After spending two out of the last three days in the bus, I can say we are all so happy to be home 💜 The weekend was incredibly lovely. I have ZERO regrets. It was so good to see so many of my relatives once again, some for the first time in decades, as we celebrated a life well lived by my grandmother. While the visit was unbelievably quick, it was absolutely better than not going at all. I truly believe my grandma would’ve had SO much fun this weekend, seeing everyone together, eating good food, and reminiscing. I think all the efforts put into this weekend would’ve made her feel so warm and fuzzy.

Coming home is good, though. Seeing our close people out here felt really good for the soul, also. And reuniting with our babies, who stayed back with aforementioned close people 💜 We are SO fortunate to have the village of people we do. We could NOT have gone this weekend without all the help we received!

Everyone is tucked in. Most are asleep. Some deeper than others.

Tomorrow holds so much already 😅 No rest for the weary! School. Ballet. Gotta weigh a couple of babies. A soccer game. An MRI. Who knows what else will come up!

Just typing it out makes me tired. To bed I go! Goodnight, all 💜 Talk tomorrow.

It has been a lovely day. A LOADED day. A very peaceful day of celebrating a life lived. Funerals are hard in general, and doing them with kids is an added challenge, but I really couldn’t have been more proud of my kids. As the ONLY children at the burial site, they stood calmly and respectfully through the entire thing, and politely chatted with family members as aunts and uncles came to meet them. They did SO WELL. 

Everyone who put into this memorial weekend made it SO beautiful and SO nostalgic, and in my opinion, so unbelievably honouring. I truly think it would’ve been enjoyed by anyone who came through the door, including the beautiful individual who passed away 💜 

The day has come to a close, and I think our entire group here is feeling that fatigue good and proper! Hopefully there is more rest to come tomorrow. 

But first, we sleep!!! Goodnight, all 💜

As we drove today, we noted these in the fields. 

Transmission towers.

Normally they wouldn’t be exciting but three of us speculated what they looked like, and it felt like our own version of a Rorschach inkblot test. 

Brady sees someone flexing. 

I see a handstand. 

Laela sees a dress on a hanger. 

I’ve done Rorschach tests before and I usually see a uterus, hahaha! But this is not a standard uterus image. What do you see? 

I can’t even begin to recount all of todays events to you. Its been a very full day, with much good and plenty to busyness. It is 9pm. I am haggard. I know Brady feels the same. Dekker is almost home from youth, and then we can put him down and hopefully hit the sack juuuuust about immediately.

Tomorrow holds an early morning wakeup, and yet another full day, though it will provide a change of pace, for which we will all be grateful, I’m sure.

But today was in a league of its own, hahaha! I went out in full sweatsuit. Which never happens.

No sweatsuit shame! Just saying, its not my MO. But today called for it, and this was before the day got really crazy!!!

This such is a wild time of our life, and I am not mad at it 💜 Not one bit.

There aren’t enough hours in a day.
There aren’t enough hours in a day.
There aren’t enough hours in a day.
There aren’t enough hours in a day.

Bedtime can’t come soon enough.
Bedtime can’t come soon enough.
Bedtime can’t come soon enough.
Bedtime can’t come soon enough.

Whennnnnnnnnn
Have IIIIIIIIII—
Earrrrrrrrrrrned
My nap?
I’m pre——-tty surrrrrrre its tiiiiiiime!

But

I got lotsa stuff to do!
I got lotsa stuff to do!
I got lotsa stuff to do!
I got lotsa stuff to do!

Sing it with me!

I got lotsa stuff to do!
I got lotsa stuff to do!
I got lotsa stuff to do!
I got lotsa stuff to do!

*instrumental interlude*

There aren’t enough hours in a day.
There aren’t enough hours in a day.
There aren’t enough hours in a day.
There aren’t enough hours in a day.

This morning was spent prepping food! And WOW. Having Brady home and rocking baby duty made for a very productive handful of hours for me!!

While the kids ate breakfast, I mixed up a big batch of party mix, and the first batch of pumpkin muffins. Rarely do I get that much done before the kids leave for school!

I continued onto a second batch of muffins, and as soon as those were in the oven, I started on the cake mix cookies. Devils food and lemon for homemade oreos.

