The deck was a bit stalled out when Brady was back at work, and he managed to have a couple of fairly long sick days in the middle there. So for those reasons, its been almost a week since we last got out there and got our hands dirty. Today, we broke the cycle.

I got my legs waxed in the early afternoon, grabbed some coffees, and came home to Brady and Laela working on the deck. Dekker had opted to stay inside to play Lego, and the little boys were napping. I went inside and invited Dekker to join three three of us outside, but he declined. He insisted that he really wanted to play Lego. I got his jacket out of the closet and told him it was on the stairs if he changed his mind. Luckily, I hadn’t been out with Brady and Laela for too long at all before be decided to join us. Woot!

Due to the great desire for our deck to look as good as possible, I’ve been fairly intimidated to work on too much of it myself. My husband is the carpenter, literally, in the relationship, and I don’t want to mess up something he could do perfectly himself. But I’m getting sad that I haven’t played as much of a role in it as I originally had wanted to. Conveniently, installing the deck boards is something I am capable of doing pretty risk-free. We are using hidden fasteners to hold our composite decking on, so none of my screw holds will show, which is pretty comforting to me.

Dekker and Laela sat by the stairs, or played around in the dirt, and made up games while Brady and I set up a good system for me to comfortably work on the decking itself.

Of course, once I was confident in my role and was in a good groove, I made a quick stop inside to check on my nappers and both were awake. Because I can’t just put Solly down in the dirt, and its pretty windy and chilly on and off, I can’t revisit my post on the deck. I really like hanging out with Solly and Ro inside, don’t get me wrong, but I’m a bit sad to leave a job I can finally do. Merp.

The evening will only get better though! Jerilee is coming for the first time in at least three weeks, which is CRAZY but true. That will be a definite high point for the day. As was my leg wax with my fave waxing girl, my short chance at the deck, and hanging out with my family. Lots of things to be thankful for.

Hopefully that deck is done soon! We are SO ready for that! Just deck boards left, and the railings are all built and waiting in our garage to be installed. Its going to happen!!

Since I didn’t get to see my mom on Mother’s Day, it worked out beautifully that Brady had today off, because I was able to take my mom on a date. I had outdoor plans and indoor plans, so we wouldn’t be hooped with a weather change. I tried to be ahead of the game, anyway. And it worked!

First, Brady helped me put together a super delicious breakfast. It turned out gorgeous, and it tasted even better than I had expected. The picture is of the full product, but I only brought a chunk over to mom’s place for our breakfast, and left the bigger chunk at home for Brady to eat.

Seriously, it was amazing, and suuuper easy. Everyone should try this.

As we ate breakfast, I finally forked over our plans. It wasn’t raining like the forecast had predicted, so I figured we’d go with our outdoor plans, but when I confessed our indoor plans, my mom got SO excited! So we decided to do something we’d never done before and go paint pottery together!

Since I planned our date, I decided that we’d both paint a mug for each other. She was on board, and we ended up picking the same styles for one another. Because we’re alike. Which I like. I’ll admit that it was pretty daunting trying to decide what she might light and sorting through options and ideas. Neither of us had painted in years, so we weren’t confident in free-handing a design. We ended up doing silk screens, but I won’t show you what we made yet 🙂 Not in detail, anyway.

In five-ish days, they’ll be glazed and fired and ready for pick up! I’m so excited to see how they come out. I think they’ll be quite perfect. It was so much fun putting them together and putting so much thought into them. We’ll definitely be back!

When we were done and on our way out, we had about an hour left until our lunch reservation. We decided to run a couple of small errands, just because we could, and we didn’t have time to do any of my other outdoor plans. A quick stop at Walmart and one more at London Drugs left us at Red Lobster a half hour early, but there was room for us to settle into a cozy corner booth anyway. We enjoyed a delicious lunch!!

Red Lobster was the last stop on my list before picking Dekker up from school, but we had some extra time to kill, so we ran another errand over at Indigo. We grabbed Starbucks and did some perusing the gifties before getting on our way.

I took mom home and we visited until I absolutely had to go to the school to get my kid, haha! My mom and I could chat ALL day.

Turns out, we did! I bought my mom a spaghetti squash for Mother’s Day (Don’t judge it, she gets it, haha!) and we really wanted to eat it together. So Brady graciously suggested I go join mom for supper, which I did with almost no convincing.

