Today was filled with pep talks for me, from me. They went like this:

You’re not even going away this Christmas, you don’t have to have everything totally organized by any deadline.

Your kids don’t even eat that many sweets, so you don’t have to bake a thousand different things.

Don’t even think about laundry. Christmas isn’t that close.

People at church won’t feel burned if the Christmas picture isn’t in an envelope. Skip that step.

Don’t try to clean off the island yet. You need to keep the things there that you’re going to forget.

You will find childcare for the spans of time that you need them. Don’t panic. Leave that one for tomorrow.

There were a lot more pep talks that were equally as pathetic. I made a serious effort to be organized and ahead of the game this year, and as always happens, I have less than two weeks until Christmas, and here I am, scrambling and behind. It drives me nuts. I don’t feel like my list of things to do is unreasonable or even really large, but our day to do is busy with little people, among other things, and its hard to sit down and accomplish a task. It just is. But I’m trying.

I tried to make good choices today. I wanted to get things done without panicking like a basket case and frightening my kids. So I didn’t rush to get up for the day. I took some time to putz away on my phone and wake up well. Then I surfaced, fed the three big kids, and Solly slept. I washed my two dresses I recently purchased from Value Village, so I’m ready when I need to be fancy, and hung them to dry. I made a latte. I made a feeble attempt to exercise but let me tell you! I am NOT in shape, and wasn’t a fan of it, hahaha! In our bi-level, we have three half-flights of stairs. I ran, jogged, and finally lagged up and down them until I couldn’t anymore, which was about ten runs each way, so I guess twenty? But actually ten, I think. Anyway, I didn’t much care for it. Lol! Either way, I attempted to do something positive for my body today.

My kids weren’t in the best shape they’ve ever been in, but they like to help with tasks, which is nice. So I had some help with dishes and cleaning up the floor after breakfast. I was encouraged more than once, “If you need help, just call us!”

I spent the kids lunch time at the island, addressing a few envelopes to send out Christmas pictures, and writing a few cards that are long overdue. Once I’m done this post, I will do some writing and organizing for tonight’s music practice in anticipation of our Christmas Eve service. After that, I may even put on real clothes and brush my teeth. Maybe the kids would be happier if I blessed them in that way…

All things considered, I feel like my “work day” has been a bit of a flop :/ I did a lot of thinking, and my kids are alive, so those are both wins, hahaha! But otherwise, I have laundry to put away, dishes to put away, floors to clean, gifts to wrap, cookies to bake, winter tires to somehow arrange to be installed, mail to send, and a family to continue to maintain, since thats not exactly a one-time task.

I KNOW that what needs to get done will get done. And in reality, I still have time! I just thought I’d be further ahead than this :/ Maybe one day, years down the road, it’ll be mid-December, and I’ll be bored, because everything will be ready! Something tells me I’m a solid thirty years away from that feeling, hahaha! I can’t complain about that 🙂

With a fairly busy evening yesterday, Solly hadn’t had his best, fullest day for food, so he was up a number of times in the night. Seriously, guys, reflux babies do NOT sleep as well as others! But I understand it, after experiencing it with Rowan, and we know its just for a time. Ro is a great sleeper now! But Solly is not. So we were up a lot. This morning, he woke up a 8:00am for milk, but the rest of the house was quiet, so we fed him in bed, drank coffee, and watched “The Good Wife” for a while. When we did surface finally, we got the kids breakfast and let them loose to play. They were in rougher moods that usual, but I figure they were likely still tired from the big family gathering last night. It was a LOT of stimulation, hahaha!

In the early afternoon, we packed up and headed to Kims house for her youngest son’s second birthday. There were lots of kids to play with, treats to eat, presents to open, and conversation to be had. It was a really lovely couple of hours, where we got to chat with some of her friends that I don’t know as well, and for the kids to meet new kids. Unfortunately, Solly was shot and was pretty hands on almost the entire time. Lucky for him, he’s still super cute, even when he’s squirming and fussy. But it wasn’t quite 3:00pm wen we decided to bow out. We’re not usually the first to leave anything, but it was just time. Solly was tired, and specifically Dekker and Laela were struggling with their attitudes still.

