I decided to do a photo post today, since I’ve been a slacker with putting pictures on my laptop for a while now, and its time to catch you guys up! Especially these last couple of days, we’ve had some good outdoorsy pictures that need to be shared. Other than that, our days have been really relaxed with not tons to report. We had ham today. It was delicious. With corn on the cob from the garden, once again. But thats really it for news, haha! So, for pictures! This post will be late because, as often happens when I slack and do long photo posts, the pictures take forever to load. I digress.

Behold the gorgeous Dekker Thomas in the waiting room at his ophthalmologists. Cool as a cucumber.

And the ever-beautiful Laela Hazel, munching on fresh garden produce. Or being a snowman. However you want to look at it.

All nice and fresh and clean!!! Sooo thankful Brady was willing to bathe them both. Dekker’s tolerance for baths is slowing increasing, and he is mostly upset if Laela cries. But if he kicks around and scares her, he notices, stops, and apologizes to her. He’s learning!!

Baseball stuff!!!!! (Anyone having a “Liar Liar” moment with me?)

Wagon rides are right up there with baseball.

Sugar pie honey bun, as photogenic as ever.

Who knew a cape could be made into a dress?!?! Dekker did!

Dekker and Grandma hanging out in the garden

Rocking the double stroller. Dekker got out and ran a bit too, but he likes to ride. This was Laela’s first time riding forward facing, having always been rear facing in her bucket seat. She LOVED this, and squealed and cooed and giggled throughout the entire walk. It was super adorable.

This girl doesn’t have to be smiling huge to be stunning. She just shocks me.

My big strong helper, working hard to push his sister in the stroller (off the road)

Thats the end for today! I do wish Dekker was a bit more cooperative with posing for pictures but alas, he is not. But he’s still the same beautiful little boy he’s always been, just getting older and more busy as time moves on. I adore these kids. They are completely unbelievable. I can’t believe there will soon be a third amazing child given to us to cherish and drool over. How blessed are we?!?!

I know I said I was going to do it the other day, but today, I finally got to making beef stew. I put it in this morning. It consisted of potatoes and carrots from our garden, plus canned corn and some fresh mushrooms from the grocery store. It stunk our house up in the best possible way all day long. Loved it!

Elvira and I spent the better part of the day in with the kids. We kept a low profile and just visited and played and snacked and enjoyed the quiet. When the littles went down for a rest in the afternoon, she went to visit with her sister who lives nearby. She arrived in time to help me make biscuits and for Brady to get home so we could all eat together. Dekker fought his supper hard for the first time in a while, but we all came out of it alive and had a good evening. Our upstairs heated up incredibly towards the end of the day so we spent some time downstairs in the cooler temperatures.

Being that we’re all feeling like old farts, we’re already separated for the night! We have a bath running and I believe Elvira is calling her hubby to check in on him. Time for some dessert and Netflix before bedtime!

Today was birthday party day! And by “birthday party day” I mean Elvira brought presents and we all got some! The highlight was Dekkers new baseball bat, ball, and glove. He dragged it all over the house, impatiently waiting for the rest of us to finish opening our presents before we could all get dressed and go outside to play. I have some beautiful pictures from today but they’re not on the laptop yet and frankly, I just don’t want to do it right now, so we’ll do pictures another day. But Dekker raced around the yard playing with baseball with a little bit of trucks mixed in, and Laela sat on the deck in her puffy vest and chewed on her shoe laces pretty much the entire time. Both were pretty adorable. We went in after a bit and had some lunch and eventually the kids went down for a nap. The rest of us got drinks and sat downstairs for a visit while the kids slept.

I was going to make a delicious baked creamy spaghetti for supper but we flip flopped last minute and had baked talapia and corn on the cob instead. Fresh, from our very own garden corn on the cob! And it was delicious. As in comparable to farmers market corn. Yum!!! So that worked out well, and we spent the rest of the evening in the living room, playing guitar, singing with Dekker, and watching Laela show off for us. She is such a crowd pleaser, and will madly shake her head while we all laugh at her until she physically falls over. Its adorable, and she’s such a clutz, and we just love her to bits. What a clown.

