Brady and I went to bed at least an hour earlier than usual last night, which was awesome and restful and we clearly needed it. I’ve decided to bite the bullet and reveal my current bed head situation to all of you.
Gorgeous, right? I know.
Today was my towns garage sale day. While we didn’t come out of today with any riveting purchases (or any purchases at all) all four of us took a walk around town for a solid hour this afternoon. It was windy and overcast but not too terribly cold, so it was actually the perfect day! And it totally helps when your kids are as cute as my kids.
Upon getting home, we topped Laela up on her milk and napped both kids. We rested while they rested. When Dekker woke up, he was still all groggy. Brady brought him into our rood to change his diaper so he didn’t wake Laela, and he and I lounged in bed watching some funny music videos.
We had perogies for supper. Dekker fights supper, as I’ve mentioned a number of times, unless its a few certain meals. Eggs and toast, macaroni, fries, and so on. Bad kid food. But today, as I cut up only two perogies for him, he was itching to get his plate in front of him. He ate them in good time and asked for more. Its so nice seeing him solidly hungry and not screaming at his food.
We spent the last hour or so downstairs playing ball and cars. Oh, and Laela practiced…sock eating?!
She’s such a weirdo. Chews on everything soft that just makes my skin crawl. Oh, and you know that horrendous stage of tooth grinding?! Aaaaahhhhh!!! We are most certainly there!
Deks is now tucked in and Laela is drinking some milk. The bath is run and I’m trying to think of what our snack will be. Poor Brady wants everything he can’t have, and so do I. Soft food gets so boring!
In case any of you live under a rock and haven’t heard, today is not only Friday the 13th, but also a full moon. I’m not a superstitious person at all, but I do notice that full moons change things like sleep patterns. Anyway, I don’t think anything else is really dependent on these things, but of course I could resist heckling Brady a little bit. Of all days to have his wisdom teeth extracted, it had to be today.
I had my wisdom teeth yanked fairly quickly after Brady and I got engaged. Two of the four had just recently surfaced and I knew they’d need to come out one day, but since I was under 25 and living at home, I was covered by my parents insurance. Therefore, I basically had them pulled recreationally, haha, to avoid having to pay that ugly $1600 later in life.
Don’t I look sooo pretty here?!
Willa showed up this morning around 10:00. Our plan was to leave around 11:00, so that would give Dekker some time to get reacquainted. Incredibly enough, Dekker either remembered Willa (its probably been since Christmas) or just sensed how much she loves him, but they got along like pb and j right off the hop. We ended up leaving a half hour early, and Dekker didn’t even flinch. Awesome sauce! It was a good thing we had that extra time, because we were met with construction everywhere!! Even on the highway. It was insane. We had about fifteen minutes to spare, which we used to stuff Brady full of some fast food. Soft, mushy food can only fill a person so much, and we didn’t know how he’d feel afterwards.
He was in the back office for less than 45 minutes before he surfaced. We paid a measly $250 for his extraction, and headed over to a nearby Superstore for some Tylenol. Apparently we’re completely lost without our diaper bag and hadn’t planned to bring any pain relief. It was fine though. Just a quick stop. Brady was happy. He even smiled for a picture!
Hahaha! I love that smiling frozen face 😀 No, I promise I’m not being a jerk, he told me I could put this up! We laughed hysterically and he drooled and laughed and drooled. It was sooo funny!
We came home to super happy and incredibly tired children. Everyone had played hard since we left, so they both went down for naps right away. We lay low while they slept, and watched some tv. Brady started burping up blood, which is disgusting, so we got him some orange juice to mask it. Its always nice not to throw up, right?
Something that I actually really enjoyed about today was supper. I’m not a very adventurous cook (or really a cook at all) but we had to make soft foods that Brady could eat. I know my husband, and he would starve on soup alone. So I dug around in our freezer and found some thin fish fillets we bought a while back to try but hadn’t gotten there. We made mashed potatoes with cheese, and I lightly fried up the fillets in butter and salt, and myyyyy goodness, they were delicious! Even Dekker, who boycotts supper daily, liked the fish! Brady ate it without any real discomfort. I was so relieved that I tried a new thing and it worked out for the picky boy and the injured one too! Success all around 🙂
The kids are all tucked and in bed, and a bath is run. I think I’m gonna go whip up a quick treat of some instant pudding for Brady and I, and then some episodes of House before bed. I LOVE our evening routine. Today really worked out, considering.
I’ll leave you with a super cute picture of Laela. Sweet dreams!
