Christmas in May

Today we had brunch and spent the afternoon with friends of ours who we hadn’t seen since last summer. We had plans to send Christmas gifts but decided to hold onto them instead and have Christmas together. It was actually pretty awesome having a Christmas in the middle of the year! They invited us over for a big brunch of pancakes, bacon, and fruit. I could have just kept eating, it was super amazing. We then opened way too many presents, and headed out for some shopping and soft pretzels. If anyone who lives around me knows where to find soft pretzels, please let me know. It is one of the few things I miss about living in Winnipeg, preceded only by family and…yup.

We all had a successful shop at one store and enjoyed a soft pretzel or two before one of our friends had to leave for his job and Brady was going to take Dekker for a ride/nap in the car so Jessica and I could have some girl time. We spent that time just generally catching up and shopping Target. I cannot wait for Target to open in my city this summer!!! I walked out of there with an amazing haul of clothing for me, Dekker, and baby Paddles. Time flew a little too fast and in no time our visit was over.

However, Brady, Dekker and I headed to my Grandmas apartment to meet her and the rest of the local family for a supper of Chinese food. Does anyone know where to find such amazing Cantonese chow mein?!?! It seems Winnipeg is the only place for that!

The food was awesome and Dekker was an amazing sport for only having had 45 minutes of naptime all day! He played toys and wandered around, opening his mouth and accepting bites of meat, noodles, and veggies from everyone around the table. It was actually pretty adorable to watch. My sister, cousin, and I had a nice chat out on the patio and then we headed out for home.

Dekker went to bed right when we arrived, and Brady and I shared a fire outside with Caitlin and Stefan. It was so nice to finally just get some time with them, uninterrupted. Not that visiting with other family and friends wasn’t awesome, but quiet family time is nice too, and something one rarely gets when their siblings live 9 hours away. We are sooo happy we came out!

Almost everything is packed and we are ready to leave nice and early in the day tomorrow. Hopefully Dekker feels the same. Leaving his auntie and uncle and newfound toys won’t be easy…

Deck Day

Today was solid. Dekker did great and took his naps, ate his meals, and played hard. He had a few moments where he’d lay on his stomach and start to scream and kick, and in those moments, instead of dealing with the tantrum by reprimanding him or ignoring his attitude and letting him yell, I just stood him back up and he toddled along and went back to toys. Sooo much nicer and we avoided the tantrum altogether!

The guys worked all freaking day. My sister, mom, and I did our best to provide hot food and coffee several times a day but those four men accomplished tons! Everything is level and beams and joists are set up. The posts for the railings are even attached! All thats left are the actual deck boards, railings, and stairs. I know, that sounds like most of the deck, but all the tedious foundation stuff is done. The rest will go by so fast!

Tomorrow Brady, Dekker and I are going to spend a few hours with friends of ours in the city before we have supper with my parents, siblings, cousins, aunt, uncle, and grandma. Should be a great, loaded day, free of boys being outside in the crazy wind and rain.

What a Night!

Dekker tossed and turned and cried on and off until about 1am. He was so upset 🙁 I was wide awake, just wanting him to be sleeping. When he would fall asleep, I would check the time and calculate how many hours he would get if he stayed asleep. We had plans to wake him up for church at a decent time in the morning. But then, twenty minutes later, he’d wake up and bawl, thump around, and fall back to sleep, and I’d recalculate again. I found myself awake and completely worked up at 2:30am before I woke Brady with my crying. I was so anxious! He listened to me rant irrationally and then took a pee break to wake himself up a bit, and watched some Netflix with me until I dozed off finally. He also decided for us that we would miss church. I knew it was the right answer but I love going to my siblings church and seeing where Caitlin works. But we had to make the decision that fit our family. So it really was a rough night. Dekker was awake and crashing around in his playpen around 7:30am. At our house, he wakes up earlyish and jumps around his crib a bit before he falls back to sleep. I assume he was doing the same thing but its so much louder in his playpen. However, I knew the rest of the house was waking up for church around that time, so we let him jump around and he did go back to sleep until we got up, after 10am.