After the kids hit the sack, we pulled out a cherry cream cheese cake that I made on saturday and had dessert and coffee in the living room. It was quiet and dim, and felt really cozy, in my opinion anyway. Hopefully we can all be comfy cozy for a couple of days. Well, not Brady. He goes back to work tomorrow, which feels insane and unfair. I swear, today was Saturday. But it wasn’t, and Monday is looming. But Elvira and I will have some good solid relaxing time with the kids, and not do a whole heck of a lot. I love restful days, as I’ve been feeling overwhelmed recently, and need a bit of downtime.

Sleep deep, everyone. Stay warm!

Some of you may have seen my morose Facebook status earlier about my husband working this morning. I know, I’m incredibly spoiled to be in a situation where, more often than not, Brady works Monday to Friday, home for supper, every week. Not everyone is so lucky. But it was sad this morning, and even the kids knew! I didn’t think Dekker could differentiate between days of the week, and I’m still not convinced he can, but he made so many comments about liking daddy, and having fun playing with daddy, and wanting to see daddy soon. He knew. When Brady did arrive home around noon, Dekker threw out a big “Hi daddy!!!” but Laela surprised us all by put her head down and making a beeline for him! She was so focused that she almost crawled right through his legs. Brady caught her and picked her up before she went too far, but it was adorable to see how much she missed him. What a good daddy he must be.

Bradys mom was making the drive out today, so once lunch was over, we got on the house. We never go too crazy with cleaning, as I personally feel phoney when I do that kind of thing. My house is lived in. There are toys and dust and Cheerios. But you’re more than welcome to it! So some tidying and cleaning was done, but nothing crazy. We definitely took a load off while the kids napped, and watched a bit of tv in bed.

Once the kids woke up, we had supper and then baked a bit before bedtime. Dekker loved standing on a chair and being part of the process. It wasn’t really a good recipe for him to help with, unfortunately. No dough to play with or anything, but we still talked about each step and he played with the dishes that Brady was washing, and then rewashing, and then rewashing. But it was fun. Laela made her way all around the house, hanging out in the kitchen, going to her room, our room, and settled into the living room, playing toys on her own. It was pretty awesome and felt comfy and homey.

Elvira arrived shortly after the kids were down for the night. We had a bit of a visit, but we were all bushed and ready for bed. Since we’re obviously creatures of habit, Brady and I are running a tub before we call it a night, but tomorrow will be a great, super chill, relaxed day. I’m really looking forward to a jammie day for everyone, with the smell of slow cooking stew all through the house. I guess I can adapt to this fall weather…

Today is not the day for blogging. For really no reason at all, I’m feeling incredibly overwhelmed today. I haven’t done anything crazy at all, and as I type this, I’m laying in bed. I’ve never been one to “nap while the kids nap,” as everyone claims is the golden rule. I’ve already replied to that with “If I nap during the day, I don’t sleep at night.” This is very true, but as I’ve changed the dreaded word “NAP” in our house to “rest,” I’ve discovered that is exactly what I need to do. So when the kids rest, I rest. And its amazing. I joked to my doctor that I was laying down when I know I should be getting stuff done and she shut me down hard on that. She agreed that if I can get both to sleep at once, I need to take advantage of that downtime and put my feet up.

So I am. And as I am, I’m listing pages upon pages of things I have to do. Things I could very well be doing right now, but that I’m most definitely not doing now. So much to do over the next few weeks. Besides just getting my house in order, I never completed the massive purge we started a few months ago. We need to harvest our garden and till it in preparation for the cold. We wanted to paint before it was too cold to open the windows!! I think that idea is a lost cause :/ I haven’t even booked my 20 week ultrasound and I’m just about 16 weeks!! Could I leave anything else more to the last minute?? I want to cancel our home phone, pull out money for our weekly savings this week, buy Laela new jeans that aren’t flood pants, activate my new credit card, put away the last bundle of clothes that the kids outgrew, apply for the kids SIN cards, and I dunno, about a hundred other things. Sigh. Writing this post is not helping.

