I lost quite a bit of sleep last night. Luckily, I was asleep by 9:00pm so even with all of the wakefulness in the middle, I still got some good hours. After I dropped Dekker off at school, my mom hung around and visited with me until shortly after 10:00, which was lovely and much needed. Not long after she left, Brady informed me that his day was done, and he was on his way home.

As I mentioned a while back, our phones were part of a recall, and our appointment to have them looked at was this afternoon, so we took the kids into the city, and I sat in the van with them while Brady brought our phones to our favorite Apple dealer in the city. Both of our phones did in fact qualify for the program, so now they’ll order us new batteries and we’ll have them installed as early as mid next week. Though our next week is already looking fairly full and I’m not sure we’ll get there. We’ll see. Once we were done at the phone appointment, we grabbed some late lunch for the kids and drove home.

Not twenty minutes after arriving home, I drove to Dekker’s school to pick him up. The warm weather is such a nice change from yesterday, and Dekker was really happy to have been able to play outside for recess finally.

Now, everyone is home, and I’m taking a load off upstairs. In going through my pictures, I have a couple of hilarious ones of Solly to share with you 🙂

These just crack me right up! Solly’s latest face is anything with his tongue hanging out of his mouth. Its endearing and funny and spitty and he’s just always soaked, but SO very sweet.

Also this!

He’s been trying to crawl for a while now! He hasn’t been entirely successful yet, but he’s not giving up. Brady told me he actually saw Solly get his chest up once too! So its coming! Which is brutally uncool, dude. You’re too little. Just be a baby, already!

Trying to see some positives today, and sure enough, they are taking shape. Brady has tomorrow off, which is a big positive all on its own! Very thankful for my husband.

Today started as a bit of an off day with the kids, but it managed to pick up a bit in the late morning. However, the afternoon turned very heavy, and it has become an incredibly difficult day. I’m not going to get into it. Maybe down the road. I feel like I usually end up posting just about everything on here eventually. But not today. Today was filled with lots of tears and sadness and emotion. I’m so thankful to have the support of my friends and family around me. I have needed that more in the last few months than ever before, and there has never been a shortage.

So thank you for the love, those of you who have been in touch. Feel free to pray, anyone who feels so led. Prayer will go a long way right now, so even if you just throw a quick prayer up right now, and forget from here on out, it would still really help.

I’ll try to do better on this whole blogging thing tomorrow, I promise!

And the year before that, and the year before that…..

Facebook memories brought up a few super cute things today that I couldn’t resist sharing with you guys. I know you’re fully capable of looking back over the years if you so desired, and I’m not trying to cheat and just to a recap post of previous posts. BUT! The kids have changed SO much! And, my goodness, each picture brings back sweet memories for me!

I’m only going to talk about three pictures today, but that’ll take us back three years ago. We’ll start there.

Three years ago I posted this picture.

This was back in the patching stage of the game for Dekker. I’m sure you’ve seen this picture before. More than once, likely. That was a really really hard time for me. For us. Every morning, I pinned that kid down and covered up his good eye. Already being a cautious kid, he turned fearful. He had to wear that stinking thing every waking moment of his day for two whole months. It rocked his world. After his follow up eye appointment, our ophthalmologist said it had made zero improvement, so we were to keep doing it but considerable less aggressively. It went down to one (or two, I can’t remember) hours per day. It was still hard in the morning, but it got WAY easier once he knew it was temporary. I look at him in these pictures, and he was about Rowan’s current age when this all began. It reminds me of how confusing it was for him at the time, and how he couldn’t comprehend it being “good for him,” and how mean I felt. I can now look back at this picture with SO much affection and nostalgia. Not for the time, and not for the difficulty, but for my tough little guy and how he handled such a hard thing like a champ. He would cry and cry and struggle and cry some more, but once that thing was on, it was on, and he left it alone. Many months after the patching stage was over, he found a leftover patch in his room, and told me he remembered wearing them. I asked him what he remembered, and he said “They were ok.” And that was that. My heart is warm. And this will forever be my absolute favorite picture of Dekker with his eye patched. FOREVER. (insert “Sandlot” character here)

Two years ago, I took this picture.

