As I sat down to write this, my head was spinning a bit. My thought process went like this:

My goodness, it feels like it should be Friday already!
Kind of like a Monday, too, with Brady back at work today.
Mostly a Frida, though.
How is it only Wednesday?

But, guys. Its Tuesday. I only know this because my laptop told me.

Probably it would help if I took slightly better care of myself. I’ve been trying to drink more water and eat real breakfast in the mornings, but today that meant my water had coffee grounds cooked into it, and my breakfast was leftover movie popcorn. Sooooo whoops.

I’m hanging out with these little monkeys today. They’re doing pretty good so far. Though Solly wasn’t really into Rowan’s snuggles at that particular times. Moments before this, he was insisting Rowan accept a hug from him, and Ro was refusing. So they’re kind of hot and cold.

And Wavy is just being her usual self. Ultra sweet, with a little bit of baby stinky thrown in there. She needs a bath, and she’ll get one. But I LOVE her smell!!! Its a real problem.

I was going to say my brain feels a bit out to lunch today. However, Solly has been watching the street sweeper and sneezed his head into the glass, so its possible his head is in rougher shape than mine currently is. It was secretly hilarious. I should go deal with that, haha!

Good luck this TUESDAY!!! (I typed “WED” before I remembered its Tuesday.) My gosh…

Sorry its been a couple of days, but we had such a lovely weekend celebrating Brady, and I’m finally here to share the details of his party! I say “party” loosely, because it was just he and I. Kid free. All day. On a date!

We left the house somewhere between 8:00-8:30am and headed for breakfast.

We kept it simple, and went to Tims for bacon breakfast sandwiches and double doubles. We drove to the river to find a place to eat. We used to waste sooo much time just walking by the river. Unfortunately, it was a bit too chilly to eat outside, so we parked by the train bridge and watched the joggers, walkers, and people on morning dates. It was cute. We easily killed enough time to get us to one of our scheduled events on time.

I took Brady to Bourbon, a barbershop here in Saskatoon. It looked great, had decent prices, and was not trashy at all! Very classy! We waited for Brady’s turn at a little bar in the middle of the establishment, and within minutes were called over to his spot. In his 30-45 minute appointment, he had a brief consultation, and then a very precise beard trim and clean up. She shaped his beard up really beautifully, and straight razor shaved his cheeks, neck, brows, etc.

Once all of his beard needs were taken care of, she oiled his face up good and proper, aimed a steam machine directly at his face and neck, and wrapped his face in hot towels. It was a look.

I had added a massage to his appointment, so she and I sat and shot the breeze while she massaged his neck, and he dozed in and out under his towels. His appointment ended with a cool towel to close his pores back up. She helped us pick out a beard balm, we paid up, and were on our way. Seriously men, or ladies who have men in their lives, this is SUCH a fun place! Brady is not one who requires pampering, but he’s already informed me that he’s going to be back there for beard trims, and I’m ALL for it! The prices are pretty great, which helps!

Post-pamper, we headed for lunch. Neither of us were very hungry, so we went for an old date night fallback and hit New York Fries.

Our next stop was Long & McQuade. Another place where we’d go to waste time when we had time to waste, lol! He played a few beautiful guitars, we dreamed for a little while, and Brady FINALLY got to buy a pedal thats been on his wish list since before we’ve been married – the Boss delay pedal. he was a happy happy man.

Fun fact about Long & McQuade. If you go to buy a pedal (or perhaps other things) they’ll try and sell you the floor model. I was surprised when he started to ring up the display model for Brady, and I asked if we were buying the floor model. He kind of dodged the question a bit, and said he didn’t know how long it had been out there, so it might not have even been used. He asked “Did you want a different one?” I was just surprised it was even a question! Yes, I confirmed, we’d like a new one. So rather than a pedal, just as is, in hand, we got a brand new one in a box with a manual. I couldn’t believe we had to specify that we wanted a fresh one, so I figured I’d put it out there for everyone as something to watch for.

