This is the week, guys. THIS WEEK! We WILL meet our baby this week! We WILL hold her! We WILL smell her! We WILL share her! We WILL tell everyone her name! Hahaha! Its about flipping time, on ALL levels, do we agree? Yes, we do.

Size Comparison: Apparently she is the size of an american short haired cat. Sure, I can roll with that. I bet she smells better, though! Very soon, we’ll know her actual size!! Eek! Why is that such a fun part?!

Appointments: You may have seen, we went to my last prenatal appointment (for this pregnancy, anyway) as a family. The kids did pretty great, actually! Our doctors are so good to them, and include them in the conversation often. (PICTURE) I had my cervix checked, where I learned that I’m basically still completely out of labour, at only 1 cm dilated. No biggie. Baby’s heart rate was good, still in the 130-140 range. I somehow managed to lose 3-4 lbs *shrug* Couldn’t tell you how that happened! As a whole, I gained only 19 lbs this pregnancy! Don’t judge me, I never try to gain or not gain anything. I just roll with whatever happens. Keep in mind, I gained 45 lbs with Dekker and 22 lbs with Solly, and both boys were a SOLID 10.5 lbs. No one is hurting over here. 

How am I feeling emotionally: Determined. I’m still scared, and I’m still excited, but I’m READY to have her. I’ve never been more ready.

How am I feeling physically: It doesn’t even matter. I guess I feel out of breath most of the time? But truly, who cares? My physical feelings are SO secondary to everything else. 

Wish Lish/Purchases: My wish list is just my baby, and nothing else. I need nothing else for her. Everything is ready. We have what we want. We NEED her.

Pictures: Last belly shot against this wall before the whole structure changes.

She’ll be on the outside of my body, and either snuggled against me or eventually propped up, but likely still in the same safe little space in my bedroom, against this plain old wall.

How are the kids feeling: Solly says “baby” and rubs my tummy now. If even the two year old is catching on, you know we’ve been talking about Bambina a LOT! 

Getting to know the baby: No more speculating. I will tell you ALL the real fun facts about her as soon as I know them!

The BEST part of being pregnant: Having the opportunity to be pregnant. My instinct is to write that the best part of being pregnant is NOT being pregnant anymore, because its how I feel today, but I know how fortunate I am to have this opportunity, much less so many times. The BEST thing about being pregnant is knowing I have been that way for long enough to deliver a full term baby, and I can be content in knowing I’ve done my best. 

Favourite thing: My favourite thing for todays post is my medical team. I have the BEST people in ALL the fields! I have the BEST doctor, which has never been in question. I have an AMAZING student doctor who loves Dr. Guselle just as much as I do, and is excited to learn from her! I have the BEST chiro and physio that have physically kept me standing throughout this pregnancy. I had the SWEETEST OB through my first trimester who always told me she liked seeing me and never made me feel like a bother. My husband – partner in crime, father of my children, birth partner, etc. – is an integral part of my medical team, as well. I could not still be here without any of these puzzle pieces. I am confident I will be surrounded by the BEST support system the hospital has to offer, because the nurses are all wonderful and amazing in their fields. I am SO well taken care of, and SO thankful for that!! 

I remember when I was pregnant with Dekker, everything was so surreal. So unbelievable. I had no idea what was coming or what to expect. No book could’ve prepared me. I was so naive, and that was fine. It was SUCH a joyful time, experiencing motherhood for the very first time. I feel just as young and silly and lost this time around. I hope my instincts come back, because these days, I feel like I will be completely green with a newborn. Lucky for me, infants tend to be pretty forgiving in most departments. Or at least I hope so! 

Hopefully hopefully hopefully…

GUEST POST!!

This is Brady, back again to bring you a breakdown of how I built our new coffee mug shelf which now hangs above our coffee bar. You may think, ‘Oh! So soon?!’ and the answer is ‘Yes.’

So Hailey has been dreaming of this type of shelf since we first moved into our new place two years ago and I have just never got around to it. Until now. Two weeks before our FIFTH CHILD!! I don’t know what I was thinking.

So two years ago Hailey sent me a Pintrest link to this blog. I used it as a rough outline for our project but mostly just as some starter dimensions. I didn’t follow their method of assembly very much at all and tweaked a lot of things as I went for ease of assembly and install down the road.