This picture reminds me of a lot of things. Laela is just over one year of age here. She’d been walking for only a couple of months. She wasn’t saying much either, yet she was definitely our earliest talker so far, with very clear “yes” and “no,” and the other basic ones. Here, she is wearing the boots that Solly wears often now. Do you see my sad attempt at a ponytail? She had so little hair at one year, it drove me bonkers. How I wanted to put her hair into something cutesy!! But when I did, this was the best we got, and then the car seat took care of the rest of it. She was SO tiny! Look at her height compared to the cereal box she’s standing beside! Compared to the countertop that she could smoke her head on (and did) at any given moment! She was my one baby who started really big and then almost right away decided to be petite instead. She had great style tho. Still got it!

One year ago, I took this picture. (This is sure a Dekker and Laela post, hey?)

So I’m lying a little bit. This was a video. But I had it on Instagram (and shared onto Facebook) and I couldn’t figure out how to take it from there and put it on here. I didn’t care enough to dig back onto an old hard drive for it, so this picture counts. Both of these kids look SO YOUNG!!! In this picture, we were at our first rental in the whole mess of moving four times last year. House #1. We basically lived on this loveseat. I don’t know why. But I would stretch out across it, and both kids would come running. Dekker would stick his butt between my body and the backrest, and dangle his legs over me, and Laela would sit underneath my legs. It was comfy. Rowan would either be napping, or hanging out in the jumper nearby. He was still quite little when we lived there. In this video, Dekker was helping Laela learn to count to ten. This is a screenshot of their faces when they reached ten, and both looked at me super proud of themselves. Now, Laela is teaching Rowan to count to ten. She’s doing pretty great, actually, and he’s basically got up to five! But in this picture, I see their younger selves, and their positivity. Look at their soft little faces, that have changed so much. Look at Laela’s hair! Its so much longer now! I feel like they just are SO different here, and it was only one year ago. But we’ve done a lot since that picture was taken, and we’ve all aged a good solid year, haha!

Of course I realize, now that the kids are all in bed, that I really should have taken a picture to wrap up this post, aaaaand I didn’t. If I wasn’t a daily blogger, I’d definitely just save this draft and finish it off tomorrow so it would be all put together, but you’re not so lucky, and neither am I. So this is what you get! Just a small handful of memories I would like to reminisce about with you folks. I hope you enjoyed the look back with me!

Solly was up every two hours last night. It was pretty exhausting for Brady and I. However, he did drink milk like a maniac, which was awesome. On top of being sick and losing quite a bit of weight recently, he’s also dealing with some pretty wicked constipation these days. Drinking lots and lots should only help with both of those things. Factor in the likelihood of a growth spurt, a bout of teething, and whatever else, the kids allowed to have an off night.

Needless to say, we were pretty tired this morning, but upon getting the kids up the day, they were in great shape! We decided to embrace that and head into Saskatoon and do some running around. After looking at our lists, all we really could do today was Costco. Even that, the kids were excited about. They love grocery shopping, I don’t know what to tell you. They just love it. So we got everyone dressed, and I even got myself put together before we headed out.

Costco didn’t take too terribly long, but we took our time. It was Costco on a Saturday, so one can only move so quickly. Solly sat up with Rowan in the cart, which was good until about five minutes before we were leaving, when he decided he’d had enough. Someone thought Laela’s name was Tequila! But otherwise it was quite seamless.

I think the whole gang, myself included, was kind of bummed that we only had one place to go to, but we just did the other places two days ago. There just was no reason to wander further into the city. Also, Brady and I had a quick talk and decided that, just because the kids were doing well didn’t mean we needed to push our luck. So we went home and put the little boys to bed. Rested is always better than overtired. Always.