I won’t lie. I was suuuper unproductive today. I did a solid amount of toy-playing, Duggar-watching, eating, and Facbook/Instagram-creeping. Yup, I am that person. Luckily, my kids are still alive and they still love me. Hopefully I’m not the only person who has days like this.
Brady got home a decent ways into the evening so we had a really quick supper and played toys until Laela just couldn’t take it anymore. It was about twenty minutes later than usual. My kids and their specific routine. I swear, we would never choose to live such a scheduled existence if they didn’t want to!
Tomorrow we’re having Willa over for the first time since Christmas, I believe! I am sooo thankful for this, since Brady is having his wisdom teeth pulled tomorrow, and now I can take him! The lucky duck only has two wisdom teeth, and they’re decently grown through already, so he’s able to just get them pulled in the office with some freezing. However, Brady has never had any dental done past a cleaning, much less a surgery or even stitches. So without sounding mean, I’m not sure how much of baby he’ll turn into, haha! I’m confident he’ll be fine, I just heckle. If all of a sudden he’s offered some kind of laughing gas, this way he’ll be able to take it. So I’m relieved to have someone I trust implicitly with my kids.
Willa has also volunteered to watch Dekker on Monday when – ominous music plays – I take Laela in to see Dr. Rubab. No, I haven’t seen anything in her eyes that makes me worry, but because of Dekker’s situation, my doctor suggested she be seen at our earliest convenience. Instead of taking Laela to an optometrist, which we could have easily done, Dr. Rubab said she was very willing to see her. So we got a referral and the appointment date was pretty down the road. Its bugged me for a while now, just because I’m anxious to get the all clear. Babies can be seen as early as 6 months, for everyones information, and Laela is about 8.5 months now. Again, I’m fairly confident she’s fine, and I’m actually more curious than anything about what tests they’ll run to check her condition. But if those who pray would like to, we’d certainly welcome!
So to recap, Bradys wisdom teeth tomorrow, and Laela’s first eye appointment on Monday. Trying not to look at it from the perspective of negativity surrounding a weekend. More like, getting some stuff out of the way and seeing where it takes us 🙂 Yay positivity!!!
For the first time since last summer, Dekker fell asleep on me. Before last summer, it had been over a year before that. My boy loves to sleep in a bed and nowhere else, really. Maaaybe a car seat. But today, I had the pleasure of having his sweaty head on my chest for about fifteen minutes before I moved him to bed.
Very shortly before he fell asleep, we were playing toys in the basement. Laela was awake alive alert enthusiastic (any camp people out there?) and Dekker was starting to fade. He requested to sit on my lap, and once he was settled, he asked to hold hands. So rarely does he want to just snuggle and hold hands.
The wakeful one
We cuddled and watched Laela play for a while, until I felt Dekker twitch. It felt like one of those annoying twitches I sometimes get when I’m just getting to sleep. I suspiciously turned on the camera on my phone and turned the picture around so I could see his face without moving us too much. Sure enough, he was out.
Sooo comfy! I didn’t want to move him, but I wanted him to sleep nice and long. Since this so rarely happens, I could only imagine how tired he was! I jostled him just enough to get him to sit up a bit, and then I picked him up and carried him on my shoulder. As soon as I got up, he was pointing to our chair, asking me to sit back down. I suggested his bed instead, and he relaxed, and quietly whispered “ya.” He tucked in easily.
My biggest challenge was trying to decide whether to put Laela down with him. They always nap together but she seemed pretty wide awake when I left. I didn’t want to ruin the nap Dekker clearly needed. I got back downstairs and Laela was squealing her head off, with tears in her eyes. A BIG tired sign around here. So I brought her up too. She flapped and chatted and rolled around for a while, but eventually they were both silent. They slept together for about two hours, and then Dekker slept for another hour and a half. In that time, I saved a ton of blog posts to my laptop! The nicest way to save them requires Brady’s help, and there just isn’t time, so I’m saving them a considerably less pretty way, but they are being saved anyway. I saved from October 2012 through March 2013. I still have a long way to go, but that is some solid progress that I feel very, very good about.
When Brady got home and Dekker finally got up, we had fries and chicken strips for supper, which was super delicious! Turns out that fresh seasoning salt makes a huge difference. Yum!
Once we get a burp out of Laela here, she’ll be down for the night and I can get my bath! Oh!! It happened already, wow!
