I’m sure you’ve all read the forecast. *sniff* Its gonna dip below zero this week. While I love the heat of summer, am also very much a part of Club Autumn, and I welcome fall happily, with leggings, boots, pumpkin, and yellow leaves. However, I feel a little bit like summer left in a hurry, and that mother nature plans to skip fall and go straight into winter. This is not something I support or appreciate. Booooooooo you, winter! If you ruin my garden, I’ll…I’ll…shake my fist at no one in particular! Blast. Lame threat, I know.

On that note, my mom came over to dig in our garden a bit today. I love garden sharing! She is going to visit family and wanted to bring them some fresh produce from the harvest. There are still lots of potatoes, which can handle a frost or two, I hear. And lots of carrots, which even benefit from a couple of freezes! However, our corn is still probably about a week away, and the cold isn’t as friendly to that. Luckily, the dip below zero is just that. -1. If the prediction is right, anyway. So I’m thinking that corn is wrapped in enough green that it likely won’t be frozen to the core in one night that barely freezes. I hope I’m right. I really, really want fresh garden corn. Anyway, all that aside, we dug up a couple of potato plants, a few feet of carrots, and probably the last cucumber that will survive. I’m pretty happy seeing it all come out looking so good!

We pulled some carrots for our family as well, but left the rest to fend for itself outside. I really hope it all lives through the upcoming cold weather. Soon, I’m sure we’ll have a blanket of white on our yard. I’m not sure if I’ve talked about it at all, but if things go according to plan, we may not ever have a garden here again! With plans to move next year, I think the biggest thing we’ll miss about this place is the incredible garden plot in our big, beautiful yard. We’ll likely never have a property like this again, and we are so thankful for the space and open air here. But that doesn’t outweigh our desire to live in a new community that we know better and feel better about raising our kids in. So. We enjoy the garden in the now 🙂 Delicious!!!!

I can really honestly say that today was probably my favorite Sunday in a really, really long time. We haven’t been to church in probably five or six weeks, and if I can be really straight up with you guys, church is hard for us. Not because of any faith changing reason, but we have to wake our sleeping kids, leave early (especially on worship leading days), and then the kids have to sit still and relatively quietly through 2+ hours of a service, meet lots of new people, and its just a big challenge. So it was our first Sunday since mid-July and we were up for leading worship. My parents bowed out and offered to take the kids, so it was just Brady and I.

On the drive to town, we told Dekker we were going to church, and he gave every possible suggestion of where we should go that wasn’t church. So that didn’t bode well at all. But he was happy to see grandma and grandpa, and the four of them played and ran around while Brady and I practiced. The girl who ran the words was right on time, and the sound guy was early! Its sooo awesome to actually have mics hooked up for the first song in practice!!! It went completely smoothly and we felt great about the set.

In church, I realized that while our baby news has been public for a few weeks now, not everyone at our church has Facebook, and probably not everyone knows! So I shared that with the church and they celebrated with us in applause and prayer. Pretty awesome to have such a big group of people so excited to see our family grow. We did the rest of our worship set after that and it went off pretty much without a hitch. It certainly wasn’t perfect, but it felt like we didn’t have any big flubs or rough patches. It was just really refreshing to have our first time back up front not be a total disaster.

Dekker was a bit restless during church but aside from a couple whiny moments, he did awesome. Laela, on the other hand, was sooo bored with being held and just wanted to be free! So I let her crawl around a bit, but her adorableness is incredibly distracting to those around her, and I felt a little bad disrupting other people during the sermon. So I played a bit with her in the back of the church, and traded off with Brady when she got too heavy in my arms. We finished off the service with a song and everyone went downstairs for lunch. I guess this Sunday was sort of a “welcome back” Sunday, post-summer. Dekker was ready to get out of there, so my parents took him home for lunch, and we kept Laela at church with us for lunch.

We sat with good friends and talked about the lumps and bumps of parenting while eating chicken, buns, salads, and ridiculously delicious cupcakes. We finally left when Laela was clear it was time to go. Not even tastes of icing would make her smile anymore.

Poor munchkin. We went to my parents to give her some milk and put her and her brother down for naps. While she napped, my mom talked on the phone with my sister for a while, and eventually joined Brady and I for some SkipBo. It lasted a while, but Laela woke up after two hours down and was still noticeably tired. But she wanted to be up! And she was sooo beautiful, even with a more solemn face on.