Now that everyone is tucked away, the two older kids are playing Lego, groceries are put away, and Brady and I had lunch, we have a quiet house. Brady is currently sleeping on the couch beside me, and I’m curled up on the recliner, blogging (obviously) and resting my brain. This feels like such a nice Saturday. No, we’re not out and about and busy in the beautiful weather, or being super productive. But we’re home and relaxed, and no one is doubled over in sickness. Its a really really nice way to spend a weekend!!

I hope the rest of you are enjoying your Saturday as well 🙂

I’m not going to lie. Creative juices are just not flowing today. Luckily, productivity is. I got lots done this morning and am now taking time to sit. But as I sit here, I have nothing to write about! So instead, I’ll just leave you with pictures of the kids from yesterday’s grocery shop.

Needless to say, it was a very cute grocery shop. Though we’re approaching a new stage. Solly was really wiggly in the ergo. Also, he sucks on it like mad, which is SO gross! But he would have rather been free, for sure. Just sit the kid in the cart, right? I know. The belts are tight enough that he’s done ok in there before. But Superstore carts only have one spot to sit in. Rowan is capable of walking around in public places, but not for the length of a full grocery shop, not at any reasonable to quick pace, and he would be MUCH more likely to just wander aimlessly. He’s just too young, in my opinion. Sooooo I’m at a bit of a loss. I guess I could wear Solly on my back. He’d probably like being able to see out a bit better. Or I could haul him along in the  umbrella stroller. I’m just always trying to make it work in a way that I can easily bring them all out myself, and we’re right in that tricky stage of the game. Should be interesting! But even if its interesting, its still fun 🙂 I love grocery shopping with these kids! Truly! They’re so good, and helpful, and I’m just so smitten with them.

Love you guys!!

A few days ago, I wrote on Facebook that Rowan wasn’t eating at all. He wasn’t wanting anything, and would just scream and tantrum when I’d offer him food. VERY off his game, being that he is historically a very very good eater. After being sick for so long, I was not liking that he was suddenly boycotting food. My formerly chunky little man has thinned out quite a bit.

I’ve been checking him over, top to bottom, trying to locate pain spots or sickness or something to explain whats upsetting him so badly, to no avail. But many of you said he would overcome it and to just keep pushing fluids. You were all right. I did that and within a day or two, he was back to eating a bit more. It was a relief, for sure.

Since this has sort of been the case with him the last couple of months, I start very small with meals. Lunch is always more of a snack around here, but especially with Rowan now, I’ve been offering him tiny amounts of things I know he likes, and just working to get anything into him. Today, I started small, and it burned me, hahaha! Because today, finally!!, he was HUNGRY!

I started feeding him a bit earlier than usual, because I wanted him to get a good long nap in before we have to leave for Dr. Mike this afternoon. But he ate solidly for over a half hour! I gave him a small handful of ritz bits, which are a new things around here and are VERY popular with the kids. He wailed at first, and then tasted one and asked for more. He ate the entire bag of them. (to clarify, it was like a single serving bag, not like the bag in the box of crackers.) Then he ate a banana. Then a granola bar. Then a fruit source bar. “More please! More please!” It just kept going!” I kept finding little things to offer him, but had I known he was going to be this hungry, I would have given the kid a sandwich and an apple to begin with! But at this point, he wouldn’t have eaten that much after already eating so much. I found him a few more things but finally offered him a nap, which he squealed “YA!” to, and down he went.