So. I have a beautiful new planner that I’m going to do my best to try and start scheduling some stuff into. I mean, I know if I weren’t so scattered, I could accomplish most of that last paragraph in one day. But I know I won’t. So I need to space it out, and do something small more often, rather than a bunch of stuff at once. Shoot. Should have bought a pretty pen for my planner.

Thats all I’ll whine about today. In other, more positive news, my back probably feels better than it has in a while! And do you know what I think has helped? Having to be out and about the last two days, running to appointments and whatnot. Turns out being active might be the answer, even though my body is begging me to relax. Who wins this one? Bum or baby?

I had a prenatal appointment today. It hasn’t been that long, since I went in a couple of weeks ago after my faint. Unfortunately, it was the day after that where I fell down the stairs. In going in today, I was curious what she’d say about that, among other things.

We got to the city unnaturally early, so we drove through the one Starbucks drive-thru and Dekker and I had a very special date. He got an apple juice, I got a pumpkin spice latte, and we each got a big cookie. He waited patiently for me to drive us to the doctors office before I pulled him out of his car seat and gave him his treat. I called it a cookie date, and he loved it. We took pictures and even shared some tastes of cookie with Laela. We waited and snacked until Brady showed up, and then went in.

My doctor ran about a half hour behind today, but that was fine. Dekker was pretty adamant that he didn’t want to go to the doctors office today. He had said the same thing yesterday, yet he told us many times yesterday and today “Dekker having fun at Dr Wubabs office.” So I was hoping he’d be ok with today. Dr. Guselle running a bit behind gave him time to acclimate. Laela was happy there, as usual, drumming on the step stool. When she did finally come into the room, we told her about my fall, and she told me what I already knew. Appropriate pain meds, ice, and suffering. The end. As I suspected. Not a huge deal. She’s fine with me seeing my chiropractor, so I’ll continue on that route and hope everything heals up soon. Other than that, I was pretty question-free. My blood pressure was suuuper low again, but my normal just seems to be around 90/60, so I guess its nothing to be shocked about anymore.

We heard the heartbeat of our incredibly elusive baby once again. It swam like crazy and avoided the doppler like the plague, but we got a couple of different readings that were both good and strong, so we’ll take them happily. She made a joke about getting two readings and saying we already had a scan that said it was just one baby, so not to worry. I told her I had two girlfriends who didn’t find out about their twin pregnancies until past twenty weeks, and she was a bit baffled by that. She assured me that was quite unheard of, and I assured her that I wasn’t choked either way 🙂 BUT that I figured I’d probably be quite a bit bigger already if I were carrying two! Pretty sure I’m not, but I’d definitely take two if they were offered to me!

We’ve been home for a while, getting the kids lunch and taking a load off. Laela is finally sleeping but Dekker is squirming around in his bed. I want to go in and tell him to stay quiet, but I fear waking the finally sleeping baby girl! I guess I’ll just hope for the best! They’re in bed, I’m in bed, and can’t complain.

Yay for day blogging!

I went into today really anxious about Dekker’s eye appointment. Not because I was expecting bad results, but because we’ve sort of been giving Dekker a break from all the things that scared him, including outings. He hasn’t had to go very far for a while, and he’s loved it. I know there is a time and place, but I feel like constantly taking him out was doing more harm than good, so we made the decision to give him an extended break from crowds as best as we could. Dekker hasn’t run errands or entered stores for probably a couple of months. But today was the hospital, where he would have to be amongst lots of kids in a small space, and have to follow instructions and sort of be bugged with having to look through things, or just through one eye. Things like that. Just annoyed. And I was nervous.