We ended up at my parents for supper! We ate leftover tacos from the night before, and caught up on a visit. I don’t think our family has actually been over there for a visit in weeks (not counting yesterday, of course), so the kids dove into the toys and spread out to enjoy themselves. It didn’t last especially long, though. My poor big kids were having SUCH a hard time with their moods. I ended up sticking them both in time outs, and I told them that if someone was rude or selfish or had a bad attitude one more time, we would leave. And this one magical time, it registered. Those kids shared like I have never seen them share. I didn’t have to interfere in their conversations and remind them to share. They just did it, smoothly. Not especially happily, but without outwardly complaining or crying. It was smoother, finally.

We got home just shortly after their bedtime and they were finished. I always find it hard when we’ve had so many nice things happen in one day, and they’re still in crappy moods, but I also realize that they’re tired, and its hard when the day is ending and they’re over stimulated and feelings all the feels, so to speak. They are now all down, and only one of them is crying. And its not even me! Though I’m not far off, lol! I’m tired. Time for a soak and some Netflix.

I don’t know why it happened, but I made a hair appointment for this morning at 9:00am. I say again, I don’t know why. I was in DESPERATE need of a hair refresh, but the time slot makes no sense. Yet I booked it in advance, so obviously I did it on purpose. Aaaaanyway, I was not looking forward to the early morning wakeup call. I was looking forward to it even less when Brady’s alarm went off an hour earlier than I had set mine for, but he redeemed it by saying it was intentional, and he wanted to have a little coffee date with me. He made some coffee and watched a show in bed, and then he came and hung out with me while I did my makeup. It was really nice.

I had so much fun getting my hair done. I always do. I have the BEST hair girl. The BEST. I rarely go in with no idea of what to do with my hair, but I was getting twitchy and bored, so I told her my woes, and threw some ideas at her, and I really like what we came up with!

She added a bunch of foils of this beautiful soft pink all through it. She cut it shorter in the back so if I straighten it, it’ll be all asymmetrical. And then she curled it, which I feel like is the biggest win. I wish I could make it look so flowy and gorgeous myself, but it sure is pretty today, so I’m thankful. I really really love it.

I ran a couple of other small errands, and made it home around 2:00. We had our first family gathering this evening at my parents house, and it was starting between 4:00-4:30. Brady and I finished getting ready while the little boys napped and the bigger kids played Lego, and then we played Heads Up and secretly ate cake. It was a pretty great afternoon.

The kids got dressed really cute for the evening, but no one was really in any shape to take a picture. However, once coats were on and we were in the entrance, they all opted to snuggle in with Solly on the floor for a pic, lol!

So its not exactly the Christmas picture I was hoping for, but they’re pretty stinking cute so I shouldn’t complain. At least Solly is happy, hahaha!

We had a really nice gathering with the family we have in the area. It equalled out to twelve adults and twelve kids, so it was a bit of a mad house, but everyone did awesome. Lots of visiting and catching up and looking back on how much these gatherings have changed since they began years ago. We were meeting for a Christmas gathering before any of us had kids. Times have certainly changed!

As often happens, almost all of the guests left at once, so it was pretty chaotic for twenty minutes or so, but there were lots of hugs, quick exchanges of gifts and Christmas cards, and “same time next years.” And then out into the freezing cold night we went!

Now, everyone is tucked in, and I’m SO ready for a soak. Everyone knows I’m pretty dependant on my soaks in the tub, but its even more so on days like this!!!

I hope you’re all soaking in your tubs! Happy Saturday.

