I’m all for living in the moment, and enjoying each day as I’m given! The day to day is pretty mundane sometime, but I really love my life! However, I like having fun things to anticipate, too! Don’t we all?

October is coming! Brady’s schedule is pretty full with work, but we’ve taken some great steps in our basement project, so I’m hoping we get a lot more done there soon! I haven’t spoken to Brady in detail yet, so I won’t say anything ballsy yet, but I’m excited to set a goal of how much we can aim to complete by the end of October! (I should post pictures soon and show you guys around the basement at this point…) Brady is working through Thanksgiving this year, which is sad, so no big plans for that weekend. Also in October is Bradys birthday! Woot! Birthdays are always fun, right? (Wrong. They are not. Not always.) And then October closes off with Halloween, obviously. We SO enjoy that day, dressing the kids up and going to our friends houses! We’ll have FIVE to dress this year!! I kind of want to put Wavy in some sort of 80s workout gear, with the little sweatbands and leotard, haha! Somehow I just picture her fro making that look SO funny! But we’ll see 🙂 Its a fun day to dress up and laugh at each other.

November holds hopefully a retreat for me!! A friend brought it to my attention today that the annual ladies craft retreat is coming up soon! I went once when I won free admission and, my goodness, it was SO FUN! I knew all of ONE person there, and was kind of nervous about being on my own, but it was such a fun group of women, with such a relaxed vibe, and SUCH good food. I loved it! I wanted to go last year, but we were in the midst of our “hiatus from income” and we couldn’t swing it. This year we’re going to make it happen, and I’m SO stoked! I can’t wait to get a bunch of crocheting for Christmas done!

To branch off of that, Christmas closes out the year in December, and I’m just so stoked. I’ve begun my shopping, and am literally waiting for six packages to come in the mail! I have my list of people written down, with ideas beside almost all of the names. I’m still stumped for a couple, so if anyone cares to brainstorm with me this early, I’d jump at having someone to bounce ideas off of! I’m so looking forward to being set for gifts early in the game so I can just soak up the Christmas vibes, stress free, in December!

What are you guys looking forward to in the coming months? Any fun trips planned? Any occasions beyond Christmas that you’re excited about? Waiting for any new products or music to come out? I’m so ready for Hickory Farms to be back in the malls! Last year I waited too long and missed out on my pineapple honey mustard completely!!! I’m in withdrawal, guys. Mustard withdrawal. Its a real problem…

I know there will be plenty of mornings like this in the coming year, but its still such a novelty to have the little boys on their own! We do have Waverly, obviously, but she’s super sleepy still, and isn’t exactly involved in the play yet 😉

Rowan has picked up one of Laela’s games, where she just plunks herself down somewhere and asked him to bring her all kinds of things. But they’re very specific things that he has to hunt for. So Ro tried this with Solly this morning, and it was SO FUNNY! He would spout of some vague description of one of our infinite number of Hot Wheels cars, and Solly would diligently toddle over to the ottoman, grab a stuffed toy off the top, and present it to a frustrated Rowan.

Over. And over. And over again.

It was amazing.

Rowan took to the comfort of his toy phone, in true teenager style. Though he lamented that the menu button didn’t work anymore.

He lived, and they played well. They’d sneak off to one of the bedrooms and I’d find them looking down heat registers with flashlights. They’d have “sleepovers” in the pantry. They’d race cars across the living room. The list went on. It was so fun to watch them learn to play together! I realized at one point that these two boys are two and three. I’m supposed to hate these ages, right?? Sure, they have their moments, but truly, today the best word for them is FUN!!!

Eventually little miss sleepy face woke up and joined us.

She lay on the floor and flapped for a while, but it wasn’t long before she was wailing for milk and her bed. Such a short little visit with her, but I’ll take what I can get!

These days with just the young ones are so special! With where Rowan’s birthday falls, he’s actually going to be home for another two years before he can enter kindergarten! So these kids will be in my view for a good stretch of time still! I’m so thankful for that.

Thanks to September, we are down and out with colds over here. Again. I didn’t catch the last one, thank goodness, and I hope very much to not catch this one either!

Not everyone is sick yet. Dekker is a bit more emotional than usual, so I can tell he’s feeling a little bit under the weather. Laela has been snotty and coughy for the last two or three days. She actually slept in this morning, and only woke up for breakfast after everyone else was done. Thankfully, today wasn’t a school day for her. Rowan isn’t sick yet! Though he’s looking a bit droopy. Solly is hopefully on the way out of this one, but he’s had it rough. So much snot, tons of coughing, and a persistent diaper rash. Poor dude. Wavy is a bit congested, and while she’s SO sleepy, she doesn’t sleep well. So, its all pretty standard sick kid stuff.