I started with some 6′ long spruce 1x6s that I picked up from Home Depot in a spur of the moment decision one day while we were waiting for Hailey to get out of a physio appointment a couple weeks ago. I brought them home and immediately went to work setting up my tools in our driveway while the kids rode their trikes and wiggle cars in the garage. Before making any cuts however, I went inside to talk to Hailey about what we wanted from this shelf. Height, width, and position were all discussed and we came up with this plan.

We also decided that we wanted the shelves to be 5″ deep and as we all know 😉 1x6s are actually only 5 1/2″ wide so I needed to rip about half an inch off each board. (A rip cut is used when cutting along the grain of a board in order to make it narrower, or to cut a wide board into several narrower boards.)

I  started by cutting all my vertical boards and the top and bottom boards to length. I then ripped all those boards down to 5 1/8″. Why not to 5″ exactly? By leaving the outer frame and all vertical boards slightly deeper, I was able to later smooth over the edges and have each individual shelf butt into its supporting board with no cracks to fill and paint later on. Next was ripping all the remaining scraps down to 5″ exactly and cutting them all to length at 5″ exactly.

I then sanded all the cut edges to a slightly rounded and nicely smoothed edge and started nailing the frame together. It was at this point that I discovered I had miscounted my vertical boards. I only had enough materials for seven vertical supports, not the eight that I required.

*facepalm*

So I brought everything into the garage, locked up both vans in the driveway and called it a day. It was almost supper time anyways.

Bright and early the next morning we made an errand run to the city and picked up the remaining required board as well as a small stack of other lumber that we needed to finish framing our basement. Arriving home midmorning gave me a chance to setup all my tools again and continue working. I made quick work of cutting, ripping, and sanding the eighth vertical board and glued and nailed it in place in line with all the others.

*SIDE NOTE* I chose to use Titebond III to glue this project together as it is the strongest glue in a squeeze bottle I’ve ever come across. It may be overkill for something like this but I had it on hand so ‘Why not?’ I also nailed it together with 2″ brad nails to hold it while the glue dried.

After lunch Hailey came out and helped me choose a layout for the shelf spacing. As detailed and accurate and my plans were, they didn’t quite line up as planned. We ended up with something kind of symmetrical but we both liked the layout and decided to go ahead with it. So after about an hour of gluing and nailing in those little 5″ shelves, we came out with this!

As I was nailing the shelves in I had to trim some shelves to match the cupping of each vertical board but I didn’t try too hard because I wanted it to be imperfect and “rustic”. It went against the grain for me as a finish carpenter but I intentionally left some gaps. 😮

It actually looked really good like this and I almost felt bad painting over it so quickly but the end result was completely worth it.

At this point I decided to add a small 2″ strip to the underside of the top board to use as a way to screw the whole thing to the wall. You’ll see that soon.

The next morning I fenced off a small portion on the garage to keep the kids at bay as I painted the whole thing. We decided to use the leftover paint from our front door and if you remember…

It was purple.

😍

Maybe other guys wouldn’t be man enough to admit it but I LOVE this purple. Hahaha. It’s so rich and vibrant. We may end up with a lot more things in our house being this purple. 😳

I chose to paint after assembly for the sake of not marring the paint on my saw and covering all my pencil marks. What has two thumbs and skipped the need for touchups? THIS GUY!! I also chose to use a brush for the whole thing to keep with the imperfect, “rustic” aesthetic.

So after about two and a half hours of painting *facepalm* we had this.

I didn’t bother painting the back edges as they would be flat against the wall. You can also see the 2″ strip I added to be able to screw it to the wall.

I let it dry for the rest of the day and over night and was scratching at the door the next morning to put it up. So as the kids were eating breakfast and Hailey was still in bed I used a level to mark its placement so it would be level with the bottom of the cabinet next to it and perfectly centred over the coffee bar. I also used my handy dandy stud finder to mark wall stud locations and measured for screw locations on the unit itself.

As soon as Hailey came down to keep an eye on the kids I ran outside and got my drill and some 3″ screws and within 5 minutes it was screwed to the wall and holding mugs.

