Our day was spent eating smores, sipping coffee, visiting with loved ones, sitting by the fire, and soaking up hours at the lake. The kids had made cards that they gave to Brady in the morning. They were adorable and hilarious. Made for some cute pictures too!

Laela wasn’t with us this weekend, but she celebrated Father’s Day with grandpa Tom, which was also pretty awesome and important.

I really couldn’t have asked for a better father for our children.

Over our thirteen years together, Brady has been building his arsenal of what kind of things a father should teach their kids, and what kind of father he wants to be. Its been beautiful to watch it all unfold. He has never made excuses, and that holds true still today, as he insists on pushing hard, working hands-on with and for his family, and being soft, affectionate, and loving. There is no favoritism between children or genders. Everyone is equally loved, included, and cared about. Brady will insist he is at the bottom of his list, where there are many others who view themselves as above the rest of their family.

My husband is humble and sweet. What an incredible man. Praise God.

Remember that time we got married having barely talked about having kids, and now we have five? I have no regrets 💜 I love you and the family we share. Thank you for being the ultimate father to them. You are building beauty into their generation. I am overwhelmingly grateful for you.

Today was our first day of true consistent sunny summer heat ☀️ 😎 it was GORGEOUS and sweaty and some might even say miserable, but I wouldn’t. I LOVE the heat. I would ALWAYS rather be too hot than too cold. Keep your beach umbrellas. I’ll be in my lawn chair, sweating up a storm. 

I even got my tan on today. 

I feel fresh and filthy. Content and renewed. I’m so ready for the summer days ahead. I hope the predictions are accurate in anticipating more storms than “average,” and if that happens, I’ll have been able to enjoy THIS hot day. 

I’m so grateful! It’s been beautiful 💜 Thank you Lord! 

We didn’t actually. But we’re off to the lake today with only four of the kids!! Laela is joining her grandparents at their camp spot, and she is STOKED. We couldn’t even get a hug. She yelled an unceremonious “byeeeee” into the entrance before taking off with Tom to gather her bike and booster seat. 

The rest of us left shortly thereafter, with a few more things and a few more people. I hope she has a FABULOUS time, and I hope the same for us and ours here 💜 

It’s SO warm and SO windy, and the promise of rain looms. Whatever comes, Lord, we’re here for it! 

Let’s just hope I don’t get hacked over the weekend again….. 

As you know, we’ve had a malware issue over here. We have spent hours upon hours, likely totally full days, fighting with this whole mess. It has been incredibly challenging. Even yesterday, when I could post and feel more safe, I was still getting scans that weren’t happy. This and that – old plugins, one weird file, etc. Scans even failed completely. Timing out. Being angry. More research, more digging. When we first decided to purchase a firewall program, we thought all would be well immediately.

We were mistaken, haha! Its definitely taken more work than we anticipated. But we’re here! And we understand a lot more now, and things can continue on!

I guess I’m here to say, though, if this issue continues to persist, and malware continues to infiltrate my blog through the firewall, my next move will be to call it on The Daily Hailey and move on. Which feels drastic, and I would absolutely rather not 💜 But as we approach a crazy big milestone of blogging, as well as entering a totally different stage of our life, it wouldn’t be the worst timing. But again. I’d rather not.

If the blogs stop coming again, you can assume I’m struggling with hackers yet again, and I will do what I can to get back on here and redirect you to the very probable next blog I’ll start. Because at this point, I love writing every day and I don’t plan to stop.

I appreciate how patient everyone has been with the back and forth. The late posts. The unpredictability. I hope the worst is over. Thank you for sticking it out with me 💜

• Firstly, I want to say hi! Welcome back to my blog that hopefully runs smoother now! My firewall is up and running, and I feel hopeful that at least a chunk of the craziness of hackers is behind us! And if they come back, Brady worked for hours yesterday to learn how to delete infected files, as we couldn’t install anything until everything was clean and safe. I digress. Anyway. We’re back!!

My daughters are getting closer and closer. There are crazy times of fighting and competing already, but not as often as there is love and softness. Just a couple of days ago, Wavy sneak attacked Laela with affection. It was VERY cute!!! 💜

This morning, while everyone got up for school, Wavy stayed in slumber. I snuck Laela out of her room in her fuzzy bathrobe, and closed the door quietly to keep things quiet. 

Once everyone was eating breakfast, I went upstairs to use the bathroom, and from there, I could faintly hear Wavy crying. She had clearly woken up and found herself alone. Before I could make it to her side, Laela had come to her rescue. I walked into their room to find Laela helping Wavy into fresh panties, and asking her what she wanted to wear today. I tried to step in and help, but Laela would have none of it. 

And I see why. 

She had goals 💜 She wanted to dress Wavy fancy, lol! So Wavy ended up in a dress and a cardigan, and while I don’t have a photo to prove it, after breakfast, Laela followed suit and dressed in a dress with cardigan. Because fancy, hahaha! 

Thank you Lord for these sweet kids 💜

I know I’m supposed to expect them to fight forever, but I hope they’re always close 💜

Friends, we did it. I don’t know how long this will last, but my blog was attacked by malware once again. I have worked literally ALL day, and brady has worked nonstop since he got home. 

And we are back up and running. 

Celebrate with me, friends! With three minutes to spare 😆😩🤮

#stilldailyhailey 

Today marks Brady’s final physiotherapy appointment held at the City Hospital rehab facility. It almost feels bittersweet, to be honest. His experience living at rehab really built him into an incredible family of support and love. Once you’ve been through there, you are always cared about and welcomed. I even feel that acceptance as someone who came alongside Brady while he went through his treatment. 