When we built our house, we made a few decisions to cut some costs. Nothing riveting, really. Brady did a chunk of the work himself. We found our own deals that were sometimes cheaper than our builders standard costs. We didn’t finish the basement. We chose laminate over hardwood. Laminate over granite. Stuff like that. Another place that we cut costs was the garage. We didn’t finish the inside at all. Its just a shell. We figured that getting the vehicle out of the wind would already be better than nothing (we’d never had a garage before) and we decided that we’d slowly get the inside finished and heated over the next couple of seasons. Lots of things were higher on our priority list. The basement being the most important thing. Then the deck and yard, fence, driveway, etc. Then the garage.

I understand that these were OUR decisions. I am NOT passing the buck. But man, I wish we had been given a heads up about this floor plan specifically.

We love the layout of our home, and we love having our room over the garage. That was a huge selling feature for us. But people shouldn’t be allowed to leave the garage unfinished in this house, because we are less than a week into the cold weather and our bedroom is ice cold. Like its unreasonably frigid in there. No lie. It heats up a little bit more when we have the house temperature set around 24C, and even then, only when the furnace is actually running. Last night, we were soaking in the tub, and we could actually see where all of the screws were in the studs behind the bathroom walls because they were so dang cold, and the bathroom was humid. There were spots of frost on the wall. It is that cold up there.

Had we known any of this in advance, we would likely have asked that the garage be insulated and covered with poly at least. We may have even bit the bullet and installed the garage heater. OR, we may have still declined, but done the work gradually over summer and early fall. Now, here we are, two weeks before Christmas, buying materials and trying to find time to finish our garage amidst all of our holiday festivities. I won’t lie. I’m pretty annoyed by the whole thing. Praise the Lord we have a great friend in our supply guy and he’s giving us a lovely deal on the materials. It hurts a bit less when we were very much saving that money to finish our basement.

One other thing I wish I had known about the garage was the opener. When we built a custom home, we sort of expected a list of several thousand decisions to make, and it wasn’t like that. We got our say on cabinets, flooring, paint, finishing, lighting, etc., but we had to get special permission to actually get to change our appliances, plumbing fixtures, etc. Because we have never built a house before, and we didn’t get that crazy list we expected, we missed a few things. Its bound to happen, of course, as you always are learning, and there will always be things you do differently the next time. We ended up with a fairly standard garage door opener, which is fine. It was likely the best value for cost, and in most homes, it likely wouldn’t make a huge difference whether it was standard or fancier. But we sleep above the garage, and that sucker is LOUD. In our research, a virtually silent opener would only have been a few hundred dollars more. In the mortgage, we would have absolutely taken that into to consideration and asked for the quieter one, but now, shelling out the several hundred dollars for a new opener seems foolish. However, it wakes the baby who sleeps in our room, which is unpopular for everyone. So once again, I find myself wishing these things had been considered when we built.

I know these things were on us to think about, but having never lived in a house like this before, we would have seriously benefitted from a heads up. We are VERY happy with our builder, as they went above and beyond in pretty much everything. If we were to ever build again, we would likely build almost the exact same house, and we would go with the same builder again, without question. But we did learn some valuable things. We can swing the project financially, but its all coming out of our basement fund, which stings more than just a little :/ But we’ll get there. Just not quite as quickly as we had hoped.

Wish us luck on these chilly days! Pray we find a miraculously free (and perhaps slightly warmer?) day that suits for us to finish up the inside of our garage. If it has to wait until after Christmas, that will be a long time to be sleeping with a heating pad and a million blankets!

❄️❄️❄️❄️❄️❄️❄️❄️❄️❄️

PS: Consider these things if you’re looking to build/buy a modified bi-level! We would HIGHLY recommend this floor plan, but we would also HIGHLY recommend finishing the garage in the process!

At some stages of life, we have fallen grossly behind in getting our kids vaccinated. We are pro-vaccination, but we are pretty relaxed about when it happens, as in if its a month later, it doesn’t matter. If I have shots scheduled and my kid comes down with even just a cold, we reschedule shots. Its just how we do it. To each their own.

