Hahahaha! I miss our biggest boy 💜 He is such a funny guy, with just the right mix of silly and crusty to fill the group dynamic perfectly.
But! This week he is busy at camp, nerding it up, which we say with TOTAL love and respect! He truly thinks being called a nerd is a term of endearment, so I assure you we are not hurting his feelings willy nilly. He is really excited for camp this week, but he was very huggy and squishy with me before I checked him in 💜
Of course, once he was in the cabin, he was very cool 😎 and hugged me from up on his bunk, reaching down to me. Little punk 😆 Its ok, I can take it. He was SO handsome up there, getting himself settled, already surrounded by kids he knew from last year.
Goodness I am SO proud of this kid 💜 I LOVE you, Dekker! And I MISS you!! Ack!!
Today, my mom celebrated a birthday, and I wasn’t even there to see it!! Lol! I joke. She is out visiting loved ones, and I imagine she is being well loved and celebrated 💜 Though I do wish it were me doing the celebrating!! That will have to wait until she’s home, and hopefully free of the cold we are rocking.
While we can’t spend the day together, I can remember some squishy times we’ve spent, and I like to think there will be a few more soon enough 💜
I miss you, mom!! It feels like its been a bit too long since we’ve spent time together, and as someone I REALLY admire and model parts of my life and parenting after, I need to close that gap up a bit 💜
I love you, mom 💜 I’m so so happy you were born. Thank you for ALL you gave to us growing up, and all you continue to do for all of us. Your efforts are not lost on me. You still do SO much, even though it looks different than keeping us alive as children. I still need you in my life 💜
Come home soon!
Happy birthday, mama 💜 We love you.
Love,
Hailey and Brady, Dekker, Laela, Rowan, Solomon, Waverly, the Morsel, the Spoonful, and the Lemon Drop
Today was Christopher Lake Days! 🥳 We spent the morning watching the parade and essentially doing laps of the town, checking out garage sales, the farmers market, the trade show, and whatever else we could find. It was more walking than we’ve all done in quite some time, but Rowan was my trooper who did not tire out!! It was nice to spend that time with him 💜
After what was a very rough night for our group, we didn’t last terribly long, and came back to camp for lunch, a fire, and naps. We joined the campground for a fish fry supper, and wrapped the evening up with an evening swim with the few brave souls who wanted in.
It was a beautiful day. I’m very tired. The camper is coughing. It’s time to pack it in and get a few hours of shut eye in. I have hopes for tomorrow to hold s’mores, the beach, and a bit of crocheting.
But first – sleep. Warming up my feet. Sucking on a cough candy. Laying on Brady’s arm. Falling asleep to the same episode of our show that we just cannot get through.
I thought this was a pretty lovely moment the other day and I wanted to share it here so we always remember 💜
Wavy came into the living room with a brush and an elastic, asking me for a braid. And before I could even respond, Laela jumped at the chance! Now, these two gripe at each other pretty regularly. I think most siblings do. Summer has been extra taxing for some of my kids relationships, and the girls feel some strain, for sure. So I was VERY surprised when Laela volunteered so eagerly!
As she sat on the couch and started brushing Wavys hair, I heard her say to Wavy that she had never braided anyone’s hair before.
Now, if she’s anything like me, that takes some guts. I confirmed what sge had said, and she told me Avery taught her about braiding at the lake on her stuffed unicorn that we accidentally renamed Stefan Buttcheeks. Thats a whole other story. But anyways, Laela had only ever braided Stefan Buttcheeks’ mane. So this was a first.
And it was a success 😍
She commented that it was a little loose and Wavy jumped right in and reassured her that she LOVED it! I’m pretty sure she just loved the experience with her sister 💜
Writing the year 2024 just messed me up for a second. Is it already the ’24/’25 school year? When did that happen??