Our kids are growing sooo fast these days! I just wanted to document a few adorable things that Deks is doing so I don’t forget! As I’ve mentioned before, this blog is fairly therapeutic for me to write. Its nice to be in the groove of it, and I don’t know if I would keep up so well with it if it was just for me, on paper. But it is sort of a memoir type of thing, in the way that I hope to go print it off and have a hard copy for my kids to read. So this is more an info post that is mostly for my enjoyment 🙂 Hopefully some of you can appreciate it.
Dekker is an entertainer. He wants to be watched all the time. “Watch Detter! Watch Detter!” He will get down on the floor to Laela’s level and say “La smile at Detter” and wait until she does. He loooves Laela. This morning, both kids were in high chairs at the table, and Dekker came down out of his first. As usual, he went over to Laela to say hi to her and check on things before heading to his toys. Normally, he just says “Hiiiii Laaaaaa” in a higher, wandering voice. I guess its his baby voice 🙂 But this morning. He was a bit more serious, and said “Hi. Lay. La.” He glanced over at me to make sure I caught it. Yup, I did. In the last few days, he’s been using her whole name more. Its nice to hear it! So anyway, he greeted her, and then assessed the situation. She had thrown/dropped all of her toys onto the floor. Dekker threw his hands up and said “LAEla, uh-oh! Toys!” and he picked them up for her. He is the best brother.
His latest phrase, from the last two days, is “not today!” Its so cute to hear him say it when we ask things like “Can I tickle you?” or “Do you want milk with your cereal?” He’s a cutie.
Today, he told me he has greasy hair. Fact. It doesn’t help that I spilled iced tea on his head. Do I see a Mother of the Year Award in my future. No, I do not.
Ok ok, last one! We watch a decent amount of “19 Kids and Counting” around here. In the beginning, they list off all the kids by name. When we first started watching, Dekker would say “Josie” over and over, and request “More Josie’s.” It was super cute, and I figured she stuck out because she’s the little one and is introduced a bit differently. The other day though, Dekker watched the intro and said “Detter likes John.” Well, that was kind of hilarious, in my opinion! Why not like John? Sure thing, Dekker. And now, this evening, we were watching a 19 Kids special and they were recapping older episodes. One that really interested Dekker was when a couple of them went skydiving. Dekker loves any vehicle right now, including planes. We watched the clip and at the end, out of the blue Dekker comes out with “Jim Bob flies up in the sky!” I thought maybe I was making it up, but he repeated it. Turns out he’s really listening to what we watch in the background! Crazy boy.
Ok ok ok, before I talk about the garden, I have to show you guys my new jammie pants! Its sort of a picture of the crotch of my pants, but there are blings where the fly would be, and I can’t miss those!
Back to the garden now. My parents were nice enough to put it all in while we were in BC. We had talked it all over and planned it out, and they planted it. We went and checked it out again yesterday and saw some great progress! Ready? What do we have?!
Hahaha, grass maybe?
Wager some guesses, if you feel so inclined 🙂
On that note, babies are in bed and I’m looking forward to some chocolate and a bath.
Last but not least, this happened today…
Hopefully soon it’ll become a regular thing! She’s so grown up!
The kids slept in beautifully this morning! Ok, no, it was no 10:30 that Dekker used to give us, but it wasn’t a 7:01 either. 8:40 was a great compromise! I scrambled for the next 50 minutes to get myself and the kids ready for church. Thankfully, my parents were there to help get the kids fed while I got myself ready. Brady was off doing a sound check with the worship team for the morning service. A last minute weather change brought the service inside, sadly, but it was ok that way too. Nice to not have to shiver in the unpredictable weather.
I know every mother thinks their kids are the best kids, and we really should all think that! But my kids were easily the cutest kids at church today. Dekker did pretty well considering the size of the crowd and how tight it was, and Laela was so tired but sooo friendly to everyone who looked her way. It was sweet. My parents took off to a birthday party as soon as it was over, and we meandered back to their house for a quiet afternoon.
When the kids went down, I actually abandoned Brady and went to the city to run an errand or two. While I felt completely unproductive, I did come home with a few fun finds. The only thing I came home with that I actually needed was new jeans for Dekker. He recently shot up a couple of inches, or so it seems, so the kid needs longer pants. While buying those, I picked up a romper and some shoes on clearance for Laela. Through the rest of my travels, I magically acquired a new lipstick, casserole dishes, ballet flats, and the coolest jammie pants I’ve ever owned! I realized that I don’t actually own jammie pants, just one wonderful pair of sweats. They’re great, but I’d love something not quite so beefy. I found these beautiful pants at Value Village, Steve Madden tag still attached. Five bucks!!! They’re beautiful. I never want to take them off. They are my best purchase from today, hands down. Although the passion tea lemonade was a big win as well…
When I got home, I was greeted by everyone! The kids were up, my parents were back, and Brady was still alive. The house was rocking in the best way. For supper, we had hot dogs, and doritos with dip, and strawberries, mango, and grapes. It was ridiculously delicious, and hit the spot beautifully!