We had some time to kill after that, and I had a short list of things we used to do, once again, when we had all the time in the world. Brady chose to drive around the ritzy areas of the city and look at all the big houses. That we used to do when we were dreaming of building our own house. Our drive quickly turned into touring old neighbourhoods where Brady had previously worked, and showing me the first houses he ever finished. We looked at previous show homes and home lottery homes. We just moseyed around until it was time for supper.

We hit Broadway Cafe, like we always used to. It was delicious! Though I was shorted my garlic toast. Merp.

We closed off the evening at the theatre, seeing Crazy Rich Asians. Since that movie came out, I’ve been expecting it to be some ridiculous, stereotypical, and somewhat racist. I had been reassured by a number of people, though, that it was actually really good, had a decent plot line, and that going to see it wouldn’t suggest to anyone that I’m racist. Because I’m not. And turns out, it was actually a REALLY good movie like I was told! It was heartwarming, funny, and pretty entertaining! A solidly mixed romantic comedy. We really liked it.

We grabbed ice cream on our way home, and that was it for the night! We came home to stories and pictures of our kids dressed in countless costumes, reading new books, and playing hard. It had been a good day for us, and a good day for them! Wins all around! We couldn’t have swung our day away without the help of our friends who stepped in to watch our littles, so an ENORMOUS thank you to them!

This is the last you’ll hear of Brady’s birthday for now, but I’m really happy with how his weekend turned out. I hope he felt loved and celebrated, and I hope he continues to feel that way every day. I’m so happy my husband was born those thirty years ago.

Yesterday, Brady and I celebrated his 30th birthday! I know I promised that I’d share the whole story with you today, but its going to have to wait for tomorrow. We spent a lovely day today at home with my mom. Yesterday was a full day, and today was beautifully low key. We read stories, played, coloured, etc. We ate leftover tacos for lunch, but supper of croissants, breakfast sausage, and peaches was a delicious win! My mom crushed the “mom of the year” title and made a cake for Brady! I hope he felt solidly celebrated.

Yesterday was his big “party,” today was his smaller one, but every day, he is an incredible person. I love that he’s my husband, and my partner in crime. I love how he leads our kids, raises them, and provides for his family. Apart from those roles, though, Brady as a whole is someone you should all want to know. He is true blue.

Love you, Greggy 😉 Welcome to the thirties.

I’ve been MIA today, for the most part, and that is because I took Brady on a birthdate! He’s joining me in the land of 30 tomorrow, so we celebrated together, just he and I, while some loving friends looked after our kids. We had a full but super relaxed day together, where we held hands, doddled in between locations, ate inside a restaurant instead of in our van, and all kinds of other good things.

I’ll tell you more about it later, but for now, I’m going to keep it short. We had such a lovely time, and are ready to wind down for the night. No joke, we’ve been asleep before 10pm most nights this week!

Thank you to our AMAZING child care for the day!

(I know, aren’t Dekker’s new glasses amaaazing?!)

We couldn’t have pulled it off without you 😘 But more on ALL of that tomorrow!!

What a lovely day! Sleep deep, my friends.

I realized today that we’re pretty much halfway through October, which is coming up on a goal I had made that I may very likely not meet! Whoops! I had hoped to have ALL of my Christmas presents bought and in hand by November 1st. I’m over here, waiting for deals, and time is quickly slipping by! But hey, we’ve got time. I’m not too devastated. And there’s still time in October. I may still reach this goal!

In thinking about the end of the year drawing near, I figured it would be interesting to look back at my New Year resolutions and see what I did and didn’t do! Hahaha! So I just found the post, and I haven’t read it yet. So let’s do that now, shall we? One by one.

Oh. I called them “intentions” this year. I like that. Go you, January Hailey!

So my first intention was to do our Christmas savings plan again, where we set money aside each week and, by October 1st, have all the money we needed to pay for Christmas. We did not do that, haha! We tried, and we have a few hundred saved in a little wallet, but not even close to the whole amount! We took a reluctant “hiatus from income” for a few months last year, and we had a little bit of catching up to do, so it just wasn’t a year of big savings for us. No bigs. But no, this was not a goal we met. And its fine.

