I had the pleasure of accompanying Dekker to an appointment today. I won’t go into details out of respect for him, but I will say that I actually super enjoyed being out with him. We did some hard things together today, and we came out of it happy and silly. Don’t you think he looks positively darling in my glasses?? 🤣😎

He is a fabulous guy to have along for any ride 💜

Todays honourable mentions go to:

Cher for baking 11 dozen muffins for us while pumping out a stack of laundry

My mom for staying with the babies in the van for SO long, reading and feeding.

Carrie for bringing lunch, bathing a baby, changing diapers, and helping me get out the door in the afterboob. Oh! Afterboob! Yup. I’m going with it. Nice.

I could not do these days without help, and I am SO fortunate to have all the care and love from the people around me. It is not lost on me how blessed my family is.

Thank you, Lord, for absolutely always providing, even in unconventional ways. We trust You.

Today felt like a day where we were truly blessed by those around us.

Blessed by Cher, who came and cleaned the house for a few hours, did laundry, and rocked the baby to sleep.

Blessed by Braden, who came over to try to help us get some accessibility stuff going in our house.

Blessed by mom, who ran errands in the city for me, picking up medical and baking supplies, which are both regular parts of our life and of equal importance.

We have so terribly much to be grateful for.

Thank you, Lord. You are good.

Laela and I struggle sometimes. There is a lot of pushback, and at times, we have distance. Which no mom wants with their daughter, specifically this mom! Thankfully, this particular daughter also doesn’t care for the distance, and while its chosen for a time, there is obvious, acknowledged relief when there is closeness again.

After a stretch of rough days, Laela and I regained our closeness, and in many ways, all is right in the world.

In many other ways, nothing is right with the world.

As I tucked Laela in tonight, she told me “Everything feels better and safer when we’re close.” And I agree.

Laela, if you ever read this, I love you dearly 💜 Thank you for our walk tonight. I love being close to you.

Its the times over here. Times are a little extra tricky right now. Mobility is down, and its more of a struggle every day for Brady to move around.

Someone gave us a stair lift a couple of years ago, and we’ve stored it ever since. We were told the last time they tried to turn it on, it didn’t work. Possibly just a simple wiring issue. So we were still very grateful to have it for free! I dragged that beast out of the garage and into our house this morning, and we’re getting into it now, trying to sort out whether or not its going to run. Please say a prayer it does.

Or, if you are the praying type, and we come to mind, please don’t hesitate to pray for us in general. For Brady. There is some figuring to do, and the long limbo wait time is a really hard hill to climb, especially when your legs work less and less each day.

On this somewhat downer note, I give you this giggle for the day.

Who knew chihuahuas look like muffins?!

It really goes such a long way to have a doctor like we have. I brought in our latest Peanut for an appointment first thing this morning, and was greeted by a resident who told me that our doctor had just told her all about us and spoke very highly of us. What is so extra bizarre is that this is not the first time a doctor has said that to us 💜 Our doctor will vouch for us, day in and day out, and we know it for certain. We feel SO fortunate to have her on our team!

The resident we saw today was also very lovely. She gave our baby a good well check, and inquired about any concerns I have. As mentioned a week or so ago, my main concerns lie in babys feeding, and that has started to improve drastically since earlier this week when we began thickening the formula. Thats been a whole learning curve as well!! We used thickeners with the Morsel, but that was at a later age than we’re looking at here, so its all entirely different. Anyway.

Baby appeared to be well and doing everything right. Our doctor ducked in to join the appointment, and the resident left shortly thereafter to get into her next appointment. Dr. Guselle and I finished off what we were talking about regarding the Peanut, and then we spoke a bit about my other kids, and also Brady and all the messy stuff that he’s going through right now. We commiserated on the frustration surrounding scheduling things and advocating when you’re not being heard. As we spoke, I watched the wheels turn, and sure enough, by the end of our appointment, she had some new ideas of how to help us. I truly don’t know what we will ever do when she retires. Man is she ever invested.

It was a lovely appointment, as it pretty much always is. But then, I packed up the Peanut (Ha! Packing Peanut) and we drove home. Cher was at the house with the other babies, cleaning for me 💜 I got home and immediately put on sweatpants. Weekend mode has begun!

Tomorrow has many moving parts, but not too many to manage. All the moving parts can be managed with sweats and coffee, with the Wicked soundtrack playing in the background.

Here’s to the weekend!

Rowan: I wanted to get my little guy katanas! But we aren’t. And thats ok! Because we’re not a very violent family.

😅

It’s already been quite a morning, haha! That was a light spot, I promise, lol!

So far this morning, three of my children are angry at me. Ready?

One child is mad because yesterday, they lost a privilege, and this morning I would not buckle and go back on my word. 🤷🏼‍♀️

One child is mad because I reminded them to wear deodorant. 🤷🏼‍♀️

One child is mad because I reminded them to brush their teeth. I heard them mourn from the bathroom “I never get to do anything.” though I had not stopped them from doing anything when reminding them. 🤷🏼‍♀️

Thats three kids out of eight who are mad at me. I believe math would tell us that is technically not half bad.

😂

#winning

The island is not finished. We’ve made headway! But its not all the way done. Here is the sitch.

We built the island and got it all prepared to have the stovetop plunked on top.

We realized late in the game (our fault) that the stovetop was 8″ tall.

We modified the cabinets to make it work.

The plumbers saw the stove and pivoted a little. Which makes sense because the thing is a total monster.

Gas inspector came and went through the manual. Decided what was needed to properly install the stove. The nicest inspector I’ve ever come across.