His morning was quite rough, unfortunately. We were getting ready to go have lunch with some family, and Dekker was just a reck as soon as he got up. It was frustrating and we couldn’t figure out why he was still so upset. But we did notice his finger chewing is at an all time high. I risked losing my pinky fingers and checked the back of his gums while he wailed, and those two year molars are definitely coming!

We arrived at my cousins apartment. It was full of people and Dekker was a bit overwhelmed when we got there. But he had lunch of cinnamon bun, fruit salad, and roasted potatoes before my Aunt showed him the toys she had brought for him. He was sooo happy after that! Such a little show off 🙂 I was so proud.

He did better through the rest of the day. I’m not going to lie. He was on painkillers most of the day, but he clearly needed them. When theyw ere all set in, he had two solid naps and lots of playtime. He spent the hour before bedtime being tickled by Aunty Caity, racing around in his diaper, laughing and dancing in front of the mirror, and moving toys from place to place through the house. He stayed up a little later than usual, just because we were all relieved to finally see him playing happily, and at peace.

He didn’t fight bedtime at all. He has been quiet pretty much since we put him down a couple of hours ago, and we even fixed the playpen to not make so much noise during his morning work out.

Here’s hoping for a solid night of uninterrupted sleep before a fully day of beck building! Pray against the 50cm of rain please!!!

Fixin’

The plan for Winnipeg was originally to come help my sister and brother in law build a deck on the back of their house. Turns out they discovered a large amount of rot on the back of their house and wouldn’t be able to secure anything to it. So the plans changed slightly and the boys spent today practically redoing the bottom 2ft of the house. A friend of Stefans came as well, and had been coming a few days before we even arrived, getting started on the project. And they finished today!!! This is a HUGE accomplishment, and leaves the very exciting plan of deck building completely available for Monday morning 🙂 Then the real fun will begin!

All of that being said, Dekker woke up the house thanks to his own personal 6:30am dance party in his playpen. For the first time in his entire life, he woke up at 6:30, which was actually 5:30 our time. Sooo bad! But he was a complete champ and lasted until noon somehow. He was super cuddly but not especially sad at all. He then slept a solid 3.5 hours of wildly loud noise and hammer drills. He did great until we had to wake him from his second nap. He probably cried solid for over a hour. It was intense. He finally calmed down after we forced him to lay on me stomach to stomach, and I paddled his back with my hands. Basically, we know he is cutting molars right now, and his stomach was rock hard so we’re pretty sure he had some crazy gas pains. Poor dude was soaked with tears and snot, but finally stopped crying. He cried, of course, when he was laid into bed but not for long. Now he’s laying in his playpen, chatting. Go to sleep, little friend!

All in all, the day was great 🙂 The guys accomplished so much, and us ladies prepared food and watched the kids all day. We’re looking forward to church tomorrow morning, seeing cousins for lunch, and who knows what else in the afternoon and evening. So glad we came out!

Travel and Tears

Dekker was NOT a fan of traveling today. He was crying about ten minutes into the drive. Granted, I woke him at 8am, which is another thing he isn’t particularly fond of. But he was a trooper and had a nap around 10am. That was the first of two half hour naps he took all day. Honestly, he really did spend a decent amount of the day fussing and crying. It was hard. One particularly fun stretch was from Chamberlain to Regina. He cried the whole way. His whole face was completely soaked with tears, snot, and drool. He wasn’t just whining, but was clearly quite upset. We stopped in Regina for a snack and discovered that he had peed through everything. His diaper, pants, and carseat were all soaked. He was sooo mad! Brady offered to go find Dekkers jeans from his suitcase but I opted for a travel day with the pantsless wonder instead. If I could roadtrip with no pants, I think I’d feel happy too. So our boy traveled to Brandon pants-free with a bit of a better attitude. We took a longer break in Brandon. Dekkers pants had at least dried so we dressed him up and got him something to eat. He did pretty ok after that but seemed pretty relieved when we finally arrived at Caity and Stefans. Not relieved like he wanted to be free. He would not be put down for a solid fifteen minutes.  But then he relaxed and played toys and went to bed pretty much right after supper.