When Dekker woke up, we had supper of hot dogs and FRESH corn on the cob that my parents actually purchased from a nearby colony. Beautiful, sweet, yellow corn. Also, watermelon and cantaloupe. It was probably the perfect, most delicious supper I could have asked for. Being my mom, she had also recently made a dessert that I’ve really been hungry for but hadn’t yet worked up the energy to make. Rice Krispie cake with chocolate peanut butter on top. Unbelievable. There was also a banana cake, which I’m sure was delicious but I didn’t go near. Two pieces of rice krispie for me! I fed Laela a little sliver of banana cake, and Dekker had a piece too. The second he was done, he asked for more. I told him one piece was enough (really didn’t give much explanation past that point) to which he responded “Thank you, grandma, cupcake. Get down, please?” And he left the table. No fuss, no fight. Just a polite “thank you” and he excused himself. I was SO proud!

We kicked around longer than usual, just finding the day to hit the spot more than usual. But around 8:15 (already 45 minutes past the kids bedtime) Dekker announced that he was ready to go now. That is a HUGE deal, since he is normally really sad to leave. But today, he knew it was time, and that he was tired. So grandma walked out with us to help us carry some of our stuff (she may have sent the cake home with me…), she gave us all hugs and kisses, and sent us on our way. We had fun music on the drive home, and the kids are already fast asleep. But not before something hilarious happened!

While we were getting Laela all wrapped up before putting her down, Dekker asked in his quiet questioning voice “Be all wrapped up?” Sooo this happened.

It was completely endearing and adorable and I loved it. He didn’t go down swaddled or anything, but it was just a cuddly moment and they were sooo taken with each other. I love these little guys!

What a PERFECT day!!! I hope you all had some great rest, or great family time, or something awesome happen today 🙂 It just feels like that kind of day to me.

Today sort of felt like a ton of bricks, and it really shouldn’t have. Brady let me sleep in while he took the kids this morning, and I slept until 11:00!! It was pretty awesome. I ventured downstairs to hang out with the fam for a while, but felt pretty sluggish. That tends to happen, I think, after such a long sleep. I’m certainly not meaning to complain. It was just weirdly off. We came upstairs and had soup for lunch. I felt stupidly overheated by the end of that and went to lay down on the bed by the breeze of the fan while the kids finished lunch. I basically just flopped down flat on my stomach on the bed. Yes, I can still lay on my stomach. After a little while, I heard Dekker come into the room saying something about taking care of mommy. He had his big scoop shovel and then just a normal shovel. He informed me he was going to feed me soup. And he did. It was adorable.

This redeemed him a little for lunch. He was fussing about something at the table, and threw himself around enough that he fell off of his chair. He didn’t hurt himself at all, so I didn’t have much compassion for him, to be honest. But I made a quick dive to try and save him from hitting the floor and did a number on my already-fragile tailbone. I can’t pinpoint what it was specifically, but I know that it hurts like it did pretty freshly after I fell down the stairs last week. I was getting a bit fed up with it already, since it has stopped improving and now just hurts at the same dull level every day. But now it really hurts again. So thats fun.

I’m a bit bored with feeling like I’m falling apart, and I’m not even! I know I’ve had a relatively easy pregnancy compared to many! But the fact is, my back/butt really hurts, and I’m a bit of a whiner. We’re leading music in church tomorrow, so sitting on the piano bench might be a bit interesting as well! Wish me luck!

The last thing I wanted to add to the blog today was Laela and the adorable little joke that she makes now! The YouTube video is taking forever to load, but I’m gonna put it on here when it comes! She throws herself back and is just such a little ham all the time. She knows how adorable she is. I wanted to get some pictures of her before bed, when she’s all puffy and sleepy and sooo cute in her new neon pink sleeper, but when I set her down on the floor in her room, she did her cute think and whipped herself back onto the hard floor, pretty much destroying any hope of sweet, happy, wide eyed pictures. Poor princess. But here’s her little party trick, anyway.

Thats all I’ve got for tonight. Have a great rest of the weekend, all!

So this happened today!!!

A while ago, a family member gave Dekker a treat bag from one of his cousins birthday parties. It was pirate themed. He loved the gift, and the pirate coins and telescope have been well loved. But the first time we tried to put that patch on him, he freaked. He had every right to panic, I probably would have too in his position, so we all laughed it off and the patch got lost in the mix of toys. Laela chews it sometimes. But today, he found it and was sooo excited to wear it! He asked me to help him put it on a few times, but he would throw it on and run to show Brady, or show Laela, or whoever would look. He was sooo proud! And of I could was proud as well. Its been a long time coming. The other day, he told me he remembered patches. I asked him what he remembered about them, and he kind of shrugged and said “Patches…its ok!” I’m sooo glad!