Besides them, Brady is feeling it pretty decently, but his colds usually move pretty quick. I feel a bit extra for him, though, because he just kicked his last illness maybe a week ago. We think he randomly had Hand Foot and Mouth, because he had a BRUTAL sore throat that felt like knives for a good handful of days, but came with virtually no other symptoms. It reached the point where he felt at a total loss, and couldn’t enjoy any food or drink anymore at all. But it finally lifted, and now he has a cold. Which feels considerably better than HFMD, but is still annoying.

I’ve had some colds throughout the last while, but less than usual, I’d say. Especially considering its the beginning of the school year, and thats the time for everyone to be sick! I may be jinxing everything now, but whatever. I realized yesterday that I’ve been sick WAY LESS since I started getting my nails done!

If you haven’t been around for long, I have always been a nail biter. I had gotten my habit fairly under control, that is, until we started losing our babies. When we conceived our fifth baby for the third time (Oy…) my anxiety beat out my self control, and I chewed my hands like crazy! I chewed my nails and the skin around them until I couldn’t use my fingers anymore. It was impossible to ever get them wet, because they would puff up just the smallest amount and would hurt SO BADLY. That meant I couldn’t wash my hands, my hair, myself, my kids, our dishes, our house, etc. It was out of control. I got gel nails not because I think they’re pretty (though they definitely are!) but to save my poor hands from myself. And guys, it has helped immensely. I’m not perfect, and I still pull at the skin around my thumbs sometimes. Hangnails still get me in trouble sometimes, but with the thicker, rounded gel nails, its harder for me to pick at my skin. While vastly unsatisfying, its helpful, and I’m thankful.

Only just recently have I realized that the lack of biting my fingers has probably saved me from illness!! I can’t believe it took me so long to put that together because I say it to my kids every single day! “Get that out of your mouth, please!” Time after time after time. “You’ll get sick! You’ll put germs into your mouth!” Who am I that I’ve missed this lesson for myself??

Now that I’ve written this all out, I’ll probably get sick, haha! But hey, its been a less ill year, and at least some of that credit goes to my nails being well protected. I’m going to back that all up over the next few days with tons of hand washing, tons of lotion (to combat the dry hands that I’ll inevitably pick at,) and Lysol wipes on EVERYTHING! I know they’re not the most natural option, but they’re efficient and effective.

Wish me luck!!! 🤞

Not everyone buys into the whole amber necklaces for babies thing. Some people like hazelwood better. Some people think any necklace on a baby is unsafe. Some people think the whole thing is made up. To each their own, as always. We’ve seen amber necklaces work before our very eyes on our babies, dating back to Dekker. He was a class A drooler, that boy. He was soaking wet down the front of his clothes 100% of the time. That was our motivation to try the amber, not teething. The very next day after putting his necklace on him, the amount of drool he produced was legitimately cut in half. No exaggeration. It was wonderful! Since then, we’ve always used amber necklaces with our kids, regardless of how they drool/teethe/whatever else.

I’ve had this particular kind of amber necklace in mind for Wavy for a while now. I’ve seen them on Etsy, Pinterest, and really all over the internet. Its a basic yellow amber necklace, but it has one small bundle of stones on it that made up a little rainbow. I LOVE this idea for her, for so many reasons! Not only does it follow along with Wavy being our rainbow baby, but she has also added color to our lives like we never could’ve expected. I LOVE this idea!!

We usually get our amber necklaces from the same person, but she doesn’t have the rainbow ones. This is part of the reason I’ve been holding off on buying her one. The ones on Etsy are expensive. I also like going to someone I trust to give me real amber and not the phoney stuff. But over the last little while, Wavy has become just a liiittle bit fussier than usual, and a liiiiittle bit droolier. Placebo or not, I wanted to get this girly an amber necklace.

So I did something I kinda didn’t think I’d do. I gave her the amber necklace we had bought for Jamin.

I’m not sure if it makes me feel warm and cozy, or sad and weird. Still mulling that. However, it does seem to have settled out some of the mad drool action. So I’m thankful. But its different, for sure. I guess Jamin never really had a chance to give tangible gifts, so maybe this is the one time he can 🙂

Lucky little girly she is to get to wear her brother’s necklace. What an honour.

I’m not sure if anyone likes these little anecdotes but I just can’t resist sharing them! This way, I can keep them forever. I know you weren’t there, witnessing it personally, but I hope you can appreciate the mental picture, or the simple amusement.

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Dekker walked to school on his own yesterday. I questioned whether or not that was “mean,” being that the snow was flying and it all just seemed unfamiliar. But it really wasn’t too cold. I walked all the time as a kid, even in winter. Turns out, he was totally gung ho for it! His fall jacket is fleece lined, as are his splash pants. We pulled out toques and mitts a day or two earlier. He was ready! He headed out happily in the morning. The rest of us went about our day in sweats, tucked away in the warm house.