My next intention was to improve my blog. I was a bit more specific about that in the post, and intended to have planned, structured posts every Monday and Friday. I didn’t do that, but I can say I’ve tried a lot of different things on the blog this year and I am trying harder to make it nicer to read, with less errors, and fewer “we didn’t do anything today” posts. I’ve also spent a lot of time on certain posts that I really want to get right, and its showed well in my numbers, which is encouraging. Lastly, I actually made an Instagram account for my blog that I post on every day, and its almost always a different picture than you see on the blog. Some of you have found it on your own, but I haven’t put it out there 🙂 I LOVE it when someone follows! Makes me feel so excited every time!

Lastly, I intended to be a bit more organized and “less frantic with busyness.” This one is a big broad, but I think I’ve made headway here in a way I didn’t expect. In all honesty, busyness is still pretty overwhelming, but I’m less embarrassed about my limits, and that gives me more energy when things do get busy! Also unexpectedly, I’ve learned to be a bit easier on myself. Not always, but sometimes. For example, in the craziness of the mornings, I missed sending Laela her first show and tell. Her first show and tell! I was SO bummed, because Dekker loves show and tell so much, and Laela was so looking forward to it! And I forgot. I was SO discouraged, but only for a second. Because mistakes happen. When Laela came home, I apologized to her and she was SO gracious about it, saying her teacher told her she could bring it on her next school day. And that was fine! We put a big bright sticky note on the island to remind me, and life went on! I’m sure it won’t be the last thing I’ll miss. And thats ok 🙂

So let’s be real. I haven’t aced it all, but I think thats just fine. Its been a whirlwind year, and while there have been a lot of circumstances helping it be whirlwindy, I don’t anticipate it’ll slow down anytime soon. I wouldn’t have it any other way!

Anyone care to share how their goals have gone this year?

Its that time of year again! Parent/teacher interviews are upon us! I don’t know Dekker’s teachers at all, so I was very much looking forward to getting to sit down and talk with them, and see how they interact with Dekker. We left a little early so we could walk together, and then we played on the playground a little bit.

Yes, I said “we.” Does anyone else get super nauseated on the swings?!

We got inside to the classroom a few minutes early and sat down at one of those tiny tables on the itty bitty chairs that used to seem normal sized when we were kids. We talked about Dekker was adjusting to school, and we all confirmed that there were no big issues at all. Dekker nodded excitedly when asked if he liked school. They showed me some things he had written and drawn, including a list of things he loves (mostly Waskesiu and his family) and a self evaluation. He stated he likes math best, but finds it hard. When I read that out loud, he told me that challenges are good! I loved that, as did his teachers. One of them beamed as she told me about a time when Dekker was struggling in gym (that tends to be a place where he gets overwhelmed) and he had found her and asked if he could take a little break. She commended his self awareness, and said she happily gave him his break. I’m so thankful he has that opportunity to just sit back for a second and breathe.

To wrap up our meeting, us three women just kind of built Dekker up a little and talked about why he’s so great, and he got SO bashful and silly. It warmed my heart. I really think he’s doing well, and he has warm, loving teachers.

I’m super proud of Dekker. He’s only seven but he has the heart of a big strong man. I can already see glimpses of who I imagine he’ll be when he grows up, and while I love him being my little guy, I’m SO excited to see him change and develop and mature the way he is. He loves Jesus. He loves his family. He loves Lego. All the important things 😉

I’d love to make you a victorious post showing before and after pictures, but I don’t have the “after” in me today! Haha! True story. There is SO MUCH to do in here. Maybe I should take some “before” pictures, and you guys can watch for an upcoming post titled “My Room Was a Mess.” Yes. Thats a cute idea. One moment please…

Done.

