I’ve spent the evening with our latest foster placement on my lap and in my arms. The fourth child to be placed with us. A teeny tiny person who is so deserving of love. And stability. And security. And peace. As they ALL are!
As I sit here, I am reminded to be grateful. For the health and wellness in our lives. For the security and stability we have. For the love I feel, and the peace that surrounds so many areas of our lives. As a foster parent, I can sometimes offer some of these things to children who don’t otherwise have them at that time. Not every story is the same, of course, and even just with the four children I’ve had in my care, there are such varying degrees of each of these things.
Something to remember is that not all birth parents have these things, either. How can they provide what they haven’t had themselves? I am the first to say we can overcome our things, our pasts, and work through our struggles. It is possible. But it is not easy. Even with ample support, you can’t just turn trauma off.
It is always an honour to welcome a new little voyageur into our home, for however long they may stay. Todays placement has once again brought us into new territory, and while we don’t know our way, we are positively here for it. We may have a headlamp along. Some hip waders. MREs. And chapstick, because you know, its dry out…
My kids aren’t big on sports. It’s not surprising. I’m not either. And Brady was once, sort of, but mostly as a kid. Neither of us are especially competitive, and our kids represent varying degrees of competition. Anyway. Sports are not a huge part of our lives, and that’s fine.
However, Dekker has found a sport he’s enjoying more! Badminton! I don’t think I was really introduced to badminton until a bit further into high school, but he is already into it, and he really enjoys it! He’s even talked about it doing it after school as an extracurricular activity!
I don’t ever want to forget, however, his adorable mispronunciation of the name. Batmitten.
Today, I took it a little further and made a joke about bat mittens. And he laughed SO HARD because he can take a joke, and I love that!
I planned to prep supper early in the day so I didn’t have to think about it later on. But I completely avoided it because my entire kitchen is ATROCIOUS. I don’t mean that it’s dirty or that the dishes are stacked sky high. It isn’t, and they aren’t. But with the renovations going on, everything is incredibly out of place. My island is smaller than I’m generally, used to, and now it has things stacked on it to get them off the floor and out of the way of the work being done, so it is MUCH fuller. And my stovetop is on my island. So food is just hard right now. So. I avoided it.
But. I gottanottavoid it.
However.
Today has been really nice. We had one quick outing this morning, but since then, I’ve sat in my chair and crocheted. Resolved yesterdays issue.
Wavy has colored and read and played in my vicinity. We’ve chatted and had a calm afternoon. The morsel has slept a good amount, making for a very low key time.
So maybe it was perfect that I avoided food. Or at least it really worked out.
Once kids get home, dishes will be done and I can be in the kitchen, in the midst of all the action, and supper will come together quickly. I should really tell you guys how I made my bomb spaghetti. Its SO good, and its on the menu for tonight!
Mmmmm. Thinking about food now has me feeling more eager to get to cooking. Maybe this really did time out just right. Thanks, guys! 🍝
Its been a while since I crocheted good and proper!! I did pump out a baby blanket the other week when our Spoonful was getting ready to leave, but beyond that, I’ve been busy with other things! And really, I still am busy with other things! But its really really nice to crochet. I’ve missed it. And these days of being snowed in have motivated me to get back into it! So I have!
I began crocheting a blanket I plan to donate to the camp for an auction they do each summer. I was asked to donate an item last year, and I hadn’t even really considered that before! So I plan to do the same thing this coming summer! It’s a small way I can contribute anyway.
As of yesterday, I was half done the main body of the blanket, and guys, its turning out really nicely!
Untiiiiil I got into the next section and my count was off!! Since I clearly improvised the “Kinasao” section, and had multiple colours going at once (which, in this method, is a lot trickier than it sounds) I somehow lost a stitch or two. I went to dig back and find my error and found it in the FIRST row of that section!! I went about starting the process of pulling out 15 ish rows, but that colour I used for the Kinasao does not pull out nicely, and snagged and snagged and snagged. So rather, I gave up on the section altogether.
*sigh*
The upside is that there were a few things I wasn’t happy with about how it had turned out the first time, and now, I have the chance to redo them. I didn’t like the trees beside the word. I didn’t like that colour scheme. I had crocheted it a bit too tight. It just wasn’t right.
And soon, it will be. Except that I’m likely out of time for that today, and our life is about to pick up right away here! March is going to be one heck of a month!! But hopefully in between the mountains of change and work, there will be intentional downtime here and there. And then 🙌 I will crochet.
This almost NEVER happens! But as you know if you live anywhere near me, we got one heck of a dump of snow over the weekend, and because many highways were closed, they opted to cancel school for the day and give everyone a snow day! Thank goodness Dekker invited me to join him on a walk before the real cold kicked in!!