Another great story about today has to do with supper. As I’ve mentioned in the past, Dekker has boycotted supper for a while now. He’s gotten better over the last month or two, but usually its still a tearful experience to get those first couple of bites into him. Then, he often realizes its yummy and moves on. Yesterday, I made honey chicken on rice for the first time in a while, and of course, he made a big show and cried when I told him he had to eat some. But after one bite, he sat quietly and finished his whole bowl! So today, when he didn’t want to eat at supper time, I told him (in his words) what we were having. “Rice and honey!” I told him. “Just like yesterday.” He was at his spot, eating out of his bowl before we even had a chance to all sit down and pray. It just made me really happy to find another meal that he really likes a lot. No convincing, no eye rolling, no wide open mouth full of rice staring at me while he cries and cries. He just ate happily.

So it was basically just a really great day for Dekker 🙂 And the rest of us. Brady left work a little bit early, the kids napped great, and now we’re all wiped out and sooo ready for some Netflix, a soak, and a deep sleep!

I woke up this morning after another rough night to two fairly angsty kids, and decided I needed an out. So I made a spontaneous trip to the city to meet my mom for lunch. We enjoyed our short visit, I grabbed a coffee, and headed back home. I know, it might sound pointless, but sometimes I just need some new scenery. And I had to be back home at a good time.

One of Bradys friends from high school recently moved to the city, and we invited him over for dinner, so as soon as I arrived home, I whipped up a big batch of honey chicken and chucked it in the crock pot. The kids played for a while and I gave Laela some milk and lunch. Dekker had eaten in the city, but Laela hadn’t. Once everyone was topped up, they went to bed. Both were pretty unimpressed with the idea but they got over it and fell asleep at a decent time. I was going to use the next while to ready the house, but I was tired and there wasn’t tons to do, so I figured I’d leave it for a while. Instead of doing the dishes and picking up the toys, I lay in bed and rested. I’m trying to just move on past my sore tailbone, since I know its just bruised, but in all honesty, it bugs me pretty much all the time. And thats tiring! So I rested.

Brady came home at a good time and did the majority of getting the house ready. I screwed up the green bean casserole, so I went to raid the garden for veggies. The corn is still a little ways off, but we had one great big cucumber to serve anyway. It was a pretty unexciting meal but it did taste good. Alex was great company, and had one of the BEST Dekker radars I’ve ever seen. Dekker warmed up to him surprisingly quickly, to the point where Deks would give him high fives, pound fists, and answer questions. That often takes a number of visits for him to get that comfortable, but it was really really smooth. If Dekker wanted a toy but was too shy to get up and get it, Alex would bring it to him. That helped a lot, I think 🙂 The kids went down at a normal time, and the three of us visited late into the evening, as I’m sure you can tell by this late post. It was a really nice evening, and we’ll potentially be spending some more time with him this weekend, so we’ll look forward to that.

But first, bedtime for everyone. Too bad its such a long drive home for people who visit us :/ However, we’re already curled up in bed deciding what to watch before we give in to sleep. Looking forward to both of those things… 

Brady will be arriving home in the next fifteen minutes or so. The kids are down for the night (though not sleeping) and we all survived! I really love having my husband home for those few hours before bedtime, but no such luck tonight, and I think we did ok 🙂

I’ve been sleeping really well since becoming pregnant this time around, but last night I wasn’t able to sleep after my pee break. I dozed in and out for a few hours and was rudely awakened for good by an early morning phone call from CRA for my working husband who works and isn’t at home in the day. You’d think they’d assume that, being that his listed business number is different than his home phone. Anyway, from that phone call, I got up and got the kids. For the first time, I intentionally skipped Laelas morning nap with the intention to put them down together in the afternoon without hassle. It worked beautifully!!! They didn’t fuss or get up or even chatter amongst themselves. They just slept. For two hours. I know I sound greedy, but when they sleep separate, I get three hours out of Dekker easily still. But thats just not the case, and I suppose I can come to terms with that. While the kids slept, I dozed a bit in bed, trying to rest, and watched a few YouTube videos. For supper, I fed the kids the boxed, bad for you but oh so good, processed supper and we played downstairs for a couple of hours. Dekker was still feeling pretty worn, and since I can finally get past my soreness and just be a bit uncomfortable, he sat beside me in a squishy chair for easily a half hour, if not more. It was comfy and cuddly and nice.

I put the kids down at the normal time, right around 7:30. Dekker sure doesn’t appreciate bedtime, but how many kids really do, right? He had a bit of attitude toward me, but we recovered and they both went down fine. Of course, I can hear him talking, and Laela is standing up and shuffling all around her crib, but they’ll get there eventually. 

