I’m getting my Mother’s Day fun today! 😁 I am SO grateful for that, because not only is it very nice to be loved on a little extra by the ones I love the most, but its also an excellent distraction from the fact that its snowing like crazy outside 😳 Why????? Actually, I know why. Its snowing because we packed up our winter stuff yesterday. We take responsibility for the weather. Friends, we’re sorry. 

Aaaaanywho, I was welcomed to stay put in bed while Brady got the kids up and got a breakfast together for me. They made turnovers, and drizzled them with purple icing! It was VERY cute, and they were all super proud of themselves. 

Also, the three oldest made me cards. 

Rowan’s is heavy on the stencils and hearts with three bumps. Lol!

Laela’s has a slightly dark message, but I know what she’s going for 😉 As for the snowman, she says I’m building it. Not shooting it. 

And Dekker made two cards, because one had to pop extra!

They are SO cute!!!

Laela’s teacher also contacted everyone about a week ago and confessed her Mother’s Day plans. While it was no longer a surprise, she still wanted us to have our gifts. Brady took Laela there the other day to choose from a wheelbarrow in her teacher’s driveway, and I was gifted a beautiful little family of succulents!! 

I need to find another place to keep succulents! My little kitchen window sill is so full! 

I started my morning with breakfast in bed, peacefully, and the remainder of the morning has continued to be about the same level of contentment. I had a lovely intentional snuggle time with Laela, and then Dekker sat on my lap and read me a comic book 🙂 Rowan has requested a good snuggle with a story, as well, but our morning ran out. We’ll make it happen this afternoon though!! And we’ll see if the other two have the attention span for a snug. Likely I’ll just push some tickle fights on them 😆 We’ll see how it plays out. 

Possibly my favourite part of today is that I have no hand in supper tonight 😍 I have no idea what the plan is but I know I don’t have to worry about it. Win!!! 

I am VERY grateful for my crew here. My crew who almost knocked me down while they all tried to hug me at once on our walk yesterday. 

Thank you Lord for making me a mother. 

I thought it might be interesting to share on the blog whats in my “favourites” folder in my Photos app. They are the pictures I never have the heart to delete when I’m emptying my phone off. Now, I do have them saved on my laptop, and eventually they all go on an external hard drive, but these are the photos I go back to often, whether to just look at, to keep in mind for future blogs, or for inside jokes. There is some repetition, so bear with me. 

These first couple don’t need much explanation. Wavy day. That was a pretty huge day. I still love to look back at it often.

Then this was a photo collage I did a long time ago. It was hilarious to me how few people actually could place all five kids! I feel like it’s SO obvious who is who. Except one is tricky 😉 One kid is just the process of elimination, hahaha! Can you see who?

This is one of my baby pictures. I wanted to see if Waverly maaaybe looked like me, and she did, a little! 

Mmmmm… Waskesiu 😍

This was from the first day of school in 2018. Hahaha! You can see what I mean by these being photos I clearly cannot let go of! I love this one. Always thought I’d use it in a blog and never did. 

Our family picture from 2018. I LOVED our Christmas card that year! 

HAHAHAHAHA!!! Someone photoshopped this grouchy picture of Waverly and I love it SO much!

These photos of the kids were from the lake last summer. I love them both, and I super lightened them both, so they almost look cartoony. Sometimes I like the darker better and sometimes the lighter, so I’ve kept both of both. 

Mmmmm… More Waskesiu.

Lol! This is little Billy. Does anyone know this video with the ping pong balls? My kids laugh so so hard at it. He’s also an inside joke I use often, almost like a gif.

One of my favorite pictures from one of our gigs that Cher took. If you can’t tell, the credit goes to her for many of these!

Father of six. I love this picture so much. Brady had just found out I was pregnant with the baby we lost in October. He was so happy and cute. 

Brady and I, the day after we found out I was pregnant. This is one of my favorite pictures ever of us.

Dekker’s x-ray. I wanted to keep it easily accessible when his break was new, so I could find it when I was talking to people about his experience. I suppose it wouldn’t need to be in this folder anymore. But it is. 

Cher took anniversary pictures for us this February. This was one of my favourites. 

Thats all I have in my favourites at the moment! Anyone care to share any of their favourites? I’d love to see! 

