Today felt like a really special day. Rae offered to take ALL EIGHT KIDS for the day, just to give me a day off 💜 Which was LOVELY! I went back and forth between having the laziest day I could imagine, and accomplishing a million tasks, kid-free. But when I floated an idea by Brady and he went for it, I knew we had chosen the right option. Brady took the day off from work, and we got into the island renovation!

I’m not going to show any pictures just yet 😬 Maybe that’s mean. I’m not sure. But it isn’t done yet! And it has to be done by Tuesday, because that’s when the new stovetop is being installed. So because I know the end date is soon, I think it’s best to wait. Right? I don’t actually know. It really isn’t this important, hahaha! 😂

Brady and I did break for some leftover KD and true crime for lunch. We snuggled up, old person style, dragging our recliners side by side, in the middle of the living room. We are dorks and I’m super ok with that.

We worked like crazy, had some lunch, worked some more, and then left to go pick up some supper! The place we had planned to go to was closed, which we did not expect. A crude sign was taped in the door that stated they were closed until a certain future date, and that was that. So rather, we picked up big Subway sandwiches and brought them home to eat later in our bed 🤣 which is the best place to indulge in too much food.

I picked the kids up from Rae just after we got home. Absolutely everyone was happy. There were fresh cookies in to-go containers. Babies were even bathed. It was amazing 💜 Thank you, Rae. There is NO WAY we could’ve gotten this much done without your kind offer.

Honourable mention goes out to the lovely man from our church who offered to come haul away our old island pieces and stove top. That saved us so much time and energy!

Everyone is down, and Brady and I are ready for supper! Off to bed we go! Lol!

Boy it feels like a weekend.

Sleep well, friends 💜

Today I began to disassemble the old island in anticipation of installing the newwwww one!! I unpacked the whole thing this morning and stacked it up on the camp table nearby. It made a huge mess, but such is renovations, I suppose!

This is the progress so far.

Before:

and now!

I also have gone inside the cabinets and tried to unscrew as much of the island top as I can find. However, the old stove top is now getting in my way. I can’t take the island top off because I can’t remove the stove top. Its a gas stove, so I can’t just casually unplug it. I have to leave some doors on to protect the lines from the babies, and I have to leave a shelf in so they can’t climb in from the other side. I SO wish I could get that thing out of my way so I could keep disassembling it but it appears I am at a standstill.

I suppose I will wait for the evening when Brady can do some of the dirty work. Le sigh.

I’m antsy. Somehow it just feels like the new island will bring a whole new level of “home” to our home. I can’t explain it, but I’m so stoked.

#biggerandbetterthanbitner

I haven’t baked in a little bit, so the last couple of days, the kids have been scraping together granola bars, yogurt, and oranges for breakfast. There really could be worse fates. But today found us out of almost all of the above. We made it work, but it was clear we needed something else. I started to put together a grocery order but decided since I’m not a total dick, I wouldn’t put it in today. My van wouldn’t even start. I couldn’t ask someone to bring me groceries. I pep talked the kids about pitching in, and everyone was gung ho to be helpful in the kitchen or with the babies, and we got into the morning!

Together, the kids and I baked our usual batch of twelve dozen muffins! It guts me just a little bit that there is no muffin emoji, because I desperately want to line up 144 of them to prove my point. But alas. I cannot.

This will have to do.

Two dozen were packed up for someone else, and the rest went into bags for breakfasts for us! We go through at least 13 muffins each day. Six children eat two for breakfast, and one child eats one. One child doesn’t eat, lol! Thats all assuming Brady and I don’t have any, which we often don’t. So they loaded up in bags of 13 and into the freezer they went!

Dekker and Rowan were my bakers. Laela did dishes. Solly and Wavy hung with the babies. And it all got done! I’m really grateful for my crew 💜 They have reached ages where they are all quite helpful at times, and today that really shone.

Thank you Lord for my beautiful children, and also for providing for us to be able to have yummy breakfasts.