Anyway, yay us for surviving the day together!!! Not sure I’d like to do it on my own every day, but we did good 🙂 Sooo thankful for the help I have!

Laela has officially been upgraded to a big girl carseat! Granted, Dekker outgrew his bucket seat around five months old, and Laela is eleven months old, but its been a beautiful stretch of being able to just pull her seat out and take her places that way. She was contained and snug as a bug in a rug. Now, carrying that blasted bucket seat so far from my body feels sooo heavy to me and my poor already-aching body that we figured it was time. She’s just shy of the weight limit anyway, so either we switched her now, or in a couple of weeks. So it happened today. I didn’t take a picture of her in it today (oops) but I will next time. If you guys remember (for those of you who have been around forever) we bought her a carseat when we were pregnant with her, and before we knew she was a girl. It was a serious gamble, but we went with pink. And it is SOOO much cuter than we thought it would be!! The box boasted of a pale baby pink accent color, but its a cute bright non-pepto pink!!! We love it 🙂

I dropped Dekker off with my mom for a couple of hours and ran into the city to do a few little things with Laela. We brought Brady some coffee at work, and he and I just peeked at her through the van windows while she slept. Her little cheeks hanging down in complete relaxation, her toy cuddled in the crook of her arm, adorned with a beautiful little floral peasant top. Her little hair, JUST starting to curl. She was just a dream today. From Bradys jobsite, we hit up the mall and visited with Jerilee just for a few minutes before we had to be at my chiropractic appointment. Dr. Mike hasn’t seen Laela in quite a while, so I was excited to show her off. However, she wasn’t contained to her bucket, so for the most part, I hoped she would just behave.

It was pretty much adorable. I was feeding her puffs when he came in. We got them all reintroduced before I went to lay on the table. I closed up her snack container so she wouldn’t spill all over the floor. When I got situated, I glanced around to check on her, and found Dr. Mike sitting beside her on the floor, shaking her snacks at her like a rattle. He cracked it open, gave her one more, and then came over to treat me. It was completely adorable, and Laela was sooo sad when she was left alone. She crawled aimlessly around the room, weeping bitterly through the whole treatment. It was hilarious and adorable. The best news from the appointment is that my back and tailbone aren’t too screwed up from the fall. I mean, they’re screwed up because of the bad posture I’ve been using since I biffed, since I can’t sit comfortably and straight, but one will heal the other basically. It’ll come as the bruises fade.

After my appointment, I hit Michaels and bought the yarn I forgot to buy the other day, and then headed back to my parents house for the day. Brady came over at a really reasonable time and we practiced music for church next Sunday before supper. I think it should go pretty smoothly. We haven’t been to church much this summer at all, much less lead music, so this will mix it up a bit for us, but should be good! Anyway, we finished up with that, got the kids up from their naps, and ate a ridiculously delicious supper of corn chowder and dill biscuits. Easily one of my favorite meals, and I’ve been craving yummy chunky hearty soups these days, so it really hit the spot.

Now, kids are home and surprisingly quiet in their room, and Brady and I are just getting ready for a soak and some tv. And then sleep. Considerably less up tomorrow. Maybe some crocheting. Gotta get started. Its almost winter, after all. Sigh.

I am very happy that my little boy is three, and I want to celebrate it! However, after a full day of not having him behave unless I’ve raised my voice and asked fifteen times, I feel like maybe three isn’t my favorite so far. However, the evening ended with Laela drinking milk, Dekker insisted he wanted to burp her, him gently patting her back, Laela burping, and then her clapping for him all on her own! It was completely adorable and I’m so glad we had that note to end on rather than the whole day seeming to have been a struggle.

So! Back to Dekker’s birthday. I think I gave an overview on the day of, but to refresh everyone, we just had a family party, all comfy at home. We had macaroni and cheese for supper, with iced tea. We had blue cake afterwards. Dekker wore sweats. It was a suuuper relaxed birthday, and I think it was exactly what Dekker wanted! He was thrilled.

The attendees:

Dekker and Laela: The worlds cutest kids, thus far.

Hailey and Brady: Makers of aforementioned cute kids.

Frank and Jeanne: Maker of the aforementioned maker (Hailey) of aforementioned adorable kids.

Well, that was confusing.

Dekker blew out his candles immediately, but we caught one! He was more excited to pull out the candles and get to the good stuff.

By golly! For a plain vanilla cake, it was pretty delicious! These faces don’t lie! Yet.