We got to the hospital on time, and arrived to a really full waiting room, teeming with kids. It was probably fuller than we’ve ever seen it. Dekker definitely wasn’t comfortable going out and playing with the kids, but he didn’t act out at all. He just sat on a chair between Brady and I, and waited patiently. Laela started to get restless so I set her down, and she motored down the hallway. I followed her, and eventually Dekker wanted to come too. So we walked around a bit and found some toys on the walls, near the waiting room but not directly in it. I was asking him what animals were in the picture and one kid ran up, announcing that HE knew what they were. I explained to him that my little boy was a little bit younger so he didn’t know all the animals yet. The older boy didn’t give the answers away, which was nice, but he sure didn’t have a concept of personal space either! We don’t all have that. I probably didn’t as a kid either. Oh well.

When he went into orthoptics (initial testing before the doctor visit) Dekker was ticked. I asked if he would rather sit with daddy than mommy, and he said yes. He often feels safer in Bradys arms, which I totally understand. They’re much stronger than mine 🙂 The man running the tests tried to engage Dekker a few times but wasn’t met with much positivity. I apologized to him and said I always felt like we were the loudest family to come through there. His eyes widened and he assured me that this was nothing compared to a lot of kids that come through there. I was actually pretty happy to hear that. I told him that Dekker’s fear of people has escalated greatly since his surgery, and he also said that was a very common thread and absolutely made sense. It was nice to hear that we’re not the only ones. Dekker wasn’t having the tests until the orthoptist pulled out a matching game. We never play matching games with him, but he grabbed the paper and knew exactly what to do! He did awesome from there on out. The tester assured us that Dekkers eyes look really straight, and that he’s definitely using them together, which is a HUGE relief! He said he wasn’t going to push too hard for distance vision testing, since Dekker was a bit on edge, but that things are really looking good from his point of view. I think that was the first time I realized the reason why we have to go back every 4-6 months. You can really only gather so much info before a kid loses interest or gets tired. So that went surprisingly well! I was so relieved to have such a patient orthoptist working with Dekker.

We headed back to the waiting room. It was less populated at first but filled up pretty fast. I ended up speaking to a couple of women about their kids eyes. One of them had a daughter who just had the same surgery as Dekker, but she was around 12. She had it done only yesterday, and I was really curious how she was feeling, since Dekker was pretty much non-verbal at the point of his and I couldn’t really know what it was like for him. She said her daughter complained of burning and a bit of blurred vision but was doing decent in general. Moody, she said 🙂 I would be too. The other woman I spoke to was carrying this terrible guilt. Her twin daughters had glasses at 18 months, and she said that now, she can see it in pictures long before 18 months. She was at the office to get her third kid checked, just like we had with Laela. I told her I had Laela checked around 8 months, and truly, her eyes weren’t where the “average” 8 month olds should be, BUT Dr. Rubab wanted to give her eyes a bit more time to mature before putting her into glasses. I wanted her to know that even if she had seen the eyes turn in sooner, they may not have been put in glasses any sooner anyway. I just felt sad that she was carrying so much guilt. I hope she’s ok. She seemed so nervous. 

We got called into Dr. Rubabs office after maybe ten minutes in the waiting room, and once again, Dekker wasn’t thrilled. She tried to charm with a sticker, to which he replied “no thank you.” So she kind of just regarded him for a second, and said “What about a treat at the end then? Do you know this kind of treat?” and pulled out a sucker. Oh, he knows that kind. She made a deal with him and set it on the counter so he’d remember, and when all the games were done (games is sooo much better than tests!) he could have his sucker. He did sooo well! He identified the shapes across the room until they were just too small for him, and then he asked for his sucker. Brady and I told him he needed to wait until it was all done, but Dr. Rubab leaned in and said “Actually, all the games are done! You can have it now.” Brady helped him open it, and Dekker bit a huge piece of it off. He doesn’t quite understand the concept of a SUCKer, I guess. While he chewed loudly, Dr. Rubab told us that everything is holding strong. He is definitely using both eyes, they have similar/the same strength, and his vision tests were better with her than in orthoptics! She was really happy with what she saw, and thats awesome. She told us when we need to come back, and turned to pass Brady the paper to hand in at the desk, when she saw Dekker. He was desperately trying to bite the last bite of candy off the sucker stick. It was in his mouth, and he was absolutely shaking from pulling the stick so hard! Dr. Rubab just laughed at him, and it warmed my heart to see her look at him so sweetly. There are those brief moments in time when I see our doctor as a woman, and she sees her patient as a child, and it just makes me more confident that we made the right choice so many months ago. She is absolutely the right specialist for our family. 