Let’s be real. My “job” is my family. I love my job! But recently, I’ve had a list building of things I need to write out, organize, check, and generally get to work on. So I’m going that this morning! Brady’s work outside is on hold for the morning, so he’s going to be with the kids and do some household stuff while I get some of my stuff done! Thank you, Brady!!

I have SIXTEEN blog ideas/titles/topics that I finally wrote down and have started picking away at. Nothing especially crazy, but some take time to piece together. Others are difficult to write out. Others I just keep forgetting about! Lol! I now have a few prewritten and a good handful more have jot notes and at least some progress. And some are just a title, because it’s something I want to write about but just haven’t gotten there yet. Whew! There is a LOT of writing ahead of me, but man! When I buckle down and get ahead on blogs, I feel SO accomplished! We all find fulfillment in different places and, for whatever reason, I find a great deal of that in writing!

Speaking of blogs, do you remember me talking about ordering more of my blog books? I did that in January. I meticulously worked up five books, poured over them, edited and nit picked, and when a good sale popped up, I jumped and ordered them! And they came to me SO screwed up 😔 I am not usually that discouraged over “stuff” but that was a really hard pill for me to swallow. Even at a good price, it was expensive, and they’re basically a loss. I move text around pictures a lot, and all that work is like it never happened. The paragraphs moved back behind pictures. I’ve lost pages and pages of text. Today, I will finally lodge a complaint with the company in hope that, if I will put the work into fixing their stupid programs mistake, they will reprint my books for me, free of charge 🤞 We’ll see!

None of my devices are functioning properly at all. They are completely overloaded with media. My phone currently carries 300 videos and 4000 pictures. I have the space on my phone, but not on iCloud, and I’m not willing to risk losing them or having my phone crash. Its lagging pretty hard, and our laptop is on the way out, so the transfer of things is not going smoothly. Its going to take foreverrrrrrr!! So thats doing its thing while I’m doing more of my things. It would be that much easier if wifi was better, but since everyone and their mother is home these days, that’s just not possible. 

I have a couple subjects of research I have to work on. Some potty training help. Just, life stuff. 

I have to look up a few orders that are dragging their feet hard and see what I can work out to actually receive the things I’ve ordered. 

Aaaaand I have to make up a little listy list for some groceries we need to get our hands on to enjoy a yummy, fun day together with my mom on Sunday! Because, Mother’s Day, guys. Did you forget? Don’t!! 

Since I started writing this post, I’ve saved a ton of videos and have accidentally realized another blog I should take the time to write out. Hahaha! Never a shortage of words over here. I may or may not be a chatty person 🤔 

Back to work! “Work.” 

Remember how I’ve said in previous posts how I keep being reminded of scheduled events on my phone that have been cancelled? Preschool events, appointments and such. I don’t look at my calendar much anymore because, let’s be real, my schedule is WIDE open. But I should really make a practice of checking in on it once in a while because this was a rude awakening this morning. 

We conceived in August of 2019, as you know, and spent a month going back and forth on whether it would or wouldn’t be. As it turned out, the answer was no, and I ended up in surgery when the baby wouldn’t come out 😔 It was somewhat traumatizing, but also peaceful, somehow. Thank you, Lord, for covering us in that time. 

I have struggled with that pregnancy experience, to be honest. It was the weirdest thing. I do not have a single ultrasound picture. I know thats very common for the number of weeks that I lost our baby at, but I had multiple ultrasounds in that time. I remember learning that there were two sacks at our first appointment. The possibility of twins was looming, and I couldn’t have been more excited, honestly. At that point, it would’ve just been a picture of two sacs. “Just.” I ache for a picture of that. I have absolutely NO proof that pregnancy ever existed. And while I don’t lose sleep over it, it bothers me to this day, and I wish it were different. 

Today would’ve been my due date. With my usual situation, I’d already have had the baby for a week now. If it were twins, I’d likely have had them for even longer! Yet 🤷‍♀️ here we are, our “baby” coming up on two years of age, with no baby on the horizon. I am SO grateful for my family, but this isn’t how I pictured things. Thank goodness my plans are not my own. 