The best (and only) sibling picture from the night.

 

The best gift of the day! Dekker was thrilled with his basketball hoop! That kid is very seriously ballin’. He sunk more baskets than I could currently, and not from walking up and tipping them in. He’s just good. He’s got game.

Other fun gifts he got! He gave his pillow pets lots of kisses and Daddy showed off his mad recorder skills on Dekker’s new instrument.

Two monster trucks that drive themselves and make a bunch of noises, and some clothes that he breezed past, because why wouldn’t he? He lined up all his toys next to his hoop and took a load off. What a loaded evening he had!

ARE WE SURE HE’S ONLY THREE????? This kid is WAY too cool for his own good!!!

I love you every which way and how, Dekker Thomas.

 

 

Thinking my aching bum and back wouldn’t allow me to sit on the hard wooden benches at church, we opted out of the service this morning and instead headed to spend the day with my mom. We arrived in the late morning and really had the perfect day. Lots of toys, playing, eating, visiting, and while the kids napped, card playing. It was the perfect day. I did get slaughtered five games in a row, but it was worth it for some good company and easy conversation. And the great pictures we got of the kids! So this might just be a relaxed/brag post about the littles and how awesome they are. All photo credit goes to my mom, the taker of all pictures. Her camera has been on the fritz/in the shop/in the hands of idiots all summer, so she had learned to work her magic on my lame but still functional point and shoot camera. Love her.

And them. LOVE them!

I’m also happy to say we finally got our act together and grabbed all the photos from Dekkers birthday party from my mom, so I’ll do a photo post about that really soon. I know, Deks has already been three for ten whole days, but better late than never, right? Maybe tomorrow 🙂

Oh oh oh! ONE MORE THING I have to talk about because I’ll forget later, and I’m TOTALLY excited! Recently, we got our water cooler/Keurig thing and it is fully set up, fully working, and fully awesome. Seriously, I am so excited to have that working in our house. Also, we are currently waiting on three parcels that I’m really excited for! Some cute fall clothes for Laela in the next size up, since she’s growing like a weed, will be here early next week. PLUS, coming in the next who knows when, we just recently ordered a whole five piece set from carseatcanopy.com for the new baby! I loved having the inside of Laela’s carseat so soft, and I’m excited Jim will know the same minky softness 🙂 AND a new nursing pillow!!! Ours has been soaked in vomit from who children, its wearing in the middle, and just needs to be replaced. So I used the coupon code from purchasing the carseat cover and got the nursing pillow for just the cost of shipping! Both adorable patterns and I just can’t wait! I’ll post it all on here when it finally comes 🙂 Sorry, but I can’t be the only person who gets excited about mail. I can’t be, right??!!

Here’s the skinny on the ever-expanding body of mine. After my biff yesterday, I expected today to be my worst day for soreness. So in preparation for that, I had a warm-ish soak last night, to soak my aches but not swell them up any extra. I took Tylenol and my regular Diclectin before bed, and Brady said he’d give me the morning off to sleep in.

I slept like a log, minus my 3:30am pee break. I put my hand on my back when I got up out of bed, and my skin was tight! So I guess I was pretty swelled up. The next time I woke was at 10:45am!!! Insane, hey? But it was amazing. And all the swelling was down. I headed downstairs and spent time with the fam for the rest of the day. I found ways to sit that were fairly comfortable, but made a point to get up here and there. I tried really hard to keep snacking and drinking but had virtually no appetite. Also, while I know I’m not further injured or anything, my neck is sooo sore today! Just the general soreness that comes from tension and stress, but a sore neck is still a sore neck.  But I tried to roll with the day, and even found it in me (somewhere) to lift my kids up and get some cuddles. I found it really hard to lift them yesterday, or get down on the ground with them, but I’ve noticed already that they’re needing some solid physical touch. Of course, Brady is filling that need beautifully, but I miss it too. We played and watched musicals and I crocheted and we had a generally good day! Waaay better than I thought. I’ve had a bit of a dull headache throughout most of the day, but I gave up on being a hero and decided Tylenol would help me be a better mom and wife, and it did.

Now, the kids are in bed (thanks to Brady, again) and we’re getting ready for a soak. Tomorrow, we’ll actually get out of the house and go see my parents for the day. Still low to no big responsibilities, but new scenery is always refreshing. This has not been the ideal long weekend, but hey! We’re self employed, Brady works when he can, therefore we never know when its a long weekend, haha! So the extra day off was a fun surprise 🙂 I hope you are all having at least slightly more exciting holidays than we are!