See what I did there? Christmas at Kinasao was on Saturday, and I haven’t shared too terribly much! So here I am to share what I can 💜

I will say here, however, that things are SO different on the blog now that we foster, because there is SO MUCH I can’t say, and SO MANY PICTURES I can’t post. Its hard. Its like I’m hiding a huge part of our life now, which is not my usual. We’re quite open in real life, and I’m happy to talk to anyone in person about fostering! But the blog is just too public for it. So. There are very few pictures I can post, and I know you understand why.

On to the blog!

We got there late, which was hard. I had maybe twentyish minutes to set up for a 5.5 hour long marketplace, and the entire place was PACKED already. The only thing that worked about being late was the fact that our Dahlsjos were already there and ready to go, so they HELPED! HUGE! It was SO awesome. I had brainstormed the setup already, so it came together pretty fast. I’d show you a picture, but there was a baby on my lap so 🤷🏼‍♀️

I sat and chatted and made connections and caught up with people for hours and hours. Brady managed the littles who needed managing while many took off independently. Brady popped in from time to time and brought me soup and a bun, or coffee, or a visit. At one point, I had two sleeping babies in carseats under my table. It was very cute.

Meanwhile, the camp had let us use a nearby cabin for the day, so Brady was back and forth from there, napping kids, providing snacks and attention, and he even got to visit with Stacy for a bit in the daytime! That family is a well oiled machine, let me tell you! 💜

The market closed at 4:30 and supper was at 5:00! I was in the group who promised I could get my stuff packed up and moved out quick, and that we did, thanks to my children, and also Dahlsjos. And even our friend, Scott, hauled a big box. Supper was set up within five minutes of their goal, and we got to sit with our people and enjoy a really yummy meal of mashed potatoes, chicken cordon bleu, hot veggies, salad, and rolls, followed by some crazy indulgent peppermint bark brownies.

Supper finished and many of us made our way to the chilly chapel for a carol sing, some scripture reading, and candle lighting. Again, I’d show you pictures, but again, there was a baby on my lap.

From there was the twinkle tour. We were guided through the camp, and took time to really enjoy and soak up all the beautiful lights that were set up. The VAST majority of the camp was decorated by our dear Dahlsjos, and they positively crushed it. No photo can show the entirety of their efforts, but you’ll have to take my word for it. It was SO special, and SO much effort put in by incredibly busy people 💜

This is our site. Its hard to see details, but there is a lit tree on top of our golf cart, and the kayaks are wrapped in lights as well.

This was our Dahlsjos site.

Without question, they killed it. Their site was the most fun, and aaaaall the other work absolutely spoke for itself. What a blessing they are to the camp.

Aaaaand after ALL of this, we had to drive home 😅 It was quite late, and became a very quiet drive home. But it was really nice. Brady and I got coffee in PA, which we normally wouldn’t do that late, but staying awake was imperative for the drive, obviously.

We had SUCH a lovely day.
We had SUCH a lovely drive.
We are SO fortunate to have such a beautiful experience and opportunity to be at Kinasao.

Thank you Lord for our day, and for our people, and for our spot at camp 💜

It was a really nice home day. It started a bit bumpy, with everyone running on less sleep, but we kept things slow moving and didn’t accomplish a whole heck of a lot. My mom came over. We continued to keep it light and simple. These days are just tired days, thanks to all the activity, and the persistently grey weather. But there are things that are nice about chilly, grey days.

Its not all bad 💜

Tomorrow begins a fresh week. It holds ballet, youth events, a training event, two big appointments, and a Christmas party. Among a handful of other things on the docket. Because 🤷🏼‍♀️ who slows down?? Not us!!

Happy Sunday, all! Enjoy your evening before reality shows up tomorrow!

Happy birthday, Jaxon!!! 🎂 We love you!!

*whispers*

We’re home. We’re tired, but it was a beautiful day 💜 I sat at the marketplace for a few hours, chatted, sold, crocheted, and occasionally was visited by my children. At one point, I had two sleeping babies under my table. It was awesome 😍

We ate good food. We visited with friends, both from summer and from nearby neighbourhoods. We drove around our campground and enjoyed bright beautiful Christmas light displays. We drove home with good music and coffee. I hope the campground does this every year. I LOVE Christmas at camp.

Campsmas.

I am so very tired after such a long, albeit beautiful, day.