On top of all of that, Laela was incredibly patient and calm through both appointments. She hardly made a noise, and just chilled on my lap while Dekker ran his tests from Bradys lap. Games, I mean!!! I can’t believe I hadn’t thought of that before today. Its just so much less ominous.

After the appointment, I went to the desk to make the next one and met the lovely woman behind the phone that I talked to so many times around Dekker’s surgery. Dr. Rubabs personal receptionist. At first, I had no idea. She said Dekker needed an appointment in February, and I mentioned that my daughter had an appointment in February, and asked if they could be put together. She replied, “Oh, yes. Laela, right?” I was so surprised, but completely delighted to meet her. She is SUCH a sweetheart every time we speak, and it was so nice to put a face to the name. We left down the elevator, which is Dekkers favorite part, since its glass and he can see out, and we were back at the van less than 1.5 hours from leaving it. Thats pretty quick for a hospital appointment!

Brady dropped me off at Jerilee’s and took the kids home. Us ladies hit up a nearby mall and did lunch and a bit of shopping before she drove me home. I know, I live far away and it doesn’t make a whole lot of sense, but we hadn’t seen each other in a while, and needed a date. I bought a few basic shirts for Thyme Maternity for heading into fall, and a beautiful day planner. I have way more appointments than I’ve ever had in my life right now, and I just don’t feel organized having everything on my phone. I really like paper. So I purchased a gorgeous, sparkly, 18 month, Kate Spade planner. Yes, it was wildly overpriced, but thanks to a random gift card I’ve had in my wallet for years, I hardly paid anything for it. I’m sooo excited to start getting myself organized going into the Christmas season!!

The last thing I’ll babble about before I finally cut this post off is my garden. Frost is coming. I think its tonight. My corn has been on the verge of being ready for a while now, but it always seems to be “a few days away.” I’m hoping one really light dip below zero won’t hurt it, because I think it would benefit from a bit more time. BUT, we picked four cobs tonight and gave them a go. And honestly, they were pretty great 🙂 They could be better, the kernels could still stand to be a bit bigger, but it was sooo nice to get some of our garden fresh corn into our bellies in case the rest kicks the bucket tonight. I was so thrilled to husk one and finally see yellow instead of snow white kernels. Pleeeaaase survive the night, corn cobs!!! I want to eat all of you!

Ok, the end. Sorry for the long rambling post about things that may seem unimportant to most of you. This was a pretty great day for me, considering the dread I was feeling for it yesterday. Lots of positives, both unexpected and hesitantly hoped for. Now, I am tired. Good tired.

Satisfied tired.

 

I had made plans with a friend for today, but her entire brood of children are all really sick, so we opted to reschedule. No worries. A nice quiet day at home often hits the spot! Brady has a few days off this week for the first time in a long time, so he can finally enjoy some time to lay low as well. We didn’t do much to exert ourselves at all. However, Brady and I were discussing getting out of the house for just a little bit of fun this evening. Halloween costumes, maybe some ice cream, and not a whole lot else. We haven’t had full family time in the city in a long time.

Right before the kids went down for their nap, however, Brady had a really crazy twinge in his back. So evening plans were dashed when he had to make an appointment with our chiropractor as soon as possible. The kids napped, and I rested at home while Brady was gone. He brought supper home, and we had a pretty low key evening. Its nice to be low key, but it does get old staying home day after day. I say this knowing full well that I signed up to stay home, and I couldn’t be happier with that gift I’ve been given! I don’t resent it for a second! BUT I think even the most content stay at home moms can relate to cabin fever once in a while. I have that.