TA-DA!!

I love it! We’ve already begun buying more mugs to fill out the empty spaces. Thirty five spaces in total. And the whole thing only cost about $40.  🤑 Before the cost of all the mugs that is. *facepalm* $30 for the lumber and $5-10 for the paint. (Although we already owned that. lol)

The best part for me is that the few people who have seen pictures of it, first thought that it was a picture plucked off of Pintrest. Self brag!! Hahaha

Maybe this can be an inspiration for your own shelf, or maybe it’ll just inspire you to invite yourself over for coffee sometime just to be able to pick your favourite mug. 🤗

If you’ve been keeping track, we are CLOSE to baby day. Hopefully, all will go down at the beginning of this coming week! 🤞 Also, hopefully all goes well on the home front and baby girl is healthy and well and comes home very soon!! 🤞🤞🤞 Hopefully hopefully hopefully.

So, its Saturday afternoon. In theory, we potentially are only two days away from baby day. Not much time left to do things, but as I look now, there is not too much left to do!

This morning, I got the side of my hair re-shaved, and Brady painted my toenails on Thursday evening. I even showered. I’m refreshed and ready for anything! ✅

I have a list going of what I’m waiting to arrive in the mail, but none of it is baby stuff anymore. Actually, none of it is even for us! So that section of my superlist is done! ✅

The last thing I had to buy before she arrived was actually what I’m hoping to give out as a “favor” for the party. Being that this thing exists somewhere that I rarely go, I just didn’t get there, and thats ok. We’ll get there (or we won’t) after she comes. I’m not concerned. ✅

I have one thing left on the list of things to do, and I’m planning to do it this afternoon, so, done! ✅

During naptime this afternoon, Dekker came and hung out upstairs with Brady and I and helped us pack up our hospital bags. I’ve had the bulk of my stuff, as well as Bambina’s stuff, pulled out and set aside for a good while now, but Brady had yet to get his own stuff organized. Which is fine, except for the fact that I’ve had some weird, somewhat laboury nights. The other day, before leaving for my prenatal, I just chucked everything into a bag, with a few extras for him, just in case we ended up in the hospital. We didn’t, obviously, so we unpacked the mess I made, and repacked it nicely with Brady’s things added to the mix. All that’s left on our list of things to pack (because you know I have a list for that, too) is toothbrushes, pillows, our phone chargers, and the iPad that is currently charging. Boom. Done! ✅

Currently, as I look around my room, I have fresh sheets sitting on the chair beside my bed that we can quickly change out when Jerilee comes for the day/night that we’re at the hospital. Baby’s cradle is ready. Her jammies, blankets, and diapers are all where they need to be. I have all the pads for all the places in all the sizes.The tub is scrubbed. We. Are. Ready.

We found the perfect cold brew ratio! ✅

We stocked up on ALL the fresh fruit and veggies we’ll need for the next while! ✅

Milk, too. ✅

Brady has finished up his work (as in his “at work” work) that needs doing. ✅

The kids are in the know about whats going to happen and when. ✅

I can’t think of anything else that needs doing, and I’m not going to keep breaking my brain over it. We are as ready as we’ll ever be!

Tomorrow, we’ll have lunch with my parents and my brother’s family. One last hurrah before we add another little sweetie to the mix. And then we’ll sleep, and wait for it to be our turn.

Please come home soon, Bambina 💜 We love you SO much!

Yesterday was SUCH a lovely day! It wasn’t stressful or overwhelming, but rather totally enjoyable! I really liked it! I had company throughout the day, including morning coffee with a friend, a wonderful mini photo session with Cher, my mom came over and helped us with some baby party decor, and Brady painted my toe nails after I genuinely tried the other day and failed hard. It was a productive, super fun day! Brady and I proceeded to stay up too late, watching shows and having snacks. It had been such a wonderful day.

And then sleep did not come easy for me. I was in quite a bit of pain, but managed to fall asleep maybe around 11:30, maybe later, but I woke up at 12:30 that just seemed to be it. Do you all know what “lightning crotch” means? Its when the baby keep smacking against your cervix and it sends these wild painful zaps through your body. There is not gentle version, and there is no work up or warning. It comes out of nowhere and takes your breath away. Like it hurts. BAD. Baby girl is never awake for especially long stretches of time, but I lay in bed for hours waiting for her to let us, and she was not having it. I was awake and in solid pain until sometime between 3-4:00. It was a pretty horrendous night.