With Dekker walking to and from school these days, he usually gets home around the same time. I checked the time at one point, and it was a few minutes after that time already. I checked out the front window and didn’t see him. I walked to the back of the house and looked out a back window to see if he was just a ways off. I still didn’t see him. Hmmm. 🤔

In that moment, I heard the little kids cry from the basement, “Dekker is home!” They were downstairs with Brady while he was framing, and apparently Dekker was peeking in the window, waving at them all! I just hadn’t seen him right up against the house when I originally checked out the front window! I heard him clunk onto the wooden front step, and went to greet him at the door. But he didn’t come in. I waited a few seconds, and I kept hearing clunking, but he wasn’t coming in! The door was unlocked. I couldn’t figure it out, so I finally opened the front door to check.

And there he was. In true Dekker fashion. Watering the flowers on our front step.

In the snow.

Isn’t he the sweetest thing?? All foggy and toothless and ADORABLE! He was all wet and red in the face. But he was smiling happily, hauling the full watering can over to our flower pot filled with snow-covered flowers. He chirped a happy “Hi Mom!” when he saw me, but finished up his task before coming in and hugging me.

MAN I love my kids. We should all be as thoughtful as Dekker. Thoughtful enough to water someones flowers, even if they’re probably going to die the next day 🙂

Of course it snows on the last day of summer. Because Saskatchewan.

Facebook memories reminded me that Laela was actually due on September 21st, five years ago. I wrote a Facebook post requesting her to be born that day so I could have another summer baby. Of course, she was not, but what can you do? No big deal. I love her in fall, too.

The floating of snowflakes makes our basement project feel just that much more urgent. Not that it has to be finished ASAP, but that we really need to finish up the framing so we can throw in the plumbing and electrical, and INSULATE!!! Its not brutally cold down there, but its not exactly balmy either. Brady’s been using his few days off to sneak in some framing. He’s included the kids, which has made it SO much more fun for them!

Aren’t they just the cutest things?

Its also more fun for me! I lurk upstairs with Wavy.

When she sleeps, I’ve been getting some crocheting done. Its nice 🙂

Brady and I are so eager to get our basement finish, and we’ve been trying to think of a way to set a goal on the blog so it has to get done. Its always easier to finish a job when other people know about it, right? We can’t really find a way to do it, though, without putting ourselves in a financially straining situation. If you guys can think of a way to keep it fun and not unreasonable, please let me know! Because the sooner we have a basement, the sooner we can have overnight guests, or later movie nights, or just be more accommodating! We can also have another room or two for our kids to sleep in, which would be handy for when Waverly is ready to move out of our room 🙂 Would be a win all around!

Remember a few months back when Solly wasn’t saying a whole heck of a lot? We rocked some basic sign language with him, and it seemed to awaken a new confidence in him that got him talking fairly quickly after that. It was a huge relief to us, his parents, who were pretty over all the screaming and lack of communication.

Since then, Solly has hit that beautiful sweet spot where he’ll mimic anything we say. If he’s waving something around at us, or pointing at anything, we’ll say what it is, and he’ll respond with “Ya, _____” and repeat the name of the item. So he’s learning super quick now! He’ll say anything! His current faves are flashlight, hammer, catch, bottle, and coffee.

Sentences are a super cute recent development. He’s had the little short important ones down for a while already. “Help, please” is a big one. He’ll say I love you, Wavy’s sad, what’s for supper, etc.

My FAVORITE stage of speech is what he’s doing right now. It goes like this.

Me: Solly, are you dancing?
Solly: Ya, I dancin’! (shakes his butt)

Me: Solly, can you share that toy?
Solly: Ya, I share! (runs in opposite direction with previously stolen toy)

Solly: HAHAHA! Oh Solomon…..

Me: Woowee! Solly, you stink!
Solly: I tink?
Me: Ya, you’re kinda stinky.
Solly: Ya, I tinky. I poopin’.

My ALL TIME FAVORITE!!!

Me: Its stinky in here.
Solly: Ya, I fartin’. I fartin’ here. I fartin’ there… (runs to another spot in the room) I fartin’ over there…

This kid, though.

He keeps things entertaining over here! And also stinky…

Last year, at this time, we were in SUCH a different boat.

Last year, I had just experienced losing my baby at 16.5 weeks.

Last year, I had just met my OB for the first time. I had gotten an amazing amount of blood work done, and was waiting for results.

Last year, I was having ultrasounds to make sure every sign of Jamin was out of my body. I was struggling pretty hard with that, “wanting” him out of me, when I so desperately wanted him to still be growing away in my womb.

Specifically, last year, on this day, I was having my official “let’s figure this out” ultrasound. My tech looked for polyps, cysts, whatever else in there. She checked my uterus, my ovaries, my cervix, all the good business in there.

I remember being somehow relieved that my ultrasound wasn’t one of those “looking for any signs of life” ultrasounds. This one felt like an easy one. A boring one.