Unfortunately, while Brady was out, I worked myself into quite a state worrying about tomorrow. Dekker has a check up with his eye doctor. I have no real concern that there will be any problem or decline, but I do dread taking him in, waiting, having him be tired and nervous and scared. I know that being nervous about it already won’t help the situation, but my mind runs wild sometimes, and I get scared like everyone else does once in a while. I’m trying to be civil and trusting in God, but I am human, and its hard to just release everything. I want my son to be well, and I want him to walk confidently into scary situations. But how can he if I can’t?

Enough of that. Even just writing it all out is bugging me a little bit. Tomorrow will come, and we’ll get through it. I just feel more stressed about it than usual. A POSITIVE thing about today is that I think Laela got her first little success with a sippy cup! We have one of Dekkers amongst the toys in the basement, so he can’t have drinks whenever he needs. Laela found it and was chewing on the straw, like she often does. But suddenly, it made the sound of the air breaking the seal, and she was wide eyed. The straw was wet, and she was intrigued. She tried it out several more times before she gave up and chewed her fingers instead. (I think the dreaded eye teeth will be making their appearance soon!) But I’m excited 🙂 If she picked up on the sippy cup, we could be bottle free sooner than later!! 

Time to end the blog for the day. I hope you all have a super restful evening and a deep sleep tonight! If you think of us, pray for Dekker in his appointment tomorrow morning. Specifically, for an attitude-free appointment with positive results. Eyes improving or even just maintaining would be SO wonderful!!!

Sleep deep 🙂

I’m sure you’ve all read the forecast. *sniff* Its gonna dip below zero this week. While I love the heat of summer, am also very much a part of Club Autumn, and I welcome fall happily, with leggings, boots, pumpkin, and yellow leaves. However, I feel a little bit like summer left in a hurry, and that mother nature plans to skip fall and go straight into winter. This is not something I support or appreciate. Booooooooo you, winter! If you ruin my garden, I’ll…I’ll…shake my fist at no one in particular! Blast. Lame threat, I know.

On that note, my mom came over to dig in our garden a bit today. I love garden sharing! She is going to visit family and wanted to bring them some fresh produce from the harvest. There are still lots of potatoes, which can handle a frost or two, I hear. And lots of carrots, which even benefit from a couple of freezes! However, our corn is still probably about a week away, and the cold isn’t as friendly to that. Luckily, the dip below zero is just that. -1. If the prediction is right, anyway. So I’m thinking that corn is wrapped in enough green that it likely won’t be frozen to the core in one night that barely freezes. I hope I’m right. I really, really want fresh garden corn. Anyway, all that aside, we dug up a couple of potato plants, a few feet of carrots, and probably the last cucumber that will survive. I’m pretty happy seeing it all come out looking so good!

We pulled some carrots for our family as well, but left the rest to fend for itself outside. I really hope it all lives through the upcoming cold weather. Soon, I’m sure we’ll have a blanket of white on our yard. I’m not sure if I’ve talked about it at all, but if things go according to plan, we may not ever have a garden here again! With plans to move next year, I think the biggest thing we’ll miss about this place is the incredible garden plot in our big, beautiful yard. We’ll likely never have a property like this again, and we are so thankful for the space and open air here. But that doesn’t outweigh our desire to live in a new community that we know better and feel better about raising our kids in. So. We enjoy the garden in the now 🙂 Delicious!!!!

I can really honestly say that today was probably my favorite Sunday in a really, really long time. We haven’t been to church in probably five or six weeks, and if I can be really straight up with you guys, church is hard for us. Not because of any faith changing reason, but we have to wake our sleeping kids, leave early (especially on worship leading days), and then the kids have to sit still and relatively quietly through 2+ hours of a service, meet lots of new people, and its just a big challenge. So it was our first Sunday since mid-July and we were up for leading worship. My parents bowed out and offered to take the kids, so it was just Brady and I.