When we have people over for the first time, they often comment on how clean our house looks. And I can honestly tell that them that it is NOT clean, but decently tidy. We tidy up a lot, because clutter drives me bananas. It didn’t used to, trust me! You’re talked to a reformed packrat who collected everything. I’m pretty over that now, and when there is less stuff, its easier to actually clean when I feel so inclined. Which is rarely. Stuff is surface cleaned, but I do not deep clean even close to enough. That being said, our room usually takes the biggest hit of messiness. Its not always a disaster, but if something doesn’t have a home, it migrates to our room, and once in a while, it gets fully out of hand. And folks, today is that day.

Let me walk you through this hole.

Right when you walk in, there’s this. Two hampers of laundry that just needs to be put away. My LEAST favorite part of laundry is putting it away, and I’ve dragged my feet hard on this one. These hampers have been here forrrrr maybe two days now? Dekker had two unmatched socks in the bottom of his drawer this morning and I let him wear them to school. #momwin

A bit further in, you can see a bit worse of it.

The desk was worse yesterday, but today it still holds a few pictures from the kids, a calendar that desperately needs updating, and a pile of letters spread out from when I wrote the message “use me” on my new letter board! Things that belong on my desk are also there, but thats allowed 🙂 I can’t wait for Wavy to have a more permanent spot so I can hang up her beautiful picture!! You’ll see her current bedroom in a second here. But back to this area, the chair is covered with yarn that I haven’t put away, and some boxes from parcels we received that I haven’t just walked out to our recycle bin yet. Sigh. Oh, and thats Wavy’s snot sucker on the headboard, because we’re classy people and leave that kind of thing out. Its worth noting that I removed two bottles and a coffee mug off of our headboard this morning, and that was probably the least amount of dishes its held in weeks. (What? No! We would never eat in bed! Are you crazy?!)

To the other side of the room…

It doesn’t look too too bad. Right at the bottom left corner, you can see the beginning of a blue tub. We have a bunch of clothes to pack up that Wavy’s grown out of, and they’re all just in a heap over there. Once that tub is gone, thats probably where the new banjo case will go. We have our dressers (YES! We like purple!) that aren’t too too bad, but are SO dusty! The short dresser is pretty much right, except that besides our little stuffies for Theo and Jamin, it has two stuffies that are Wavy’s, and they should go with her stuff. The tall dresser has some papers to put away, but thats basically it.

Oh! We need to wash our bedding, too. Can’t forget about that!

So, here’s Waverly’s spot. Ssshhh! She’s napping!

She sleeps in our walk-in closet right now, but is starting to get a little bit too active for her little cradle. I find her sideways in there once in a while, so I think its time to retire the cradle and switch her to a playpen. But the playpen takes up more space than the cradle. So I need to rearrange the clothes into different spots so she can’t reach them from her bed. (To be clear, this is just a chunk of the closet. You’ll see it all in the “after” post.) The closet also needs a good dust and maybe a bit of a purge.

The whole room and closet need a good, solid vacuum as well! The postpartum hair loss is upon us, and it means business!

To the en suite!

This part could be worse, but still, it needs help. There’s clothing to put into the laundry, and towels to switch out. There’s garbage in weird places (not to mention BOTH garbage cans in here are full and neglected) and general products laying out that need to be put away. We have a disassembled humidifier that we used recently that needs putting away. There’s a toilet paper wrapper on the sink indicating that the last roll has been started, and more needs to be brought upstairs. EVERYTHING needs an actual clean in this room. The mirror, sink, tub, and toilet. The bathmat could also use a trip through the laundry, since we’re talking about all this.

Guys, real talk. I’m totally happy to pick up and tidy as things get out of sorts, but once it reaches this point, I have more trouble getting down to it. I’ve never been good at middle grounds, and I feel like I have to either blitz this all at once or not at all. Tackling things bit by bit just doesn’t work well for me. Yet! As I said in my “30 Life Lessons” post, motivation comes and goes, but self discipline is always there! So I give you all full permission to rag on me about this if I haven’t tidied this mess up by the end of the week! Because I can, and I should. And I want to!!! Our room is such a sanctuary, and I want it to feel like one again!