We’re off the school schedule, but my body disagrees, so I woke up with a start around 6:45am and panicked that I had missed an alarm or something. When I realized that we didn’t have to be up so early and that the kids were still quiet, I was so relieved and decided to try for a bit more sleep. Except miss Bambina was already awake and violently head butting my cervix!! Gah!!! I lay in bed for a while, hoping for her to relax a little while I watched some YouTube and gathered myself. Meanwhile, I was having braxton hicks contractions one on top of the other without any let up. Call it what you will, but for me, thats what labour feels like. I don’t feel the pain of the contractions until much later, so often, braxton hicks feel about right. I lay still in hopes that they’d quit, but they didn’t, and eventually it was time to go get the kids. So I pushed through it, knowing I had a prenatal that morning. They’d be able to tell me what was going on.

We brought the whole crew today for the final appointment. We all piled into the exam room and the kids actually tried really hard to be on their best behaviour, it seemed. Thank you, sweeties! I spoke to my student doctor about the night before and educated him on the technical term “lightning crotch,” which he put in his notes, lol! It was funny 🙂 He spoke to Dr. Guselle and I agreed to a cervical check. Not a sweep, just a check, to make sure I’m not in my weird secretive level of active labour.

Full disclosure. There is nothing comforting about the doctor stepping out for a minute because the medium and large gloves in the room are too small for him. Sigh. So that was a thing, but I lived through it, and thankfully, my cervix is sitting at 1 cm, and I am not secretly in labour at all. Woot! I want her sweet little self to be born in the hospital, therefore meaning I’d prefer her to hang out on the inside for another few days.

Once the messy stuff was over, Dr. Guselle invited Brady and the kids to head on out for some stickers so I could get dressed on my own. She’s such a mom, haha! She totally gets the relief in getting dressed without an audience. So I did that, exited the room, and was greeted by my four happy kids, all with stickers in hand, waiting patiently. Dekker also had my wallet, phone, and new sheet of prenatal info. I have such a wonderful family!

Now, we wait and see what induction falls! If it comes on our preferred date, GREAT! If she comes earlier, fine, and if we get bumped, I guess thats fine, too. I’m just so eager to have her in my arms, healthy and well. Somehow this still feels like a serious test of my faith…

We are all fine!! ❤

I am SO THANKFUL that our first accident in the bus wasn’t our fault!!

For Dekker’s last day of school, we decided to give him the freedom to choose supper. Within reason, we told him he could pick just about anything he wanted. We listed off a number of meals we know he loves, some meals that are a tad more complicated and less common, and we even offered to go pick up some food, if we didn’t have what he wanted. And the kid picked hot dogs. Of all things. We have hot dogs ALL the time. We gave him some time to think twice, but he was convinced. Hot dogs it is! Brady and I were hoping he’d pick something a bit more special, so instead we offered to drive for donuts! He happily accepted, so we headed off to a nearby town to find some treats.

Dekker and I headed into the Co-op together and he picked out a package of donuts. The donuts from Co-op are SO good, guys! We came back out to the van, closed ourselves inside, and were talking about what we picked when there was a loud sound and a big bump.

I looked in the big truck mirror and sure enough, someone was trying to drive into the spot besides ours and suuuper misjudged how close they were, and basically drove into the back corner of our van. Brady went out right away, and the woman in the car threw her hand sup , as if annoyed that he was there at all.

So here’s what happened.

We all know we drive a bus. The back doors occasionally get caught in the wind and whip further open than expected, and they slam into the side of the bus if we don’t catch them in time. If we want them open ALL the way like that, there is a magnet on the very back side of the van that will hold the doors to the sides. The magnet also doubles as a bumper for if the doors do whip open like that. That was a pretty jumbled explanation :/ It kind of looks like a door stopped on the back/side of the van. This person had driven square into the one bumper, and the magnet was halfway out.