I’ll admit that I actually felt somewhat defeated with how well the muffins turned out. They turned out WAY better than usual! But I used canned pumpkin from the grocery store :/ Thats the only difference. It makes me sad that my cooked, home preserved pumpkin doesn’t make as nice of a muffin. But maybe its too wet? I’m not totally sure yet, but I won’t give up. All my efforts still turned out a huge haul of baking!

I took a breather at that point and had *ahem* breakfast…

Yes. Thats coffee in my weekend mug. Its Wednesday, for reference. And the beaters from my cream cheese icing. You know you’re all just jealous.

Once my coffee was where it belonged, I filled the oreos…

And used the rest of the filling to top up a muffin for everyone for after school.

Now. I am beat. BEAT. But one can only sit for so long before one must get her butt up and take her baby in for another appointment, mustn’t one?

One must.

Well. I guess I’m a soccer mom now.

Rowan requested to join soccer, and the season has officially begun!

As in, it begun yesterday evening. The kids had their first practice.

I was the mom who forgot the water, but Rowan very happily took a few swigs of my coffee and kept on going!

Rowan has never been part of an official soccer team before, but he plays at recess with his friends, many of which are older than him. He’s been climbing the ladder in his skills, and now that he has a field and some direction, its VERY cool to see how naturally talented he is!

Practice #1 was yesterday, and game #1 was today!

I won’t post too many game photos, because these are not all my kids, believe it or not. But he just positively crushed it. He never stopped running! And by running, I basically mean leaping, because he just bounced and flew and leapt through the air, most of the time with one hand in his pocket 🤣

So. We didn’t win tonight game. But who cared? No one. We could hear kids on the field saying “Wait, who won?” It wasn’t really a big deal. Both teams were really good, and REALLY cute!! 💜

Rowan was thrilled to have his cheering section! Brady and I brought the five kids (Thank you, Rae, Tom, and Kevin for hanging with the babies) and Cher and Sandy even joined the fray!! Ro felt like a rockstar, and I want him to keep feeling uplifted and celebrated.

He can’t wait for the next game 💜

Me neither 💜

I have lots of things I can post about on here soon. We’ve made some progress on some renovations in our new house. I went on a greenhouse date with Cher the other day and bought some plants. We bought some furniture off of Facebook Marketplace to make our house work better. We have a kid starting a sport for the first time ever. And we’re going on a bit of a trip in the near future. Lots and lots of things. But goodness – things feel a bit busy for me to actually wrap my brain around many long blogs.

Long blobs sounds like poops…

Anyway…

What I will show you is this:

The other day I went downstairs to tuck Dekker in to bed, and I leaned the door to the basement closed, like I do every night. And I saw this mess.

At first, I was grossed out at how much mud was on the door. And then I wondered 🤔 did someone barf maybe?? And then I realized it was BLOOD from Solly’s gaping head wound the other day!

Not to worry, he is healing up beautifully and is no worse for wear! In fact, he is still stinkin’ cute!

But goodness. SO much blood that day. I can’t believe I was originally shocked at the spatters on the garage floor. This was SO much grosser!

Way to stay alive, Sol!

Today was full, with some big challenges and some really lovely events as well. And I’m now ferociously tired and ready to sleep sooooo I’ll leave you with these pictures I took of Wavy and Solly after they bathed and then immediately played outside.

Punks 🤣

Ah well. As luck would have it, a couple of our kids have some kind of funky virus, so it seems church is off the table for tomorrow as it is. What other reason is there to get clean anyway??

Happy dirty Saturday!

Please. PLEASE. Don’t take this post too seriously 😅 Don’t feel the need to educate me. I’m SO aware of the subject, but I feel a very small kind of way, and I’d like to share it. And I BET, within some of you, you can agree with me.

So. Into it we go.

I miss crappy plastic bags from the grocery store.

There. I said it. I really mean it, too.

I used those things for absolutely everything.

Need to send something extra to school with a kid?

Need to leave something on someone’s doorstep?

Got a smaller amount of garbage to gather up?

Packing up for the lake or for an emergency?

Kid has an accident away from home?

Kid goes swimming and has a wet bathing suit?

GRAB A GROCERY BAG!!!

When I find myself elbow deep in wild diaper blowouts, I call out for a bag to just dump wipes into, and what comes running? An entire white garbage bag. For ONE diaper. But ONE diaper that neeeeeds to go outside asap. So what’s a mom to do??? Put it in a paper bag? Or a cloth bag??

*sigh*

I miss you, environmentally-destroying plastic bags…