With Solly, we’ve managed to stay pretty well on schedule! Solly was six months old just over a week ago, and I took him in for his six month shots this morning. I dropped Dekker off at school (its frigid out, by the way. Brrrrr!) and my mom graciously offered to stay home with Laela and Rowan so I could take Solly for some one on one time! This was also great, because if we were 3-1 at that appointment, likely Brady would have come to occupy the two middle kids, and this way, he didn’t have to lose any time out of his work day. It was a really nice set up 🙂 Thanks mom!

Solly and I got to clinic about ten minutes early, and he sat on my lap trying to eat the pen I was trying to fill out his forms with. It was cute, and the mother/daughter pair sitting across from us were quite enamoured. I don’t blame them. He is such a peach.

When we were called in, the nurse started going through the motions. She asked if he had been weighed recently, and I told her he was weighed about two weeks ago. But I asked if he could be weighed anyway. He had been sick at the time (we were right in the beginning of the HFMD debacle) and now, he was well, and has been eating a TON of solid food. So I was eager to see how much he had bulked up.

And he lost weight. He lost 1.5 lbs.

I was really surprised, and I mentioned to the nurse that he had lost weight. She said “well, I don’t have that information in front of me.” I didn’t really think that mattered, so I pressed a little bit.

Yes, he weighed 20 lbs 12 oz just two weeks ago.
He doesn’t look like he’s losing weight.
I see that he’s a chunky guy, too, but doesn’t that seem like a decent loss when he’s in better health than he was?
*clicks keyboard* Well he’s still in the 85th-99th percentile for everything, so I think his size is fine.

At that point, I gave up. I’m annoyed. I don’t think he’s in any kind of trouble, but I thought a weight loss like that warranted a bit more conversation. In the last while, Solly has really taken to solid foods, and while its been great, I wonder if maybe we’ve cut too far back on his milk and are just counting on the solids to carry him over, and its backfiring? (***Yes, I’m aware that people generally are to give their baby all the milk they want, and then just play and let them taste solids along the way. Milk is to be their main source of nutrition. I know this. Its different with reflux babies.***) I wish I could have discussed these things with this nurse, but she dismissed it very quickly, and I didn’t want to be annoying and overbearing.

All of this aside, Solly did great today. He only had to have one needle, and he let go a really high pitched, squealy cry, and then that was it. He was SO quiet while I snuggled him on my shoulder immediately after, I thought he was gearing up for a while wail, but I finally looked at his face, and he cooed at me. So I guess he was just done! He handled it like a champ. I hope he’s always this chill for his needles!

We finally decorated our tree yesterday evening. The kids LOVED it! At one point, Brady made he and I lattes, and we just sat back and watched the kids finish it up. As I’m sure you could guess, I have WAY too many pictures to commemorate the decorating, which is how you’re ending up with pictures and captions and nothing else. Enjoy!

We actually put the tree up a few days ago, and Brady just put the star and lights up a day or two ago. Don’t judge our marquis star! We think its awesome!

My parents get a special ornament for each kid on their first Christmas. This is Dekker hanging his.

And Laela hanging hers.

And Rowan not actually dropping his! He did ok 🙂

I love that I don’t have to worry about Rowan being gentle with Solly. Ro LOVES Solly! He spent a decent amount of time hanging out with the little guy in his jumper.

Rowan’s funny face 🙂

This was about when we let the kids just go ham on the tree. I’ll be the first to say that the front of the tree is HEAVILY decorated!!

But we think its gorgeous 😀 Not only did we all do it together, but it actually looks really bright and happy and like it fits in around here perfectly!

I’ll do a post soon showing you guys the rest of the place and how we’ve decorated, but we are missing one bigger decoration that I want to wait for. Soon enough 😉

I don’t know why, but I feel like we’ve reached a milestone today!

Solly was awake around 4:30 this morning for a drink, and when it quieted down, I heard Dekker, once again, wailing from his room. “GUUUUUYS!! GUUUUUYS! HELP!” So I rushed down to see what was going on, and once again, he complained of ear pain.