Once my last little lingerer goes to bed, I will crash hard. Tomorrow will have to be free of church, and that is ok. I’m looking forward to sleeping in 💜

Tomorrow is a Christmas event at Kinasao, and I am SO excited!! I’m excited to see our campsite again. To go to the water. To hopefully see some campground people we’ve already been missing. For sure getting some time in with the Dahlsjos, but that goes without saying!

I am nervous, however, for my first ever marketplace table! Eek! And while I’m excited about that new opportunity as well, I’m somewhat apprehensive. Its almost like my life has been NUTS since I committed to this project 😅 But! Here we are! Or here we’re gonna be! And I’m here for it! Or, there for it… You get it. Anyway. Here’s the part of my spread I’m the most excited about!!

Cute little wrappy headbands, on reindeer heads, because they just makes them cuter. Even cuter on a real head, though. Adults and children alike!

Now we just really hope some of them sell 😬 Barf. Thats the part that makes me so nervous. If I have to bring all this stuff home. Sooooo wish me luck!

Tomorrow will be a beautiful day 💜 I’m so grateful to get one more day at camp before we truly call it for the year!

Happy weekend, friends!

Well. I grumbled enough on here about my sad broken mixing bowl that a friend in town sold me hers for half the price of a new one 😅 Thank you, Heather!!! The baking can commence once again! And I do mean muffins that are NOT double branned. Because those may or may not be poop machines. I’m afraid to test them. For now, I just celebrate the bowl!!

I still hope to upgrade my mixer at some point. I found a couple on Facebook Marketplace that intrigued me, but each one had only a 4 qt bowl, which is significantly smaller than what I already have. Ah well. The hunt is on, but it feels less urgent now that I have my big bowl back!

Its possible tomorrow is already the day for that. Can’t ever have too many baked goods, right??

It seems like every day holds appointments recently! And by recently, I mean always 😅 And actually, today is no different. Rowan has an eye appointment today. But its after school, so I have the actual daytime part of the day at home!! As in 🙌 I’m wearing sweats. Guys. I don’t wear sweats as often as I used to. Its so different, but I kind of love the hustle and bustle. Not mad at wearing jeans more often.

So while I’m HOME today, I still have things to do. Nothing too crazy, but there are always things to do.

I think I will order a replacement bowl for my mixer today.

I’d like to wrap some more of the presents that have made their way to my front step this week.

I need to bathe a baby.

I want to do something with all of the strawberries that I bought before they go bad. I think I’ll dehydrate some! They’re yummy to eat just like that, right?

And if those things are done, and babies are napping, I’d like to work more on some of the crocheting I NEED to have done for Saturday. We’ll see how far I get!! Wish me luck!

*

As I typed this out, my daughter stole the socks off my feet for her own feet.

Little goof.

Let’s take a moment of silence for my baking schedule…

*sigh*

My big glass bowl that clicks onto my mixer broke yesterday. And it SUCKS. Now that I bake in big batches very regularly, this really cramps my style. I bake a batch of muffins that produces six dozen muffins at a time. I need that big bowl. I bake four large loaves of banana bread at a time. I need that big bowl.

Except its broken.

Yesterday afternoon, I baked a batch of muffins in my smaller stainless steel bowl. I had to half it and make two small batches. Not only did way more flour fly out of the smaller bowl, but I also absentmindedly only halfed some of the ingredients 😳 I did not half the bran. So if you need to super poop, you know who to call…

I know. I will likely just buy a new bowl. I use it SO often. But a new bowl is around $70. Barf. Its ok, I can justify it for an item like this. The only hangup is that I’d really like to upgrade my mixer! So I’d rather not buy accessories for something I’d love to change before too long.

Ah well. As it stands, I know I just need to buy the bowl. I just wanted to gripe for a little bit first. I’m done now. Carry on. The pity party is over.

Yesterday started really hard and no one felt particularly well, so we stayed home from church, even though every last one of us wanted to go. Instead, I put everyone to work with me for the morning, and we continued catching the house up from the days we spent falling behind. Kids bathed. Laundry washed. The house was tidied. Wrapped gifts were moved up to our closet. Booked were rearranged in the shelves so the mobile morsel doesn’t eat the paper ones. Garbage went out. Grocery list was made. There was a lot going on!

Right before supper, Laela and I booted it quickly to the city for formula. Did you know the cost went up like CRAZY this last month?!?! The kind we get for our morsel went from $27 last month to $44. No joke. We held off buying it for a bit, in case it was going to slip back down, but alas, it left me running to Walmart dropping $200 on less than a months worth of milk :/ Gag me. And then, while we were in the city, I brought her with me for a one item stop at Wholesale Club. We came out of there with 2000 muffin cups for dirt cheap. Heyooo!