Now, really, its a small-ish problem, but unfortunately, our vehicle isn’t even close to a junker, and we NEED it to last. The bumper magnet will definitely need replacing, so rather than doing it out of pocket down the line when it inevitably pops all the way out, we agreed we’d need to file a claim. This was an obvious choice for us, but a bummer for her, as she mentioned it was actually her ex’s car. So that’s awkward.

She and Brady exchanged information, and she was very apologetic the entire time. All was fine, no one was hurt or too upset, and we both had minimal damage. She barely had a scratch, and she legit just hit the back corner bumper. I don’t even think the body took a hit. JUST the magnet thing. So for a first ding on the bus, it was fairly painless.

Thats what we get for eating donuts, I suppose… 🍩 Worth it.

Dropping Dekker off this morning was an eye-opener.

I anticipated that Dekker would walk to school most of this year. I figured I’d find some other family who let their kids walk and ask if Dekker could join, and just kind of take that “job” off my plate. Losing Jamin right before the school year began, I just didn’t have it in me to figure it out. The longer it took, the more I just decided that I’d drive him for the year, and that next year, he and Laela will walk together. So yes, I have driven Dekker to and from school every single day this year. He has been more than capable of walking, but it just hasn’t happened.

Earlier in the year, I’d park us nice and close, walk him across the street and to the school. I’d wait outside the boot room for him to drop his backpack off, then give him a hug and kiss before he’d run off to the playground. It was an adorable system, but I slowly made strides to give him a bit more space and independence, which was extra hard because he was HAPPY to have me come with him! I knew it would’ve last forever that he’d request I walk with him.

As the weather warmed up, I started to offer him to just walk from the van by himself. There are crossing guards, he’d be safe, etc. He was reluctant at first, but became comfortable very quickly. Even on days that we get there before the crossing guards are out, I’ve watched how he looks both ways, waits for vehicles to stop, etc. He knows what to do.

We have this special hug spot. He stands on what I guess is the running board of the van, and I stand on the ground, and it is the perfect height for us to hug. We refer to that spot as “the best hugging spot ever.” And he never rushes to be done, until recently, where he’s delicately said once or twice “I’m ready now, mommy.” Deep breaths for me!

This morning, I drove him to school, and met him at the best hugging spot ever for our goodbye hug. A few kids from his grade walked by, but he wasn’t concerned. We were having a really good hug. Finally, I said “Should I let you go, honey?” And he giggled and said no, he’d like to just stay. We had a bit more of a hug before I grabbed our hug just that much tighter and lifted him onto the sidewalk. He waved like crazy and off he went. I got back into the van and put it into drive to head home, and when I reached the four way stop, he was standing on the corner, checking if the coast was clear. No crossing guards yet. I stopped and waved at him. He chuckled and waved, and then motioned for me to go first. Ugh. My heart…..

We picked Dekker up as a family this afternoon. We caught him in a big group hug, which he seemed to love, as did we. Everyone was very excited to have him back! We made our way out of the school towards the van and chatted briefly with the principal of the school. She is such a lovely, warm person, and I couldn’t be happier with her as the overseer of the school. She encouraged me, saying that Dekker had blossomed so much this year, and was so much more confident! He had really come into his own, we both agreed. As we parted ways, she wished us luck “with little Bambina” and I could’ve cried. I LOVE that Dekker talked to her about the baby, and I love that she remembered that little detail <3

Dekker, we are SO PROUD OF YOU!!! You have grown a ton this year, leaving me all puffy and proud, but ALL the glory goes to God!! He has carried our boy through all kinds of new things, and he has come out on top, having learned and stretched. He is such a little man, but I feel like I said the same thing last year!

I can’t wait to see what grade two holds for my biggest little, and thankfully, neither can he!!

So many things are going on these days, and I feel like all I talk about is errands we run, work we do, and how the kids are acting that day. To be fair, thats just kind of the season of life we’re in, but it gets monotonous, I’m sure. Today, however, I got home after getting some blood work done to find my husband had finished all the cleaning off my list. He’s working tomorrow through the rest of the week, so it was our last afternoon to just hang out together.