So what changed. A tooth. I have been checking his gums every few days for the last several weeks and I’ve never felt/seen a bump even! But not, we have a two year molar poking through!! And those suckers take a while to surface all the way. I’m truly really relieved to have found it, though. To know for sure why he’s struggling, and that there are ways I can actually help! I didn’t want him to just be in a stage of fighting with me about his high chair, or getting picky with his food, but now that I know he’s been in pain, and not just testing our new behaviours, we can keep on moving 🙂

YAY, ROWAN, FOR POPPING A TOOTH!!!! Congrats on almost being two! I can’t believe thats actually coming up, my goodness…

I don’t have a big, impressive idea to talk about today. Really, it would be out of character if I did. I don’t usually. But I have a small handful of things to throw out there, all unrelated to each other, and not a single one can make up a full post. So, a grab bag todays post will be!

Yesterday’s post was about goals/resolutions for the upcoming year. While no one commented on here on on Facebook (those kinds of things are pretty vulnerable) a handful of you guys texted/pmed me later and shared them with me later on. I REALLY appreciated that! Thanks for letting me in on your private goals! I think every one I heard sounded doable and positive! Let’s check back in on them in a month or so and see where we are 🙂

Today is freezing. Like -45 kind of freezing. I’m insane enough to go out in it this evening with Kim for supper, but I’m not surfacing until its absolutely time. Its dreadful out there. Brady drove to work in his snowmobile suit. AKA his onesie. I don’t blame him. I’m looking good over here in my grey sweats and grey sweatshirt. Matching like a boss. But its necessary, because my headaches are back. Not in full force, but back enough that I booked chiro for tomorrow afternoon. Until then, I’ll eat crackers and cheese all afternoon, which I can’t seem to quite get enough of, and lay with my head on a heating pad, until further notice.

Did you guys know there is a program going that is basically  world wide recall for a group of iPhones?? Brady and I ran our serial numbers through and sure enough, our phones are part of it! So we have to make an appointment at only certain Apple authorized dealers. So where we’d normally go to a Telus location, we cannot. Being that lots and lots of people are involved with this recall, we have to make an appointment at one of these places, which are booked solidly, have our phones looked at, and then wait for them to order a new battery on our behalf. Then we’ll have to return and have our phones repaired. As I mentioned, the few places we can go are quite limited, and the only place that isn’t booked solidly is London Drugs. No offence to their employees, but I’m not having them work on my phone. I’m just not confident in it. So we’re booked for next week at Neural Net, where someone who knows their Apple stuff can help us out. Looking forward to having this over and done with, because my battery is sucking worse and worse every day.

An ironic thing to talk about on such a scattered post is the possibility of a series. What do you guys think of that? I watch a lot of YouTube, and maybe people on there have a certain day where they do/talk about a specific topic. Sometimes I get swept up in YouTube and think I make videos rather than what I’m actually doing. I’d call myself a literal YouTuber, but that would be confusing, since I’m not literally a YouTuber, but moreso one who does a similar thing, but in the format of literacy. Am I making sense? Likely not. I don’t daily vlog, but I daily blog, if thats any clearer. Anyway, I think that the series thing is really wise, because when the right series comes along, it does hook me, and I watch those videos through the series very intentionally. Does anyone care about things like that? Would you want to hear/think about anything in specific with me? No pressure on it, I just think it might be fun for readers, and also for me, because it would give me a bit of direction, and an actual plan for posts. Let me know if you like the idea of it, and what you might like it to be about 🙂

Thats it, thats all! A long enough, random enough post for you all? Its time to call it on this one. My crackers and cheese have run out, and that just wont do. Have a great rest of your day! Stay inside!!

I don’t like making official New Years solutions, and if you’ve been reading along with me for a long time, you’ll know I usually come up with a few vague goals for the year. It seems noncommittal, but it actually works really well for me. That way, if I miss a chance or if I “fail” at something or other, I haven’t screwed up some tabulated list of to-dos or let anyone down. I find that kind of thing WAY harder to come back from. So this works for me.

