The Daily Hailey

My first day back home with my beautiful kidlets hasn’t been as I anticipated or hoped it would be. I was awake around 4:30 until 7:30-ish when I dozed back off for another hour or so. I knew my body needed that extra chunk of sleep, but as often happens, it was filled with dreams. I wouldn’t call them bad dreams, or even especially unsettling, but I woke up grieving hard for the young life I lost in January. Like, hard. I had a cry on my own before going and getting my kids up for the day.

I have missed my little munchkins, and I love them desperately. I have struggled with them today, though. It appears they have turned their ears off to their mama since she left on Friday, and my sad, heavy heart is just not handling it well. I’m not losing it or anything, I promise, but I am feeling so sad. Just plain sad. Its hard to keep rolling when you’re sad.

I should be entering my third trimester of pregnancy right about now. But I’m not. I don’t get that baby. I won’t even have a baby this year. This is all just particularly hard to swallow today.

But. There is always a “but.” This one is important! I promise, I haven’t ever forgotten it, either. I am still that little boy’s mom. Along with being his mom, I am also a mom to the four little loves I have here at home. They are mine. Even above that, they all belong to God, which is even better than belonging to me. I am vastly imperfect, and I’m particularly lower on the perfection scale today, for lots of reasons, but God is perfect and we are ALL His. And in that, there is freedom.

I’m so thankful for all I have and everyone I have. For my husband who listened to me sob all of my hormones out on the phone. For my kids, who are so soft and sweet to each other 99% of the time, and who try so so hard. For my mom, who is heading over to be with me and provide some hugs and a soft place to fall. For my God, who is caring for Theo, and who understands my imperfections and grief without thinking I’m a crazy person. I have a pretty incredible bunch on my support team, and I know there are more members who I’m not mentioning this time around.

I have everything I need.

My first day back home with my beautiful kidlets hasn’t been as I anticipated or hoped it would be. I was awake around 4:30 until 7:30-ish when I dozed back off for another hour or so. I knew my body needed that extra chunk of sleep, but as often happens, it was filled with dreams. I wouldn’t call them bad dreams, or even especially unsettling, but I woke up grieving hard for the young life I lost in January. Like, hard. I had a cry on my own before going and getting my kids up for the day.

I have missed my little munchkins, and I love them desperately. I have struggled with them today, though. It appears they have turned their ears off to their mama since she left on Friday, and my sad, heavy heart is just not handling it well. I’m not losing it or anything, I promise, but I am feeling so sad. Just plain sad. Its hard to keep rolling when you’re sad.

I should be entering my third trimester of pregnancy right about now. But I’m not. I don’t get that baby. I won’t even have a baby this year. This is all just particularly hard to swallow today.

But. There is always a “but.” This one is important! I promise, I haven’t ever forgotten it, either. I am still that little boy’s mom. Along with being his mom, I am also a mom to the four little loves I have here at home. They are mine. Even above that, they all belong to God, which is even better than belonging to me. I am vastly imperfect, and I’m particularly lower on the perfection scale today, for lots of reasons, but God is perfect and we are ALL His. And in that, there is freedom.

I’m so thankful for all I have and everyone I have. For my husband who listened to me sob all of my hormones out on the phone. For my kids, who are so soft and sweet to each other 99% of the time, and who try so so hard. For my mom, who is heading over to be with me and provide some hugs and a soft place to fall. For my God, who is caring for Theo, and who understands my imperfections and grief without thinking I’m a crazy person. I have a pretty incredible bunch on my support team, and I know there are more members who I’m not mentioning this time around.

I have everything I need.

Jerilee and I have arrived safely back at our humble homes this evening! While we had a FABULOUS girls weekend away, I think we are both very happy to be home. I have missed my family so very much this weekend, and it was wonderful to see them all this evening before the kids before bed. They were full of hugs and kisses and soft snuggles. They were a deliciously warm welcome.

The snow, though. Guys. I knew snow was in the forecast for this weekend, but in my earlier research, it was supposed to snow on Saturday. Which it did. We were out in it, and were very much aware of it. But apparently it kept coming down, and by the morning, the vehicles were covered with a thick layer of wet, heavy snow. Being unprepared as we were, I wandered around until I found someone heading back to the hotel after starting his truck, and petitioned him to share his snow brush, which he agreed to. Once that crisis was averted, we headed to Ikea.