He complained of ear pain on Sunday too, but it went away fairly quickly. Then he had no issues yesterday, and now this morning, his ear hurt again. He wasn’t about to just take a drink and go back to bed, so I got out our sickie blanket and snuggled him up on the recliner with me. We talked a little bit, and I tried to confirm that he was actually hurting. I was wondering if he was nervous about school the next day, or something else was maybe giving him anxiety. But he was insistent, and I believed him. But he had no fever or sickness to go with it. Then I saw his scratch his ear by shoving his finger into it, and I wondered if he had just scratched the inside really badly and it was hurting. The mommy in me said to take him in anyway, because I would hate to assume something and have him actually be sick.

We got to the doctors office around 9:30 and waited an hour to get in. Thank goodness, Dekker wasn’t in any pain at the time, and he was SO patient and chill while we waited. When it was finally our turn, he was weighed, and then we were led into an exam room. We didn’t wait too terribly long before a doctor came in. I’ve been to this clinic dozens of times as a walk-in patient, as its our go-to walk-in clinic, but I had never met this doctor. I really liked her, though. She didn’t really address me, but spoke with Dekker and asked lots of questions. Did he have a sore throat? Do you feel sick otherwise? Do you go to swimming lessons? He finally said to her “Just my ear. This one.” He pointed to his right ear. She came around and checked his right ear, and sure enough, he had an infection. She very lightly pulled on his earlobe, and he told her it hurt a little bit. She checked the other ear, and pulled on it, and he just giggled and accused her of tickling him. It was a really good appointment, honestly.

On our way out, she brought him to an office door that had a big hanging advent calendar looking display on it, and invited him to pick a candy out of any pocket he liked. He chose a candy cane, and thanked her on the way out. He was still in great spirits, so we called his prescription through, and I took him to school in time for lunch.

I’m really glad we went in, and I’m SO glad Dekker told us about his ear pain. The doctor said the infection was still in the early stages, which is why there was no fever or other sickness along with it. I guess lots of kids don’t notice them right away, but its not a secret that Dekker is a pretty sensitive little guy. Also, he’s never had an ear infection before, so it was likely a feeling he had never felt before. I’m glad we have the tools to take care of it now.

Its almost time to go get him from school, and we planned together that we’d all decorate the tree (finally) when he gets home. Should be a nice way to finish off the afternoon!

Brady was home today, so we were able to duck into the city once again and get another handful of things done. We took my family ring in to our jeweller to have the piece added to represent Solly. Sadly, its not exactly the ideal season to ask for custom jewelry, and I may not get it back until after Christmas 🙁 Thats a long time to be without a piece of jewelry that I wear every day. I’ve already had a handful of small heart attacks thinking its lost. Eek! I don’t like it!

We did a few other small things, picked up a few more Christmas presents, some new jammies for Solly, and another decorative Christmas tree. Just wait til you guys see our decorations this year! I’m so excited for them to be complete and to be able to show them off!

Since getting home, the two little boys napped, and the older kids had snacks and watched a bit of TV while Brady and I did more decorating and planning the next couple of days. We have music to practice, appointments to get to, and lots to accomplish here at home, too. I hope we can really buckle down this week and gets lots of the things I’m finding ominous DONE with!

Either way, I’m happy with the small handful of errands we’ve managed to run in the last few days, and the progress we’ve made in our decorating! I have a pretty good list that is slowly getting whittled down, and it feels good. Everyone remind me of what we’ve all accomplished when it gets closer to Christmas and I’m scrambling to finish unimportant things. I’d really appreciate it!

Happy Monday to you!

So as is the new trend, we set our alarms to actually get to church, only to have our plans foiled. Brady and I were watching a show on the laptop in bed while the house was still quiet, and out of nowhere, Dekker was wailing. Now Dekker doesn’t do too much of that unless he’s sick or he’s been provoked/bugged/whatevered by a sibling, or something of that sort. So of course, when we heard him, Brady went running, and I threw on a few more clothes, ready to follow. Brady carried him up to our room where he shuddered on our bed and cried, speaking about sore ears and a tummy ache. “I might frow up,” he said shakily. We sat quietly with him and he calmed down slowly. We asked him if he thought he could eat some cereal, and he said he’d try.