Today was Family Day, which means Brady is off work and the kids are off school. In order to actually get everyone to spend time together, I made a “no reading” rule right off the bat. I know, weird, right? But otherwise everyone just lays on couches or beds and stares their way books they’ve read over and over again. Its mindless and ridiculous, and some days, it puts them into that zombie mode like after people watch tv. You know the mode. So today – no reading.

So everyone found other things to do. Wavy and Laela holed up downstairs, listened to the Wicked soundtrack through the Echo, and danced and acted their way through each number, reliving the movie. Solly worked hard and accomplished his biggest puzzle ever!

He was so sure he wouldn’t get through all 220 pieces, and his ADHD fought hard, but he prevailed! He was SO proud of himself, and talked about it all day long. He also did a lot of helping with the babies. Sol is SO good with the babies!

Rowan went from puzzles to lego and back again, and eventually he came and helped Dekker and I with cabinet building!! We began the process of assembling our new island today! Ack! I can’t wait for that project to get going! I can’t wait for my new stovetop! But, before the stove comes the cabinets, and we got the boxes and drawers built today.

Meanwhile, Brady managed the babies, did a bunch of laundry, and even saved me from a cold room disaster in the basement.

We had the pleasure of seeing Rae and one of her daughters this afternoon as well, who popped by to see my beautiful face our newest addition. It was good to share air again 💜 Its been a while.

Everyone kept busy, and spent time with others. My mom brought us sloppy joes for supper, which was a total hit, and it was really nice to not only spend that time together, but also to not have to make it 😅

It was a huge day. This week holds some important stuff, and more things always come up. Thank you Lord for providing us with jobs to do, a house to keep, food to eat, children to teach and enjoy, games to play, and so many beautiful people to love 💜 We are richly blessed.

As many of you know, this coming week is a no school kind of week! February break. Winter break. Reading week. Call it what you will. But, its an “everyone is home every single day” kind of week! And while I LOVE my children, it has certainly been a long cold stretch around here, and I’ll admit to having some apprehension surrounding being home all together day after day 😬

But! I have some ideas, and I think it’s going to be ok. There are ways to keep busy and be a little bit less in each other’s faces. It’s really the idle time that kills ya, you know? Anyway.

This weekend hasn’t been our smoothest, and Brady and I felt grossly unmotivated to go to church. And it was also just brutally cold, so we were even less inclined to leave the house. But we decided to go after all, because not only do we really want to nurture the routine during the months outside of camping season, but also for the change of scenery.

And it was good that we went. It was nice to get out to chat with others and listen to a service. We’re always a little bit of a sideshow getting out of the church, today especially with two baby bucket seats. But never in a rude way. I never feel like watched watched. It’s always quite loving.

We got home, had sandwiches and snackies, and took a load off for the afternoon. The babies all napped well at the same time. I finished a puzzle.

…and started another.

It was really relaxed. It wound down fairly well, also. But with that said, I am ready to tuck in the rest of the hooligans and go tuck myself into bed. I’m looking forward to eating a snack and watching a bit more of the new OJ Simpson docuseries.

Sleep well, all, and enjoy your family days tomorrow, however they look 💜

We had the opportunity to welcome some of LDs family into our home for the morning! It was SO fun and a truly special time together 💜 I hope we have many more visits like this morning. I want to nurture the heck out of those relationships. It was a beautiful morning!

The afternoon was far more challenging, and personally, I struggled pretty hard for the rest of the day. Lots of factors played into it. I was discouraged about some home reno stuff not working out well. I was upset about some strain between a kid and I. Everything was messy. I miss my Morsel. It’s just. Hard times.

I had a soak. I crocheted a little bit in my room, away from everyone. Brady started supper, and we watched some Ninja Warrior while we ate. I puzzled.

I got to have a nice snuggle with Dekker before bed. I hope he never stops wanting me to tuck him in 💜 I LOVE that.

Finally, all the kids are down for the night. My ponytail is out and my head is pounding. Brady is making us a little treat while I type this out. It has been quite a day, and I am tired, but I am grateful for many things. The morning full of action and games. Great leftovers at lunch. The ability to buy new things to improve our home. Hot baths with yummy smells. Crocheting. Netflix. Puzzles. Bacon and eggs. Warm beds. Dessert. The promise of God’s love each and every day. Not necessarily in that order…

Going to take some Tylenol to help take the edge off of this headache, and do some letting down.

