The Daily Hailey

As I mentioned, this weekend is the annual weekend where our town celebrates itself with activities and events. And today began with a parade!

Unfortunately I was feeling pretty gross yesterday and it carried over into today. Brady did the whole morning with the kids and I slept until 10:00-ish. I got myself dragged out of bed and dressed, and we drove to my parents place around 10:30. There, we met my parents, my brother and his family, and a couple of their friends. We made it over to the parade path and picked our spot.

I loved the parade this year. The last time we went, there were a LOT of sirens and they really put Dekker off. I know lots of people liked the novelty, but just for our family specifically, that was the hard part of the parade. Enough that Dekker actually didn’t want to go :/ So I was very relieved when the emergency vehicles just waved and threw candy without blasting their sirens. It was really nice for us 🙂 There was one brief incident where Solly got nailed with a water balloon, though, haha! It was TOTALLY unintentional, and the thrower of the balloon was completely apologetic and looked to feel pretty sick about it. He recovered pretty quickly, and all was well, but it definitely a first! Lol! The kids pulled in a boatload of candy and got some sun. It was a good morning.

It was lunch time by the time the parade was over, and the little boys were ready for a nap. So was I, frankly. I have the body aches of a person who has been throwing up for days on end, even though I haven’t vomited at all! Just SO sore! So once again, Brady manned the kids and I went up to bed to rest my body, and eventually nap. It was exactly what he doctor ordered.

Brady woke me up when we had about a half hour before it was time to head out again. My mom had invited us to join the rest of the group for supper to celebrate Sollys birthday and all be together. We haven’t seen my brother and his family since Christmas, which is CRAZY, so it was definitely time. We had a great visit and supper, and the kids all ate their food super well. Solly ate an entire hot dog. As in a whole wiener and bun, plus some watermelon, and then about half of a sliver of cake, but at that point he was SO full! Pretty impressive eating skills, Solly Wolly!

The bigger kids all went downstairs to play after supper, and Solly and his littlest cousin sat upstairs at the table, playing with his new birthday truck. As is my moms usual, every single kid got a little present as well 😉 Can’t have anyone feeling left out!

Now, we’re home, because at least ONE of them is feeling finished 😉 Kids are down, bath is running, and we’re feeling pretty wiped out. Though if I’m being honest, I REALLY hope I’m awake and alive later this evening. Even if we can’t get to the fireworks, maybe we’ll be able to see them from here 🙂 Everything is just so much nicer now that we live here!

We didn’t get to the few activities we had hoped to today, but we’ll be somewhat out and about tomorrow anyway. I say again, car show, guys. You should probably come.

These last few days have been challenging with the kids. We’re in a fun new stage that is loaded down with arguing, lying, and flat out disobedience. Its SUCH a difficult time, and the days have felt pretty long. Yesterday, specifically, was unreal. Un. Real. Just unlike any other day I’ve ever had. This is out of the norm for us, and caught me quite off guard just how disobedient my kids were being.

By the time Brady got home, I was ready to high five him, run away to bed, and never ever surface. But once cannot simply tap out of parenting. To be fair, we come pretty close sometimes, when he gives me breaks to go hide in bed, watch some YouTube, and relax my brain a bit. In this case, however, Brady has been feeling nauseous with throbbing headaches for the last three days, and was in no shape to tap me out. On the contrary. I sent him right up to bed and he slept for a solid hour until I had to go get Dekker from school. We went to bed at 9:30 last night.

I won’t lie. I was pretty apprehensive going into today, for a number of reasons, actually. A big part of it, though, was based on yesterday and how incredibly hard it was. I didn’t want a redo of all of that I couldn’t handle it. I am SO thankful for a mom who spent almost the whole day with me, not because we had planned for it, but because she knew I needed the company. She stayed until Brady got home. Now that he’s home, he made me a passion tea lemonade and sent me up to bed. He suggested I try to find some positives to throw in here so I’m not a total downer. Don’t worry, my words, not his. So here are a few positives.

Company! I loved having my mom around, for my own enjoyment and also some solid distraction for my kids.

Passion tea lemonade, because its delicious.

I have less tent caterpillars than everyone else because we have no greenery. As an aside to this positive, don’t you find that wet splat sound they make when you step on them kind of satisfying? I do, but I’m in a pretty strange headspace right now…

I bought an old guilty pleasure song the other day and pumped it in thew van today, and I super duper enjoyed it 🙂 I highly recommend each of you purchase at least ONE guilty pleasure song that you haven’t heard in ages or are embarrassed to like. It feels great.