We got the kids to the table and poured some cereal. I gave Dekker about a quarter of what he usually eats, and he finished it and wanted to be done. I wanted to try to coax him to eat a bit more, but in observing him, his hands were shaking and he was red in his eyes and cheeks. So I excused him from the table. He got down from the table, and a minute later, he started to cough. That scary, throaty cough with the gag at the end. I looked over at him, and he looked at me with nervous eyes. He and I rushed to the bathroom where we sat and waited for him to throw up, but he didn’t.

So. New plan. I gave Dekker a tub and sent him to the couch. I snuggled him up with the blanket that has sort of become the sickie blanket, his bucket, and his water bottle. I threw a Thomas the Train Christmas special on the tv. And there Dekker sat, unmoving, for a solid 2.5 hours. If you know my kids, you know they don’t just sit and watch tv. They play Lego, or links, or whatever else. But Dekker specifically has to be doing something while he watches tv. Not today, though. So we broke our afternoon plans, and spent the morning watching some Christmas tv and getting our tree up and lit.

The kids had toast and bananas for lunch, and Dekker perked up. He told us “My whole self feels good again!” Unfortunately, I felt awkward trying to go back on our afternoon plans again, potentially bringing our sick kid into another group of kids, so rather, we took our time getting ready, and headed into the city for a couple of errands before we met my parents for supper. We had also broken that plan, but were able to rebuild them when Dekker started to feel better.

We got a handful of things done, and had a really nice supper with my parents at Wendys. One location is so much nicer, but the tables can’t be moved, and thats a pain in the butt for a group of our size. So we went to the older location and had a really fun time. A family or two who sat nearby seemed very enamoured with our kids. I don’t blame them.

Now, we’re home, and our house is all bright and twinkly with Christmas lights 🙂 I’m lucky enough to have Brady home for the next couple of days, so hopefully we’ll get a few more of the bigger things done. I tried so hard to be on the ball this Christmas season and I really don’t feel like I am at all :/ Ah well, can’t do everything, right? What has been done is good, and what needs to still be done can be done. Wish me luck in buying the last of the gifts and decor, mailing out Christmas cards, and finishing up the tree!! Maybe I’ll even get some baking in.

We ventured into the city for a few errands this morning and afternoon, and had a really enjoyable time! Our kids picked names this year, so today, we took them out and helped them pick gifts for the sibling they had chosen. Dekker and Solly picked each other, and Laela and Rowan picked each other. I took Laela and Solly to pick presents, and Brady took Rowan and Dekker. It was fun to prepare them for it and to see what they picked. Obviously some more than others. But Dekker had a really lovely idea for what to get Solly, and Laela came up with an idea kind of out of nowhere for Ro that he’ll really like. Its nice to see how well they know each other.

Once we got home, we fed the kids and put the little ones to bed. Then Brady and I made a plan. I wrote out what we still need to do this month, and what we still need to buy. There’s still a decent amount, but its on a reasonable list now, so it feels less ominous. We did a couple of small things off the list today, and we even brought the tree in and rearranged the living room around it. Its not a perfect setup, but we really hope to have our basement done and our tv area downstairs by next Christmas, so I’m not too concerned with finding the ideal layout this season. We’ll hopefully have many many years to try the tree in lots of places. This will work great for this year. We purged the toys a bit, to make it less messy in general, and shifted couches around to make it the best we could. Hopefully we’ll get to decorating it soon too. I can’t believe we haven’t decorated the place yet!

With the amount of running around we did today, in the city and at home, with all we accomplished and planned and made decisions about, I’m tired, and ready for bed! First, though, SUPPER!! Yikes!!