Goodnight, all 💜

Its Valentine’s Day. I love my people. I’ve been treated to special things and intentional time with my valentines. My husband. My mom. My best friend. My five school aged children shared some of their valentine treats with me after school. I am SO fortunate that my lovely people around me want me to feel loved and treated and special 💜

I will admit that I’m missing my Morsel. My valentine that doesn’t live here anymore. My heart is missing that dear child. But, I imagine the Morsel is being well loved elsewhere, so I will continue to pray and trust God, who loves all of the little children even more than I do!

I am incredibly grateful for all of my people, near and far. Thank you, Lord, for showering our family in love. It is not lost on me how fortunate we are.

Miss Laela has suggested I blog about her art today, so here I am, armed with snapshots of her latest sketchbook masterpieces, of which she is very proud!

We’ll start with her least favorite, because its fun to lead up to the best!

The hair. She would like you to know she has not completed it just yet.

The hair is the most recent detail she’s been working on. I, personally, think its lovely and a heck of a lot better than I could do!

Next is facial features! In order of Laela’s favorites, she says nose, eye, mouth, ear.

She definitely doesn’t see the value in the ear the way I do. Its SO detailed and well shaded! Well done, Lala!!

Lastly are the hand drawings. The first is her favorite one.

I remember drawing my hand in school as well. It was hard. I hated the shape of my thumb 🤣 of all stupid things. But I do remember feeling like I had accomplished something good when it was over. Laela feels much the same. She is REALLY proud of these drawings.

Great job, Lala! I love your artsy fartsy side! Keep it coming, girly!! 💜

It’s already feeling more normal to have a little baby in the house again. I haven’t talked about their ages on the blog, but if you’ve followed long enough, its not hard to figure out at least somewhat. We are indeed down a toddler, and we have gained an infant.

I spent a good chunk of today diapering three apparently very well hydrated children, and rocking one particularly tired baby in my cozy (albeit ugly) chair. When a new baby joins, it feels like all bets are off, so the moment that baby is settled in its bed, or somewhere outside of my arms, I eat a meal. It doesn’t even matter what time to day it is. No schedule. No real routine. These first days are just about meeting needs, settling in, and acclimating everyone to the change at hand.

Today, baby napped hard for a good long while, and once that nap was over and baby was retrieved, they instantly fell back to sleep all tucked into me. It was SUCH a good cozy snuggle but finally, something had to give. Kids were home, and I needed to start making supper. I roped Dekker into the living room, and had him snuggle the baby in my chair 💜 It was a beautiful little scene, and the two rocked together while I cooked up the sausage, mixed up some sweet and sour sauce, got rice in the cooker, and broccoli and cauliflower prepped for the oven. *whispers* and then I let it simmer a little without telling Dekker so the snuggle would go a little longer. It was way too nice to break it off too fast!

The evening got a little crazy. The other two – the Spoonful and LD – share a room these days, which is working quite well but both are excited to share, so naturally, sleeps are shorter. Bother were WIPED. And LOUD. Meaning the new babe couldn’t find any peaceful rest. Alas, all three are tucked away now, and everyone can take a deep breath again. Last night was such a good night, I hope tonight can be a repeat! 🤞

I ache for the Morsel. It doesn’t wear off. I don’t think it will. But that doesn’t mean we don’t have space to love more children. So, friends, as of yesterday afternoon, our numbers are back up to ten 🙌

Our tenth family member…

Our eighth child…

Our third baby.

Three diaper sizes.

Three different milks.

Three different sizes of clothing.

Three different demeanours.

I love the stage of finding our feet with a new one. Figuring out their details. And just soaking in as many cuddles as possible to make the transition into our home easier.

Wish us luck for night number two ✌️ Last night was quite typical for a young baby, but the evening has been pretty sleep-heavy, so hopefully the night still stands a chance!

Cute internet-friendly nickname still pending…