Our beautiful deck made for some fresh air this afternoon while the little boys were sleeping.

I still really like my purple hair.

I think thats about enough for now. Forgive me for being off my game. I’m trying to get back on it. This will be a busy week as our town celebrates its centennial! I recommend coming to the parade tomorrow morning, seeing the balloon guy tomorrow afternoon, hitting fireworks in the evening if you can, and definitely the show and shine Sunday afternoon! I hear the music is going to be pretty bomb 😉

We didn’t have any concrete plans nailed down for Solly’s birthday yesterday. I know that sounds bad, but we just didn’t. We didn’t know what the weather would be like, since the days have been insanely windy, and we had hoped to have a bit of a party out on the deck with ice cream and whatever else. But then yesterday, the day turned gorgeous and we had to pull something together last minute. I have to say, though, that I think it worked out!

Brady got home early from work, bearing Starbucks and Solly’s “birthday cake.” We’ll talk more about that later. He quickly got washed up and changed, and we ventured out on our first family bike ride! It was super hard to take pictures and everyone looks terrible, so I’ll spare you those, but I had Solly on the back of my bike, Brady hauled Rowan and Laela in the trailer, and Dekker rode his bike. It was a lot of fun 🙂 Though to be completely honest, I swear I haven’t sat on a bike since I was maybe fourteen, so that plus adding a kid on the back and driving on the lowest gear made it a bit tricky, haha! Against popular belief, apparently you can forget how to ride a bike! Or I can, anyway.

When we got back home, the kids wanted to stay outside, so we lugged some big Tonka trucks onto the deck and out we stayed. They LOVED the freedom and fun on the deck! The sun was BLAZING and the kids were turning red fast. I made sure they wore their hats, but they were just toasty. I knew they’d be devastated to go inside, so I opted for a deck supper. I ducked inside and put together plates of crackers and cheese, apple slices, pepperoni, and handfuls of fresh veggies. I refilled everyone’s water bottles, and brought everything out. This was an easy way to force them to sit still at least, so they wouldn’t be as sweaty.

When it was time to go inside, they were pretty sad, but recovered with the promise of Solly’y birthday treat! Not exactly the gourmet cake that Pinterest tells us kids are supposed to get, but still delicious 🙂 It also helped that Jerilee arrived right as we came inside, bearing balloons to celebrate Solly’s birthday!!

Everyone got a cake pop, though somehow I didn’t get a picture of one of the kids eating theirs, so we’ll just stick to the birthday boy. He didn’t hesitate even, really, and dove right in. Laela and Rowan definitely weren’t sure until I broke into them and proved there was cake in there.

A quick round of Snapchat with their Auntie Jerry, and everyone was off to bed!

It wound up to be a pretty awesome birthday! I had thought this was just a “for today” kind of lame party but I’m pretty satisfied with the outcome, actually, and I think my baby boy felt solliedly celebrated. (See what I did there?)

Yup. We party hard over here!

Today my precious Solly Wolly turns ONE! This year has been a total blur, loaded with all kinds of things. Rather than focusing on all of the huge changes our family has gone through and the hardships we’ve faced, I’d like to say how blessed we are to have had Solly along for the ride. He is an amazingly content, positive little dude, and he fits into our family so well. He requires and asks for so little, which is not only helpful, but reminds me to slow down in the times that he very clearly needs me to. I know that he means it when he asks for something. He’s so clear. I’m amazed by him on a daily basis.

While I’m saying the year has been a blur, the day he was born is not.

I will NEVER forget that day. It was relaxed and happy, which was perfectly fitting, because so were you 🙂

I was so smitten with you the moment I found out you were growing in my womb, but MAN! Meeting you was a complete game changer! You were soft and smooth and comfy and relaxed. You were HUGE. Almost as big as your record-holding brother. I am so thankful I was able to have you eight days early 😉 You were complication-free, and just wanted to sleep, which your dad and I were happy to comply with. Anything for the baby.

You’ve changed a lot since that day. Who knew a person could continue getting cuter past the point of average adorability?? You set the bar pretty high, my boy!

Thank you for joining our family and sharing all of your love with us! I love your heart, Solomon Brady. I hope you feel all of our love right back for you! Your daddy and I love you in a way you won’t likely grasp until you have babies of your own, and your siblings have a very protective love for you as well. I happen to know MANY other people out there who are quite fond of you, as well.

You are loved dearly. I hope your day is so happy.