I have a small handful of things I’d like to work on this year. One of them, the most important one, I’ve already talked about on here. I want to try to meet the needs of others without being asked. To just see them, and if its within my grasp, to help them! This one seems like common sense, but I struggle to find the balance, to be honest. I can’t exactly drop everything and go run an errand, or visit someone, or anything else when I have kids who nap, and a kid in school, and whatever else we have going on. Yet, I can make sacrifices sometimes. Yet my family needs to come first. But should my family prevent me from helping others? It doesn’t, but I hope I’m making sense with this. As a human being, I desire to help others, as I think we all do. But I want to be more intentional with it. So, if you know anyone who is in need…..

I’ve been feeling a bit creatively stunted. I think its a natural thing, considering what our last year has been like. I really haven’t had a lot of time to be creative. I didn’t even crochet my kids toques this winter :/ I’ve always loved and anticipated that part of winter, but it just didn’t happen this year. So this year, I’d like to get back on the proverbial horse, and find a creative outlet. Whether thats more crocheting, or upping my game on the blog, or doing more with makeup, or maybe trying something entirely different, I’d like to find something to busy myself with once in a while that is out of my usual routine.

The last goal for this year is to take more ownership in Brady’s business. I technically am part owner, and I do help him pull off the quarterly reports and such, but I’m realizing how much clerical/office work he puts in per house, and its definitely a bit of a time suck. I informed him that I was ready to step up and learn all about it and start taking more responsibilities, and I’m sure you can imagine, he was happy to have me. He agreed to start teaching me what I don’t already know, and how to read the floor plans and purchase orders and get to know how the whole business goes down. I’m actually really excited about it! I can save him some time at work, and I’ll actually earn the chunk I’m on the hook for.

So those are my main goals! I have a few other in mind, but they’re smaller and less notable to really record here on the blog. I think this is a very doable year of goals for me, but they will take some dedication, motivation, and self awareness. I’m looking forward to it.

If anyone has any goals or themes in mind for 2017, feel free to share! Being that we’re a decent chunk into January already, we’ve all had time to think about it!

We tend to fall behind on household stuff on the weekends. Not always, but its not uncommon. Sometimes we spend Saturday tidying the place up, doing laundry, etc., but other Saturdays, we run errands. Now that we’re finally not as diseased as before, we were really happy to take the kids out and show them somewhere different than the walls of their own house. So needless to say, this weekend, housework got pushed back. Which is more than fine with me.

I had a really restful sleep and woke up on my own accord. I had a touch of a headache but Tylenol helped quicker than it was last week, so that was great. I knew there was a good amount of housework to get done, and I felt well enough to dive in.

As the kids were eating breakfast, I started to unpack the dishwasher. I always lay out the bottles on the island, because Dekker and Laela love assembling them. As I was dumping the pieces out onto a towel for them, Dekker asked if he could help with dishes. I told him that I was leaving out some bottles for him to do after breakfast. He agreed, but seemed a bit uncertain. I asked if he wanted to do more, and he answered with “of course I do!” I’ve been thinking about kids and chores and capabilities recently, and this is one I’ve been thinking I could ask for help with more often. So I said I’d have some jobs for him after breakfast, and he was very happy, and finished his breakfast off very quickly. He was ready. I know my kids won’t forever be chomping at the bit to have jobs around the house, so I’m going to take advantage of the times that they are to build some great habits and routines!

The last load of dishes that had run through the dishwasher had been mostly kids dishes. So I decided to leave almost the whole dishwasher for Dekker and I started scrubbing some of the stuck on stuff off of the next load of dishes. Deks did his bottles on the island and then came over to the dishwasher. I joined him and started to tell him what I thought he could do. He held up his hand at me and said “I’ve got this, mommy.” So I left him to it, and he unpacked and put away the entire dishwasher of kids dishes. I thanked him profusely and told him that he had ben so nice to offer to help me, but he wasn’t happy. “I know there is lots left to do…” he trailed off. I asked if he wanted to keep helping, and he did! I’m in no position to turn down willing help, so I trusted Dekker to help load in the glasses and ceramic dishes. I’d put in one plate and put the rest where he could reach them, and he’s stack them all up in the right place. Same with the glasses. He filled the whole top of the dishwasher on his own, and honestly, I didn’t even have to go back and sneakily move things around. He did awesome!!!