When we were discussing the plans for the rest of our day, I began hounding him to write a blog for me. He recently built something for me that I really want him to write about. He’s a great writer (wasn’t his last post awesome?) and seemed more than happy to do it, but as tends to happen, time gets away and its hard to prioritize these things. I reassured him it took a while for it to become a habit for me, too. It was during this conversation that I remembered I started my blog originally sometime in the end of June. A quick look back showed me that today is the last day of my SIXTH year of blogging!!!

I began blogging when Dekker was a baby. He wasn’t quite a year old yet (his birthday is in August) and I was feeling the need for an outlet, to feel like I was talking to someone and making conversation with possible friends/family/adults. I LOVED my son, but he slept a TON and I was so lonely in the days. Here I am, six years later, and I’m honestly really happy that I’m still at it 🙂 No, my blog doesn’t bring in money. My audience really hasn’t grown a ton. Its not specifically riveting. But the records I’ve kept, almost without meaning to, are things I treasure. I often joke and call my blog my premature memoirs, which I’d say is pretty accurate.

Photo cred: Cher Andrea

I don’t know how much longer I’ll be blogging, but I hope to still for quite some time. I can’t imagine just stopping now, after my children have been so well documented, after we’ve been through/learned/done so much! I kick myself for not starting a little bit sooner, as my pregnancy with Dekker is the one that isn’t documented, nor the first ten-ish months of his life. But I had to start somewhere! Hopefully he still loves me.

I’ve said often enough that I’m not sure what it would take for me to stop blogging. It would have to be something BIG. Yet I don’t want something bad to be what “wins,” you know? Yet what good thing would motivate me to stop? I don’t know! Maybe I’ll just do this forever, who knows?

Year seven starts tomorrow! Who’s with me?

I don’t even know how to introduce todays post. I’m so overwhelmed in so many different directions. I’m thrilled, and truly afraid. I’m tired, and buzzing. I’m sick but I’m ready. I’ve been nesting hard, preparing, crushing my lists, working myself into a tizzy, yet she could come this moment, and everything would be perfect. I’m such a mixture of emotions.

Size Comparison: The baby is the size of a ukulele, which I LOVE! I don’t even really care if its accurate or not, lol! I’m a big fan of the idea 🙂 I suppose it could be right length wise, but I’m pretty sure ukuleles don’t weigh as much as my kids tend to…

Appointments: I had a prenatal appointment on Friday. My doctor was away at a conference, but my student doctor was there, and another lovely doctor was there to oversee. I asked my few questions, we discussed how sick I’ve been recently, and he approved the few things I was doing to try and get through this cold. Baby’s heart rate was all good, according to him. Apparently accelerations and decelerations are really good to see, but I don’t much care for a deceleration the way he does. Gives me the shivers. But he was happy with his findings anyway. I asked him if he could tell if the baby’s head was engaged, and he straight up admitted to me that he’s just not confident really ever in babies positions. He gave me his best guess but said he’d bring in the overseeing physician. I was glad he did 🙂 Not because I don’t trust him, but she was so gentle and confident and used me as a bit of a teaching moment, showing him over and over what felt like what, how the baby curves once they’re this tall, and how to grip the baby’s head. She said that she could still grip Bambina’s head, but that it didn’t wiggle too much. So its somewhat engaged, but not all the way. In my previous experience, once the doctor can’t really find the head anymore, that kid is engaged!! But, to be fair, two of my kids never ever “engaged” or dropped fully until delivery. I blame their huge noggins. So maybe thats the case.

How am I feeling emotionally: Truth be told, I feel both extremes of emotion pretty heavily. I go from euphoria to panic incredibly quickly. Baby day cannot come soon enough! I can’t wait to just take that deep breath when she’s FINALLY safe in my arms.

How am I feeling physically: This week I have felt SO sick with this cold, coughing my lungs out until my ribs ached. Its been pretty consuming, if I’m being honest. I’ve felt completely out to lunch. My whole body is loosening up, so I’m very sore, regardless of how good I am at following the rules. All kinds of fun things like that. A special fun thing thats started recently is that baby girl will get her foot riiiiight on my ribs and push with all her might, and then slip off at the last minute. Its kind of wild, while its happening, to think that there is a person in there causing the uproar. She’s feisty. This all being said, I’m wondering if she dropped! Today specifically, I noticed some relief in the breathing department, yet my pelvis is MUCH worse than its been. Plus, my handibelt almost doesn’t fit over my hips anymore, and it absolutely fit very recently…

Wish Lish/Purchases: Its so hard to keep track of this stuff week to week! Baby’s little purple soothers came in the mail, which is a big YAY! I also got a parcel of three dresses I ordered from the Gap hoping one would be pretty for the baby party, but they were all a bust :/ To be clear, its not a fancy party at all, but I thought a dress might be a tad more forgiving, considering I’ll be less than two weeks postpartum at the time. Oh well! Found one todaaaaay!!