First thing was first. I had some parts to return from a dresser we bought back in Calgary. Brady had called ahead and Ikea has agreed to swap things out, free of charge. So we left the parts at the returns desk and wandered through the store. It went quicker than usual, which was strange, but also not. Jerilee and I were both super tired, haha! And besides that, we weren’t in the market for a bunch of super expensive furniture. We knew which areas we wanted to look over and specifically shop in. So we did that, and picked up a few things in the warehouse before checking out. We didn’t do too much damage in there at all, which I was impressed with. Then, we ducked back to returned, grabbed the new pieces, and headed to the car.

We were both chilled and tired, so we drove to the nearby Olive Garden right during the lunch rush, and were magically seated immediately in a booth. We ate our fill of that delicious chicken gnocchi soup and breadsticks. Seriously, I know Olive Garden is normal everywhere, but we don’t have one in Saskatoon, and that soup is ridiculous. And in SO good!! Potato balls are the way to be. But once lunch was done, we paid our super tiny bills and were on our way home.

It was a good drive. Fairly quiet. We were so tired. And the weather really could have been better, if we’re being honest, but we made it safely home. Anytime the snow wants to end, that would be great. While I’ve been busy and shopping all weekend, the impending deck plan is still utmost in my mind! We CANNOT build a deck in the snow!!

All in all, I had such a special, enjoyable girls trip away this weekend. I got to spend some quality catch-up time with Jerilee. I got to shop for myself and my family. I did a peel-off charcoal mask. I bought some new makeup. I drank my favorite sangria. I hot tubbed. I rested. I ate tropical chicken pizza, satisfying a craving I have had since I got pregnant with Theo those months ago. I was welcomed home by my favorite little folks, and my favoritest big folk. Brady worked all weekend to make me a present. My mom even sent me some cinnamon rolls to eat for a late supper. I am SO grateful for all that I have and who I have. What a wonderful weekend, and a wonderful reception.

Now, I’m going to have a soak. Its good to be home.

We slept in until around 8:00ish this morning and took our time getting up and awake. We wandered out in search of our continental breakfast around 9:00 and were met with a room bursting with people. There is a cheerleading competition nearby this weekend and it seems we have EVERYONE involved in it staying at the same hotel, haha! So it’s FULL and BUSY. We opted to get our food and drinks, and go have breakfast back in our room. Everything worked out pretty well, except I have to say that the coffee was peculiar. It was super weak, but like, weak like I have never experienced. I’m not one who requires my coffee to taste light jet fuel or anything crazy like that, but it tasted like milk and water with a teeny bit of dirt mixed in. Like it taked like nothing. It wasn’t even especially bad or offensive, but it definitely wasn’t good. It was just odd… 

Our first shop stop was Indigo, though, so we grabbed some Starbucks there. A HUGE loving shoutout goes to my husband who has diligently kept my Starbucks app filled to the brim so Jerilee and I can drink all the coffee we desire. ❤️ Much appreciated. We did a bit of wandering there, but soon ventured into the belly of south common.

I won’t bore you with a specific play by play, but it was a successful shop!! My BEST win was at Spring, so if you need Spring, do it NOW!! We wandered in and out of a handful of places, but as we went from store to store, it got colder and wetter and finally it got quite snowy. It is so strange to be out in snow at this point in the season, though I’m really not surprised. I decided to be thankful rather that it wasn’t blowing and awful and cold. It felt to me like, once the snow started, the cold and wind kind of gave up, and we just walked in the big slow-falling flakes. I don’t care for winter in April (or ever) but it wasn’t altogether miserable. Perhaps even minimally enjoyable. Like I didn’t hate it, ok? Ok, moving on.

We ate lunch a little late, shopping a bit more, and headed back to the hotel early. With the cheer competition going on, the whole pool and hot tub area was SLAMMED full all evening yesterday, and we didn’t get to soak our sore shopping feet like we had hoped to. But in the late afternoon, early evening, we could! We figured the competition would potentially still be ongoing, or that maybe normal people (unlike ourselves) would be eating supper. We were right!! It did fill up after a while, but we had a good solid hour of being fairly antisocial and splash-free. Can’t complain about that! 

Now, we rest. Because we’re old. We’ll venture out for a supper of appies soon!! But it might be a while. We’ve got time. No agenda when its just a girls weekend!

