aaaaand see if you can name these babies 🤣

Lastly, these three – Laela, Rowan, and Dekker – all lined up on our old couch in the cabin house we lived in while our Bitner house was being built 💜 That feels like a lifetime ago now!

How I ache to show you the most recent picture of my children. The one I put on our Christmas card. Many of you will have seen it. It was just the CUTEST, BEST picture of my children that has ever existed. But 🤷🏼‍♀️ you’ll just have to take my word for it. They were this crazy cute back in the day, and they have just continued to get better and better!

I am so fortunate to be able to go to counselling. It is such a valuable outlet for me in these times of life.

We talk family. Relationships. Children. School. Surgeries. Trauma. Foster care. Injustices. Fears. Wins. Faith. Traditions. Hobbies. Plans for the future. You name it, we cover it. And I LOVE that.

I will only see my counsellor once or twice more before she is officially graduated and gone, but I look forward to those final meetings. The conversations we will have. The coffee I will drink.

Thank you, Rae, for making it possible for me to go in, kid-free, today 💜 It is MUCH easier to dig deep when there isn’t a one year old trying to unplug and taste every electrical cord in the room.

Since snow has decided to rear its ugly head in April, it felt like a good day for a cozy soup meal. I’m not fancy, so I only have one soup that I make that isn’t just from a can. I go off of this recipe for Crack Chicken Noodle Soup, so definitely go there for the actual recipe, but hang out here for a very chill rundown of how I make it 😅 Maybe it’ll give you some of the cozy vibes it gave us when we ate it yesterday.

Its a super easy recipe. Put everything into your pot except for two things. So. Thats my kind of recipe.

The only thing I had to prep was bacon. Fry bacon. I used a whole pack, because the single recipe said 12 pieces. I’m not usually one who likes the bacon super crispy, but you want it to crumble. So do it that way. Take my word for it.

Firstly, I doubled it all. It starts with a bunch of chicken broth and milk. I didn’t have nice homemade chicken broth so I rocked Better than Bouillon. Use what you have!

I always feel nervous at this point because it looks like not even close to enough.

Add a couple cans of cream of chicken soup to make it thicker.

Some ranch seasoning. The packets are WAY more expensive than just buying it in bulk and putting it in an old shaker. Its also easier to justify adding more this way.

So the recipe calls for carrots and celery, but I didn’t have celery so I put in double the carrots. I can confirm that it doesn’t feel lacking without the celery. The carrots are a really yummy sweet addition to the soup. And then chicken. Again, use what you have. I’ve used canned shredded chicken. Rotisserie chicken. Leftover turkey. Whatever. This time around, I had some pre-chopped Pintys chicken from Costco that I bought for a kid who needed options for feeding therapy, and I had most of it left. So I defrosted it and chopped it up a bit extra. Put that stuff in there. Oh and the bacon, too, once its done.

Cream cheese! This is the ingredient that sets this soup apart. It is the BEST part, and I didn’t have any! I texted Cher that I was researching how to make cream cheese, and she instantly called me and came to pick me up and take me to buy some 🤣 Technically, this recipe calls for 3/4 cup, so a double batch only needs 1.5 bricks, buuuuut use both if you can swing it, because its SO good that way!

It dissolves WAY faster and whisks in easier if you hack it up first, so take that extra 30 seconds and do it.

If you have a whisk (or whatever utensil you like) that doesn’t fall into the pot, you get bonus points ⭐️

Get it all boiling up and then let it all simmer happily together in there for a half hour or so.

When you’re approaching time to eat, throw in noodles. The recipe says 8 oz. I don’t really get how noodles are in ounces so I googled, and then I still did my own thing. I usually bust up spaghetti noodles, but this time, I used the “No Yolks” egg noodles. Two bags, because we’re a bunch of noodles over here. I hope someday I had use homemade noodles, but that day is not today.

Cheese. Yes. More cheese.

Can you smell it? Doesn’t it look SO good?? Look how much fuller my pot is now, hahaha! It definitely grows from that initial batch of broth!

This all turned out SO good!

Even the kids can confirm. Only one kid stuck with one bowl, and that kid didn’t complain once. Everyone else had at least seconds. This kid was a “seconds” kid, hahaha!

So there you have it. A crazy delicious soup for this random April winter. Use what you have. Its not fancy, but it feels super indulgent.

My final message to you folks – whoever you are who put your winter gear away, shovelled off your deck, took off your winter tires (whoops), or whatever else, this weather is YOUR fault 🤨 I digress.

Enjoy some soup, guys!!