On the drive to town, we told Dekker we were going to church, and he gave every possible suggestion of where we should go that wasn’t church. So that didn’t bode well at all. But he was happy to see grandma and grandpa, and the four of them played and ran around while Brady and I practiced. The girl who ran the words was right on time, and the sound guy was early! Its sooo awesome to actually have mics hooked up for the first song in practice!!! It went completely smoothly and we felt great about the set.

In church, I realized that while our baby news has been public for a few weeks now, not everyone at our church has Facebook, and probably not everyone knows! So I shared that with the church and they celebrated with us in applause and prayer. Pretty awesome to have such a big group of people so excited to see our family grow. We did the rest of our worship set after that and it went off pretty much without a hitch. It certainly wasn’t perfect, but it felt like we didn’t have any big flubs or rough patches. It was just really refreshing to have our first time back up front not be a total disaster.

Dekker was a bit restless during church but aside from a couple whiny moments, he did awesome. Laela, on the other hand, was sooo bored with being held and just wanted to be free! So I let her crawl around a bit, but her adorableness is incredibly distracting to those around her, and I felt a little bad disrupting other people during the sermon. So I played a bit with her in the back of the church, and traded off with Brady when she got too heavy in my arms. We finished off the service with a song and everyone went downstairs for lunch. I guess this Sunday was sort of a “welcome back” Sunday, post-summer. Dekker was ready to get out of there, so my parents took him home for lunch, and we kept Laela at church with us for lunch.

We sat with good friends and talked about the lumps and bumps of parenting while eating chicken, buns, salads, and ridiculously delicious cupcakes. We finally left when Laela was clear it was time to go. Not even tastes of icing would make her smile anymore.

Poor munchkin. We went to my parents to give her some milk and put her and her brother down for naps. While she napped, my mom talked on the phone with my sister for a while, and eventually joined Brady and I for some SkipBo. It lasted a while, but Laela woke up after two hours down and was still noticeably tired. But she wanted to be up! And she was sooo beautiful, even with a more solemn face on.

When Dekker woke up, we had supper of hot dogs and FRESH corn on the cob that my parents actually purchased from a nearby colony. Beautiful, sweet, yellow corn. Also, watermelon and cantaloupe. It was probably the perfect, most delicious supper I could have asked for. Being my mom, she had also recently made a dessert that I’ve really been hungry for but hadn’t yet worked up the energy to make. Rice Krispie cake with chocolate peanut butter on top. Unbelievable. There was also a banana cake, which I’m sure was delicious but I didn’t go near. Two pieces of rice krispie for me! I fed Laela a little sliver of banana cake, and Dekker had a piece too. The second he was done, he asked for more. I told him one piece was enough (really didn’t give much explanation past that point) to which he responded “Thank you, grandma, cupcake. Get down, please?” And he left the table. No fuss, no fight. Just a polite “thank you” and he excused himself. I was SO proud!

We kicked around longer than usual, just finding the day to hit the spot more than usual. But around 8:15 (already 45 minutes past the kids bedtime) Dekker announced that he was ready to go now. That is a HUGE deal, since he is normally really sad to leave. But today, he knew it was time, and that he was tired. So grandma walked out with us to help us carry some of our stuff (she may have sent the cake home with me…), she gave us all hugs and kisses, and sent us on our way. We had fun music on the drive home, and the kids are already fast asleep. But not before something hilarious happened!

While we were getting Laela all wrapped up before putting her down, Dekker asked in his quiet questioning voice “Be all wrapped up?” Sooo this happened.

It was completely endearing and adorable and I loved it. He didn’t go down swaddled or anything, but it was just a cuddly moment and they were sooo taken with each other. I love these little guys!

What a PERFECT day!!! I hope you all had some great rest, or great family time, or something awesome happen today 🙂 It just feels like that kind of day to me.