Yesterday, you heard from Cher what she spent the weekend doing. Today, I’ll tell you where Brady and I were and what we were doing!

We got away to the lake! 😍Isn’t that wonderful?!

We were gifted the weekend to go and get things set up, kid free. It was SUCH a beautiful, loving, generous gift!! Of course we couldn’t get everything done, but we took a good bite out of it!

First of all, we brought EVERYTHING. MOUNTAINS of stuff!! But, to be fair, we brought EVERYTHING home last year, for fear of mice eating all of our stuff. We are mouse free, and it was time to bring everything back. Five mattresses. A big water jug. A BBQ. Seven pillows. Tubs of miscellaneous items. Kitchen stuff. Tools for the inevitable work we needed to do. Eight new blinds. Blankets, sheets, toiletries, clothes, etc etc etc. Oh and then Brady’s wheelchair, which takes up a LOT of space!! It was ridiculous in there!

Its hard to truly convey how much stuff was in here. You’ll have to take my word for it.

Aaaaanyway, we got on the road nice and early, and grabbed bagels and coffee on the way, as it tradition. It was a really really beautiful drive.

Even just the drive in cleansing! My goodness it was SO nice to be on our way back there!

Once we arrived, friends came to help us unload our gigantic van of gigantic things. It was a (ready?) gigantic help. And because that wasn’t enough, they then came back and delivered our lumber package to our site!

We are officially ready to build the deck! Who wants in?? 🙋‍♀️

We worked a lot that first day. We put up blinds, and Brady got the water heater working while one of the guys from camp set up our plumbing. I made everyone’s beds, and while they’re not all uniform or tidy, they look cozy. I’ll take cozy off of pretty any day!

My kids aren’t fond of the sleeping bags, so I think they’ll be really excited to have blankets instead!

Once we had worked hard enough, we drove the cart down to the lake and sat in the wind, enjoying the beauty of our surroundings.

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We wrapped up the night over a fire and a beer. Cher bought me the prettiest beer she could find! Why is a drink so much more enjoyable when the can is pretty? I don’t know why, but I won’t fight it.

Yes, remember our pink cabinets? They’re still just as pink, and just as pretty! No regrets!

The next morning, we drank coffee and ate brownies for breakfast. It. Was. Awesome.

We had less we could accomplish the next day, so we puttered with the things we could. First, a fire, which was considerably smokier than the one the night before. But we made it happen.

We started talking about laying out the frame of the deck, but there were a big dumb stump in the way. I’ll be honest – we got a little carried away with that. I was quite determined, but my square shovel would have none of it.

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Not to mention, I didn’t have a lot of bulk to throw at it…

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Then Carrie came with a spade and got pretty invested too. She made WAY more headway than I did. Brady had the axe and was chopping the big roots we were unearthing. But finally, Braden came to save the day, and pulled the thing out with his truck. It was a bit of a debacle, and took probably a confident 2+ hours, but we laughed a lot 🙂 which is often the most important part.

Back to our camper to hide out afterwards. Rest, and eat lunch. Which was chips.

Then we headed back to the water and watched a bunch of poor suckers people put the docks in the lake. It was entertaining, and we didn’t even have to feel guilty because we don’t have a boat, and therefore no obligation to help. Also, paraplegia. Win! Disability “benefits.”

The goal of productivity after lunch was well intentioned, but short lived. We measured out where we want the deck to be built, and laid out boards so we could really visualize it. But at that point of the day, Brady needed to take one of his medications that tends to knock him on his butt. So he did. And it did.

Brady napped for about 45 minutes, and I crocheted for about 40 minutes. Then I noted a big mistake I had made in my work and pulled it aaaaall out. It was around that time I decided it was time to get things packed up for the week. Brady had only wanted to nap for a half hour anyway, so I started moving around, and he lulled shortly thereafter.

The gross majority of what we brought stayed at the camper, thank goodness. We brought home our own bags of clothing and such, though I forgot the laundry there. Whoops! We moved the tools for the deck build into the camper, so they’re there and ready to go. We closed all the blinds and turned everything off. We parked the golf cart off to the side so the deck area could be cleared. We locked and loaded up, which – let me tell you – did NOT take as long as loading up on the way there! Oy!

It was a bummer to leave, but we will be back soon!! I can’t wait!! I’m pretty sure the sun misses us…

Saturday:

Step 1: Display a sense of authority by turning on a brand new Netflix movie at 10am, called “Dog On Trouble” and commanding the children to enjoy it.

Step 2: Deliver highly nutritious snacks to the minors so they can taste your toughness. 

