Brady and I got married sixteen years ago 💜 I liked us then, but I like us better now.

Mouthpush. Lol!

Even these last few years being incredibly challenging, I would not change a thing. And I believe with confidence that Brady would say the exact same thing.

Yesterday was a total gut punch, and it overshadows most other things, but we both have the ability to rest in each others arms, as well as Gods. So. We rest.

Brady, we’ve been together for half of our lives, and I am SO grateful. I never knew marriage could feel so loving and warm. It is incredibly easy to love you 💜

None of us were ready, but the day came, and the Morsel has left our home to rejoin their family, who has been eagerly awaiting the arrival 💜 This reality contains both victory and tragedy. They are hard emotions to navigate simultaneously, but our family can agree 110% that we have no regrets with our choice to invest time and love and care into each and every child.

We LOVE every child who comes through, but some just hit different. The Morsel was our family mascot, and now, we are without that face.

The kids stayed home from school. Brady stayed home from work. We had waffles and fruit. Gave some early birthday presents. And then drove into the city to bring the baby to the parents.

The send-off was more peaceful and soft than I expected. Baby was content and settled in my arms, and then in their mothers arms. I shared a hug with the two of them. There were tears. And then everyone parted ways and it was over.

Everyone cried on the way home. Our hearts are completely exhausted, and likely will continue to be.

The face continued to malfunction, but face fluids continue to be absorbed around every corner. God dries every tear 💜 I don’t know how we’d survive without faith.

Today, Brady and I had our yearly eye appointments, and we brought the babies along. One had an appointment as well, and the others were just there as eye candy. It was a really special appointment in lots of ways. We hadn’t seen our eye doctor in a while, as she had been on maternity leave. I had run into her completely spontaneously very freshly after delivery, and it was a pretty sweet moment for us. She mentioned it to me and was very soft as she reminisced. It just felt like a soft appointment.

Then, after, as I chose my frames, and we selected glasses for our newly bespectacled baby, there were more soft conversations surrounding fostering and illness. Tears were shed and they were not all mine. It was special.

Now, as the day finally winds down, I am beyond exhausted. But. The day was productive and carried with it much kindness. Thank you, Lord.

Really, I have no excuse to be “unexpectedly busy.” I should really have learned to expect it by now, hey? I chose my life and I truly do love it! And with it comes a pretty messy schedule sometimes!

Today, Cher came to clean at our place, and first thing in the morning, I got a text from a social worker than LD was very much wanted in the city in the next two hours or so. I hemmed and hawed but not for long, because that is what I signed up for 💜 No regrets. Cher stayed and babysat the others so I could run LD in without having to accommodate the others. Thank you, Cher! 💜 That made all the difference!!

I came home, ate lunch, and finished up a project I had going. Kids came home. Green bag homework was done. Piano was practiced. And before long, I was hauling the whole gang out the door to head to a visit for another one of the babies.

In the city, we dropped babe off and then drove to Value Village. I actually went into it with a list of some actual needs, and sadly, it was something of a bust. Merp. Not completely, but mostly. Brady took the kids out for supper and then home. I finished up my shop and headed to pick baby up again.

We drove home and I sang along with Wicked and cried some tears, as I do when I drive these days. Got home and dropped baby in the garage with Laela and Dekker. I sniped the laptop and headed out to a meeting regarding the spring musical.

And now I’m home, and I am so unbelievably ready for bed, its not even funny 😅

First snack time. Then sleeping.

I know I’ve been cryptic for a while. It won’t last much longer. You’ll all be vastly more in the know soon enough about why I’m so all over the place. Sorry :/ I don’t take any pleasure in the “clickbait” aspect of things. I only wish I could share more. But. Here we are.