Everyone decided our lack of ventilation in here does not, in fact, grandfather over. Especially with a 16,000 BTU stove.

We’ve spent the last couple of days looking at range hoods in all different shapes and sizes. Flush mouth. Chimney. Ceiling. Island. Forget the wall mount and under cabinet options – those don’t work here. I had NO idea what CFMs were and how many a person needed and how many a person couldn’t have, but I sure know now! And finding a range hood that was large enough to cover our stove that did NOT have crazy high CFMs that didn’t cost 3K has been an enormous challenge.

And today, I do believe we finally got our range hood locked. We found one on a beautiful sale online that just so happens to be an appropriate size for our stove top. The CFMs were WAY too high, but being that it had different settings, the first and second settings are appropriate for the house and the current system we have, so it will just be installed in a way with the highest setting disabled. We ran it by our plumber, who approved it for the home. Its officially on order, and now we wait!

Once the thing comes, we can get it installed, and work on getting the rest of the ductwork. In the meantime, we have to find a way to enclose the open space at the back of the stove to accommodate combustible material clearance. Hoping to get a piece of stainless steel moulded to the right size and shape, and just stick it between there.

Ok. Whew! Thats the update! What I can tell you with confidence is that its already a really fun setup to cook supper in 🥰 I’ve finally uncovered the island top and started using it. I’ve cooked on the stovetop, and the burners heat SO fast and SO good!!! When I pull stuff out of the oven, I can set it on the stove just to put it somewhere, and I can keep cooking on the stove. Its just amazing. I have no regrets.

However, this might be our only renovation this year 😅 This definitely has gone far beyond some new cabinets and a stovetop…

I was going to title todays post “Dekker Got Punched in the Face” but it felt clickbaity. Though it is actually true, it’s actually a funny story, not a mean or mad one.

Yesterday was quite the busy day, and I got home for the evening as Dekker was leaving for a school thing. As I passed him in the house as he was about to rush out, I noticed a bandaid across his cheek. I stopped him and pretty well demanded an answer 😅 I wasn’t mad. I was kind of shocked! He immediately smirked and said he would tell me later. And I said heck no, tell me now, so I got the short version.

Apparently one of his friends wanted the celery out of Dekkers lunch, and when he went to make a grab for it, he accidentally punched Dekker in the face and Dekkers glasses cut his face.

Dekker thinks its hilarious, and apparently even thought it was funny in the moment, which is saying something, lol!

The conclusion we came to was that people need to send more fresh veggies in their kids lunches so they stop punching each other in the face. This particular kid clearly needs some celery in his life.

I’d put a celery emoji here, but it doesn’t exist. Because, water with hair.

First thing this morning, I got a call from our plumber. She said they had an opening this morning, and asked if we would like our stove put in today. YES PLEASE!!! Of course, none of the things I put in place for the installation tomorrow were in place today, but thats totally fine. I would take a slightly more challenging day with the babies if it meant I got my stove! Not only am I stoked to have a new stove, but I also just really miss having one at all 😅 It is a nightmare fun challenge to feed all ten of us without a stove! So I jumped at the opportunity.

I had anywhere from 2-4 guys in my house all day. They came and went, and worked like crazy. The new stove is vastly larger than the last, and WAY more powerful. So they needed to put in a much wider gas line. They were all up in the basement ceiling, in the backyard, and in the kitchen. Leah the Plumber’s employees are incredibly easy to have in the house. They work really quietly, super respectfully, and they are incredibly polite, informative, and patient. They never breathed a word down the hallway during naps. They always had smiles for the babies. They answered questions and made sure I understood all along the way. I could not endorese her more. LEAH THE PLUMBER, guys. They are amazing. And without being weird about it, as a woman, having those guys in my house felt totally safe and comfortable.

The job is not done. We’re asking a pretty large thing of them, changing the teeny little stove top to a behemoth. But after a days work, the stove is IN! Its in place. We can use it, safely!!! The proper venting is still to come, but it won’t be long before the whole shebang is done with!

So this evening, Brady and I toasted to the new stove, and to break it in, we’re having late night poutine supper. Because now, we can make gravy 🤣 And let me tell you. It cooked up SO FAST.

I’m a happy lady 😁

You guys probably know my ideal balance. I talk about it a lot. The balance between productive and restful. When I can have a day where I get lots done but I also rest and enjoy things and let down a little, I feel the most human.

Today was one of those days.

I have to be careful what I post on here. After yesterdays post talking about house projects taking a little longer these days, Rae and Tom decided to offer to take the kids for a large chunk of today! What a HUGE gift! They took all eight of the kids from about mid morning until 3pm.

While they had them, we got to work! Brady did all the wiring in the island, for both the stovetop and a couple of outlets. I took all the drawers out so he could detach the cabinets from the kick box, as well as detach the countertop. He did lots of the fussy work, and I was the one who heaved the whole dang thing over a few inches.

While I wasn’t islanding, I worked on a wildly intricate blanket I’m making for this summer’s auction at Kinasao. Its probably my most challenging blanket to date, and its going to take absolutely forever 😅 Ive finished 11 rows! Only 249 left 😳

We spend the evening with the kids and my mom, as we often do on Sundays. We had macaroni and nuggets in celebration of our Lemon Drop 💜 Did you know we have a leap year baby?? We do! So happy belated birthday to that adorable little sweetheart. To know LD is to love LD.

Naturally, the new peanut has napped for the last four hours and is only waking up now, sooooo 😬🤞 wish us luck for the night!! Tomorrow brings the new week of school, appointments, visits, etc. I’m ready!