Step 3: Spend HOURS cooking and baking lunch from scratch so they know you’re capable of anything. 

Step 4: Work the oldest girl to the bone during naptime. Cinderella isn’t a myth. 

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Step 5: After naptime is over, teach the children tough lessons about basketball through a dry documentary called “Space Jam.”

Step 6: Leave them out in a dangerous storm.

Step 7: Cook a healthy meal so they don’t enjoy life too much. They must learn that disappointment is a major part of growing up.

Step 8: Science Saturday never ended. Time to learn about why pollination is an essential part of life on earth. I like to use “Bee Movie” to explain these necessary values. 

Step 9: Crush their spirits by making them clean up the toys they played with in between visual lectures. 

Step 10: Toss them in a room with the lights off for hours. 

Step 11: Keep the oldest girl up to organize papers until she is too tired to “even.” 

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Sunday: 

Step 1: Send the children downstairs shortly after breakfast. It’s cold down there. 

Step 2: Visit with their grandma until lunch time while conducting an extreme plan to feed them food that was grown outside, followed by more food that makes them healthy. 

Step 3: In the afternoon, drag the children outside to a place full of water and rocks and caution signs. Feed them horrifying snacks.

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Step 5: On the way back, welcome the oldest boy back home from a weekend away by requiring him to bathe before supper.

Step 6: While the grandmother cooks perogies and sausage for dinner, command obedience while aggressively playing the Hamilton soundtrack. 

Step 7: Abandon the children after supper to go have a fire with someone else, leaving them with someone who loves them dearly. That oughta teach them. 

Today we are celebrating FIVE YEARS with our sweet Solomon Brady! This last year has been a big year of change for him!

I couldn’t resist that last grumpy picture 😆😠

Solomon has really taken the plunge into “growing up” this year. Last year, he still seemed so little. He still felt like the baby of the family. He would happily go along with just about everything, which made it easy to have him around, but also made it easy to miss him. In the last year, we’ve pushed him a little harder to do a bit more for himself and while there has been some pushback along the way, he is growing and changing in so many exciting, beautiful ways! He is braver, more confident, and is quicker to join in with the kids games. Last year, he HAD to hold hands with an adult if we went for a walk. This year, he runs ahead with the big kids. Last year, he’d straddle his bike, and watch everyone go up and down the street. This year, he runs his balance bike along with them, and even tests out the bigger bike from time to time. He understands more. Has more opinions. He problem solves. He starts and participates in real conversations. He is an active BIG brother to Waverly, encouraging her and initiating games. He will grab stools and help her reach things she can’t do for herself.

Solly also invited Jesus into his heart this year!! Everything is only looking up for him from here!!

We gave him his gift this morning, so he could play with it with fewer spectators/bossypants siblings around. He got a super cute little remote control Hot Wheels car. It was SO cute.

This is the year he went from little to big, and its been beautiful to watch. I am SO proud of my Solly.

Happy fifth birthday, Solly Wolly Puddin Pop. What a beautiful five years we’ve had together!! You are dearly loved by your family and friends!

Its been a while since I’ve talked about my succulents that I have LOVED! The first plants in my entire life that I’ve kept alive! I’ve been truly so proud of them! As you may have picked up through my subtle posts, we’ve gone through a bit of a thing over here recently, and the odd thing has been left by the wayside. Lol! I jest. I hella neglected my succulents the way I neglected myself 😆#notactuallyfunny #sadbuttrue I have no real pictures of what they looked like, so this is the best I could find.

They may look lush, but they’re actually just grossly overgrown. The far hangy one was crispy and dead. They’ve all gotten SO tall. Simply put, they have NOT been maintained in the slightest. My mom picked up on the fact that I felt super crappy about them and I had started debating just chucking them all and starting over. So she lovingly offered to take the task on herself. I jumped at her offer. More so I sunk into it. Not so much jumping recently, haha!

I had numerous pots that were waiting to be filled, so she got to it. Over the course of several days, she split and propagated everything, and repotted my windowsill worth of succulents (or suckies, as I call them) into SO MANY CUTE POTS!!! They have madly outgrown their home!

Believe it or not, I still have one on my piano thats come after the fact. You’ll have to trust me that I have plans, though. I have more places that would happily house some more suckies for me!!

My plants make me happy. I like they they usually live, haha! And that I can often revive them when they’re struggling. This time, obviously, my mom saved them, but this is just the times, and I’m not giving myself too hard of a time over it. Many of my plants, inside and outside, have been gifts, and they remind me of nice people and how loved we are. I will continue to do my best, and I will continue to accept help offered to me. I am not above that!