Bestie Edmonton road trip 2017 has begun!!! Jerilee was at my door shortly after 7:00am with coffee. I kissed my husband and off we went. It was a grey day of travel, and also great. We chatted and caught up like it had been years, but to be fair its been two whole weeks! Haha! That’s a long time for us 🙂 I’d say the first leg of the trip was the longest, and it was probably due to the fact that we were driving to Radisson! It felt so strange to be driving in that direction after so long. We reminisced about how often she would make the trek out to our place for a day of visiting or an evening of supper and the Bachelor. I always appreciated that she was willing to drive out, but I do NOT miss that setting at all. We joked about driving into town and creepily driving past our old house, and then we promptly kept driving. 

After a quick stop in Lloydminster, we were in Alberta and well on our way! We made it to the mall right around lunch, but not before we missed a turn and ended up a weird industrial area of Edmonton. Actually, come to think of it, we ended up in Strathcona. It was entertaining at least. But we were both SO hungry! Subway satisfied our hunger, and we were good to go!

Five. Hours. Of shopping. Solid. Jerilee and I usually mosey through the mall, but today, we were weirdly motivated and focused. We didn’t stop for Starbucks once, we didn’t get a soft pretzel, nothing. We just booked it and SHOPPED. It was pretty great, actually. Jerilee and I did really well! We didn’t get too terribly much, but we are both totally happy with all of our purchases. And guys, I got some REALLY fun makeup! I’ll show you more about it when I’m home 😉 Very exciting! 

We hit the Spaghetti Factory for supper, and honestly, we had easily the crappiest experience either of us have ever had there :/ We tried to speak to our server about it and she was completely defensive and wouldn’t give an inch. It was weird and off-putting. There have been talks of calling a manager, but at this point, what would they do? We don’t haver a Spaghetti Factory, so some future coupon/discount wouldn’t benefit it. And we knew our server was new. But there were some silly issues that would have been easily cleared up. Not good, guys. Not good. So I’ll admit, Jerilee and I were grumpy. Our food wasn’t even yummy.

We hit one or two more places in the mall and then drove to our hotel. At least that was the goal. Don’t you love when you haul everything into the lobby  of the hotel that isn’t the one you made a reservation at? Lol! That was TOTALLY my fault, but we had a laugh and backtracked to our actual hotel. Felt pretty silly 😉 But we did make it! We’re here now. The beds are comfy, the room is close to the pool/hot tub, and there is the promise of continental breakfast tomorrow. Things are looking good!!

Outlets tomorrow!!! Have a great weekend, friends! <3 

I hope I’m not the only parent that has trouble deciding when and when not to intervene when my children disagree. By disagree, I mean argue, fight, scream, stomp, etc. Every level of “disagreement.” To be honest, I very likely intervene more than most. Sometimes too much. I don’t want to get in the middle of every argument, but I do want to pump into my kids the proper way to deal with other people, in good and bad.

This morning, the kids went downstairs to play. Our basement isn’t finished, so they have a lot of room to rip around with their ride-on toys, make a lot of noise, etc. I was upstairs doing some dishes and I heard the arguing begin downstairs. This time, I decided to let them figure it out among themselves, at least as long as it seemed like a good idea 😉 You know what I mean. So I worked on dishes, but my ears were open.

When the fighting became screaming, I dried my hands and started towards the stairs, but I heard stomping. I waited, and Laela made her way upstairs. She was pissed. I asked what happened and she said she had wanted one of the toys that Dekker and Rowan had. This is a daily struggle. Everyone wants what they don’t have. Its natural. So I pep talked her a bit, but instead of sending her downstairs again on her own, I went down with her. It kind of went against what I was hoping to do, but I figured I could do it well, and without pinpointing anyone or anything specific.

So Laela and I walked down the stairs, and she apologized to the boys for screaming at them. Then, we all chatted a bit about how the big toys were super fun, and everyone wants turns. A brief overview of how we politely ask for our turn, and how we patiently wait for the person to finish their turn before expecting our turn to start. Simple enough, but definitely not always simple for kids. As I was talking, Rowan began unloading his toys from the shopping cart he had been racing around with. With his arms filled with those toys, he nudged the cart and said “Here go, Laela.” She thanked him, and everything seemed to have diffused. I high fived Rowan for his mad sharing skills, and started heading back up the stairs. As I walked away, I heard Rowan say “I walk wiff you, Laela.” She said “Aw, thats nice, Rowan,” and that was just it. Crisis averted, everyone is happy.

After a handful of tricky moody days for myself, I felt really good to be able to go into a simple situation with a level head, and speak intentionally. No “Who has had their toy the longest? Share it.” Nothing like that. Just a reminder of how we like to handle situations and how we like to show love. And it worked!!