While the drive wasn’t without its challenges, we are more than relieved to be out of the house and with family. We’re been planning this weekend for quite some time and are excited to get a start on our time together. But first, sleep! Sleep that isn’t in a car…

Up to my eyes in monster cookies!

I baked the day away!! And kept up with dishes all day! Yes, I am that good.

Dekker woke up and had breakfast with me while I started the moster cookies. He helped me out by eating peanut butter of a spatula. No worries, I switched scrapers after that. There is no mysterious baby drool in the cookies.

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I always make these cookies wrong. They call for 9-10 cups of oatmeal, and my mixer craps at out about 6 cups. So then I give in and dump it all into a bowl and mix it with a wooden spoon like “they” used to do. It becomes almost impossible to mix around 8 cups so I add in the 9th and struggle until everything is wet. And those stinking cookies have the nerve to spread out sooo far that putting six cookies ono a pan makes a cookie cake. Not as delicious as it sounds. So when my first dozen were out of the oven and a total flop, I put more oatmeal into the rest of the dough and that seemed to be a little bit better. Still only six cookies to a pan though. Oh well. I have yet to perfect this recipe so, expecting that they wouldn’t turn out perfectly, I loaded them up good with chocolate chips and m&ms. At least that part will taste good! So about 60-ish cookies later, I gave up and took a break. Dekker had a solid meltdown in the middle of baking so he slept while I rested. By the time he got up, it was time to attempt brownies. I love my brownie recipe because its fairly forgiving and super rich! Brownies are safer too, because undercooked brownies are extra gooey, and slightly overcooked brownies are chewy and delicious. So I can’t lose. As I was putting everything into the bowl, I discovered we didn’t even have half the cocoa I needed! And believe it or not, brownies without chocolate just aren’t as good. So that had to wait for Brady to get home with cocoa, which turned out well actually. My sciatic nerve is pissed and needed more of a rest than I had given it that afternoon. So Dekker and I went to play toys downstairs. Once Brady came home, we made pizza and watched a show. Dekker went down for his second nap and I baked the brownies and made the icing.

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I iced the brownie, we bathed Dekker, and finished the dishes. Brady sliced up half a watermelon for the trip, and I carried the other half over to a friends house. We’re currently packing (or Brady is, as I’m blogging) and soon we’ll be done that too. Oh, and we did laundry. It has probably been the fullest day I’ve had in a while and I am so ready for my bath and snack! But I still have to gather my stuff to pack, and make a list of everything we have to pack tomorrow morning.

Needle Day

Dekker woke up before noon again which was great! I got him up and dressed and ready for breakfast. We are a jammie family, and prefer to hang out in our comfies unless we have somewhere to be. And today was needle day! So clothes it is! Our house was cooking hot though, so Dekker’s shirt came off as soon as he was done eating and running around.

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He’s such a sweetheart!

While he played, I finished the dishes! I have no idea when the last time was that my counters were dish-free, but today is the day!

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Yes, they’re still drying here. They did get put away, I promise.

We played toys and did stuff around the kitchen until just before 2pm. His shots were scheduled for 2:15pm so we got set up in the stroller and went for a walk in the sun. Having never gotten his shots in town here, I didn’t know where to go. I checked the town hall and it was locked. Luckily the town librarian was out raking the grass in front of the town office and she said they were just inside the office in a side room. So we went in and waited. Dekker ate goldfish. He seemed happy.

I LOVED the nurse and her nursing student! They had a bunch of toys and were completely relaxed. We chatted and Dekker played. They were very happy with all of my answers and were completely unconcerned with Dekker’s “delayed” speech. They understood and trusted me when I said that the amount he sleeps paired with his shy, quiet father explains why he doesn’t say much. But he understands and responds to lots of what we say, so they’re not worried about disorders that sometimes present themselves this way. He clearly has good hearing and understanding. It helped that he chatted a bit while he played. They could see that he chats, just not as much as some kids. He’s a quiet guy.