Waverly is lulling so thats it for today, folks! Thanks for reading and not judging my mess! I know you’ve all got some of that, too 😉

I’ve often said that if we all agreed on everything, the world would be boring, because we’d all be the same. Its totally fine that we all do things differently, think differently, and disagree from time to time.

I am aware that the world is bigger than my family, but since you’re here, on my blog, thats the perspective I’m going off of today.

I don’t want to write a long, cliche post about the things that people have said about big families, or about my family, but I’m going to dip into it just a little. Over this last weekend was the first time I really felt offended by the comments of a stranger. And I’ve heard a LOT of things. Some are kind of rude, but for the most part, I think people are just kind of shocked, and accidentally say the wrong thing.

“You guys are crazy! I could never do that!” Thats never hurt me. I know they mean that they just can’t picture how the busyness of many kids would look in their own life. Its FINE!

Then there are the very standard comments that some people are offended by, but I really don’t understand why.

“You’ve sure got your hands full!” They’re not wrong! I do! They’re full of wonderful things, and I wouldn’t trade it for anything, but yes, my hands are FULL! Why are people so offended by this?!

Then there are the jokes. People think they’re SO original, lol!

“You know what causes that, right?” In fact we do! And clearly we’re good at it!

“Are you going for the record?” You aren’t, thats for sure! What are you, a quitter? (To be clear, this one was saved for someone I knew 😉)

The closest I’ve ever come to being offended by those comments was being asked if they all had the same dad. I’m not even sure “offended” was the right word. I was more amused that a stranger would ask me such a question! As if it was their business! If I remember right, I laughed and said something along the lines of “Whoops! Probably shouldn’t ask that!” Lol! How would knowing that piece of information benefit them at all??

And then there was this woman at Superstore this weekend. She barely said anything to me, but it rubbed me SO wrong and I haven’t been able to shake it off since.

We were lined up, putting our groceries on the conveyer belt to check out. There was a woman bagging her groceries on the close side of the aisle, so Brady had to sneak the cart and the kids behind her and around her cart at the end of the aisle to get situated on the other belt. I waited over by the cashier to pay. He politely excused himself past her, and she commented on how he had his hands full. He smiled and said that we do! I laughed a little as I watched Dekker and Laela scrap over pushing the button to get the belt moving. The woman in the close aisle hadn’t noticed me, and upon looking over at me, stares at me in surprise!

“My goodness you have another one!” she exclaimed, pointing at Wavy in the carrier. I laughed and said something, I don’t remember what exactly, confirming that yes, we had another.

And her smile got suuuper fake, then faded, and she said “Ha!… stop…”

I looked back at her for a moment. We just kind of stared at each other. It was so uncomfortable. I finally answered back “Ha… No.”

I looked away and burrowed my face into Wavy’s hair and kissed her head. When I looked up a few seconds later, the lady was gone. I wish I had watched her a little bit longer to see her reaction to my response, but I was so caught off guard. Its probably good that I didn’t, actually.

“The size of my family is none of your concern.”

“You don’t have to be responsible for them, I promise.”

“Wow, that was pretty rude…”

“Leave my family alone, crazy grocery store lady. My children affect you literally not at all. You’re not watching them, paying for them, raising them, shuttling them, or keeping them alive. They add ZERO extra work to your life. You will likely never ever see them again. So shut your ridiculous mouth on the subject.”

That last one probably would’ve been an overreaction…

I’m usually kind of prepared for awkward comments people make towards by family, but this time around, I had nothing. Because she wasn’t being friendly. She didn’t mean well. The air was just different. Even though the conversation was five seconds long, it sat heavy with me for the rest of the day, and continues to nag at me a little. Which is probably why I’m writing it here. To just get it off my chest.

I’m not naive to the fact that people who have no kids get a whole other kind of flack. There are tactless, opinionated people in every avenue, about every avenue. I try to let things roll off my back as smoothly as possible, because my gosh it is SO EASY to offend people these days! I’d so much rather give people the benefit of the doubt. But THIS, I did not like.

