I think its not a terribly big secret that I’ve been a bit busy the last week or so. Its true. I haven’t been home, but it was for good reason, and we are praising the Lord that I am officially home today!!! 💜 Woohoo! Its been a long week! I sure missed my people.

With that, as I sat on my own toilet this evening, and took a minute to actually scroll my phone, I saw on my Facebook memories that yesterday marked the yearly anniversary of my blog! I MISSED IT!!! Hahahahaha! That should show you how busy I’ve been!! Because yesterday officially marked eleven years!!! 🥳🥳🥳🥳🥳🥳🥳🥳🥳🥳🥳

Eleven years have been full of things to share – trips, milestones, babies, friends, crisis, loss, grief, cancer, surgeries, learning and growing. And now, let’s add a new career and foster care to that list! The last year has been yet another large one! But one I am endlessly grateful for.

I love where we are in our life right now. It is not perfect. Its not all popular. But we love the directions we’ve chosen to run (or roll) in.

Thank you to those who have stuck it out with us 💜 And to those who have followed this silly blog project! Its been a riot! Every blog anniversary, I toy with the idea of wrapping it up. But I missed this anniversary altogether, so I guess we’ll revisit that next year, haha!

Why stop now??

Eleven years 🥂

Brady’s been feeling a tad under the weather for a couple of days, but last night he knew he wasn’t going to make it to work. And conveniently, some of the kids felt about the same 😬

Well, first, I guess you can know the weirdos that did make it to school.

Aaaaand then the sickos.

Once the big kids were off, Brady settled in for a movie with the kids 💜 Storks. If you haven’t watched it, do it. Its SO cute, and underrated.

Look at those eyes! Ack! Brady rolled out the morning (ha!) and then the kids both went down for naps. He had a soak and a boost in an effort to feel better. I don’t think it worked 😬

Post-naps, Wavy had a pretty decent fever and was feeling pretty floppy and icky.

But Laela came home bearing presents from her teacher, who was giving away from of her supplies in lieu of her retirement. She brought home a gift for each sickie 💜

She is terribly thoughtful 💜

In the midst of the sickness, my mom did a whole Costco shop for us! Thank you, mom! 💜

Here’s hoping for a smoother day tomorrow!! 💪

Today has been YUGE. So I’m going to pop on here, show you a joke, and go to bed!

This 🙌 is my kind of humour. I hope you got a giggle out of it, also.

Only

Yesterday I posted about Rowan partying it up at the spray park. Well today the fun continued, as Tom and Rae took all five kids to the spray park in the afternoon! I believe its safe to say they had an absolutely riot, but I also believe the real party went down in their hot tub. Because that was a FIRST!!! Lucky little kids, they are!!

Ok so the first run, Solly wasn’t feeling it. Probably nervous. I wasn’t there. But he’s somewhat less inclined to try new things. Rae and Tom know this, and don’t let it cramp anyones style. Safety first, Sol!

He got in on round two, however!

His little wrinkly belly 😍

I was proud of him for trying it out, and really happy the kids all got a chance to try something new and fancy!

I feel so overwhelmed with gratefulness these days. Our people just keep showing up to love on our children and our family, and I am humbled over and over again. Tom and Rae have had our kids from morning to night. Fed them. Taken them to water THREE TIMES. Played and partied with them. Gave them a day to remember in the midst of some change and stress.

I’m just grateful. So grateful. Its bonkers.

Doesn’t that sound like a great childrens book??

Last week, Rowan asked me if he could meet up with some friends at the spray park after school. I said yes, and gave him a time to be home by. He grabbed a towel and took off. Shortly after that, Cher left my house, and called me from the road. She told me Rowan was sitting out on his bike, alone. Apparently his friends hadn’t shown up, but he still really wanted to go. But not alone. So the loving auntie that she is, Cher confirmed with me that she was going to take him! And off they went!

I can’t really tell you all the stories, but I’ll show you some of the pictures. He. Just. Went for it.

He had an absolute riot, and he played hard! Until it was time to pack up, which he did willingly, and came home at our agreed upon time 💜

Thank you, Cher, for putting into our children and our family the way you do 💜 Every single thing like this is a gift for which I am SO grateful. I love you!!!

My dearest Dekker Thomas graduated out of grade six today 🥺 My first baby is hitting up high school! 

Yes. In our town, high school starts in grade seven. I know it’s not real. But it’s how it goes here. 

I unfortunately wasn’t able to attend, but I had a little lovely team there to take pictures, and videos, and celebrate with him 💜 

Every student gave a short speech about their time in elementary school, including Dekker, whose speech was fairly neutral, but ended with a zinger advising the upcoming grade sizes to always finish their work on time. He got a laugh. While he spoke, a slide he had designed showed up on the projector. Pictures of our family. Our Dahlsjos. Our camp spot. His newest little sib. And a really handsome picture of himself. He did a beautiful job. I am so proud of Dekker. 

I cannot believe my first baby is moving on up. He is less than enthused at the idea of being, as he said, in the kindergarten of high school. But I could honestly tell him that grade seven was my favorite year of school! I hope he feels the same! 