My gosh, it was SUCH a good food day!! And the company didn’t hurt either.

To know my mom is to love her. I am so fortunate to have been raised by a woman such as herself.

Thank you for letting me love on you and celebrate you today, mom. I’d love to do it again.

There is a survey floating around Facebook encouraging women to share details about having their babies and basically how they became mothers. That’s what this post is going to be. And this is why.

Mothers Day weighed on me a bit. I love it, and I’m THRILLED to be a mom. On another hand, though, I’m not unaware of those around me who desire to be mothers but have no baby to hold in their arms. I had no idea just how much infertility/loss/grief there was around the subject of having babies until I started having them. Now, this year, I have experienced what I feel has been a great loss, and a huge blow to our family. We lost our baby. I loved my Mother’s Day yesterday, but I do have some weird, unresolved feelings that I’m still processing. So today, I’m keeping it light.

To the surveys!

1. Did you have an epidural? Yes
2. Was your husband in the room? Yes
3. Were you induced? Yes
4. Did you find out the sex? Yes
5. Due Date? August 19, 2011
6. Did you deliver early or late? 2 days late
7. Did you have morning sickness? No! None! It was glorious.
8. What did you crave? Corn dogs
9. How many pounds did you gain? 45
10. What was the sex of the baby? Boy
11.Did you have complications? No
12. Where did you give birth? RUH
13. How many hours were you in labor? 8 ish
14. How much did your baby weigh? 10 lbs 10 oz
15. What did you name the baby? Dekker Thomas
16. How old is your baby now? 5

1. Did you have an epidural? Nope. Nope nope nope.
2. Was your husband in the room? Yes
3. Were you induced? Yes
4. Did you find out the sex? Yes
5. Due Date? September 21, 2013
6. Did you deliver early or late? 8 days late
7. Did you have morning sickness? Yes, the most I ever had
8. What did you crave? fuzzy peaches
9. How many pounds did you gain? 35
10. What was the sex of the baby? Girl
11.Did you have complications? Do you count a precipitous labour? Otherwise no.
12. Where did you give birth? RUH
13. How many hours were you in labor? 1
14. How much did your baby weigh? 9 lbs 10 oz
15. What did you name the baby? Laela Hazel
16. How old is your baby now? 3

1. Did you have an epidural? Yes, a VERY controlled delivery
2. Was your husband in the room? Yes
3. Were you induced? yes
4. Did you find out the sex? yes
5. Due Date? March 2, 2015
6. Did you deliver early or late? one week early
7. Did you have morning sickness? Not much8. What did you crave? noodle bowls
9. How many pounds did you gain? 25
10. What was the sex of the baby? Boy
11.Did you have complications? No
12. Where did you give birth? RUH
13. How many hours were you in labor? 5.5
14. How much did your baby weigh? 8 lbs 6 oz (He was sooo bitty!)
15. What did you name the baby? Rowan Toby
16. How old is your baby now? 2

<3 We lost a baby VERY early in between these children, in September 2015. Baby was gone before we knew it had even been there, but is NEVER forgotten!! We will meet again one day. <3

1. Did you have an epidural? Yes, also very controlled, which I was so grateful for
2. Was your husband in the room? Yes
3. Were you induced? Yes
4. Did you find out the sex? Yes
5. Due Date? June 7, 2016
6. Did you deliver early or late? one week early
7. Did you have morning sickness? Yes
8. What did you crave? broccoli (about time I craved something good for me, hey?)
9. How many pounds did you gain? 22
10. What was the sex of the baby? Boy
11.Did you have complications? No
12. Where did you give birth? RUH
13. How many hours were you in labor? 4
14. How much did your baby weigh? 10 lbs 7 oz
15. What did you name the baby? Solomon Brady
16. How old is your baby now? 11 months! Almost a year! Not ok!

<3 We lost our little man Theo in January, 2017. I wish I could share his details, or even know them myself. I anticipate meeting him one day, as well.

I am so beyond thankful to be a mother to my children, both on earth and in heaven. BEYOND THANKFUL. I know we’re so fortunate to have who we have.

I hope you all had the happiest, most blessing-filled mothers day weekend, all of you mothers out there, whether in body or in heart.