We drove home with our windows open, blasting the soundtrack to some movies Laela loves. It was fun, and really nice to be together.

We got home to a peaceful house. Babies were sleeping, and Brady had continued on with the supper plan I had made. I jumped back in and we finished it up together.

Today brought in the new school week, but having worked Saturday, Brady had today off. So we got our day organized over coffee, and once everyone was awake for the day, we headed out to Costco as a group of five. Brady and I, Wavy, the morsel, and the spoonful.

It was a HUGE shop. SO much money. BIG boxes. TWO car seats. It wasn’t gentle, but it was very cute.

Several hundred dollars later, we loaded up into the van, and headed to PBR, just to scout. I came out of there with two flats of strawberries for $48, and they all look GREAT! So that was fun, too!

Still to do today is picking up some prescriptions and some parcels at the post office, washing up the strawberries, bathing babies, baking a batch of muffins, and working more on some crocheting I committed to doing for the weekend ahead. Tomorrow would be the day for a few of those things, but alas, there are appointments to attend, on Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday! Luckily they’re not all day things, so I’ll still be able to get by. But goodness. The days are full, but my heart is well. To everyone who cared about the emotional whirlwind this weekend, I appreciate you 💜 I do feel content. We will keep moving forward.

Cher bailed me out of a few days of blogging, which I greatly appreciated. Nothing scary or bad went down, but we had a pretty new experience, and without even asking for it, Cher fulfilled a need of mine. What a huge relief to not have to think about this before bed! So. I apologize. And I’m back. 💜

This last week, we accepted a third placement that was out of our age range. It was an emergency situation, where the child had nowhere else to go, and also happened to be a sibling to one of our other placements. So we said yes. To one night. We knew full well that it could extend into a longer stay, but I made it clear on the phone that, in order to take this placement, we would be displacing one of our children from their room. Our child who really needs his own space. Rowan agreed to a night or two out of his space, and we played up the “sleepover” aspect for bunking with the girls for a couple of days.

That was Tuesday.

On Friday, that child left. I had SUCH a mix of emotions. I felt guilty for not agreeing to keep them longer. Guilty for building up that trust, only to be another emergency placement where they couldn’t stay. I felt sad letting a sad child go somewhere that is likely less attentive. Worried about the same. And I felt some relief, knowing I could get caught back up on life things again. And that relief made me feel guilty again. It was not a fun cycle.

The next day, Brady had to work. Rae took my five children for the day, I kept the babies, and I spent the day at home. As I sorted through my complicated griefy feelings, I worked. Baked. Wrapped Christmas presents.

Meanwhile I fed babies, changed diapers, and played with them on the floor. I watched some YouTube and listened to some music. I spent the day sorting out the house, and my heart and brain.

By the evening, I had found some real comfort, all glory to God.

I feel peace about our choice to accept that placement, even though the child was out of our requested age range.

I feel peace about our choice to let them move on, and get our house back in order, and Rowan back in his room.

I feel peace about how the entire transition went down. This child spent a couple of hours playing outside with Cher, and then had a yummy snack at the table. Oranges. Their favorite thing food and colour. We took selfies on the stairs while we waited for the worker to arrive. And once the car seat was nicely secured, we hugged, and I prayed.

It went well. As ugly as the whole process is and was, I have no regrets. And I learned a lot.

I am SO appreciative of our people who stand alongside us as we muddle our way through the messy stuff that is foster care.

I want to be clear that I know that it is NOT about how I feel. Guilty. Worried. Sad. Gross. Thats all true, but I know that the emotions of the children in care are WAY higher up on that list, and they are suffering harder than the rest of us in this. This beautiful little person is not in this position because of their own doing. It is not their fault. Yet they are paying quite the price 💔

Man. These things are not gentle. Thank you for standing beside us, friends.

Cher here

Thank you for tolerating my posts this week. You’ve probably guessed by now that the Borns have gone through a busy patch! But they’re all thriving and wonderful so don’t worry your little faces! 

Now for the Canadian Complainian part…

Where is the snow?! Does anyone know?

Are there any weather experts who have a good hunch? 

Since we had an early spring this year, there was a rumor that snow would come early 🙄

And I know we hate ice here, and the -7837 degree weather, but I need my fat flakes, ya know? I need my snow day; my white out; my polka dot sky if you will.

I can’t remember a time when I could totally go cut the grass after November 17th. Nope.

That’s that for now!

Just an insider for ya 😏

Take care!

Until next time 

Cher