So as we prepare for change, I spent today preparing for other things as well. Beyond ducking out into the bitter cold for an important doctors appointment, I spent the day in the kitchen, prepping things for lunches. My kids don’t all have rocking appetites, some because of medications and some because they’re mine, and I don’t have much of an appetite myself. So I work pretty intentionally to make eating lunch easy and something they don’t dread. Today, I bagged up many boxes of crackers and bags of pretzels into little serving sized bags for lunches. I did the same with some fruits and veggies as well. Yesterday I re-ordered some cheeses and mandarin oranges. We still have a healthy amount of fig bars and fruit to gos floating around. Plus all the fruit cups, apple sauces, and whatever other grab and go things I can’t think of off the top of my head. But, there are lots of options, complete with some new ones as well. Hopefully that keeps the kids eating well for another stretch of lunches.

I shed a weird amount of tears today. In the kitchen. In my vehicle. Really, at the drop of a hat, lol! But that is just the times over here, I suppose.

Survival. We’re in it. Praise the Lord.

Like a jerk, I ordered groceries in this miserable weather. Which I actually try really hard not to do! I wanted to order yesterday or the day before but it felt more mean with the storm risk upon us. Today was less risky, but super cold. Anyway.

I’m stocked up nicely now on most of the fresh things I need for the week, plus all the other lunchy things we need, and some extras, such as coffee, chicken thighs, and baby snacks. I had the pleasure of having my brother and his kids come visit for a few hours today 💜 so you can imagine my impromptu grocery carrying crew was very cute.

Our company left around suppertime, and I felt a little lazy, so we hacked into a couple of the loaves of banana bread the kids and I had baked earlier in the day. Everyone had banana bread, cheese, and oranges. While the kids ate, Brady and I prepped some food. He bagged banana bread while I chopped up veggies for lunches. I like working in the kitchen together 💜

There is always more to do, though. I have some reorganizing I want to do in the pantry. I love my lunch setup and I want to add some stuff to it. But I need to move it all around. Anyway. When that day comes, I’ll show you. But that day is not today, lol!

This week is going to be a really big week. If you are the praying type, please do carry us in your prayers 💜 Every day is big, and they carry much change. Large tests of faith are in order, and we are here for them 💪 but prayers are greatly appreciated.

We justified a nice long sleep in this morning knowing the kids would be extra tired. No one complained. But everyone was still riding a high from watching Wicked. We had breakfast and discussed the days plans.

We’re at a point of change over here that usually gets me feeling a little squirrly and like a lot of things need to be cleaned up and/or purged. And those times are hard to shake off. So today, to pacify me, we had a worky morning. Our kids tend to grumble, and then fall into worky mornings pretty smoothly, and we all feel great when lunch time comes around and we have so much to show for our work.

We spent the morning taking Christmas down, which was a surprisingly short task considering we kind of never put it all the way up. It was a wild season, let me tell you! 😅 We’ve never not set up Christmas! But alas, we got it looking festive enough, and it made for a quick cleanup. We also got some messes off of the counter, and hung some stuff on the walls. Some laundry got done. I made a really yummy supper. I even did a little bit of tidying in my room, which is the last place I tend to prioritize. But, again, changing seasons get me in that mode, so I scratched that itch a little.

Some of this comes on the coattails of our new stovetop arriving on Friday 😍

No, it’s not that gigantic. Its packed really well. But also, yes, it’s pretty huge. I cannot wait to get our new island built, and to get this beast installed. I’m sure thats part of this feeling – preparing for change. There are only so many minutes in a day, but they are indeed precious, and I want to use them well.

Anyways. I’m all over the place. It was nice to work all morning and get so much done. It was nice to sit a bit in the afternoon. Not a lot, but a little. It was a yummy supper. it was nice to see Rae and Tom in the evening. There is so much to be grateful for! Thank you Lord for ALL You’ve given us 💜

Well. We tried to not buy Wicked, but it just didn’t take. So today, we purchased it and watched it with the kids. Which was very special circumstances. We often watch a movie on Friday nights now, but Wicked is new enough to still be in theatres, plus its super long. Its over 2.5 hours long. And thats all good, kids can have a later night as a treat, but even at a normal time of the evening, the babies make movie nights a big challenging. Mostly because 2/3 babies are really actually toddlers. So they don’t have an attention span worth anything, and they rarely last the whole movie without being really loud or disruptive. And we wanted the kids to be able to focus on Wicked after listening to the soundtrack for weeks and asking a million questions about it.