Unlike the clinics we’ve used in Saskatoon for his shots, they were happy for him to just sit on my lap for his two needles. Usually, I’ve had to lay him across me all funny with his arms twisted behind his back. I mean, the position alone made him cry, not to mention the needle! I would cry too! He just sat on my lap this time and she actually put both needles in the same arm so he’d only be sore on one side. Which was sooo much better! Of course he cried and was pretty unhappy but goldfish and ample bell-ringing seemed to do the trick. Of course, they commented on how beautiful his teeth were while he was wailing. Its true though, his teeth are beautifully aligned! I know, I know, bragging parent. I’m just very proud of how well he did today.

We walked home and I was prepared to put him straight to bed like every other shot appointment. But he was thrilled when we arrived home and rushed for his toys. So we played and played and by the time he went to bed, it was after 5pm! At that point, I had no motivation to bake. I know, you know probably all work waaay harder than me, but I still have tomorrow to bake, so I’m not choked. Might make brownies tonight and then do the huge monster cookie haul tomorrow. We’ll see. I’m just so happy with how the day went that I can’t feel too guilty about the cookies 🙂

My only yucky thing about today (besides needles, of course) is that when I burped a little this afternoon, I got that terrible reflux taste in my throat. Sigh. I hate acid reflux! I’ve only ever dealt with it when I was pregnant with Dekker, and I was on a double uber dose of Zantac everyday for the last month or two of my pregnancy. So again, just hitting me early this time around I suppose. But sooo gross!! Yuck. May have to jump back on the Zantac bandwagon right away here. We’ll see. I’ll give it a few days. But really, its gross.

Overall, today was great 🙂 And its gonna be date night! Which means Subway while Dekker sleeps through dinner. And Screamers to drink! So pumped and hungry.

Not What I Had in Mind

Dekker actually woke up before noon today and I was pumped! Dekker had his shots scheduled for this afternoon, plus I was planning on baking an enormous batch of monster cookies for this weekend.

Before anyone jumps on me about shots, I have to defend us from both angles. We’re behind, yes. Dekker is going for his 18 month shots at 21 months. I know, I know. He was sick on and off for the past few months, and had that ridiculous diaper rash for so long, I swore I wouldn’t get him his needles until he was cleared up and feeling good. For the other side of the debate, I appreciate that lots of people do not agree with vaccinating. Thats fine. To each their own. After discussion and prayer, we confidently will vaccinate our kids. Everyone has their own choice to make, and I don’t judge anyone one way or the other. I’d appreciate if you’d show my family the same respect 🙂

So I got Dekker out of bed right away and got him all ready for breakfast. And then realized its Tuesday. And shots are on Wednesday. Awesome. Shots have always wiped Dekker out pretty good and he tends to sleep away the whole day after them, so my plan was to bake while he slept after his shots. However, that wasn’t going to work out today. So instead, I figured I’d just get in as much as I could during his naps today, even if it was just getting the dough ready, and then I could bake them tomorrow. No oatmeal to be found in our house. Sigh. So as the title suggests, I didn’t accomplish what I planned to do at all. Instead, I did almost all of our dishes!! I can’t remember the last time my counter wasn’t littered with dishes. SUCH a mess we have lived in! Today is the closest we’ve come to a point of not being embarrassed when company arrives. Just a bitty bit left to wash by hand. Hope to do the rest tomorrow, while cookies bake, while Dekker naps, after his shots. Yup, that sounds about right.

This morning was the first time I caught baby’s kicks on camera! Four solid kicks. I was so excited to be able to video them and be able to see how far they’ve come. As I said to my sister after I texted her the video, I love seeing how someone so little can really pack a punch! I’d put it on here, but its just a long shot of my considerably less than perfect belly so if you want to see, just ask and I’ll try to send it via Facebook or something. Just silly little exciting things.