I am humbled and grateful for my people, and their love, in all the ways.

The other day, the kids came home announcing that there are only 25 days of school left.

Before I continue, hear me. I really love my kids. And I’m excited for summer! I’m excited for the lake. For no deadlines. For sleeping in. For sunshine and easy food. I am NOT dreading summer!

But my reaction definitely appeared otherwise.

WHERE. DID. TIME. GO.

This has been the most bizarre few months of our lives, and because of it, time both inched and BLEW by. I could not comprehend how CLOSE we are to the end of the school year!! AAAHHH!!! I am SO ill prepared!!! I still can’t wrap my head around it, and guys? That was a week ago already!!!

This has been the fastest and slowest year of my life. The days have been thankless and long and just incredibly difficult. What a time, my gosh. I have driven to the hospital right around one hundred times. I have experienced heavy grief. I have seen my kids through struggle and confusion, and Brady through surgery, pulmonary emboli, rehab, paraplegia, and radiation. This has been an endurance game like none other. It has draaaaaagged.

Yet, its almost June. WHERE. DID. TIME. GO. The kids are almost done school. Solly already is, but the older three will be done in just a few short weeks. I feel so unprepared, yet there is legitimately NO WAY I could’ve prepared or gotten ahead of anything more than I have.

These are just the times.

Its ok. Cookies help. No rest for the weary. Unless, of course, we rest in God, which we do. I’m grateful, but I don’t feel as rested as I’d like.

Yup, I said it. Today’s outpatient rehab appointment felt like a date 😆 Go with me on this, haha!

Well, first, I drove to the wrong hospital. In my defence, the last twenty five times I drove to the hospital, I went to the cancer centre. So today, as we crossed the river, Brady commented mildly “We’re going to the wrong hospital…” So that happened. Luckily, made it back to City Hospital rehab on time and checked in early.

Fun fact. The handicapped parking spots in the City lot are WAY too small. They are tight for our bus already, much less with a wheelchair pulled up beside. But we made it work.

So as I said, we checked in early and went to wait in the waiting room. Brady’s PT from before had heard he was coming today and was clearly keeping an eye out for him because she was beside us within a minute or two. It was SO nice to see her. Honestly, it was weirdly nice to be back 💜

It probably helped to know that we didn’t have to stay.

We chatted with our PT, Kari, and then one of the PTAs, Kristen, before his outpatient therapist made her appearance and introduced herself. She, too, was super friendly and nice to talk to. Being that this was Brady’s first outpatient appointment, it was more an assessment of his abilities and what needed work post-radiation. Thankfully, radiation took very little from him, and he is stronger now than he was when he left the program at City. Woot! She was able to suggest some things for Brady to work on and try that were new to him, so thats good to have a direction to move in! We’ll go back next week, but she said likely, his appointments won’t even be once a week. He is doing very well in his daily life, and mostly just needs to keep practicing everything he already knows, so there will be some in-person appointments and some virtual appointments, but likely not too many 🙂 Easy peasy!

We got out of the hospital around noon and drove to grab a quick drive-thru burger before continuing on. Walmart had a LONG list of things to get for the upcoming lake season. There was a lot that we transferred back and forth to the lake a handful of times last year, swearing we’d get a double for the lake next season, ie pillows, water bottles, toothbrushes, etc. We needed sheets for their mattresses, pillowcases for their pillows that stay there, and real cutlery rather than disposable. Finally, we needed blinds. Last year, we had cardboard taped up to the windows, hahaha! We finally nailed down some basic white roller blinds and they will be exactly right. We grabbed some fans for some family, a few small grocery items, and yarn for all the projects I have on the go. You have NO IDEA how therapeutic crocheting has been for me in these last weeks!!! Running out of yarn partway through a project was a total gut punch the other day, so I’m all caught up now! Woot!

The Walmart shop was a total blast, to be honest. We moseyed, took our time, laughed a lot, and got pretty much everything on our list!

Yes, it CAN be done! We can still shop with two carts!!! 💜 I am SO grateful for a husband who does not make excuses. That determination sets him apart in a lot of ways, and I am SO proud to be married to this man!

We got home and are both completely exhausted!! But, full speed ahead! Today is the busiest day we’ve had probably since Brady’s been home, and there is still more to do!

I am truly grateful for today.