It was sad to go home, and very sad for Dekker to be put to bed here. He loved the sleepover. But with everyone tucked in, Brady and I can take our time settling in, and having a soak. Oh, and checking on the garden! Hopefully we have some some movement 😀 I’m so ready to have a good garden this year! I speak in faith, haha, as the last few years its been a total flop. No flooding this year, please lord!
Sleep sweet, guys. You’d probably sleep better if you had these rockin’ jammie pants…
We finally got our butts to my parents this weekend! I feel like we haven’t spent any time with them in forever, so being that this is the weekend that the town celebrates, we figured we’d stay over for a night. We got up in the morning as usual, and packed our bags quickly while the kids ate and played.
We made it to town earlier than we had originally planned to, so we played outside in my parents backyard until it was time to go to the parade. We made our way to the central area of the town and picked a spot by the high school to set up our lawn chairs. The parade started right on time, and was filled with music, horses, and Dekkers favorite – emergency vehicles! Anything with a siren is ok in his book. Laela was really tired, as she was refusing to nap, so she didn’t enjoy it the same way 😉 But it was nice to be outside in the sun, gathering candy for Dekker.
The second the parade was over, Dekker said “Done. Go.” So onto the rest of the day! We went back to my parents for a lunch of pancakes and sausage, and then both kids went down for a nap. We watched a movie and relaxed and snacked until the kids woke up. We spent the rest of the evening having supper and playing a lot of toys. The last 1.5 hours was probably the longest part of the day, and it wasn’t even too hard. My baby girl was just struggling a bit. After popping four teeth in May, she is still teething! Which is so unfair 🙁 Poor munchkin. But she drank her bottle like a champ and the kids have been sleeping no problem.
Brady and I left for about a half hour and caught the fireworks at the end of the evening. Well, the end of the evening for us old folks anyway. It was a short but sweet date away. Now, we’re all cuddled up in one of the spare rooms in my parents basement. Tomorrow morning is breakfast and church in the park, so its the perfect time to spend the night. Let’s just hope the kids sleep in a bit longer than usual. Its our only chance at surviving a nap-free morning with Laela!
Laela doesn’t sleep as much as Dekker. She never has even come close, and I don’t ever really think she will. And honestly, I’m ok with that. I like seeing my kids, haha, and some days I would see Dekker for a total of about two hours. Our current setup works for me. But today was sooo different!
I’ll quickly go back to yesterday. The kids often go down to nap together around 3:00pm, but they were both pooped and in bed by 2:00 instead. We had to wake Dekker at 6:00. That is a looong nap! So being that we had evening plans, we thought we might push our luck and try to put them down even earlier. Ok, background over.
They both got up pretty much right at 7:00am, and Laela was in bed again by 8:30, which is incredibly early for her. She often makes it to 10:00, but not today. She slept for a couple of hours and was up, ready to go. But she was wiped out by noon again. Strangely enough, so was Dekker. So we crossed our fingers and put them down. They never nap this early! NEVER!! So we had no idea what to expect.
Not a peep. Laela lasted two hours before we went and got her. She was just starting to talk and fuss, but Dekker hadn’t moved, so we figured we would let him finish out his nap in peace. We figured we’d have plenty of time to get him up, hit the city for a couple of little things, and then go to our friends’ place to celebrate their daughters second birthday. Plenty of time.
But we didn’t. We woke Dekker from a dead sleep after 3:30. Its sooo weird how much he’s been sleeping these days, but we’ve been noticing his almost brand new jeans are getting awkwardly short on him, so apparently he’s growing like a weed. I’d be tired too. He perked up a bit when he saw Laela was getting ready to go somewhere, and finally gave in to his diaper change and getting dressed.