I will never NOT feel protective of my children. I’m probably one of the safer people to say the wrong thing around, but if you want a real discussion, you’ve got one.

Aaaaand end rant!

Wavy finally gave us some good sleep last night after at least a week of choppy two hour stretches, thanks to her stuffed nose. It was such a relief. Brady and I slept like rocks. When it was time to get up, Brady offered to get the kids and I went downstairs to pull some laundry out of the dryer. I sorted what had accumulated in the last couple of days, just so I didn’t have to later. When I came upstairs, my mom was over, bearing two pans of her delicious homemade cinnamon rolls!

We spent the morning together, eating said cinnamon rolls, with bacon and eggs as well. We drank coffee and chatted for a couple of hours. It was relaxed and sweet and exactly how I wanted our last day of this holiday weekend to look.

When breakfast was finished off, Brady took our eager little children up to our storage closet. They came back to the table positively BEAMING, holding a gift bag in my direction. They were positively twitching with excitement!

My kids had been disappointed that they didn’t have the opportunity to get me a gift for my birthday this summer. They were sad, and I was sad because I know they had mentioned it a lot and were looking forward to it. Today was finally their chance, and their excitement showed blatantly on their faces. Brady told me, upon the presentation of my gift, that the kids hadn’t been able to select the exact gift, but they had given Brady directions, and were happy with his choice.

My kids know what I like 🙂 I got this beautiful fresh mug, along with a couple of beautiful little birthday notes from the kids. Brady also rented me an instrument to try and learn on, with the intention to buy it after a few months if we love it. So thats something fun to anticipate, too!

It was a really sweet morning, and a nice quiet nap time shortly thereafter. Reality strikes again tomorrow, but I hope you all finish off your holiday weekend with loved ones like I have.

Thanksgiving 2018 looks a whole lot brighter than Thanksgiving 2017. I was SO broken last year at this time. I’m quite a bit more “assembled” this time around, though not in the same way as before. I’ll never be the same as was before losing my babes, but thats ok. I hope I continue to grow and change constantly. I have a lot to be thankful for, and while I could list and list and list, I’m going to focus on one specific thing today.

I am thankful for Waverly’s curly hair. But not for the reason that you think. Hear me out.

When I was pregnant with Wavy, I was so scared for her to die. I prayed unceasingly for her to live, that she could come home with us at the end of everything and join our family in person. Finding out she was a girl was exciting, but it really kind of felt irrelevant at the time. Sure, having another girl was something we hoped for at some point, but I honestly had no preference at the time. Not even a secretive “Well if I could choose…” preference. I JUST wanted a baby that was living and breathing and healthy and could come home with me.

And then there was one time that I was praying for Waverly, and I let myself dream a little, and I prayed for her to have curly hair. How amaaazing would that be?! Right away, I felt foolish, because I really didn’t care what her hair looked like, or if she had any at all, or any of that shallow, unimportant stuff. I just wanted her to live. That was all! I never prayed about her hair again.

But God heard, as He always does. And he threw me a bone. My little girly was born with curly little locks.

In the recent weeks and months, I’ve been working harder to trust God with different things – more things, bigger things – than maybe I have in the past. Not all too long ago, I was so upset over a situation not playing out how I had expected. I should add, this situation was fully unrelated to Waverly. And in a moment of frustration, into my head popped the thought “Your daughter has curly hair.” I wasn’t sure what made me think of that right away, but it didn’t take long.

GOD! HE LISTENS!! TO EVERY SINGLE LITTLE DETAIL!!

I feel like God gave me Waverly’s curly hair as a reminder that He is listening to me. He knows about the little petty garbage that I feel dumb praying for, or the things I’m afraid to say out loud. He knows my desires, and He wants to give me the desires of my heart, even when they’re little. God is on Team Hailey! This seemingly small realization has talked me off a ledge of number of times already, and I’m so grateful for it.

I hope you can all find something special that you’re thankful for this year! If its a difficult Thanksgiving this year, I challenge you to dig deep!! And share it in the comments, if you feel so inclined!

Happy Thanksgiving, my friends!