I knew Brady had a bit of a plan for this morning, but I didn’t know for sure what it was. We were skipping church for it, and he had a timeline in mind, but not a hard, fast one. Also, we were just getting ready and going, without feeding the kids. I put two and two together and figured we were all going out to eat somewhere that wouldn’t take a reservation. And I was right!

Turns out we weren’t the only family trying to get into Cora’s for breakfast, and even though we were there bright and early, Brady ran in and waited for probably a good half hour. We texted back and forth about maybe going somewhere else, but the other location was just as full, and we reeeaaally wanted to eat at that particular restaurant. So we decided to wait it out. Brady was offered two tables for four across the restaurant from each other, which he politely declined, but soon after, a larger group left and they were able to make space for us.

We hauled everyone into the restaurant, past the long line of people waiting. Its always a bit chaotic getting everyone in and settled, but once they were settled, all was smooth. They looked at the menu and chose their breakfasts (waffles for Dekker and Rowan, pancakes for Laela, and banana slices for Solly) and Brady and I briefly glanced at the menus, but we already knew what we wanted, so ordering went quick.

It was a HUGE win that we stayed at the first Cora’s location because the balloon man was there!!! He’s the guy who was at Montanas when we went for Rowan’s birthday celebration, and he was SO good! I wasn’t as on the ball as my mom was with the camera the last time, so you’ll just have to trust me that his creations were, once again, amazing! Laela got a purple fish on a fishing pole, Dekker got a green dinosaur, and Rowan got a monkey on a banana tree. He was SO entertaining, and helped us pass the time quickly! Between joking with the kids, he spoke quietly to us about how he and his wife had four kids together as well, and how life changing it had been, and how he felt so fortunate. It was a nice little moment to connect with another parent who felt so smitten about having their many kids nice and close together. It was nice to relate.

Once the food came, the kids dug right in. They ate great, and tons, and were really relaxed and happy. We ended up sitting next to a family we know from our town, which was a nice surprise. Beyond getting to chat a little with them, we had people come up to us two different times to say how wonderful our kids seemed to be, and that we were a beautiful family. One woman even addressed the “ugh” moment that people sometimes feel when they see a big family coming their way in a restaurant or a similar setting, but that they were so pleased to sit by us and watch how sweet the kids were. My mama heart was bursting, truly, hearing so many wonderful things said about my precious children. Like I had to consciously remember to dial it back, and be thankful to my God who has lead us as parents, and also lead our kids. All glory be to Him!

Laela was finishing up her pancakes when things started to ever so gently break down, and by things, I mean the little boys. Rowan started crying without any real reason,

but it was nothing that a snuggle with me and a tickle of his bellybutton couldn’t solve. He recovered quickly. Meanwhile, Solly was getting twitchy in his high chair, but he chewed on empty creamer cups and was pacified, haha!

But it was definitely reaching go time. But while we had my leftovers boxed up, and everyone had their coats on, our server hadn’t brought our bill. So we waited a bit longer, and I kept reassuring myself that she knew we were ready to go, but it was a big morning, and she would come as soon as she could.

And when she did come, she said someone had paid for us already. All six of us. I was so overwhelmed.

I won’t lie. I am still blown away. That was in no way a small gift. It was huge, and generous, and totally unexpected! We would NEVER expect anyone to foot a bill for our family, ever! I don’t even feel good about it when its my parents wanting to treat us, because I know we cost a decent amount just based on how many of us there are. What an amazing gesture. What a gift of love. I can’t really comprehend it all, still. It was an eye opener, and a reminder to be generous as often as possible, whenever we feel at all lead to be.

This morning has been more amazing than I could have expected. I got to eat a delicious breakfast with my beautiful children and husband. I was given gifts and so many hugs and kisses. Strangers complimented us and showed us very real love. And the kids slept on the drive back home, thanks to a good old fashioned sugar crash. I am thrilled, grateful, and totally overwhelmed by today.

I couldn’t ask for a better Mother’s Day.

Today was a great success! I wasn’t sure it would be with the day starting out as grey and rainy and WINDY as it was, but sure enough, people were out and about, both on foot and in vehicles. So were we! We started out early enough, but unfortunately my family was pretty finished with the process quite early in the game. Garage sale day is one of my favorite town events of the year, so I was pretty disappointed with my group. I finally decided we’d all go home, but I was going to venture back out on foot, on my own.