Pictures: The apps said I’m probably as big as I’m going to get at this point…

I don’t buy it. Comparing it to Cher’s picture from two weeks ago, I don’t know, but I definitely see some dropping taking place.

Anyone else?

How are the kids feeling: Two of the kids have now felt Bambina move! Its hard to coordinate when kids have the attention span for it and she’s moving somewhat consistently, but Laela and Rowan have both now felt her hiccup. It seems to have made her existence even more real, specifically for Laela.

She is SO smitten for her sister these days!

Baby girl gets kisses, rub downs, and is greeted all day, every morning and evening, you name it. The kids also love feeling my tummy and finding the hard spots, and then speculating what they are. In fact, they’re sooooo interested in the hard spots, sometimes what they find is a contraction because they’re pushing and poking at her so much!

Getting to know the baby: Speaking of hiccups, lol, she gets them WAY more now! She has not been a hiccupy baby up to this point, but probably in the last week or two, that has jumped like crazy!! I love them 🙂

The BEST part of being pregnant:This week, I realized just how close baby day is! Its NEXT WEEK! I can look on the 14 day trend on the weather network and see the predicted weather on/around baby day! I have enough underwear to last until baby day! Heck, our milk will still be good after baby day!!! Not that it’ll last that long, because we drink an unreasonable amount of milk over here. But seriously, its COMING. Its officially crunch time!

Favourite thing: Skor McFlurries. Hands down. If you haven’t had one yet, go get one. They’re more decadent than you’d like. Specifically, the McDonalds in Martensville loads them with Skor chunks! And not just Skor bits out of a bag. Real chunks.

My beautiful little miss, you are invited to come absolutely any time! You’ve got another week, give or take, before I’m going to just come and get you finally!! Mommy is impatient, and somewhat in disbelief that you could actually come home and join us soon! You are well loved like the rest of your siblings, but it is possible you are the most anticipated baby I’ve ever carried. As your biggest brother Dekker would say, I can’t wait to give you, like, a billion kisses.

I keep saying that our list is slowly dwindling down, but today we’re kind of crushing it! Which is super handy considering yesterday didn’t pan out to be as productive as we had hoped. BUT, there are lots of cute pictures from along the way, so that will be the theme of todays post 🙂 Starting with yesterday!

We kicked off yesterday with washing all the kids bedding. Does anyone else just hate doing bedding?? I really do, and we don’t do it half as often as we should. But it was on the list to for sure do it before the baby came because, if chores are going to get neglected, they’re going to get super neglected once Bambina comes and I’m even less motivated to get up and do them when I could rather be cuddling. So, bedding. That got washed, and Brady remade everyone’s beds, amidst a few take downs between our little sweeties.

Its good to see Rowan get a win finally, haha! He’s not usually on top of the pile of kids in the wrestling match 🙂

While the kids napped yesterday, Brady and I got some decor stuff started for Bambina’s baby party! Just organizing the fake flowers, mostly, deciding what will go where and what we’ll use for what. It wasn’t exactly hard work, but I’m embarrassed to say that cutting the heads off the flowers gave me blisters inside my hands and fingers, and they hurt like crazy!!!

The flowers are pretty pretty though!

After naptime, we took the kids out for some errands, and unfortunately, things were kind of a bust. We did find a pump for a big water jug to bring to the lake, so that was a small win, but that was literally it. We did, however, have a SUPER CUTE pizza party in the back of the bus!!

Instead of our usual McDonalds, we hit up Little Caesars and braved the greasy mess. And the kids LOVED it!! Brady set them all up eating together while I was in a store, searching desperately for a decent list of things, none of which I actually found. I came out to the van discouraged, but it was had to stay annoyed with that when I was met with this adorable sight!! Our family polished off three of the medium “hot n ready” pizzas, easily. They were super happy.