We completed our errands in good time and I only bought Laela two articles of clothing, haha! We got the party a bit late, but it was a really nice, casual setting. We just jumped into the group, Brady cooked us up some hot dogs, and we sat on the deck and visited. Dekker eventually went and explored all the outdoor toys, and Laela showed interest in solid food for the first time ever!!! No judging, I know everyone has their “perfect” way of doing things, and we can’t all agree. I let her suck on some watermelon. She didn’t take any bites or anything, but a couple of times she shaved little bits off with her bottom teeth. I haven’t fought with her over solid foods in a while, because a) I don’t want to fight with her, and b) she just wasn’t interested! After diligent work, she would not open her mouth for a spoon! So I’ve decided to give her a bit of time and eventually I figure she’ll prefer to eat with her hands. If you know her, you know she’s grabby and tactile. What excited me about the watermelon thing this evening was that she had never opened her mouth in anticipation for a solid food. She hated solid food. We tried a few different baby-friendly things and she just wasn’t into them. But when she saw me lift up the watermelon slice, she would open her mouth in ready. So exciting!!! Maybe this is where we start! Seems like I need to read up on baby led weaning…
On our way out, Dekker got to pick a couple of toys from a bin, and he picked one of those clacker toys that I haven’t seen in years. We didn’t even have to show him how to use it. He just whipped it around, it clacked, and he was sold. We grabbed a pink glow ball for Laela and headed home.
Both kids are tucked away and happy after a playtime that was basically just Laela smacking Dekker and him giggling, kissing, and hugging her. It was a solid day. My heart is full.
Now to get everyone some rest. Parade tomorrow at 11:00am!
My much needed day away has come and gone. It was truly wonderful. Shorter than anticipated, but that was my bad for simply going home too soon. But everything I did today, I enjoyed. I know it might be boring to some, but others may just wish to live vicariously thru my few hours away. Enjoy! Almost as much as I did…
The plan was to leave at 11:00am, so I got up and got all washed and fresh-feeling. It was pouring out but I didn’t let that mess with my mood too much, and just chose skinny jeans and a belted long sleeved shirt instead of shorts and a tank top. Who cares. I sprayed the crazy out of my hair and used waterproof mascara.I put in earrings and did my makeup really nicely. I felt like a million bucks leaving the house. On my way out, I noticed my daylilies are starting!
I got into the van, cranked the heat, and listened to the music I chose at the uber-volume that I wanted. No little ears to worry about today!
My first stop was to pick up a scarf courtesy of White Orchid Apparel & Sparrow Apparel. I stopped in at my friends place to pick it up, and have a quick visit. Her house was teaming with kids, and it was lunchtime, so I didn’t stay long. I went from there to another nearby town for a strawberry bouquet from Verna. It was an adorable and delicious looking arrangement! Once I got it out to my van, I realized I had no real appropriate place to put it where it wouldn’t roll around, so I improvised.
Safety first!
I made it to Bath and Body Works just after Jerilee arrived for her shift. Its her birthday today, and I wanted to make sure she felt celebrated. Luckily, a friend/co-worker had made cupcakes for the occasion, but she still seemed happy with the treats and present.
I left the mall and headed to the chiropractor. I saw Dr. Mike right before I went to BC, and when he found out we were driving, he asked me to come see him pretty quick after he got back. It was a good thing, too. That was probably the longest treatment I’ve had in a while. But it was probably my favorite part of the day, to be honest. We have good conversation usually, but the appointments are so quick. But today, we covered a comical amount of controversial conversations. From family and marriage to religion to vaccines to pretty much everything else. Its fun to talk so candidly about heavy topics like those.
I left there a little sore but onto the next place. I ducked back to the mall and fixed a billing issue with Telus, a quick stop at Children’s place for two rompers for Laela, and then hit Superstore. I only needed about four things, and they were out of one of them, but on my list, I had added “makeup thing.” I just wanted a little treat! And then Revlon lipstick was on sale. Like, a goood sale. So I got three. I know, I know. No judging. I also broke the law and ducked into baby clothes. Superstore has the cutest baby clothes, and I fell victim to them. Again. Two rompers and one dress later, I pulled myself out of there and checked out.
My favorite from today 🙂
I forgot to hit the bank for our weekly savings but will hopefully still get a chance in the next couple of days. Instead, I went to my last stop – Costco – and got my cart full of formula, milk, chicken breasts, kleenex, and bread. I was waved over to a till that was just opening, and was in and out of there so fast! I grabbed a tea from Tim’s on my way out, and enjoyed the drive home with my loud music and earl grey.
It was a good day away, and I felt refreshed when I arrived home. Brady was feeding my happy little girl, and Dekker had been napping for almost four hours!!
A big orange kiss, courtesy of one of my new lipsticks!
Those beautiful kids are now tucked away, my bath is run, and I’m struggling with a bit of a tickle in my throat. But today has been my best health day in a while so I’m certainly not complaining. That just means tea in the tub! There could definitely be worse things.
Happy birthday, Jerilee!!! We love you quite a bit around here 🙂