I’ve been reaching a point of frustration with the fact that Solly is still in our room. I love the little guy, but he wakes up unreasonably early in the morning, and while we’ve been sleep training him forever, he consistently wakes up around 4:30am. And FOR SURE for sure if Brady is getting up for work. Its a guarantee, and I’m super duper not a fan. I’ve been starting to feel desperate to get him out of our room, but we just do NOT have a room for him! We’ve been waiting to bunk him in with Laela, but 4:30 is just too too early for her. We thought his mornings would get a bit longer as he got used to not getting up in the night, but they aren’t. As the days are getting longer (which we LOVE) the mornings are getting brighter earlier, successfully (you guessed it!) waking the baby earlier. We are SO over it.

This weekend, in discussion with Brady’s parents, I joked that we should just put the three older kids in one room together and then Solly could have his own room. And Brady and I just stared at each other. How have we not considered this before??

So yesterday evening, we rearranged the rooms! These are the before pictures. Please forgive the messy beds. I have yet to enforce bed-making, haha! Don’t judge!

The boys room is the top picture. Dekker’s bed and Rowan’s crib were actually end to end, but we had already moved the crib before I remembered to take pictures. No biggie, though. And then the bottom picture is the second, smaller bedroom. That’s Laela’s bed and a crib for Solly. But it just wasn’t happening.

So we switched to this!

Yup. We just lined them up, haha! All three kids fit across the room, with some space to get out between Laela and Dekker’s beds. At the end of Rowan’s crib is their dresser. Now, we haven’t committed to this change fully, so Laela’s clothes are still in her room, but if she’s going to stay in with the boys, we’ll move the clothes around and add her stuff in there somewhere too. Meanwhile, the second bedroom is just a crib and a big dresser, plus Laela’s end table and some bigger toys. Its kind of an awesome set up!

I likely don’t even have to say it, but the big kids agree that its an awesome set up 🙂

It took longer than usual for them to fall asleep, but no one expected anything different. It was funny to watch them and listen to them.

Solly is still not too concerned about his surroundings.

Is he the biggest burrito you’ve ever seen? Don’t hate on us for swaddling him still. He gets out of it instantly. Its more of an indicator for him that its bedtime than anything. We watched him on the monitor, too, and he crawled around his crib and chatted a little bit before succumbing to sleep. No crying or even fussing.

I only had one mild heart attack in the night, when Dekker came up to our room and told us Laela’s blanket had fallen off her bed. He was pretty distressed. He had tried to lift it back onto her bed for her but hadn’t been able to. Brady went down to help them and as it turns out, Laela had actually fallen out of bed, wrapped up in her blanket, and was still fast asleep! Brady lifted her back into bed and the night went on smoothly. WAY better than anticipated!

I woke up just before 7:00. I don’t remember my last uninterrupted sleep through until 7:00! I woke up with the sun and that was it. My first thought was to check the monitor. And it wasn’t on! I had a brief moment of “Oh no! Have they been awake for a super long time already??” But then I realized that the monitor was actually in sleep mode. As were ALL of our kids!!!

I lay back and rested and lay around and wasted some time on my phone. Then I got up, put on deodorant, brushed my teeth, and put on clothing straight out of my closet! As in NONE of it was worn yesterday and/or the day before! It was all fresh! This sounds small, but its a pretty big deal when someone lives in your closet. Or wakes up every time you open the door to your bathroom. I swear, guys, it was a whole new world! Finally around 8:30, the kids were awake and talking. Well, the big kids were. Solly had a brief moment where he stood and talked a bit, and then plunked back down and went back to sleep. Again, no fussing or crying at all. It was amazing!

I went down and got the big kids up and they got on breakfast. Solly woke up with the general hubbub, and our day began. I do not expect every night to go quite this smoothly, but I am THRILLED with how the first night went. I am encouraged and hopeful that this setup will be good for the kids, and in turn, for Brady and I. I see a new, earlier schedule in our future with this new arrangement, but I can roll with that 🙂

Today feels refreshing. I hope you all got some good rest last night as well!