I was out for an hour or two on my own, and ventured back for lunch. Or I thought I did. Brady ducked out and purchased lunch for us at a nearby fund raising garage sale. Taco salad in a bag is something I never had growing up but really really enjoy now. I’m still feeling somewhat ill, but it comes and goes in waves, and while I felt sick earlier in the day, I felt well enough to eat taco salad for lunch! I even got a donut soon after that.

Dekker had been invited to a birthday party this afternoon, so I dropped him off around 1:00 and continued shopping garage sales for an hour or so. I found a couple of wins for us, along with some duplo that I was keeping an eye out for on my moms behalf. I brought it over to her after buying it, and ending up visiting away the rest of the time before I needed to pick Dekker up. It was a nice way to break up the day and get out of the wind. While there, we made a spontaneous evening plan and I invited them over for a suuuper relaxed hot dog supper. Win for everyone!

The evening has now wound down. My parents on headed home and the kids are in bed. Brady is dealing cards for a game or two of Skipbo. I figured I’d share my haul with you quickly! Roughly, we came out of the day with three books, three busy books, a bag of clothing for the kids, a baby swing to attach under our deck, a birthday gift for Dekker (I’m on the ball with that one!), an elliptical, and a treadmill. So bear with me on the last two. I am NOT a good, loyal exerciser. Nope nope nope. But I’ve wanted to have ONE piece of exercise equipment for a few years now. I feared that I would never ever use it and I would be just like so many other people, selling a barely used ancient piece of equipment that I clearly did not use. But then, I found a nice elliptical for $20. And then a nice treadmill for $20. Sooooo I have both for WAY cheaper than I expected to pay for just one of those things!! Now to see if I use them… 😉

Well, my feet are chilly and my card game awaits. Have a fabulous Saturday, friends, and enjoy your weekend. Hug your moms, or the ladies closest to you <3

I’ve felt pretty gross with all of the grossness going on around here, and waking up early with Solly didn’t help. BUT I made a plan for the day early on. My plan was to plunk my kids (and myself) in front of the tv, wrap us all in blankets, eat boring convenient bland food, and be lazy, completely unapologetically. I really think there is a place for these kinds of days, and today seemed like a good one. Through text, Brady supported my plan to forego the dishes/laundry/household chores and encouraged me to just rest up. It was a pretty perfect plan, if you ask me.

And then Laela had a sick poop. All over her feet and down her wall. A good mental picture, right? You should have seen it in real life. Or maybe you really shouldn’t have. She was so distraught. But after a quick bath, all four kids were at the table eating breakfast happily. So while bathing a weeping child, doing laundry, and washing walls wasn’t on my to-do list today, it woke me up a little bit and helped me blow past my sickness. Which felt good! Because not only was I feeling less sick, but my kids were cheered up, and I managed to accomplish things, but I still had no real goals/expectations for the day. I love that kind of morning.

Being that I felt pretty good as the morning wore in, I started compiling a to-do list. We have been so wrapped up in both sickness and deck building that everything else has sat on the back burner. We weren’t skipping big important things, but just small things that really should get done but kept being forgotten. I made a very rough list of things to do today, and someday soon, and appointments to book. Just a big mess of things. And it got SUPER overwhelming very quickly.

Sooooo that list sits now, haha! I did the dishes, so thats one thing. I washed the laundry, but haven’t folded it yet, so I’m taking half a point for that one, and I booked an appointment for next week to get my legs waxed, so thats another thing. Woot! Everything else can wait, at least until tonight.

Tomorrow is garage sale day here in town! Pleeeaaase let us all be healthy by then, because I love garage sale day SO MUCH! I love shopping second hand, and I love the social aspect of the day, as well. It would be such a bummer if we couldn’t venture out for fresh donuts, tacos in a bag, and inevitable shopping for little kitchen gadgets and such. Eek! Something fun to look forward to 🙂

Have a great weekend everyone!

I’m positive you guys are tired of hearing me talk about sickness. Trust me, I’m sick of talking about it. Its just the biggest thing going on in our days :/ Who is barfing? Can it be contained? Who is going to barf next? What should they eat? Can they eat? When is bedtime?? Today, I feel pretty disgusting, but nothing has come of it, and it seems to come and go, so its liveable. No one has really thrown up yet today. Solly chucked a bit of his lunch, I suppose, and Dekker’s been gagging since school, but thank goodness, thats it so far.