I wrangled up all the supplies I need for my FIVE kids going into FULL TIME school! This will be a first, let me tell you!! Not that the days will be free of responsibility. I still have babies. But the five school kids will all be in school, every day. Crazy days ahead!
Ok but thats not the point. The supplies!
Goodness there was just SO much!!! Ack! I’m really grateful to be able to buy supplies without too much panic, and getting fairly close to what is asked of us as parents to provide. I get the wrong glue sticks. I know. I just cannot justify the cost of the UHU ones! But otherwise I do pretty good, haha!
I’ve spent time this week getting things sectioned out for each kid, into their backpacks, labelled and ready for the fall. I’ve taken note of the things that are still missing, of which there are few. A couple of kids need indoor shoes. And somehow I missed one of those dark green Hilroy notebooks, and two red plastic cover folder pocket things, to use a technical term. But thats really it! I think I’m as prepared as I can be at this point! At least prepared enough to put it all away for now, and focus on other things.
Because as we ALL know, there is never a shortage of things to do around here!
Today was a pretty full day, and I wound up taking Solly and Wavy, plus the three babies, to the city for a fairly quick pop-in. I was going to scope something out from Facebook Marketplace, and had no intention of telling them what it was. They were amazing sports about it, and didn’t complain at all. Wavy had her babies in her row, and Solly had his baby, and they happily entertained them, fed them some little snacks when they fussed, and everyone was completely content the entire time. Isn’t that nuts?!
So on the drive home, I grabbed an iced coffee, and I ordered three sprinkle donuts – their (and my) favorite. When I ordered them at the drive-thru speaker, they stayed totally quiet and only when I pulled away did they loudly proclaim their thanks. It was fun 💜 It is SO much fun to give a treat to a kid who is genuinely grateful!
When we actually had the donuts in hand, they were blue, which apparently was a really big deal, haha! So I passed my phone back and told them how to take a selfie. This was a first, as we don’t really ever give our kids phones except for the occasional photo opportunity. Both of the kids were super excited, as was I, because I knew neither of them had ever taken a selfie.
And it showed 😂
Goodness I laughed SO hard 🤣 At least two of them were actually photos! Hahahaha!
Small memories, perhaps, but I really enjoyed this. They were fun to take out. Instead of their usual, where Wavy pesters Solly mercilessly, they just coexisted and had fun! I loved it. And I love them.
Aaaaand the donut and iced coffee didn’t hurt either.
I don’t do as many photo dumps anymore because there are SO many pictures I can’t post. I don’t know. Its hard to have such a huge part of our lives left out of the blog. Sometimes it makes me feel like wrapping it up :/ But. Thats not the point. Today I just wanted to show you some fun pictures from the weekend 🙂 Enjoy!
Wavy has always had a pretty epic sense of fashion, and on this particular day, she rocked hippo pants, and a Frozen shirt overtop of her high viz tshirt 🤣 She’s a stone cold weirdo, that one.
This next one, Laela had been playing with a baby who put their hand into her mouth and clawed so good that her tooth got knocked loose! And then she couldn’t hack that, so she hulked it out. Basically got beat up by a baby 🤣
Sandwiches at camp have become the way of the lunchtimes and they are goooood!
The evening swim was a bit chilly for some…
but the snuggles afterward made up for it!
The bunks are set up this way, starting with the top…
And the bottom! Once upon a time, we thought the Morsel would be on the bottom this summer, but there is nooooo way!
Brady taking his chemo on the beach with iced coffee to wash it down 🤣
And Stacy making us delicious drinks in the evening!
Laela was not all the way dressed after swimming, still wearing her bathing suit, and in this particular picture, it just looks like he’s taking a pee on the lawn chair, hahahaha!
Meanwhile, the sun was enough to wipe Solly right out 🥱
The Dahlsjos came armed with jumbo marshmallows, so we made some VERY messy s’mores!
And the weekend ended with paddle boarding ☀️ which was pretty much perfect.