I’m not dumb. I don’t expect this will be the time that it all sinks in, and no one will ever fight over a toy again. But it felt good, and successful, and like it sunk in for now. So I’m calling it a success 🙂

Wish me luck for the rest of the day! Tomorrow the REAL fun begins!!! ROAD TRIP!!!!

Its been one of those days around here, and it’s still the early afternoon! It definitely feels like a day that we either NEED to get out and do something just to change our scenery, or we need to stay in with the curtains closed and just wait for it to be over. Since we were out and about yesterday, I think we’ll need to just hide. I’m SO thankful for my 100% supportive husband who is working hard to keep a positive attitude while the kids and I are crusty.

I should say, though, that I felt pretty fabulous upon waking up. Never before has my bed headed, first thing in the morning hair looked so fun! Haha! Its nice to magically feel put together straight out of the gate! So thats a small bonus, haha! Plus Brady gave me a break to go do my makeup free of children and scrapping, which was SUCH a gift.

And I’m going out tonight! I never really go to parties that people throw to promote certain brands and such, but I was invited to one where I know I actually want a couple of things from, so I guess I’m going! It’ll be good to go be social after everyone is in bed.

This is such a bad, weird post. I’m sorry, guys. Its just not our day around here. Yesterday was awesome, though, so its all balancing out 😉 They can’t ALL be perfect days, right?

Today was scheduled to be our errand day of the week, and it turned into so much more!! Like it probably couldn’t have gone better.

I spent more time on my makeup this morning, so I left my house feeling a tad more put together than usual. My hair lived in a bit of a messy bun rather than a tight practical “I can’t do my hair” ponytail, which felt just a little better than usual, too. That paired with my kids being happy about the outing ahead had me in a great mood. It was going to be a good day.

And then it turned GREAT when I spontaneously got purple hair. I went in for a hair tattoo, which I always have SO much fun with…

And I came out with purple hair! Like ALL the way purple.

I am SO thrilled with it! Fast and easy and attainable! It was a huge unexpected addition to my usual appointment, and it seemed to push me over the edge, haha! I really really don’t want to be annoying and self centred, but I’m pretty smitten with this new hair. Just let me be this way for ONE day and then I’ll come back down to earth. Promise.

A quick stop at Walmart got 3/4 kids and Brady some new shoes. Solly’s were my favorite.

From there, we grabbed some lunch and headed to take Brady to chiro. I waited in the van with the kids while Brady has his treatment. Surprise surprise, he’s a bit messed up and will need to go back in before the end of the week. Ugh. But hey, at least we have a WONDERFUL chiropractor who knows Brady’s history and treats him very well.

We next ducked into one of the wholesale cosmetics places and I set up an account while picking up a few things that I need for applying makeup on other people.

Then a run to Superstore, which was fairly uneventful, but all positives. The kids were cute and happy. They love grocery shopping. We got everything we needed.

I ducked into Tantrix downtown to get my conch earring replaced again. Its been a bit of a pain in the butt, but its all duked out now, and I have a really pretty new conch ring! Hopefully it lasts a long time!

Costco was last, and once again, successful. The kids were happy and entertained and didn’t complain for a second cookie or anything. They just shopped and helped. We even ran into my brother and his kids, so we had a quick visit with him before we both headed on our way to finish shopping. We paid and left. Laela slept the entire way home.

After a yummy supper of hot dogs and chips, Dekker volunteered to vacuum the floor 👀 So that was pretty awesome. He did a pretty great job, too! Now, the guitar is out, and the kids are singing along while Brady plays. A very special touch in the evening to end off such a fun, successful day!

Brady is home for a couple of days this week, and we’re hoping to successfully cross a few things off of our current running to-do list.

But first, we had to actually write down the to-do list. And its kind of super long. But none of it is too complicated, so we’re working on it. Dekker and Rowan slept in really nicely, so they’re all doing great and feeling very well rested. With that, everyone is playing super nicely together and Brady and I are able to get a few things done.

We have a handful of calls to make, some of which we’ve made already and some that will wait. We have a few actual chores to do, so laundry is humming away and the boys room is completely rearranged. We also have made a reasonable plans for running errands tomorrow in the city. Lots to do!

