This is usually the post where I recap the year, and all that has gone on. Myyyyy goodness what a years its been!! 😅 There is a lot to recap, most of which I had NO IDEA was going to happen! Its been a GIANT year!! Let’s begin!
January!
January was BIG! I was in immense pain in my hands and shoulders, unable to do pretty much anything. And then, on the first day back to school after Christmas, Dekker broke his collarbone. That SUCKED. I will never forget the helpless feeling of being physically unable to open his pain medicine. He stifled his cries and I stifled mine until we got that bloody thing open. Thank goodness, my mom committed to coming and helping us get the day moving and the kids out the door pretty much every day that month. She saved our butts. And my hands. And his shoulder.
February was also huge!
We celebrated our eleventh anniversary, and thanks to my body rapidly changing sizes, my dress fit around my ribs again, and Cher took beautiful photos of us! We completed pretty much all of the basement renovations and started using it fully! Rowan turned FIVE, which was HUGE!! And Waverly had her second ever breath-holding spell, even though we really really didn’t want another one. This one was a scarier hit, injury wise, but it was familiar so I think we handled it better. No hospital visit this time! Woot!
March.
Also huge, haha! We kicked it off with a change of job/business with Brady, and we were finally thriving financially after a really tough year. Then Covid hit, school closed, and Brady was swiftly unemployed, haha! Juuuuust like that. So we stocked up MADLY on every grocery item known to man, and snuggled in for the month. We spent an amazing amount of time outside, going for long snowy walks around down. We also got Solly potty trained. It was a whole family affair, as you can see.
April!
April was big and important, too! Brady remained off work, and the kids remained off of school. One big long vacation for us! The price of food went way up, and the price of gas went way down! Spring officially sprung! We planted starters! We played outside and got messy, and then got BUSY! Project one was closing in under the deck for storage, and it was AWESOME!
May.
Surprise, it was huge. Rowan started sleepwalking, making it clear his struggles in the day pertained to the night, at least sometimes. The kids got outside and biked and biked and biked. They all got amazing tans and really really dirty. We began developing our yard, building the fence and planting the garden. We only had our power and internet chopped once! Lol! That was a WHOLE debacle! Best of all, Solomon turned four! Goodness, he is just SO stinking cute!
June was big!
It was significant in terms of schooling!! Cher and I implemented Science Saturday, which the big kids really looked forward to! There were weirdly a lot of eggs involved, haha!! Meanwhile, we still played outside a LOT. Someone gave us a swing set, which occupied a lot of time for the little ones. And Brady and I continued to work hard on the yard and our mad tanning skills.
July was easily our biggest month. Especially in terms of pictures!
First of all, Waverly turned two! Except she was already way too grown up for her own good. It was her magic/champagne/golden/whatever birthday, because she turned two on the second of the month. So we made a bigger stink out of it and dropped some cookies off at our friends houses and paraded her around with balloons. The day after her birthday, we went to Christopher Lake to spend some time away from the house, and with some of our friends. We fell HARD for the lake, and space, and community, and warmth there. Upon getting home, Cher and I left to Edmonton for a spontaneous early birthday trip for me, as my birthday was otherwise occupied. When we got back from Edmonton, Waverly had a CRAZY rash covering her body, so I had to take her to the doctor. That seems small, but its important to note. You’ll see. As that was happening, at lightning speed, we secured a permanent lake spot at Christopher, and purchased a shell of a camper from a friend. For the rest of July, as we worked on getting the camper project moving, and Brady’s back pain began/ramped up. We celebrated Cher’s 30th birthday by she and I having a sleepover where she was housesitting, helping my mom move, and then celebrating my birthday at the end of the month. WHEW! What a month! (two pics)
August was big.
We kicked it off with a miscarriage. That was hard. But we enjoyed the pleasant distraction of spending a weekend with our friends, Tom and Rae, at their camping spot! It felt like family. It was amazing. The month continued, filled with pickling with my mom, and tons and tons of work on the camper. Having just bought it in July, we FINISHED it in August!! Right around Dekker’s birthday, in fact! He turned nine! I can’t believe it!!! Finally, we closed the month of by getting our camper to our lake spot, and spending our first weekend there! When everything finally wound down, Brady’s leg numbness began.
September!!
September was also a super big month, for lots and lots of reasons!!! All three older kids started school! We were all so glad it started back up again! Lol! Meanwhile, as they adjusted to that new normal, we still managed to get our way up to the lake for another couple of weekends. It was just so beautiful there, my goodness. We finally packed up for the season and accepted that fall was upon us!! Also in September, it became super apparent that Waverly’s hair was falling out :/ She began eating it, and it became clear that we needed to change that. We made the VERY hard, but quick, decision to shave her head. Dekker followed suit just days later. Solidarity. I love my kids. At the end of the month, Laela celebrated her seventeenth birthday! Man does time ever fly!
October was busy and big!
It was beautifully warm still, so we embraced it and kept things busy!! Brady’s back was in bad bad shape, but people pitched in, and we were able to get our grass planted!! Woot! What a huge gift to us! Solomon started preschool in October, and he fit in so easily. Brady finally saw a doctor about his pain and began to get the ball rolling on that, and just days after the appointment, he celebrated his 32nd birthday! We’re finally the same age again! I do NOT care for that gap, hahaha! Cher and I celebrated our third friendaversary, and traipsed around Saskatoon, doing nostalgic things 🙂 I loved it. The month wrapped up with Halloween. It was a very very cute day.
November.
Weirdly, November wasn’t huge?? But in another way, it absolutely was. The main theme was SNOW. We got TONS of snow in November!!! The kids played outside like there was no tomorrow, and I stayed inside, crocheting a mountain of gifts! November was our first hit of sickness that was barely a cold but, according to regulations, kept the kids home. There was a full two weeks where they were some long weekends, and the days in between them were sick days. The kids were absolutely stir crazy after that, hahaha! I’ve never been more ready to send them out the door, and I think they felt the same. I did get braids that month tho!! Thanks Cher! The month ended with me feeling that bizarre disconnect from my body and thought process. It was VERY odd and off putting. I couldn’t be more thankful for the people who helped me out of that time. You know who you are. It was tough, and the support meant SO much to me.
December!
Surprise! It was huge. It actually took a while to come back and heal from my weird little out of body breakdown. Meanwhile, the rest of the month was spent getting Christmas cards organized, finishing up gifts, and working on tying up about a million loose ends. But they all did get tied up, and Christmas did come!! There were decorations, gifts, good food, and LOTS of love for Jesus’ birthday!! It was rowdy and calm at the same time. Noisy and peaceful. I missed the hubbub of big gatherings, but my brain and body loved rest, also. A confusing Christmas. Covid Christmas. Christ’s Christmas. We fit into a lot of categories this year!
In all honesty, I’ve hesitated to say I’ve enjoyed this year. Because we’re supposed to hate it, right?? There have obviously been some HUGE challenges this year, no question. But we have gained a lot of ground as a family. We have been so blessed. While I do hope 2021 carries a bit more ease with it (a full school year, going out in public, maybe some income?) I can hardly ask for more than we’ve been given this year. In some ways, a lot of things have been on hold this year. And in other ways, I feel like we’re just getting started.
Thank you Lord for getting us through 2020!
Onto the next!