We drove home, and Laela and I took some selfies before the boys were released from their seats.

I feel the need to clarify that Brady is picking Laela’s nose. Not me, nor Laela.

That was it for yesterday. This morning was pretty wildly productive around here. We didn’t nix a ton off my big list, but we crushed a bunch of little annoying jobs 🙂 We finished off the laundry, including some linens from around the house, and all my stuff that I wash on delicate (read: the stuff I don’t wash nearly often enough.) We tidied some tabletops that tend to carry clutter, reorganized our kids craft area, dusted our bedroom, cleaned the main floor bathroom, aaaaand finally got the ridiculous mess off of our front window from where our homebuilder originally stuck a paper with our house number printed on it. I know, we’ve lived here for two years already, but the stick that the tape left behind was not normal tape sticky stuff, and we’ve never been able to get it off! Not even straight oil loosened it up. But today, I took a dish brush and blue dawn to it, and BOOM – clean!

Brady also washed the kids 🙂

Dekker, too, but he takes his own bath. Once everyone was clean and fresh, they lunched. The littles napped, and the big one legoed. Brady and I actually sat for a bit, and then got showers. We are officially all clean, lol!

Being that I’m still choking my lungs out, my family is off to a birthday party, and I’m hiding at home to avoid passing sickness on to my brand new nephew, and possibly healing my throat by not talking for an entire evening, and maybe even accomplishing a few more things. And then I have a church meeting to attend.

So the day is definitely not done! I have to choose what to do with my empty house. I think I’m going to keep working at all kinds of things, but mostly relaxed, sit down stuff. I have a LOT of things I need to type up on the laptop, so maybe I’ll start there. Wish me luck!!!

Yesterday, I wrote about the few things I’m letting go of from my list. And really, I should have known better. Later that day, Brady informed me that we were going on a date, and Jerilee had offered herself up to babysit the kids. What amazing people we have. I’m constantly blown away by so many of you.

Of course we accepted her offer and she showed up as the kids were settling in to supper. Brady and I trust Jerilee completely with our kids, which goes SUCH a long way! She’s around here enough that the kids know and love her, and she also knows how things tend to run, so we know the kids are still following the rules and and the general routine won’t change too much. Its so wonderful to feel so comfortable with our childcare!

For our date, we opted to eat at Montana’s. Brady was feeling “nice burger” ish, and I was feeling prepared to eat my body weight in pasta baked with cheese. So we did that. It was delicious! From there, we went to the new theatre in Brighton, Landmark Cinemas, to catch a movie. And WOW were we unprepared!

Thing one. The theatre is still very new. Thing two. It was Friday night. Thing three. The movie hadn’t been out long at all. Oh, and thing four is that we didn’t preorder tickets. We got there about 45 minutes before the movie was scheduled to start, and casually went to the ticket thing to buy tickets and choose our seats. There were less than ten left for the movie we wanted to see at the time we wanted to see it. Aaaaand thats how we ended up in the front row for the first time in roughly ten years.

The big pull of this new theatre is the leather seats that recline electronically. They are VERY comfy, and frankly, without them, there was no way Brady and I could’ve seen the entire screen! Thankfully, we could also lift up the arm rest between us so I could somewhat lay on my side, since reclining/laying on my back is virtually impossible these days. I can either lay back, or I can breathe. I choose life!

So, honest answer, we saw “Tag” and didn’t really care for it. We had high hopes, and the whole premise of the movie was SO good! I loved the ending where we got to see real footage from which the movie was based, and I loved the cast, buuut it felt poorly executed to me. Maybe just not our kid of humor?? Either way, though, there were good moments and a handful of laughs, and it was SO nice to just be out, watching a movie with my husband.

We grabbed some ice cream on the drive home for us and Jerilee, and enjoyed a visit with her when we got home. All of a sudden, it was approaching midnight and we parted ways. But myyyyy goodness, what a lovely time we were gifted!

Date night is officially crossed off the list! And not because we compromised and cut it out, but because a loving, generous friend offered us a gift. I am SO grateful!!!