The weekend has passed and we are into a regular work week. Brady got up for work unreasonably early, as always, and Solly woke up right around the same time. He sleeps through quite nicely, but MAN those super early mornings just suck, and we need him to sleep longer. Its a process, I know that, but I’m starting to feel a little bit crazy. We HAVE to get him out of our room soon. So Brady broke our rule (I was in full agreement, by the way) and instead of letting Solly babble for the next hour or two, he fed him some milk. Solly easily went back to sleep, and I was able to sleeeeep! As were the other kids. Solly’s early mornings are just killing us and we all needed a bit more sleep this morning. I woke up feeling SO refreshed, and the older kids were in noticeably better moods. Solly also slept until 11:00-ish, which was pretty awesome. Upon talking to Brady, I learned that he’s also feeling rested and optimistic about our week. Today just feels like a good day.

However, with being busy all weekend, it felt a bit sad that Brady had to go back to work already today! Made me a taaad bit mopey, but nothing I can’t handle. Thankfully, my mom’s afternoon plans changed at the last minute and she ran over to spend the afternoon with me and the kids! It made the afternoon go by so nice and quickly. It was also made nice by Brady deciding to come home a bit earlier than usual. He came bearing slurpees and positivity. He and I visited with my mom in the living room for a little while before she headed home to get supper on the go. It was SUCH a nice way to spend the afternoon!

Now that the house is waking up and the nappers are napping no longer, we’re about to attack our project of the day! A project that I’m not going to share about quite yet, haha! But hopefully I’ll have pictures for tomorrows post 🙂

This week will be a fairly busy one for us, but this has been a lovely kick off into it. I hope you’ve all enjoyed your Monday like I have. Feel refreshed! What else can we take from the wind if not some refreshment 😉

Brady’s parents spent the day with us 🙂 It was a super low key, relaxed day. Which was exactly what we needed, it turns out. Solly woke up SO early and Brady and I felt super exhausted, and as the day wore on, it was clear he had woken his siblings super early by default and they were equally exhausted.

We had a brunch of waffles, strawberries, and breakfast sausage, and not too long after that, the little boys went down for naps. They didn’t nap especially long, but while they did, we sat and visited for a while, but eventually moved to the table for a couple of games of cards. Dekker and Laela were growing crustier by the minute so we let them rest up a bit in front of the tv, which was nice.

When the whole fam jam was up and at ’em, Brady’s parents offered to take our family out for dinner. We made a quick reservation and made it there for 5:00. It wasn’t the smoothest meal out, with Laela in specific being SO overtired. She did not eat a single bite of food. So I was pretty aware of us, but those of us who did eat enjoyed our food, and it was nice to get a change of scenery as well 🙂 Thanks for taking us out!

Bedtime was pretty loud and sad, but that was what we expected with how the day had gone for the kids. They were down on time, and the rest of us played a bit more cards, drank lattes, and ate bing cherries. Guys, they’re SO delicious already! I didn’t have a single sour one! Get on that!

We were all yawning pretty early, and Brady’s parents have a pretty long drive home tomorrow, so we packed it in early and said our goodbyes. Hopefully not too long before we visit again 🙂

Today has been a surprisingly smooth, enjoyable day! To be fair, I was out and about for most of it, running errands and getting my hair done, so that kind of break is always a bit of a treat. But I got my errands done faster than I expected, and thanks to that, I spent a good chunk of time mall walking, drinking my Starbucks nice and slowly, shopping a tiny bit, and finally just taking a rest on a bench while I waited for my appointment. When it was my turn, I threw a new idea at my hair girl, and she told me she could make it happen! Excuse the poor quality picture, but here you have it!

It is SO vibrant and bright and dimensional and I LOVE it! It feels great and fresh and just funky enough. I’m super happy with it. It took a pretty long time to get it this way.

While I was gone, Brady had taken the big kids outside to bike on the road while the little boys slept, when our neighbour (who is SO sweet to us and our kids!) made her way over and invited the kids to come see the flowers she was planting. It was right around then when she offered to put the kids to work while Brady could get some other things done. What a gift, hey?? Completely unsolicited help from a loving friend. Brady took her up on it, and the kids played solidly in the garden for about 2.5 hours. At home, Brady installed the gate on the gate and did a few indoor jobs as well. I forgot to ask if I could post pictures of the kids in our neighbours yard so I won’t, but here was the “after” part of their afternoon out 🙂

See Laela’s moustache? Yup. She had a RIOT. I think Dekker figured out early that he didn’t like the taste of dirt, so there was less flinging on his part. Either way, I couldn’t be more grateful for how this afternoon turned out. What a gift to them.