I’m feeling a little mourny today. One of the small, crappy parts of a loss is that you remember their due date as well as they day they passed, where as a healthy pregnancy results in a birthday. Its just different. And today is the due date for the pregnancy that will likely be forgotten the easiest. 

But I won’t forget. 

See you later, little Buddy ❤️

I’m saying “picnics” in hopes that this will happen more and more.

Today, the kids soaked up the sun by having a lunch picnic on the front step. They watched Brady dig big holes in the yard in an effort to find property markers. I’m not sure Brady had a good time, but the kids sure did!

Their lunch was pretty basic, but there were NO complaints!

Not from the kids who ate them or the mom who made it! I use the word “made” loosely 😆

It was a really cute event that felt worth mentioning ☀️ I hope we have SO MANY MORE picnics!

I’m pretty sure these blogs are getting boring 😆 Our days are pretty chill around here. I mean, they’re busy in a way, but mostly in the way that even a lame, boring day is still busy with our group! I guess you could say our days are simply low key, and not too riveting. But we love them.

The other day, in digging through our garage, I discovered a box of comic books I had saved! Most of them are Family Circus, and there’s a bit of Garfield, Dennis the Menace, and Calvin and Hobbes in there. The kids LOVE them!!

We spend literal hours every day, noses buried in comic books, with the big kids reading aloud their favourites. Its SUCH gentle humour. Its perfect. And SO relaxed.

The kids were struggling pretty hard by the end of yesterday, so we decided to get their teeth brushed and virtually ready for bed early, and then we went for a LONG walk! We went all the way to the grocery store to find it closed 😂 and then checked the mail, but what we’re waiting for had not arrived. So it was a bit of a bust but the walk was nice. Solly tuckered out just in the last block or so.

Once the kids were down, we watched some tv and then played cards while listening to the beautiful rain coming down. The open window was chilly, but it was worth it! I love that rain!!

Today isn’t the beautifulest of beautiful days, but I really hope we get outside in it at some point! Morale goes WAY up when we can!

Have a happy Monday, friends ❤️

Since we decided we would leave garden boxes for next year, we’ve been busy with other small projects. And by “we,” I mean Brady 😬

He simply used cutoffs, beater studs, and some leftover sheeting from our deck project. From those things, he built a small bike rack…

as well as a big beefy shelf for our garage!

We are doing a HUGE reorganize of our garage, finally moving things into the basement and the backyard. We have LONG awaited these days of actually placing things into their homes and no longer moving messes. I’ll show you big before and afters later on, when its at its best! For now, you’ll just have to take my word for it!

As for our other projects, the “call before you dig” guys are coming in a few days, and hopefully post hole digging guys just a few days after that! And once those things are done, the fence begins!!!! 😍 I am SO READY!!! As much as I love how many people bring their dogs to me street to run them off-leash, I highly anticipate being able to send my kids into the backyard without them being in total fear every time someone walks by with a dog.

Summer is going to be SO much nicer with an enclosed yard and freedom to run and play! It sounds backwards to say boundaries bring freedom, but they truly do, in lots of ways and lots of situations!

I am SO thankful for my family!

The last time I felt this way was when Waverly started having her breath holding spells. I felt like I sort of thought I knew everything about my kids. I’ve NEVER claimed to be an expert, but having five kids, I must’ve subconsciously figured nothing would surprise me anymore. 

Last night, we had the pleasure of experiencing another first. 

“Pleasure.”

I woke up bleary eyed in the middle of the night to someone crashing around my room. Usually, when a kid comes into our room, they try to call us quietly from the door, and eventually approach our bed, my side, and wake me up. Not this time. We don’t have a ton of junk in our room, but there was a hamper and a couple of boxes along one wall, and whoever was in our room was running into everything. 

I saw a silhouette from the doorway. Hair. Rowan. Of course it was Rowan. He is our “wake the whole house in the middle of the night” kid. It isn’t unheard of that he would be there. 

Except, lets be real. He’s been up there enough in the dark that he knows exactly how to get to our bed. 

As I continued waking up, I heard him breathing fast and making whiny sounds. He sounded upset. And he was moving fast. He hit every box, tripped over everything, and slammed into my desk. Still, he kept going. I called for him and reached out my hand to bring him to me, but he wouldn’t respond. As my eyes adjusted, I could see he was reaching madly in front of himself, as though looking for something. Maybe just trying to get somewhere? But I was calling to him, and he wouldn’t come. 

