Wavy is celebrating her third birthday at the lake, among friends and family, on possibly the hottest week of the summer. We hope so, anyway! 🤞

Wavy’s last year has been HUGE.

You’ll notice she went bald halfway through the year. Maybe you remember or maybe you don’t, but Wavy got a crazy rash that refused to quit last summer. She ended up on strong steroids, and as a result, her hair started falling out. Once she started eating the hairballs, we made quick decisions and shaved the rest off. She, being herself, didn’t miss a beat.

Waverly Violet is friendly and sweet. She likes to hold back on new people and pretend to be shy, but its all a facade. She is hopelessly social and very ahead of the game on a lot of things. She knows all of her colours, though mixes up blue and green from time to time. Otherwise, she’s got them down. She counts pretty close to 20. She loves to pretend with her siblings, and she builds the coolest things out of magformers. She “reads” a lot, and tries to write her name, which is super wrong but super adorable.

Wavy is frightfully independent, and loves to do as much as humanly possible on her own. It makes both easier and harder.

I carry some grief with Wavy aging specifically. Never before have I had a three year old without having another baby on the way, much less another baby born. Our largest age gap was 25 months before this. I don’t know why I’m saying this. I just want to be honest. I can’t believe my youngest is three. I never would’ve thought she’d be our youngest. She is SUCH a big sister. Its just in her. Who knows whats still to come, I suppose.

I am beyond grateful for this little morsel. She lit our family right up with her birth, her contentment, and her soft nature. She was a gift to us at exactly the right time. God knew we needed her, and He continues to know what we need.

My Waverly Violet, you are my reminder that we can conquer crazy difficult things through Christ who strengthens us!! I am abounding with love for you, and I am incredibly excited to see the woman you grow to be in the years to come. But, sweet girl, I beg of you – stay little for just a while longer.

Happy birthday, sweet Wavy Vi!

We jumped in big with a five day trip to the lake! We got here yesterday in the late morning and settled in!

I will not lie. It has been HARD so far. The kids were suffering pretty badly almost right away. Yet, I’ll give them the benefit of the doubt. They were coming off the school routine. They were part of the stressy hustle and bustle getting out the door. Its too hot to breathe. Everything all put together can be VERY overwhelmed.

Yet, I feel all the same emotions, and I have to control them. Lol! Oof. Adulthood. Overrated.

Sooooo rather than complain about being somewhere I LOVE with people I LOVE, I’ll just show you some cute pictures 🙂 That counts, right? Right.

Our drive was decent. We got bagels on the way there, and we made great time. Not everyone felt happy, but the majority did. 🤷‍♀️ Can’t please everyone all the time!

The highlight of actually getting to the lake was getting in the WATER! Our kids are not fish just yet, but they were HOT and it was time to face those fears!

I haven’t told you all yet, but Dekker got an early birthday present right before we left. I’ll show you more about that shortly, but I’ll just let you know now, its a kayak! 😍 He was BESIDE himself!! His favorite thing, though, is to give Waverly rides.

She obviously loves to kayak, too.

The rest of the day wasn’t really worth noting 😬 It was HARD. But it ended with a couple of good tight snugs.

In this case, I lay on top of Solly to smush him, and he just grabbed me 💜 Rowan joined in once a camera was out, lol!

And then Laela came along shortly thereafter.

Sorry about the SUPER real facial expression. Thats just very much how I felt, and still feel a little on the inside. Supper after the kids went to bed helped.

Today has been better, though. Its Canada Day, had you heard? We did.

Stay cool, friends. In the 😎 way, but also in the…

Way.

Cher here again!
It’s the most mundane activities and small moments that can bring memories to our hearts. Sometimes even in the middle of the night, when you reach the end of the toilet paper roll.

Last night I was so tired. I hobbled in the dark to the washroom and ended up using the last of the toilet paper. I checked the drawer for more. None. Bummer. I thought about leaving it until the next day when I wake up before the boys do. “They don’t use toilet paper to pee anyways” I thought at first. But then I remembered something that made me change my mind. 

When I first stayed here last year during COVID, there was a night I had come downstairs after hanging out with Hailey and Brady and headed to bed. I was carrying a small pack of toilet paper from the grocery shop earlier that day. (this was when toilet paper was apparently going extinct) I left the pack outside the bathroom door and went to bed, thinking I would deal with it in the morning. 

I remember waking up needing to pee a couple hours later but I could hear Dekker was in the washroom, and not only could I hear that he was just in there, but I heard him open the pack of toilet paper at 1am. I could hear that he opened the drawer as CAREFUL and quiet as he could, placing each toilet paper roll in there one by one, so he didn’t wake anyone. Then he slowly crumpled the bag and placed it in the trash bin beside the toilet. 