Time for a bath and bed. Tomorrow will be full of baking and an inevitably cranky toddler. No more needles until he’s four years old!!! Can barely even picture that. Wow…

Lazy Day

The day was exactly that. Lazy. I am totally blessed to have a child that sleeps as long as he does so I can sleep as long as I do. I’ve found that even getting a solid number of hours of sleep in a night just isn’t cutting it. I wake up completely wiped, and it feels virtually impossible to get motivated. I never felt this way in my first pregnancy. I’m not sure if it just is that this pregnancy is so different, or if its only different really because I have a toddler running around, but its different, and I am tired.

Dekker slept into the afternoon today. Around 1pm, I woke him up and we ha “breakfast” together. We relaxed and played toys all afternoon and then headed out to meet with our small group in the evening. The plan was just for a social night of games and a wiener roast. We laid Dekker down for a nap and headed outside with our friends. AS tends to happen on games nights, we didn’t get to the games. We all just chatted and caught up on each others lives. We ate hot dogs, salad, chips, and s’mores. I had way too much of everything but it was completely delicious. I am stuffed. Still. Dekker got up eventually and ate graham crackers and joined in the discussion. It seemed he had a comment at each lull. He would very seriously, in his deep little voice, add in his opinion. I love him 🙂 Couldn’t be more proud.

We were actually the first to leave, which never happens. But Brady is working extra long days in an effort to be able to leave for Winnipeg earlier on Friday instead of driving all evening into Saturday morning. Not ideal for anyone, especially Dekker. So we came home at a good time, which still ended up being decently late, but better than some nights.

Brady picked up our second crib after work today so he’s just hauling it all inside now, and then hopefully there will still be time for a bath and a show. Such a relaxing day for me. Might do some baking tomorrow. Or the next day. Who knows. But the plan is to bring a huge haul of monster cookies to Winnipeg. Maybe brownies too. Gotta get on that!

Mothers Day

Today I felt celebrated and beautiful 🙂 Seriously, I’m being honest. It was a really great day.

We lead music at church, which went really, really well. Some weeks feel better than others. Some weeks people really seem blessed by the music and other weeks, it just seems to go and you hope someone was touched by it. But it went smoothly today, and I could actually hear people singing that weren’t just my family and I. It helps 🙂

We invited my parents over for the day. We usually spend the day with them at their house, but changed things up yesterday and made plans to just spend time relaxing at our place. Plus, my parents hadn’t seen the place since the water went down. The yard is barely even wet anymore! I have renewed hope for our garden!! I thought for sure we’d be flooded out all season, but now I think its worth a try again!

We had a late lunch of crackers, fruit, meat and cheese. A couple of hours later we made a super delicious and super easy feast of perogies, gravy, chicken wings, and cooked broccoli. We ate sooo much and it was ridiculously yummy! I am still completely full and do not anticipate having a snack in the bathtub tonight!

Brady and I had our separate celebration yesterday, before we went to shop the garage sales. Breakfast of cheese croissants was brought for me in bed, along with white grape juice, and a gift. What did I get?

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He picked it all by himself too! Well done hubs. I love you!

One thing I want to add in here quickly is that I am 21 weeks pregnant, and I think baby Paddles may have given me the best gift ever! I’m somewhat confient that baby has officially turned! Whether he or she is head down or feet down, I have no idea, but I’m pretty sure baby is vertical! Because I have a belly. And kind of a pointy one…

Horizontal stripes aren't especially slimming, are they?
Horizontal stripes aren’t especially slimming, are they?

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There is no horizontal baby in there as far as I can tell! Pretty relieved about that. Just hoping this kid picked head down so we don’t have to go through too much more flip flopping. But either way, I’m just pretty much thrilled to be pregnant and will be thankful for whatever kind of child comes out in whatever way it needs to. Hooray!!

Baby gets eyelashes this week.