Some fun things about today! We set up our new bike trailer!

Ro and Laela loved it so much, which is really great 🙂 I was a bit worried, after all of the searching for the best value for the best price, they wouldn’t much care for it, but sure enough, it was a win.

Also, today was a Mother’s Day celebration with Dekker’s class. I went for about an hour, and together we made a scrapbook with pictures of us, with lots of stickers and sequins, and messages that we wrote together. It was adorable.

Ice cream followed, and the sugar seemed to hit Dekker instantly, hahaha! He was thrilled 😀

I took him out to recess a bit early with the other kindergarten kids, and played with him until the bell actually rang any everyone else joined the party. It was timed a bit funny, because I went home for maybe 40 minutes and then came back to get him. He was so so tired when I came him, though. It had been a big day.

I had to duck back to the city to grab a missed piece of decking, and I had a new experience. Someone actually opened their office window from a couple of floors up in their building and bellowed “What kind of van is that?” I shouted back the make and model. He just stared at me, so I called “Its a 12 passenger!” He thanked me and closed his window. Wasn’t sure what to make of it. The guy who loaded the material into my van got a good kick out it as well. He asked me what I needed such a big van for, and seemed VERY surprised when I told him it was for our hopefully soon to be growing family. But I just laughed and reassured him that I loved having a big family, and he was really friendly about it. So I got my stuff and headed home.

I’m feeling pretty crappy as the day is winding up. I think I’ll wash makeup brushes and maybe watch a movie this evening, while Brady is hanging out with a friend tonight. And then he’s back to the grindstone after a nice chunk of time off this week 🙂 I wish he could just stay home, but I’m very thankful for the time he’s had here at home. The deck is getting closer to being done everyday, which is exciting to see. I’m so ready to have it finished so I can invite all of you lovely people over for a drink and a chat on it. I anticipate it’ll be a bit of a haven.

But for today, I’m ready to pack it in. Good night, all!

Solly threw up pretty impressively last night, around 1:00am. We didn’t know right away, as we woke up to him crying. Its out of character for him to wake up around that time, so we went to him, and sure enough, he was flapping around in a big puddle of vomit. Brady brought him to our bed where I sat his slimy self on my lap and he proceeded to continue barfing and gagging and barfing and gagging and gagging and gagging into my garbage can. He was SO upset, and SO stinky. Poor dude. Brady snuck down into Laela’s room and sniped a handful of fresh sleepers and blankets, so we were officially ready for anything. Thankfully, that bout was his last. For the night, anyway.

I felt pretty nauseous overnight, but nothing came of it, thank goodness. But Dekker woke Brady and I up this morning to tell us that Rowan had barfed. Sure enough, he had. He had contained it to his bed, thankfully, but his hair and body were coated. Morning baths did the trick and everyone was in better spirits. Our kids are a bit tricky, because they seem to be 100% fine, and then they’ll barf out of nowhere. Except they’re more tired, I suppose. Rowan was so shot that he traded in his lunch for a nap before he was even finished his food. Let’s just hope he wakes up clean and healthy.

Once lunch was done for everyone else, Brady wrapped Solly up to put him to bed, and I followed him up a minute later to get a hair elastic. Before I even got up the stairs, though, I heard Brady calling for him. Sure enough, Solly was throwing up his lunch and then some. Just givin’ ‘er. I held his little burrito-bodied self over the tub and he just let fly, over and over again. When it appeared that he was done for the moment, I lay him down on our bath mat and started to take him out of his soggy sleeper and blanket. He was all smiles and giggles. Weird.

Currently, the little boys are napping, the big kids are up and playing Lego, and I was finishing up a job I started on the deck build yesterday. Now I’m in with the kids and Brady is outside working on the stairs. SUCH a tedious part of the build! But soon they’ll be done, and then there will be more fun to be had!! Woot!

I’m pretty disappointed I haven’t had a chance to run into Saskatoon and run the errands I’ve been needing to run all week, but plans change when children puke. They just do. We’ll get there eventually. These days are just home days.

Of course we’re trapped at home with Starbucks is offering frappy hour 😒 Color me annoyed.

As a fun surprise, Laela joined the barf brigade last night. However, she didn’t tell us :/ So we got her up in the morning and plucked her out of the pile of wet pieces. This messes up my theory about food poisoning, though I’m not convinced it wasn’t that. Still working on my theory there.