Today was Solomon’s last day of preschool. Being the overwhelmed wreck that I am, I have no cute “last day of school” pictures of him on the step, or anything like that. I missed out completely on getting his amazing teacher a gift, and I didn’t even drop him off or pick him up. Today feels like a first class fail for me being the mom of a preschooler. Yet, I’m trusting that he is still so happy, and somewhat oblivious to the fact that I have been somewhat disconnected from his preschool experience for the past few months. I trust my friend who volunteered to drive him every day is happy to do so. I trust that his teacher knows how much I appreciate her and ALL she has done for Solly. I’m trusting that someday in my future, I won’t feel this overwhelmed.

Yet, time keeps moving forward. My youngest children aren’t so little anymore.

They are hardly little anymore. Solly’s fifth birthday is coming up. Wavy will be three this summer. They’re both becoming so independent and responsible. Solomon has really been embracing the older brother role for Waverly, which hasn’t always been the case. He is ON it now, and she is less interested in being the “little” sister as much as she is determined to keep up to him.

Wolly and Wavy are such a beautiful pair, I can’t help but wonder if she will feel a little lost without him home next year. It’ll be her turn soon enough.

Slow down, sweet kids. Time is moving WAY too fast.

I can’t believe we’re already talking kindergarten with Solly. Its CRAZY. But its happening! Solly will hit up school with the big kids in fall! They sent his registration package home with Dekker the other day. In it was paperwork for me, and a present for him!

He was SO stoked for his new books! Laela immediately hijacked them and read them to the class kids.

Man. Its going to be SO different next year with FOUR kids in school for full days! Solomon will only go every other day, but still! Wavy tends to feel a little lost when everyone else is gone. She wants to go to school SO badly!

But I think we’ll have a good time together 😉

I can speculate all I want, but we’ve learned more than ever that you just never know how your days will look! We just continue to pray for protection and press on!

So, this cool this happened a while back. Brady was gifted a recumbent bike that someone had built for themselves but didn’t end up using. Brady does not have enough balance to operate a regular bike, but he does still have quite a bit of strength in his legs, specifically his thighs. So he was excited to try it!

Upon first use, it worked well once he got it started, but his feet couldn’t stay on the pedals. His feet have next to no motor skills, and when they’re bumped, they spasm and jump. Being flat footed on bike pedals wasn’t going to work. Our neighbours and dear friends across the street include both hard workers and an occupational therapist. They went to work building Brady’s pedals a little different. He has a foot plate, with a heel hold, and strapping overtop. They also added a little holster for his crutches, so he could legitimately bike somewhere independently and go in somewhere. And with that all in place, Brady went out to bike on the street with the kids yesterday!!

Well, ok, first we pimped it out juuuuust a little…

Then he was ready!

It was SO much fun! The kids were SO happy to have him out there with them again! We all were 💜

I will be honest, though, and say biking “together” ended when we discovered that daddy could give rides. That was a WHOLE other thing!

So future bike plans include pegs, because this will absolutely happen again, haha!

Yet again, something that wouldn’t have been possible without the help of so many other caring people. I am consistently overwhelmed by the amount of help we’ve received.

Today, we will sit together for the morning and try to organize our thoughts and plans for the lake. Things we need to do there. Things we need to bring there. Things we still need to find and buy. Timelines. All that good stuff!

I was motivated to write this post not specifically because of any big changes with Rowan’s melatonin usage, but because Facebook showed me this adorable flashback! Look at that chubby little mug!

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He looks the least like his baby pictures than any of our other kids, for sure! Remember this side by side I made when Waverly was new? Can you place who’s who?

Its a process of elimination right? Rowan is the last one you place, because he looks the least like himself!

But he’s no longer a baby. He’s a whole big guy!!

I can vouch that he is doing really, really well. His capacity has somehow grown in the midst of all the chaos.

BUT, I can also vouch that there was some significant change a little while ago when we ran out of his magnesium supplement. He was without it for maybe a couple of nights, and they were horrendous.

He would get up constantly, and he threw HUGE tantrums in those evenings. One night, he woke up shortly after midnight, came upstairs, told us blatantly that he had no reason to wake us, and initiated a complete throwdown. It was horrific. I was absolutely haggard. We got his supplement back the next day, and it changed back pretty quickly. He’s been sleep walking a bit more since all of that, but they were incredibly stressful evenings and nights. I know I’m still nervous of it happening again, so I’m sure he subconsciously is, too.

With him caught back up on everything, he is doing way better again. Guys, it was uncanny how fast the lack of supplement affected him, and how quickly he was back to managing to his emotions when he caught back up!

Praise the Lord for guidance and help for Rowan. Keep it coming, so his life can only get easier to handle!