The weirdest things that are on our list are making decisions. Do you guys ever have those kinds of things on your lists? “Make final decisions about…..” We have a number of those this time around. One of them is making final decisions about our deck plan. We need to to choose officially which treated boards, what width of stairs, how many stringers, how to do the posts, etc. We also really want to book our deck build weekend! But we’re waiting on our permit to go through still. Its been one week, and we were told two different things by one person. The first time, we heard two weeks. The second time, we heard that it could really be any length of time. Sooooo we don’t know what to expect. But we want to schedule the pile digging/pouring, and the actual build as soon after that as possible. So we have lots of things to plan and lots of decisions to settle on. We’re in full focus mode over here.

All together, there is a lot going on over here, and its just all happening slower than we had originally hoped :/ But we’re still clipping along. Our deck is priority one on our job list, though, so wish us luck! Solly turns one on May 31st, and we would LOVE to have our deck completed by then!! If our permit takes another month to come through, we’re going to be shouting for help 😜 Be ready!!

In an effort to follow our trend of the year, Solly was SO snotty and fevered that we decided against going to church. We knew he would sleep all morning, and while we could try to lay him down in one of the playpens our church has set up in a cozy little back room, even if he did sleep, he would snot on everything, and we knew it wasn’t a good idea. Sometimes I fear you guys must think we actually just don’t care to go to church. On the contrary. We miss church dreadfully. We desire to be there. When we do finally find our way there, we feel uplifted, fulfilled, and much more prepared for the week ahead. But we just haven’t been able to make it happen :/ And today was no exception.

However, I had picked out the kids clothes for church the evening before, and there was no reason to let the cute outfits go to waste! We were still going to my parents for the day 🙂

We went to my parents right around lunchtime and were greeted with an amazing smell and friendly faces. We ate a crazy amount of ham, mashed potatoes, and cooked carrots, all slathered in gravy. My mom has NEVER flopped gravy. Ever. Its a guaranteed win, and today was no different. It was such a yummy lunch!

After lunch, the kids searched for some Easter treats that my parents had hidden for them, and then Brady and I searched for ours, haha! Yes, we are still children. Don’t judge. It was another part of the “delicious day” factor.

After the chocolates were found and toys were played, the little boys went down for a nap and the rest of us visited and relaxed a bit. It was a lovely family day. Supper was a simple faspa of buns and cheese and things like that, which is pretty much our kids favorite kind of meal. Then, a little bit more playing, and transferring some pictures between the two families, and we headed home.

My favorite part of the day happened right as we arrived home.

I’ve mentioned recently that Dekker and Laela have been at each other a bit more than usual these days. Just scrapping non-stop. They learned in the last year that being mean can be fun, which has broken my heart. I knew it would come, but they were so innocent, and didn’t try to upset each other. But now they do, and it drives me up the wall. Like I said in another post, they struggle to breathe the same air.

But in our garage, right after we got home, they shared air. Happily. And it was awesome!

Dekker can let himself out of his booster seat, but everyone else needs a hand getting out of their car seats. Brady has reached behind his seat and freed Laela once the van was stopped, but Dekker is still always the first one out. Today, Laela stood at the door of the van in her long pink dress, regarded the running boards covered in dirt, and asked for help to get down from the van. “I don’t want to get muddy!” She had gotten SO muddy SO many times in winter, getting in and out of the van, so she usually asks for help. Brady and I had a small moment of hesitation, as he had a baby in his arms, and I had a diaper bag and two grocery bags in hand. In that moment we paused, Dekker said “I’ll help you, Laela.”

These two can barely sit next to each other right now. And I saw Laela step back when Dekker offered. But he smiled at her and lifted up his arms.

And she went for it!!

She trusted him, and reached down for his shoulders. He grabbed her in a big hug and helped her down onto the floor, safely.

Laela: Wow. Sanks, Dekker!
Dekker: Happy to help!

And off they went.

Sometimes I share stories like this, and I wonder if you all think they’re just small, insignificant stories. And frankly, you can think that 🙂 Its ok if you do, and its awesome if thats the norm in your home so it wouldn’t be out of the ordinary! It isn’t common here, though I want it to be, and I was SO thrilled to see it happen without any pushing from Brady or me. My two oldest, who don’t even want to hold hands or rub up against each other in a tight space, got up close and personal so Dekker could help Laela out of the van.

It was SUCH a big kid move!

Brady and I hung back in the garage for a minute, somewhat in awe. When I made it into the entrance with them, though, Laela told me right away how nice Dekker was, and Dekker offered to help Laela out of the van any time she asked.

My heart is warm. These moments give me hope through the stages like the one we’re going through right now, with those two arguing so often. They truly love each other, and care about each other’s well being.

This was the best way to wrap up our day, hands down. Couldn’t have been better. I’m SO smitten.