I remember hoping that she’d find something. Hoping that my blood work would reveal some issue that we could focus on. Some answer.

I remember that she focused on one place for a while, and I was SO sure she had found something, but that was later discounted by both my doctor and my OB.

I remember being so discouraged that my body appeared healthy.

What a backwards time!!! My gosh! Grief does crazy things!!

I’ve been feeling pretty scattered these days. A bit lost in my own head. I’m trying to give myself grace, because looking back over the last year and a half has been so new and so overwhelming. I feel together most days, but some days I’m still reeling and uncertain. Turning 30 this summer didn’t help, and while I know so many of you have told me that 30 is the new 20, I’m just not feeling that way. Maybe it’ll come after some of this self reflecting either wears off or sorts itself out. I’m just not sure what to do with myself these days! Which goals to work towards first. What to prioritize and what to let slide. How to be a better friend when I feel like a jerk, and how to reach out to people in spite of that.

I’m not making any sense. But remembering where I was one year ago helps me feel a bit more “normal” in my lostness. I have so much to be thankful for, but maybe that doesn’t have to cancel out the hardships and struggles. Hmmm… always mulling…

Brady and I are approaching ten years of marriage! Did you guys know that?? I mean, probably many of you do. Its kind of a big deal, and then at the same time, its not. He’s my best friend! Its an obvious pairing over here 🙂 Its not a big effort to do life with this guy.

This summer, I bought Brady a pair of sweat shorts, because the rest of us have some. He LOVED them. Shortly thereafter, I bought myself the same pair. Who cares that they were mens, right? Right. Meanwhile, my good cozy sweatpants have become threadbare, and I recently purchased a new pair. I bragged up how soft and comfortable they were, to the point where Brady bought himself a pair! Who cares if they’re ladies, right? Right.

We’re basically the same person.

In an episode of “How I Met Your Mother,” there is a little snippet of Ted and his wife in the future, when they’re old and grey. I don’t even remember what sparks the comment, but they admit to each other that they are officially an old married couple. And they both said “Yesssss!” Like it was an accomplishment. And I LOVE that!!! THAT is how I feel. I’ll embrace the fuddy-duddy side of being married to the same weirdo for my entire life, if given the opportunity. I am so thrilled to be married to Brady. I’m thankful for the life we live, and the kids we have, and that we’re together in all of it!

All of this said and done, I discovered yesterday that Brady and I pack the dishwasher literally COMPLETELY opposite. We’ve lived here for two years, and I just noticed this yesterday. I wonder what other surprises you’ve got tucked away, hahaha!! Way to keep some mystery, honey 😉

Old and married, here we come!I

Finishing our basement has been a SLOW process over the last two years. We’re not even done framing. Its kind of a bummer, but logic is clear. Work has had a few slumps, and while we have had the time to do the work, we haven’t had the money to buy materials or hire trades. So, its sat. Recently, I’ve been LOVING having people in our home more, and its bumming me out that our basement isn’t finished. I feel like many people know that our house is a soft place to fall, but its so temporary when we can’t offer them a place to stay overnight. We HAVE to get this basement done!!

Brady is home for a couple of days this week, and this morning he determined he was going to get a bit more framing done in our basement. There isn’t too terribly much left to do. Its mostly just the tedious stuff. Brady happily invited the kids downstairs with him, since he didn’t have a ton of dangerous power tools out, and nothing within reach. Laela, Rowan, and Solly ran around and played with the toys we have down there, and were totally occupied and happy. I fed Wavy and drank coffee, so I was also occupied and happy.

Unfortunately, the whole thing went a bit south when we discovered we were missing pieces out of some VERY expensive hardware we had ordered. Thus began many calls back and forth between Brady and the company we had ordered from, and without getting to into it (because I’m still WAY too frustrated about it) we’re at a bit of a standstill. There are still things to frame, and he can work around what we are missing, but its annoying and leaves more room for error. Not to mention the fact that the company may choose to be dicks and we might be out $150. Grrrrr! I digress.

So the morning wasn’t as productive as we had hoped it would be. Brady and I were both super annoyed with the company we were trying to deal with, and the kids were SO scrappy. Wavy was fine. She drank milk and went back to bed, as per usual. Once the kids were down for naps, we invited Cher over for lunch, and spent an hour or two eating yummy food in the living room for a bit. That was a definite upper for the day!

Cher has gone home now, and Brady ducked out to get the mail, water some flowers that we’re on the hook for, etc. Dekker will be home in about an hour, and I expect he’ll be full of stories. Today was picture day and show and tell! That poor kid is going to be so bummed when show and tell stops happening. He just LOVES it. Today, he brought his rock collection from our trip to Waskesiu this summer 🙂 And I can guarantee there are a few rocks from our driveway in there too!!