On days like today, I am reminded of how fortunate I am to be a stay at home parent whose schedule isn’t thrown into a panic when school is closed 💜 I know not everyone has the luxury of that, and its not lost on me.
However, my schedule was thrown into a bit a heap because I had a really important appointment to go to this morning that I could not attend. That was hard. And that appointment was meant to be at 8am, so I couldn’t even call ahead really. It felt BAD. In those moments, I was pretty mad at the snow day.
But, the snow day also meant Brady could work from home 💜 And I liked that.
It also also meant a low key day for the kids. Rowan built animals out of lego.
“Mom, doesn’t this lego piece look like a pug?”
The girls left Saturday morning and only got home this afternoon! What started as a super special sleepover became a full weekend event!! Ack!!
Thank you SO MUCH for having them 💜 What a riot they had!! And you weren’t kidding 😅 They are WIPED!!!! Lol!
I am just SO grateful. Our appointment will be rescheduled. It will come. Just not yet. And thats ok. Being holed up today was awesome.
We’ve eaten treats and easy food. Watched AFV. And worked on a VERY exciting renovation over here! Ack!! Just wait until you seeeee iiiiiit!!! 😍 I’m totally stoked!
Well. Happy snow day, guys. It has been over here 💜
The summer really needs to hurry up. The snow is causing people to get stuck on our street in full size trucks. I’m holed up at home and feel very idle. Nobody can go outside because of how much snow there is. Because of this my mom asked/told me to write her blog for today. This is Dekker, by the way. Here it is.
Outside is so cold. I went to get an electrical box from friends down the street and had to wear all my winter gear. Since it’s so cold it is we will have to stay indoors unless we really need something. My Mom is crocheting and Dad is building our pantry. There is nothing much to do. It feels like it will not end or even slow down. I may need to skip school. That would make for another boring day at home. Hurry up spring!!!
We are a summer family. We live at camp most of our summers. Summer has so many more things to do. We can’t have a campfire in our living room! It is so cold out there.
I like how warm it is in our house. Its all toasty and quiet in here but frigid out there. I can’t wait for warm weather. It makes life more enjoyable. There is so little to do.
We need the winter to go away. I am not enjoying the cold. Why all the snow now? Why snow in general? That is all my ranting I needed to get out
While the day is not done, nor is the work done, we have accomplished things today! Some wins, for sure.
First, the middle boys went outside to play together without my prompting. This NEVER happens. Being my two boys with diagnosed ADHD, and totally different types of ADHD, they butt heads fairly regularly and get frustrated with each other quite easier. Buttheads is right 😅 But today, they went out and played on the hill of snow that the town guys cleared into our front yard. I love that hill so much. Its already brought joy to our kids. And if Rowan and Solly will go play together out there without a fight, I am a happy, happy mom.
Another win. We got the gas fireplace safely removed from its spot in our kitchen, lol! Kind of a funny setup for it, but I get it, knowing there was a much smaller group living here before us. When we looked for the breaker, it was labelled as kitchen and family room. Family room. So I guess thats what we’ll call the pantry from here on out! The family room, hahaha!
Yet another accomplishment. I made chocolate sauce!
We are short a handful of kids today, so those of us that were home decided to crack into some unopened ice cream at lunch, but I realized we didn’t have chocolate sauce. So. I cook now. *tosses hair over shoulder* So I just made some. And ya. It kicked butt.
All faces were appropriately stuffed and messy by the end of it.
Last accomplishment I’ll list for the day is WALLS! After a morning of removing the fireplace and fussing with wires and electrical boxes, we finally got to walls! They’re not all done yet, because the morsel naps, but it counts for now! Just the wall with the door in it needs to go up, and framing is DONE!
We’ll see if we make it to church or not tomorrow 😬 I can’t help but wonder if it’ll just be a snow day, haha! Maybe – just maybe – we’d get the walls actually covered. And SHELVES! Ack!! Its been so weird not having a pantry, the proverbial ants in my proverbial pants are outta control!!
Its been a very full day. I hesitate to even say its busy, because its not been too scrambly, but its been constant. This right here – blogging – is the second time I’ve sat. Once was to eat, and now, to blog. Definitely not complaining. Just been going and going! Here’s the play by play!
After a very short night 😩 I got up and got the kids to school. Once they were off for the day, I began packing up feeding/diaper bag and getting some things organized. When the morsel woke up, we did some breakfast while Wavy colored. After some food, the three of us loaded into the van and got going! We first dropped off a little door prize for a school event happening next week. That was a quick one. Then we left town!
We drove to the city and picked up a Facebook Marketplace purchase, and then made our way to an appointment. The hospital was HOPPIN’! Hopspital. Or, if you’re Wavy, hostible. But we found parking not too far away, and we made our way in. Everything was SO full, there was nowhere to sit to wait, but we got in right away.