I got home juuust after Brady’s parents arrived for the weekend! They’re out for a short visit this weekend, and made better time in their travels than I had bargained for, so I was a tad late. As you’d expect, though, they were already down on the floor, playing with the kids, totally entertained. Haha! No big loss with me being a touch late 🙂

We enjoyed a really nice evening together, with simple food, some presents, and a nice visit to catch up. However, our guests got up quite early and were a little road weary, so they headed out fairly early to their destination for night. One day, we’ll have guest rooms again, haha! But that day is not today, so they’ll be staying in a nearby town.

Time for some cards and a soak. Time to wind down. Which is tough, when my hair looks so fly. Don’t mind me.

Our family has been in somewhat desperate need of a Costco shop recently, but we’ve been trying to hold off as long as possible. But we were finally at the point where we had no milk, yogurt, Cheerios, bananas, cheese, to name just our staples. We also are out of all fresh veggies, save for some cucumbers and old broccoli. It was just time. Brady and I had planned to take the kids into the city to run errands on Saturday, but when I called to book a hair appointment for the same day, the only time we could get it kind of messed up the plan to make a family day of it.

So I rather decided to take the kids in and just do Costco this morning. The rest of the errands were small “in and out” type of errands, so we planned that Brady could just do them on his way home. But as hard work would have it, he finished his work today in the late morning! So he met us in the Costco parking lot and we did the big shop together.

We both knew it was going to be a bigger shop today, and man, was it ever!! We dropped a good chunk of money there, and we didn’t even buy diapers this round! Shoot…did we need diapers? I have no idea. I hope not. But seriously, we bought SO much delicious fresh stuff! I find it so much easier to eat healthy in summer when the veggies are yummier and crispier and just so refreshing. In winter, I just want soup or potatoes, haha! Almost as healthy 😉 We stocked up well on grape tomatoes, baby carrots, snap peas, peppers, bananas, cherries, strawberries, and raspberries. We still have watermelon here at home so we left those behind, but I don’t think we’ll be hurting for fresh things anytime soon. I’m so hungry just thinking about all of it.

We were there at the perfect time of day, and walked right up to a till, where the Costco employees helped us unload our stuff. It all went super quick, which was perfect since Rowan was getting annoyed with Solly sitting beside him. Its such a funny adjustment for them, because I think Solly leans on him a little. Ro gets super annoyed, and leans back, squealing, “No, Yollyyyyy!” I love it. Lol!

Once everyone and everything was loaded into our bus, Brady joined us in the bus and we ran to do our few other errands. Our insurance place got us an AMAZING deal on our home insurance, so we went in and signed for that. We picked up a saw blade Brady was having sharpened for work. Probably the highlight was going to J&H and getting a gate for our deck! We just have to do some quick assembly and we’ll be good to go! I so anticipate being out there on the deck as a family, where Solly can join in without falling down the stairs or getting splinters in his knees when he crawls. Its going to make the deck just perfect, which is already isn’t too far from. We just have to grab our stacking patio chairs from my parents place where we’ve been storing them for the last year or so and we’ll be ready!

We got home, and the little boys were hurting for a nap. Surprisingly, so was Dekker. He got upset about one thing, and no matter what we did to calm him or snuggle him, as soon as we’d calm him back down, he’d work right back up. He was SO sad to go to bed, but its now been a solid 1.5 hours and we haven’t heard a peep from him. Once ALL of the boys were down, Brady seemed to lose his mojo, and he is now sleeping in Laela’s room, haha! So just she and I are hanging out 🙂 Its nice. I love her.

I’m going to go enjoy some more Laela cuddles before everyone wakes up for the evening. I hope you’re all enjoying your Fridays! Happy weekend!

It was a bit of a disjointed morning, resulting in fatigued children and a snippy Hailey. I’m trying, though, and I haven’t had any moments of regret yet, so I can proudly say I’ve succeeded this morning, with ALL of the glory going to God!

The upside of everyone melting down mid-morning is that everyone is napping!!! This happens almost never, and only really when the kids are all super sick (which happens often, apparently, but sickness doesn’t always equal napping 😉 ) So while the morning was a bit of a marathon, it was worth it. Here I am, in my living room, with my feet up, blogging and watching YouTube simultaneously. I’m doing a bit of research, as usual, and texting some friends. Its so peaceful. I love it, and I am already feeling refreshed. Could I still use some more coffee? For sure, haha! Today, there just won’t be enough coffee. And thats ok.

I hope you’re all doing well. This week has felt monstrous for some reason, and I feel like I haven’t connected with too many people. I am trying, thought, and thats the best we can all do, right?

Sorry about the shorty post 🙂 I want to really soak up my short alone time, haha! More tomorrow, as always.