Happy grad, Dekker. I’m sorry I couldn’t watch, but I’m no less proud of you this way 🥰 My beautiful boy, I love you! 

Stuff changes pretty rapidly in our life, as you may have noticed over the past few years, lol! So as the theme goes, we’ve had a bit of a change of plans over here, and I’m going to be away from home for a few days. I slept VERY little the last few nights, and am only remembering now that I have a blog to write! Ack!

You may have to give me a day or two to get my ducks in a row, but I’ll be back with more intentional posts as soon as I have some rest and a clearer brain.
For today , I’ll leave you with this picture.

I hope you all sleep as hard as a tuckered out four year old who has spent her day in the sun ☀️

There has been some nice lightness in the house in the midst of some of the struggly stuff, and I wanted to share it on here 💜 Our days haven’t been especially smooth recently, but I love the bright spots. They fill my heart 💜

Rowan brought home Waverly’s kindergarten packet from school yesterday. While I was reading through the info for me, Rowan walked Wavy through the booklet for her, reading her the introductions to the important staff she’d get to know. It was VERY sweet, made all the better by the fact that it was unprompted. It was all Rowan 💜

Solly and Wavy have also played really nicely together recently. One of the latest jams has been kinetic sand. Yesterday, the goal was to combine it ALL and see how big of a volcano they could make. Teamwork, baby!

At the end of the day, Dekker went off with friends, and Laela headed out for an evening walk. I asked if I could join her, and bring a tiny friend with us. She was thrilled, and the three of us headed downtown for an errand together. It was really nice to get outside 💜

The days are nice. Windy, but beautiful. Its coming up on real live summer, and I’m really enjoying the lead up! Once school has officially wrapped, I hope to jump on the school supplies stuff on the spot and get it over with, hahaha! That way, we can just soak up summer without any big pending work to slap us in the face the day before school starts 😆 Not that that would be anyone else’s fault but my own, lol!

So many more sunny beautiful days to come 💜 Thank you, Lord.

I wanted to really thank you guys. So so many of you have reached out to celebrate our latest venture of fostering. Some encouragements are more than I even know what to do with. My counsellor would laugh and tell me to let people say nice things to me! And I would burrow. But I’m working on that 😅 It has been incredibly humbling to hear from so many of you that you believe this is a good move for us. Thank you so much for your warmth and care towards our family 💜 It is yet another time where its clear to me that we have an incredible community of people, whether in person or not, in our corner, invested. Its an incredible feeling.

Our hearts to foster stem from the desire to pour love out onto children who are entering an unfair situation completely innocently. Its not a secret that the foster system is far from perfect. Its all flawed. We all know it. Even they know it. We cannot know where these children are going to go after they leave our home, or how well they will be loved. So the goal is to put the bureaucracy and anger at injustice aside, and just POUR LOVE OUT. None of this stuff is for us. For me. It is for them. We choose to take the emotional hit when they go in order to give them GOOD solid deep love while we have them. Attachment. Connection. Affection. Guidance. A family.

We praise the Lord that we were able to be approved and to offer even just some care to someone who needs a place to be loved and cared for. If it all stopped today, it would have been worth it for this one week with this one child. ALL glory to God, and zero to man. We would NOT be fostering if not for HIM!

Yes. We went camping this weekend as a family of EIGHT! The greatest misfortune is not being able to blast all the pictures on here. But alas, thems the rules, so I found as many pictures as possible that don’t contain any forbidden faces, lol!

Laela is FINALLY crocheting!! I didn’t even teach her, Avery did!! She brought it to camp 💜 Because she’s my child.

We had the pleasure of having Cher visit for a day!! So this was the photo I sent to entice her to drive faster and get there!

Apparently Laela felt left out of the whole “baby” thing.

Rowan wanted to be dressy, lol! So he was rocking a button down shirt with his swim shorts, and he mis-buttoned it. And it was funny enough to diffuse a difficult situation. I loved it.

Piper brought out her pens to do tattoos on everyone. It has become a bit of a tradition when everyone is together.

A rare blue bird sighting at the lake! Can you spot it?

This photo cracked me right up, hahaha! SO serious. Dekker sniped Jaxon’s hat, and then they both got pretty lost in the fire.

Deep discussions about bubbles and fairy wands on the beach 💜

Cold toes 💜 Someone loves the water.

Out came the fishing poles. And hook. And down the beach, away from the people, they were sent!! Yikes yikes yikes!

Beautiful little lady 💜

Fun story! The Dahlsjos bought a paddleboat! So we have been LOVING that as a group so far this season! I don’t know what it is, but it just warms my heart to see our people pairing up 💜

Fishing for bait 😅

And these two have one of the best brother/sister vibes of the group! I LOVE when Dekker and Sadie hang out!

The weekend was loud and crazy and a bit chaotic and we were pretty over it by the end, if we’re being honest 😅 But we made it! And I am confident the weekends will only get better and better from here on out 💜 Thank you Lord for the beautiful memories we’re building in this season of our life!