After a fairly long, but super informative, appointment, we headed to the next place. I’ve become very well acquainted with the beautiful people at Nordon Medical to the point where I enjoy popping in. Its no longer an inconvenience to go in person. I actually prefer it. After some messy conversations yesterday, Nordon went to bat for me and got us what we needed. And man. If not for them, things likely wouldn’t have been resolved for weeks. I know I’m being vague. I wish I didn’t have to be. But what I can tell you is that this particular place invests in and advocates for its customers/clients. I feel SO well cared for there.
So I picked up a load of stuff there, and before I pulled out, I got a call from Zaks shipping department asking when they could drop off a load of materials for us. After 1:30, I told them, giving myself time to get home with a coffee and a little lunch for Wavy.
And I did! I got home, put the morsel down for a nap, unpacked the van, retrieved the unsleeping morsel, set up for a late lunch for the aforementioned morsel, and I believe I ate something in there briefly before a couple of goofy guys from Zaks showed up at my door. They did an awesome job and unloaded things the way Brady asked them to while Wavy got the door for them every time they entered the house. It was a cute little endeavour and now we are READY to build our pantry this weekend!! 💪
I spent the next while rearranging the kitchen to a thoroughly messy, disorganized state. It makes no sense in there. But it will. We just needed to move all the things that are over in the pantry area to the other side of the kitchen so we can actually build the pantry to finally hold the things. You get it. The moral of that portion of the story is actually that it is HARD having a bunch of kids and no pantry. Whew! I’m ready for that to be different!
As an aside, if anyone is in the market for a gas fireplace, we have one for sale! Or, we will. You get it. Its coming out. Which is a bummer, but we need that space way more than we need a fireplace.
Its going to be a full weekend, and I can say with confidence that both Brady and I are completely exhausted 😅 Thankfully, this kind of busyness is the kind we can rock in sweatpants, so we’re gonna. Sweats make everything better.
Have a happy Friday, guys 💜 Stay inside! I hear something wintery this way comes… ❄️
It really feels like it should be Friday over here, but guess what. It keeps being Thursday! Its actually really ok that its Thursday, but I’ve gotten my days wrong all week, so I guess today is no exception.
First of all, there was a job action today where there was no supervision over lunch at school, so the kids came home for lunch. And I had it in my head that this happened on Friday, which was going to be tricky because I have to go into the city Friday morning and I was not entirely sure I’d be home in time to greet them for lunch. But, luckily, they came home for lunch today, and tomorrows appointment will be totally fine schedule-wise. With that, I also have some things I need to pick up in the city when I go in for this appointment, so its great that it didn’t all fall on the same day!
This coming weekend holds some exciting work over here, also, so I think part of me wants it to just come already! I had to keep resisting prepping for this renovation today, because its really just truly too soon considering what would be done. That can all start happening tomorrow. Friday!! Materials will be delivered too!
But I had a moment where I considered all I had going on Friday morning, and thought there was NO WAY I could work all afternoon to get the place ready for renovations! NO. WAY.
Except my full full morning is actually Monday 😅
Like I said. I’ve gotten my days wrong all week. Pretty well constantly. But there is lots upcoming. Lots to look forward to. A couple things to not look forward to that will come anyway 😆😬 And likely many things we aren’t even aware of yet!
After I drove some loved ones into the city, the morsel and I hit Costco. For three things. I’m sure you already know where this is going…
The things I went for are as follows.
Milk. Obviously.
Butter, since the mountain of butter I bought at Christmas has finally run out.
And a mat for our entrance. The salt I’ve been laying down on our sidewalk is everything-friendly. That is except our hardwood flooring. It is not flooring friendly. Besides that, even without the salt, Brady needs a place to leave his wheelchair to drip dry when he comes home from work. So after a mountain of research, I reached out to my support group filled with women who have husbands in wheelchairs, and just about every last one of them said the rubber backed rugs from Costco were the cats pajamas.
I successfully got ALL three things.
Well.
Four milks.
Ten butters.
And a big mat, lol! Win!
However…
I also got Brady a fresh pair of sweatpants, and myself some sandals for summer.
I got the big pack of baking soda (Even I don’t need six! Ack!) and the double pack of baking powder.
I got a new onion salt and garlic salt. I left the Everything Bagel seasoning behind in an attempt to practice restraint.
I rabbit trailed and got dried mango and dried strawberries for the morsel, but also for meeeee! Because goodness they’re good! I’ve never had the strawberries before! YUM!
The highlight was definitely perusing the samples together, and watching my baby double fisting a veggie straw and some fruit by the foot. That seems trashy, I’m well aware, but you’ll have to take my word for it that, in our own way, its actually victorious 💜 I am SO proud of my morsel!
We made it home in time to unpack groceries before the kids got home! I’d call today a great success!
Now, to crochet a liiiiittle bit here before I start making supper!