We were going to try to run a few errands this morning. It timed out well enough with taking Dekker to school, the kids napping in the early afternoon, and giving the ground enough time to dry after the rain. However, Laela wasn’t feeling well enough to go, so we didn’t. None of it was time sensitive, so we figured we’d try again tomorrow. Instead, Laela got cozy on the couch and Brady went out to get started on some deck stuff.

In the meantime, my mom called! She’s been gone visiting all of last week and she just made it home last night. She was over just a few minutes later, and made the morning just that much sweeter <3 I love her. She stuck around through lunch and putting the kids down for a nap. Because Laela was sick in the night, she very clearly hadn’t slept well and didn’t object to going down for a nap, even though she almost never ever does.

Once it was just the adults left, my mom bowed out and headed home so Brady and I could get some deck stuff done together. She gets us 🙂 We love to work together. So we did!

It didn’t last too long before I had to go pick Dekker up from school. He seemed a tad off his game, but was smiling while he reassured me that he was ok. As we walked to the van, I told him we were going on a date, just me and him! He wasn’t as enthusiastic about it as I expected, but he was happy.

Just moments after we left town, he had a big weird gagging cough. I looked at him in the mirror and asked him if he was ok. He seemed a bit zoned, but responded “ya.” I asked if he was going to throw up. He said he thought he would. No urgency in the statement. Just “I sink so, yup…” So I turned our van around and booked it home. As much as you can book it through school zones, anyway. So not at all quickly. But he seemed fine, honestly. Just a bit out of it.

When I got him out of the van at home, he seemed so sluggish and off. I asked him if something had happened at school. He said he had thrown up. WHAT?! I asked if he told his teacher, and he said he didn’t because he was able to clean it up himself. I was so sad for him, and scooped him up and carried him in. Once he was tucked in on the couch, I unpacked his backpack a bit and found a good chunk of his lunch was leftover, too. He also just forgot to take out a library book. Thats not normal for him. Poor dude was so so zoned. He seemed happy to be plopped down on the couch to rest.

Sadly, that was not the last bout of vomit today, but Dekker managed to get the vast majority of it in the barf bucket nearest to him. They’re all just floating around the house at this point. So I’m thankful for that. Small victories, right?

Supper is on the horizon, and I’m not exactly looking forward to it. The kids will very likely eat toast and bananas for supper. A friend of ours offered to come help Brady with some deck stuff after work today, and pulled pork on a bun is on the menu for us adults, anyway. Hopefully this silly illness blows over soon, whether its just that food poisoning, overeating, flu, whatever else. Something always surfaces when Brady is home, which is good and bad. We’d far rather be productive and have the kids playing outside while we built the deck. But alas, no dice.

We WILL get this sucker done! But the barfing children come first.

Remember how yesterday was all springy and productive? When the wind and rain started up, Brady and I decided to have a bit of a home date night. Once the kids went to bed, we played some cards, had a soak, and snuggled in to watch one of our favorite shows together. It was around 10:00pm when we heard some weird sounds in the house. We paused our show and just kind of regarded each other, trying to figure out what the sound was. Seconds later, we heard a watery cough, followed by the click of our door opening.

Brady jumped out of bed and met our poor Dekker at the door as he puked all down our wall and on our floor. I stayed in bed, but urged him over to my bedside and hung onto him as he threw up in my garbage can over and over. I didn’t even know what to do next, honestly. He was positively covered in puke. He had managed to throw up on our blanket too. It was just a massive mess.

Brady ran to grab Dekker some fresh jammies and some cleaning supplies to begin the job ahead. I peeled Dekker out of his sopping wet jammies and used some wipes to clean off his hands and face. When Brady reappeared, he had the supplies, as well as information. Apparently Rowan had slept through the whole thing, thank goodness, but there was vomit everywhere. We’ve never had to do a late-night clean up to this extent, so we both felt pretty overwhelmed. I tucked Dekker into our bed and put Clifford on for him very quietly, and went to join the fun. But fun, I mean the enormous clean ahead.

We started in the boys room, where vomit was in Dekker’s bed, on the floor beside it, in the doorway, and on the door. Brady had begun cleaning the floors so I headed for his bed and stripped it of everything barfy. Which was everything. The pillow was salvageable but nothing else. His stuffed puppy had a vomit mohawk. I scooped everything into the fitted sheet and hauled it out of their room. On my way out, I snuck over to Rowan’s crib. I was SO amazed that he had slept through everything so soundly.