After the dishes, I headed downstairs to sort the laundry. Brady had washed a load of laundry this weekend so he had shorted everything already! I sorted the last day or two worth of what had come down the laundry chute, and then went to put in a load. Dekker stood nearby, hands on his hips, still in work mode.

When we came back upstairs, Solly was getting fussy in his jumperoo, and I said I was going to go put him down for a nap. As I took him out of his toy, He spat up a little bit. “I’m on it!” Dekker said, grabbed a wipe, and headed over to clean up Sollys little barf pile. All. On. His. Own.

Once Solly was down, I came back to the living room and Dekker was standing patiently waiting for me, with a book in hand. He asked if I would read to him, and I said of course I would. He came and sat on my lap and we read a nice long book together. It was awesome. A VERY good morning for him, and for us.

I sure love you, Dekker Thomas! Thank you for being SUCH a willing helper, and for not waiting to be asked. Its sometimes hard for mommy to know how much help to ask for, because I want you to play and have fun. Its so nice when you offer. I love hanging out with you. You’re SO special to me.

We managed to get ourselves to church this morning! And we really had no excuse not to, considering how early we were up. Solly got up for milk around 4:30 or 5:00, I don’t remember which one for sure. Being that we had a nice stretch of sleep before that, my foolish body woke up a bit too much and my anxious mind began running. I was officially up for the day. Upon discovering that I wasn’t going to sleep anymore, my loving husband embraced it and went down to the kitchen to pull out and defrost some croissants. He put a pot of coffee on and came back up to bed where we watched Big Bang Theory for the next couple of hours. It was awesome, and while I felt like I dragged a little all day, it was actually a pretty great morning.

So we went to church. It had been a while, which is obvious, being that we have been somewhat quarantined recently, but everyone seemed happy to see us and couldn’t believe how much the kids have changed since the last time we were there. For not being used to church anymore, they did pretty great! Rowan was super exhausted and didn’t quite make it, so Brady stood with him towards the end. Laela sat on the bench and read the hymnal most of the service. Solly sat with me and when he finally got a bit twitchy towards the end, I just fed him a bottle and he fell asleep. Dekker actually went down to childrens church! He was a bit hesitant, so I walked with him to the stairs and then let him go down with everyone on his own. He made a super grouchy face at me while he descended into the basement, but there were four kids from his kindergarten class down there, amidst another fifteen or so kids, so I knew he’d be well entertained. And he stayed down the entire time, totally happily! Win!

We headed out of church pretty quickly once it ended. When we do go to church, we usually end up visiting for a really long time, but we knew that Rowan was pretty finished, and Solly had just dozed through his bottle, but he was ready for a nap as well. So we headed out and drove right on over to my parents house.

After a hot dog lunch, mom and I headed to the city for a quick Value Village trip. It was 50% off for members, and I have a card there. Because they’re free. So you should all get one. Anyway, I managed to get out of there with five shirts for Brady, one for myself, and a fabulous pair of shoes for Rowan (hoping they fit him in summer!) and paying $24. Win!

We grabbed coffees and headed back to their house for a pancake supper. It was delicious, and the kids ate great. Because pancakes. Even Solly got some solid food into his belly. That kid is pro-banana, let me tell you. It was clear he had missed eating.

We packed the kids up and headed home, getting them to bed maybe 20 minutes later than usual at the max, with no argument. I think they’re tired. Its been a bigger day than Sunday usually is, since they’re out of practice with church. It was great though.

Now that the day is done, I’m starting to feel that early morning, and my headache is starting to push behind my eyes. Tylenol is in and I’m ready for a soak! Must enjoy the last few hours of the day before Monday is upon us and Brady is back to work. Its been a pretty nice weekend 🙂 I hope you guys had a good one as well.