As ALWAYS, I am SO grateful for our lake spot 💜 It just pours blessing out on our family, over and over again.
We made it. We managed to not bail in the dead of night, but rather we slept all three nights there 🤣 I talk like that never happens, and it does. It always does! Except last weekend. And that sucked so bad for all of us. So hopefully no repeats 🤞
This weekend was fun and lovely, with good company, weather, food, fires, and even some rest. Sleeps weren’t wonderful, but that’s babies for you. Nothing new there! I think there will be some betterment there in the fall, when school starts up and we build a more concrete routine.
Speaking of school, this coming weekend is going to hold ALL the school supplies stuff. It’s all purchased and has arrived (I think) so it’s time to sort it all, label it, and get it into backpacks and then never look at it again ✌️ Should be easy enough! Only three appointments over the next four days. Brady has his daily radiation appointment, of course, but now that he drives, he can hit those up and I can get the other ones going. Two are even at home. Oh and there’s kids club this week.
Lots going on, as usual. Hopefully I can sneak a Costco shop in there somewhere, and pack us all up for camp next weekend! Haha! Christopher Lake Days!!! We can’t miss THAT!!!
Guys. Our new laundry machines are finally here, and I am a very happy lady! Let’s talk about what we did have. A recap.
To be clear – I don’t care that they’re old. Not at all. I care that they WORK! And they don’t.
Our washer was not my favorite thing. It was front load, so I felt like things fell out as I tried to put them in. Not a fan. It also felt really small, though it said it had extra large capacity. Nope nope nope. And it had started to error a lot, where loads spun for literal hours, or it “clogged” and needed to be unplugged. It was fine. But it was frustrating.
Our dryer was also not my favorite. It was fine, and I liked it longer than I liked the washer. But it had many times where it ran an entire cycle and nothing was dry. It seemed like we could fairly easily replace the element and call it a day, but since it was clearly time to replace the washer, we decided to go for it and replace both.
So we diiiiiiid!!
No, I didn’t wait to tidy it up to take a picture, haha! And thats ok! They’re pretty no matter what!
Hague Hardware worked with us in finding machines that fit what we were looking for! Even though I think it rubbed the salesman a liiiiittle bit the wrong way, we chose two that were different brands, and slightly different colors. In our minds, they were perfect, and the colors were close enough, but I know it was a tough pill to swallow for the guy helping us, haha!
Our stipulations were that they needed to be large capacity, both with wifi, and roughly in the same color family. Wifi seems like overkill, I know. Its super handy, though, having the machines in kind of a funny spot in the house, we never hear them. So this way, they will tell my phone when they’re done! Wifi capable dryers are harder to come by, and that is totally fine, but Brady and I both felt it would be extra convenient and helpful to us if we had those notifications from both machines.
We chose the washer first, and it only came in the dark grey color, so we needed to find a dark grey wifi-capable dryer. That didn’t exist in the same brand, so we ventured out, and found a dark grey wifi-capable dryer. Large capacity machines. I am THRILLED.
Oh the things that make me excited now that I’m an old mom 🤣 But I am very relieved and very grateful to have fresh new machines installed and working, with the old ones hauled away and disposed of.
We’ve been rocking a pretty strong cold for a while now, and let me tell you. We can hack a LOT of things. Including this cold! But it is losing its charm quickly, haha! We are just that much more bedraggled, and it gets old.
But alas, here we are. Sore throats and snotty noses galore!
So the other day, I pulled out the big guns! Hahaha! Grilled cheese and soup!!
I know, I know. Its supposed to be chicken noodle soup. But I like mushroom soup better! And while I’m a firm believer in eating foods that are especially gentle on our tummies, but since eating is hard when you feel crappy, I’m a firmer believer in eating what we’re hungry for when we’re sick. So we did!
And it was really nice 💜 Even considering the warm weather, no one bucked the hot soup. It hit the spot for all of us, whether we were sick, healthy, or somewhere in the middle.