Today, we had a great wrap up with his outpatient physiotherapist. She was so warm and encouraging. She was excited to talk about Bradys new job, his time at the lake, his cancer treatment, and how his exercises were going. She was incredibly understanding about the drop off in some of Brady’s exercises. Now that his time is split with work, he has fewer workouts. There was no shame or guilt. Only excitement and understanding, and encouragement to check in with himself once a week or so to make sure he still can work all the right muscles. They talked about what will change with an office job and what setup he has and needs. 

When it was time to go, she very genuinely told us she had really enjoyed getting to know us. We really liked her, and could reciprocate the feelings! She is moving on to a different position, and we are moving on as well. So it felt like quite a final goodbye. 

We are fortunate to leave the hospital with good feelings all around 💜 

City Hospital rehab saw us through a lot, and we will always be so grateful for every person there. But we are thrilled to move forward, also. I’m sure we’ll still find ourselves there from time to time, but at the moment, it feels like the book has closed on that chapter. And for that – for City Hospital – we praise the Lord. 

This morning started bumpy with Waverly crying and crying. It took a while to sort out exactly why, but it was soon clear she had a pretty good dose of sun stroke from her first good full day in the hot sun yesterday. Poor dear was in rough shape, and ended up napping the morning away. 

She woke up still feeling VERY sensitive, and chilled, despite the warm weather. It was pretty clear at that point that we wouldn’t be revisiting the beach again today. So we opted to pack up earlier than usual. The earliest we ever have. We figured we could actually unpack clothes. Bathe kids. Eat supper at home. Do some of those things that tend to get skipped or done in a frantic rush. 

And our kids crushed it! 

Kids took garbage away. Packed clothes off shelves. Did dishes. Reloaded the wood bin. Emptied the tanks. Turned the water off. Put chairs away. Swept in and out. Brought everything to the van for Brady to load. Wavy sat and shivered, but all four other kids were eager for jobs. 

We got out the door in good time and will easily be home in time to get everything organized and everyone in bed at a normal time. I’m so grateful it went as smoothly as it did! 

I hope you all had a great weekend 💜 as school starts to wrap, I hope you all enjoy these last weeks before summertime hits and routine moves around again! 

Yesterday evening was quite a mess. Out of nowhere, the blog was blocked. Blacklisted. Removed from Google completely. Brady and I worked from the lake for a couple of hours, fighting with bluehost, WordPress, and sitelock. It all boiled down to the fact that this was NOT a mistake, and that my blog had been attacked by malware. 

Because it’s suuuuch a big deal 

🙄

We got a number to call Google for tech support, and it said they were closed till Monday. So. That was that. 

As a last ditch effort, I messaged a friend and asked if she knew of ANY way a person like me could solve this issue, or if I should just bite the bullet and buy some support. 

And she helped me. Logged into my site. And solved my problem. 

I am SO grateful and SO relieved. 

If not for that, I would be blog-free all weekend. And that would be a big first. Now, I can move forward without worry 🙂 

We spent the day at the beach with kids in bathing suits, yummy food and drinks, and we even enjoyed a spontaneous thunder storm with our friends. 

It am incredibly grateful for all the people around me 💜

Today was an amazing day 💜 it began terribly frustrating, with the rain messing just about everything up. The 9:00 kick off was postponed until 10:30, then 11:00, and then noon. At that point, they did begin activities, but there was no order or schedule whatsoever. It was a mess. A soaking wet, cold, overwhelming mess. 

But the kids 👏 did 👏 so 👏 well!!!! 🥳

Brady, Wavy, and my mom stationed at the high school track to take in all the running events, and the ran around the elementary school like a chicken with my head cut off, trying to find the kids who were throwing balls or jumping into pits. It was madness, I won’t lie, but we were at almost every event! I know I missed Dekkers high jump, and I was at Sollys ball throw but I didn’t see his throw 😆 though he assured me “No mom, you knew, and you saw it!” So 🤷‍♀️ that counts, hahaha! 

Dekkers main event was the 800m. He doesn’t care for running but he pushed through and passed a handful of kids right at the end.

He doesn’t know what he placed but it was a very impressive run, I’m told 💜 he doesn’t care for the other events at all but he was a good sport!

Wavy wanted him to be done just as much as he did 😆

Laela crushed her sprints. She ran her dash faster than anyone else in her heat, and she went on to win first in the final.
She was SO stoked!! In that last run, she was holding down the ribbons she had already pinned to her shirt 😆 she also kicked butt in the 400m, and placed second. 

Rowan turned it up in running and jumping! I’m not confident whether he got first or second in his sprint, but it was CLOSE. He also got second in his 400m, and jumped farther than anyone else in his group for standing broad jump! The boy with the springs, they said. 

Solomon only had a couple of events, but he was INVESTED in a way I never expected! He gave her beans on running long jump and his sprints. For usually pushing back against much physical activity, he had good drive and he seemed really happy! 

At the end of the day, everyone was happy and satisfied. 

Solly was happy to have been outside all day and has no idea what he placed for any event. 

Rowan was thrilled to have placed well in multiple events. 

Laela was very proud of her running, and was so excited to have won first in her final heat. 

Dekker was happy his friend bought him an ice cream sandwich 😆because priorities. 

In spite of the rain, it was a great day. Thank you, sweet Cher, for all your help getting things prepared so we could get out the door tooooooooo 

The lake 😎 We cannot wait!!