I asked him what was wrong, and he answered “Ummm ummm ummm… I’m really scared.” He continued crashing into things, just out of my reach. He was completely panicking. Once he had verbalized that he was scared, he kept saying it over and over and over again. I finally reached him and caught his hand. He didn’t immediately come to me, though. I sort of pulled him over to me and grabbed him into a hug. And he completely deflated. He was fine, and still, and safe. 

He was sleepwalking. Of course that was it. 

I held him for a nice long time. When we eventually released our hug, he wasn’t panicking anymore but he was definitely not all there. I know enough about sleepwalking to know you’re not supposed to wake the person from their sleep, and I assumed I had done just that, but he was SO upset, I couldn’t imagine how else to solve the problem and help him! 

Brady ushered him back to bed, and said he still seemed quite disoriented, which made good sense. But Brady and I were UP after that! We watched a couple of episodes of Brooklyn Nine-Nine before we got tired enough to go back to sleep. Thank goodness it was just after 1:00am and not closer to the time we’d actually need to get up. 

As you can imagine, I was pretty eager to get Rowan up this morning. As soon as I opened the door, he greeted me, happy as a clam! I asked him how his night was and he said it was good! He said he felt really rested and happy. His exact words were “No scary thoughts or anything!” 

So 🤷‍♀️ That happened! And he has no idea! I’ve been suspicious of Rowan sleepwalking before, but its never gone beyond him standing in his doorway when we’re up late, and us walking him back to his bed. This was its own thing! Not my favorite thing, lol, but a good reminder that there are still plenty of surprises left to come my way! 

Isn’t it crazy how it can go from +30 yesterday to 50km winds today?! Goodness! I’m so grateful that spring is upon us but I would LOVE to get to actually enjoy it! I joke. Sort of. We’ve enjoyed lots of beautiful days outside. I just wish they were every day! Either beautiful warm days with gentle breezes or raging thunderstorms. Those are the ideal for me 😆 Is anyone else’s anticipating those amazing spring/summer storms?? 🙋‍♀️ 

I’m accepting the reality of the upcoming summer, and all of our cancelled plans and inevitably discouraged kids. We got official word this morning that camp is cancelled, and while we haven’t officially cancelled our stretch at Waskesiu, we know all common areas will be closed, and we’ll need to cancel. I mourned that truth in my Parks Canada hoodie yesterday…

But as you can see, I’m also pretty thankful for the life we have and where we have it. “Making the best of it” isn’t so difficult for us. Its not perfectly smooth but its pretty ok, too. Our kids are content to be together, and we are content to be with them! 

Remind me of that when Brady goes back to work and I have them all to myself 24/7 😬 What a season we’re in! 

Disappointing adulting post alert 🚨 I know the bulk of this post falls under the “first world problems” category, but still, its a change to our plans so I’m going to share it here. 

I think we’re giving up on our garden boxes this year :/ I truly am SO disappointed. We have the money saved up so we could build them the way we wanted them. I wanted them taller than “average,” and Brady wanted to build them out of cedar. We priced and planned and had it all set up. 

But then, as we began to talk about needing to take our winter tires off, I remembered our all-seasons got pitched last winter, and we’d need to replace them. In our case, considering everything going on in the world, the lack of work, and the uncertainty, it would be irresponsible to spend money on garden boxes at this time. 

I am so disappointed. 

As I said a month or so ago, when my itch for spring really ramped up and I started talking garden stuff, I said multiple times that this is a low pressure garden season for me. I said I would be totally satisfied with throwing some seeds in the ground and just seeing what happened. The free time is what caused me to consider changing my mind and planning for garden boxes. Why not? 🤷‍♀️ We have time, and we had saved for them. But as you can imagine, our bus tires aren’t exactly standard, and they cost more than average. 

So I need to backpedal and accept my simple garden this year. I have nothing against that, but I know our end game will be boxes, and we’ll never have more available building time than we do now!

So, plans change. Or, change back, I suppose. And thats ok. It’ll be simpler. And it’ll be another fun outside project for next season. There are pros. 

Regardless of where we plant, I just want to plant!