Rowan was covered, head to toe, in vomit. Chunks of disgusting, stinky, thick vomit. He was fast asleep, but wet and crusted over. I was completely floor. Brady and I had played cards at the table as the kids fell asleep. Rowan never got up, or cried, or fussed, or even really talked. We could see by his position that he likely vomited up a storm, rolled over, and kept sleeping. It was literally head to toe. His hair was completely crusted over (vomit helmet-ish) down to his socks that took real work to peel off. And everything in between was adequately soaked. I tried to undress him really gently while he slept, so I didn’t wake him too abruptly, but the moment he lulled, he was justifiably upset. He was instantly shivering and squirming and wailing “No! Nooooo!” Try to reason with a two year old :/ He was so so upset. There was no way I could just surface clean him with a cloth, either. So Ro had a late night bath. Praise the Lord, he likes the bath, and once he warmed up a bit, he was on board. He just held a single bath toy and allowed me to wash his hair and body. There were chunks floating around in the tub. It was so vile, guys. But he was such a good sport about it.

We checked on Dekker on and off, and he was dozing in and out, but content, which we were grateful for. If he were needing extra hands-on help, the whole clean up process would have taken so much longer. When I went to get him to put him back in his bed, he was fine with it. I carried him, so he wouldn’t accidentally step in all of the vomit spots in our room and outside his own room that we hadn’t had a chance to clean yet. I put him on his bed and informed him that he was going to sleep with a different blanket, and that his puppy was out of commission as well. He was so accepting of the situation at hand. Rowan was surprisingly on board as well. As many of you know, Rowan’s chewing got pretty nuts a while back, and he only has a pillow in his bed now. No more blanket, and no more foxy. When I put him down in his bed and told him his pillow was too soaked with barf, and he couldn’t have a pillow tonight, he smiled just fine and said “ok” and lay down, ready for sleep. I felt so so bad about it, though, so I gave him one of my pillows. All of our extra pillows that no one uses are too tall/firm for him. He was SO happy when I brought in a pillow for him 🙂 Totally worth it.

Once both boys were tucked in, we continued the mad clean around the house. It REEKED. Just minutes later, I walked past the kids rooms, and heard coughing. I stuck my head into the boys room and asked if everyone was ok. Both boys answered “yup!” really chipper. So I left. But less than two minutes later, I heard more coughing. I ducked in once again and asked who was barfing. “Rowan,” Dekker told me. I quickly went to his crib as he lifted his head.

“Are you barfing, Ro?” I asked.

*barfs* “Ya.” And then he lay his head down in it.

Aaaaaaahhhhhh!!!!!

I scooped him out of his bed and sat him up on my lap, where he proceeded to fight me hard, throwing himself around, but taking the occasional break to lean forward and vomit into the garbage can. It finally ceased and we checked out the new damage. It wasn’t as bad at all, and because it didn’t sit and soak, it was all more reasonable to clean up. A fresh pillowcase was all it took. Then he was back in bed, and remained there for the rest of the night.

Our clean went on for a solid hour. The walls and doors took a pretty good hit, and the carpets are the best they can be for the moment, but we’re definitely on the hunt for a carpet cleaner. The last six months have just been nuts around here. I don’t have to tell you guys this. But our carpets would probably appreciate the extra help after all they’ve been through.

No one barfed in the night, but our house smells awful, I’m not going to lie. What we boiled yesterday down to, unfortunately, was our lunch. We had McDonalds. I’m not going to rag on fast food restaurants, because so rarely have we gotten food poisoning, but both Dekker and Rowan had chicken at McDonalds yesterday and WOW was something ever wrong with it!! No one else had chicken. Its now out of them, which is good, and everyone is healthy and well this morning. Exhausted, mind you, but vomit free. Laela is convinced she’s next, because our sicknesses tend to cycle through everyone, so she is insistent on hauling a barf bucket around with her, but I think she’s in the clear.

So as for today, its good that its raining because if it weren’t, we wouldn’t be quite so diligent with the wild amount of laundry we have on our plates! We soaked a few things overnight but we have a couple loads of bedding going, as well as a few things hanging to dry in front of fans.

Just wait until I have a deck to hang laundry out on…..