So. On a day where the babies were really overtired and loud, we opted for supper at the table rather than in front of a movie. The kids were quite disappointed, but they didn’t complain at all. I could just see it. And then I told them that we were going to put the babies down right at 7pm so we could all watch a movie. We made them guess for a while before I finally told them what we were watching, and they were absolutely thrilled.

It did not disappoint.

Not

One

Bit!

The kids were gripped and excited and singing along here and there through all two hours and forty minutes of it.

The “to be continued” at the end was definitely a gut punch for them 🤣 Laela exclaimed mournfully “Its not out yet?! Can we just go into the future???” It was pretty adorable.

Everyone is tucked in now. Each and every one of them is just beaming. Partly because the movie is amazing. Partly because we did something special that we’ve all anticipated. Partly because they’re now in an elite club of kids who have seen Wicked at school.

I am SO glad we got to do this together. Our kids have taken a handful of disappointing hits recently, and this felt like a really special morale boost 💜 Possibly a memory that could live on for some. I’m very grateful we had this chance. What a fun evening together 💜

THE DAHLSJOS ARE COMING!

THE SHAWLDOES ARE COMING!

We will once again be THE BORNSJOS!

So the kids are home (yes, pulled for the afternoon)

The house is marginally tidier than it was before.

Cher got the bathrooms all freshened up for us recently.

Food is planned and needs virtually no prep.

Lemon cookies are filled, because I’m nice like that.

Babies are napping.

Hopefully the party arrives soon 💜

Maybe only a couple years of history thus far, but there is a LOT of love here 💜

See you and your beautiful faces soon, guys!!!

I haven’t had a day quite so all over the place as today was in quite a while! But WOW does that wind whirl!

First thing in the morning, I took one of the babies to the hospital for an eye appointment. It has been a long time since we were there with Dekker, scouting out his crossed eyes, trying to figure out our next step with that. We saw a female optician named Brady, which I thought was pretty awesome, and then did drops, and waited for the doctor. It was a successful appointment, and all good news! Thank goodness!

I rushed home and took calls along the way. I came home to Cher and the other baby. THANK YOU CHER!!! Cher was feeling cruddy and went home fairly quickly, and I got the babies lunching. I did some correspondence for the school musical and then got the babies to bed. Once they were in bed, I attempted to feed myself before I had a phone call with my doctor. She and I spoke for over an hour, and covered the bases of three different kids who need some extra attention. New med decisions were made, and some plans were put in place for followup. As soon as I got off the phone, I had to rush to get my butt out the door to drive to the city yet again, this time to pick a baby up from a visit. Both of the babies at home were fast asleep and I had no time to spare. I ran outside to start the van and, naturally, I had like eight bags of groceries on my step 😅 none of which could wait until my return home.

In a panic, I called my mom and she lovingly came to my rescue and put my groceries away so I could get the babes and beetle on in.

I made it in time, fielding yet further calls from multiple medical people. It just wouldn’t stop today!

I came home right as the kids got home. Dishes got done. Piano got practiced. I did some emailing to our doctors office. I worked on a list I’m sending to some birth parents. I made supper and got it on the table. Brady wasn’t home in time for supper, as he had a last minute CT scan in there somewhere.

But he made it home in time to say hi to the kids before they took off to clubs!

Now, we wrangle the babies, one of which is SO dysregulated, the whole place is up in arms. Whew! Now, the blog is done. So thats one thing off my list. Still a few things to take care of this evening – more emails for the musical and HOPEFULLY tidying up the island. And maybe filling some cookies if I can get there. But that might wait for tomorrow also. There are only so many minutes in a day and I can’t help but feel like I have filled WAY too many already today. Tomorrow is another day. Thank goodness.

Once the kids are home, and tucked, and the babies are down, and LD is asleep, Brady and I will eat and fall asleep immediately! For about half an hour before LD is back up 😅

Make. The baby. Sleep. SOMEONE!