And I thought, if Dekker can do such a selfless thing in the middle of the night without being asked, then why can’t I? And it may seem like such a small thing. But I don’t know any eight year old boys who would have noticed the toilet paper outside the room, nor had the heart to do that in the middle of the night with no glasses on. 

I think we learn important things from kids just as much as they learn from us.

Cher here.

God knows things before we do, that’s all I know for sure in this life. He accounts for our stupidity before he makes plans and knows the struggles we will face. He knows our flaws and fears. But he also knows our strengths.

I was really lost when I became Hailey’s friend by accident. I was looking to do something nice for someone, but also for a project to keep me busy. A new friendship was the last thing on my list as I struggled with almost every close friendship I had.

The more she put into me, the more I wondered why. Over time, we just became part of each other in a way. It was so gradual that the foundation was strong and unshakeable. There was room for forgiveness and patience. I guess you could say, since there was no agenda or race to be best friends, that our friendship grew and bloomed organically.

Today when I look at my best friend, I am so glad she picked me. 

I am so glad she picked me because my life has improved so much since I met her. I put so much more into my circle, rather than friendships with no depth. I have learned the value of loyalty and what unconditional love in a friendship feels like. I stopped self sabotaging myself and started working harder on my goals. My relationship with Jesus is much closer than it’s ever been. 

I always thought that I had to do everything alone or in a relationship. I didn’t know friendship could have this amount of depth and forgiveness.. I didn’t know someone like Hailey existed. 

So, today while she is having a tough day and struggling with anxiety. I know she feels like she isn’t that person. She feels less than because she doesn’t have the same capacity as she did yesterday. But what she doesn’t always know is that it’s not her capacity that makes me happy she picked me. It’s not the movie nights, or the road trips, or the big gestures. It’s the space she has for me in her heart. A space I didn’t think I was worth to anyone, just a few years ago. And now, everyday I get to walk around knowing I have this incredible sister in my life that keeps me in check and loves me unconditionally. 

I’m glad she picked me. 

Another school year is done and gone! If I can be brutally honest, I have never felt more disconnected from the kids’ school experience as I have this year. Thats not to say ANYTHING bad about the teachers, because they’ve been AMAZING. It has to do with my brain being literally maxed out, paired with the inability to attend “easy” stuff, like assemblies, family reading lunches, etc. Not setting foot in the school even once this year has been so incredibly strange. Yet I am SO happy my children had amazing teachers, caring staff, lovely friends, and positive experiences.

Our family went to pick Dekker and Laela up after school today. Dekker had food on his face, and Laela had most of a popsicle in her mouth.

They were both super happy and bright. It was really good to see them like that. Before we had left the schoolyard, I heard Dekker say something about being SO excited for school to start again. I laughed and scolded him in the same breath. Let’s enjoy summer first, shall we?

I should throw in here that Rowan had his last day of school last Thursday, and I didn’t mention it. Whoops! He was super cute about it, though, and offered I could take a picture of him today, if I wanted. So I definitely did.

He’s got a pretty cute mug himself.

Next year, I will have kids in kindergarten, grade one, grade three, and grade five. Oof!!

Aaaaand one at home.

SO much change in our house these days. I can’t even imagine what’s still to come! God’s in control!

Remember when Brady added spindles and a railing to our deck stairs?

I think that was all the motivation he needed to get to work finishing the ramp at home!

It took a little longer than it might have last year, but it got done beautifully!! Brady worked SO hard and felt SO accomplished! As he should have!

I’m so happy to have this finally done! It looks complete, and we can start putting some of the tools that have been lurking in our garage away where they belong!

There is never a shortage of projects to do, and I know both Brady and I are relieved when we can do some of the work.

*packs more screws to do yet more work at the lake this weekend*

I used to buck trends pretty hard. I rocked flares looong into the skinny jean moment, and I’m hanging onto them tight as flares resurface. I fought bands that other people thought were cool. And frankly, I was far too poor to even consider a LOT of different trends, as they seem to come and go with the wind.

But I’ll admit, once the fuss wears off a little, I tend to dip my toe in. So in the last few days, I finally tried whipped coffee!!!

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Guys. Oh my gosh.

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So. These are ridiculous. Like RIDICULOUSLY GOOD!

Here is how we do it!

2 tbsp instant coffee
2 tbsp white sugar
2 tbsp hot water

Mix.

I’m not even kidding. Don’t ask me how it gets so creamy. I don’t know. Thats ALL it takes.

We put a handful of ice in a glass, fill it with milk, blob the coffee on top, take pictures (or it didn’t happen) and then stir it all together.

Be warned. The coffee whip will be STRONG! You’ll want to dunk your finger into it like its icing, but you’ll be surprised. It is NOT icing. Still, I want to stir it into everything, and I want to tweak the recipe in ALL the ways!

For round two, I mixed some up the night before to see if it would hold.

It did!! It had settled a liiiiittle bit in the bottom of the bowl but very very little. It worked great! We added some whipped topping to be fancy. The middle coffee wasn’t into it…

Haven’t laughed that hard in a WHILE!!

There has been talk of adding Baileys. Cher suggested drizzling something yummy overtop, too.

Basically, this can only get better and yummier. I’ll keep you in the loop. I’m on the hunt for a little immersion hand blender to be able to make it at the lake, because I might already be a tad attached to this new concept.

This might be the bougiest thing about me.

You guys know how I feel about extra, right? Right.

So we haven’t done much in the evenings over here. They’re pretty low key. Yesterday was specifically a really hard end of the day with the kids, and something had to give. So, we had our first home fire! 🔥 We’ve been having SUCH beautiful fires at the lake, but having one in our backyard was pretty excellent as well.

We were gifted a load of firewood a few weeks ago, which was totally unexpected and very much appreciated. It burned beautifully, and snapped, crackled, and popped. It gave off really nice heat, too, which wasn’t suuuper necessary on such a warm night, but it didn’t hurt either.

It was a really, really nice time with Brady and Cher, like we used to do last year 💜

Not the best picture, but you get the idea 😘

I am so grateful for all we have, and who we have. For friends. A quiet backyard. Good music. Firewood. Drinks. Sun. Peace. Rest.

Today is a peaceful day. I can’t say that every day. But I can today. Today is not a perfect day, but I feel peaceful today. So far.

No one woke me up last night. No sleepwalking. No nightmares. No interruptions. I slept through.

Laela, who is working off a punishment right now, completed her work this morning without complaining. She has not complained yet, and for that I am so grateful. Lesson landed.

Brady is working on a building project. Not only will the result be worth the work, but the fact that Brady can complete projects such as this is a beautiful confidence boost for him. He is SO happy to be able to work still, even if it looks a little different.

The three older kids are at school, and I’m down to two. Waverly and Solomon are playing outside together, seamlessly. They do so great, just the two of them together. No fighting. Just pretending together.

The sun is out, but not TOO hot. No wind. Even the weather is peaceful.

I’ve been able to crochet this morning. I have so many projects in my mind recently, and crocheting has turned into something therapeutic. It keeps my brain busy, but not overloaded, and it keeps my hands busy so I don’t get too pick-y. I’m able to be occupied without being too busy or overwhelmed. I wish I could make a living crocheting somehow, haha!

Today is the day that our dear friend shops for us, and we will receive a giant Costco haul at the end of the day. I am so relieved to not have to fit that shop into my life right now. One day I will again. But, not this week, and thats ok.

As I sit, peacefully, I fight the urge to jump up and be frightfully productive. My brain runs over the list of things I have to do. Have to pack. Have to prepare. But rather, I’m going to take deep breaths, and enjoy my peaceful time. I will be more accomplishmenty later. Maybe. Maybe not.

First – peace.

As if the title needed any clarification, I’m here to share pictures from the weekend with you! I don’t have AS many this weekend, but trust that I was just occupied with enjoying my time with my people 💜

We kicked off with honey chicken we had made the day before and warmed up once we arrived. It was delicious and went over well.

Our first night was relaxed, and was not photographed. We just hung out, got set up, and eventually got everyone to bed.

Day two was extra special because Cher came out!! She has WAY better pictures than I do, but I’ll tell you we had a lovely time with her there! I took her on a golf cart tour, and we crocheted by the fire. Brady began working on the stairs, and the kids ran all over the place, playing with friends and exploring.

Dekker found a little clearing and decided to make a fort/clubhouse out of it. Braden even helped him get a pallet in there for a floor.

I brought along some bacon wrapped steak skewers that I found in the freezer from a while ago, and Brady grilled them up. They were DELICIOUS.

Meanwhile, Rowan built cool structures out of Brady’s cutoffs.

It was SUCH a lovely day! Maybe Cher will Cher her pictures with you one of these days 😉

The next day began with a morning fire and s’mores for breakfast, which may or may not become a new tradition.

Check it out! Brady can still chop wood! On his new itty bitty little chopping block! Lol!

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Something that was awesome about this last weekend was the fires! Sometimes, the wood at our spot is really wet, and even though we try to keep some covered at our site, its just hard to get a good blazing fire. But this weekend, it was PERFECT, and we kept fires going ALL day!

Brady got some Fathers Day cards and gifts from the kids, as well as some Saxx from me. Aaaaand pep and cheds, because YUM.

The day warmed up, the fire crackled, the kids played, I crocheted, and the man napped.

I’m ready to go back. Aaaaany minute now. But I need smaller projects to crochet. Everything I’m making is too big to work on in my lap, hahaha! If thats the biggest problem I’ve got, I’m pretty fortunate. Thank you, Lord.