Last week at church, I spoke to a friend, and we commiserated on church mornings being hard sometimes. And its very true. Sometimes, the day starts SO hard, or the sleep was SO rough, or the kids are NOT doing well, or the babies are NOT having it, or I have NOT washed my hair in weeks 😬 All hypothetical, of course… And sometimes, we still make it there! We really love going to church!!

But some days, all I want to do it stay home.

Its been a fighty, struggly time in our home. All normal stuff. Not all scary cancer stuff. Just, life stuff. But its hard. So getting everyone out the door when kids are less cooperative or thoughtful is just a huge challenge. And then the babies, who obviously need help getting themselves dressed and fed and ready 🤣 So when no one will help, it all falls to me. (NOT because Brady is unwilling! He just can only do so much on that home front without abs to hold him up) Its all doable, but by the end of getting everyone ready to go, and likely doing some arguing and refereeing along the way, I am finished and all I want to do is stay home. Not every Sunday. But some.

However! If I don’t go, no one goes. The kids can’t all fit in the minivan with Brady and his chair. And Brady can’t get into the bus himself.

And if we DO all get to church, I am oftentimes in the back, walking/rocking a baby that will not stay in the nursery without me. Not always. But sometimes.

Its a whole thing.

Anyway. Last night, this friend texted me and offered to drive the kids to church. Which. Was. AMAZING. She picked them up early for Sunday school even! So Brady and I had some quiet time before he left for church. I spent the morning with the babies. And we RESTED.

When Munchie Mix went down for a nap, it was like LD and Spoons just knew the vibe was different. Spoons played SO well, quite independently, coming and going with books for me to read. LD was in rare form, a total squish, who just wanted to sit with me and kiss me and shower me with affection 💜 It was incredibly sweet and soft and I just soaked it up. I accomplished next to nothing and I LOVED it.

I was so grateful for this break. I don’t want to sound like I don’t love church, because I truly really, really do. I LOVE going and being part of our community. I love sitting and listening and singing and being fed a little. Its a treat to get to church!

But let me tell you. It was a treat to be home, quiet, sitting peacefully with my three little ones, doing nothing but spending time 💜 What a gift this morning was.

We’ll be away for the next two Sundays, but I have no regrets. This was lovely, and I feel more prepared for the week ahead. It is a beautiful thing not to feel dead exhausted today.

Thank you, Lord, for thoughtful people who care about our family.

I had a really yummy supper plan, and I even had it in the plan to make a version for the dairy-free kid. I signed up to make both options, even though I’ve never been one to elect to do that type of thing. But I was down, and I knew everyone would be stoked.

Today turned out to be a bit of a challenging one. They really are pretty common around here these days, unfortunately. I’m not sure how to pull my family out of the funk we’re in but WOW. Even I don’t like us right now. Its hard times. The petty side of me didn’t want to cook something yummy for anyone. I briefly wished to be a “screw it, you’re on your own” mom, but I decided to rise above it and go forward with my plan. Even if those around me were unappreciative, I could still show love and make something a little extra.

In the midst of cooking, I realized that the part I was willing to make twice to satisfy the dairy-free kid was not the only part that wouldn’t work. There was obvious dairy in the entire meal that, in my short time trying to feed my child this way, I hadn’t thought of or encountered.

So we switched gears. Brady suggested rice and curry. Super simple. Totally dairy-free. And nothing I had done already went to waste.

Dekker helped. I was really struggling, and he stepped in and stayed put with me in the kitchen. I imagine I wasn’t a bundle of fun to be around, but he took direction happily and easily managed at the stove.

Time to make up some powdered “cream of anything” soup base.

Oh and more ranch. Definitely more ranch.

You know you’ve cancered too long when you don’t even know how long you’ve been in treatment. 🤔

*digs back in calendar*

We figured it out! Brady started cycle FIVE today! 🖐

Of his third batch of chemo, of course. 😅

You may already know this, but people pop in and out, so just for funsies, a refresh.

Brady’s cycle of chemo contains three treatments. Every other week. So the cycles are six weeks long. Each treatment is an IV infusion of an immunotherapy treatment. But the first treatment of each cycle starts with what we lovingly call the double whammy. Its the immunotherapy, which is pretty user friendly in terms of side effects, but we add a really angry, aggressive cytotoxic med at bedtime. That part is the actual chemo treatment, but its long to explain and simpler to just call it all chemo.

Anyway.

Today was double whammy day. The one that kind of seems to knock Brady over just a scooch. So its super helpful that his treatments fall on Fridays, and he can sleep through the weekend.

I just love now, treatment after treatment, I get a picture much like this one.

He just doesn’t let this whole mess ruin him, and I think that is absolutely amazing. Cancer is something that we deal with. My husband has it. My kids dad has it. Someone that so many of us love SO dearly has it. And that sucks. But really, it just doesn’t run the show and I think thats pretty fantastic.

Happy….. fifth (we think) 😬 cycle, honey 💜 I could not be prouder of the story you tell and the glory you give to God all along the way.

💪

#glorystory

Brady has had SO many appointments this week, and he has some work building up and hanging over him a little. So this evening, now that all three babes are down for night, I am standing at the island, trying to take even just a teeny bit off of his plate. It is small. And it may not end up being worth the time. However, he is stressed to beat the band, and stress does not make our bodies healthier or happier! This week holds one of his big chemo treatments. We call it the double whammy. Anyway. It falls tomorrow. I won’t be able to resolve anything for him, but I’d love to at least show that I’m invested 💜

Also, I don’t hate this kind of work! Its the tedious work of combing through big annoying piles of paper in an effort to find small details. Needles in haystacks. And I’m game! I kind of secretly enjoy it.

So this post will be short, because I want to punch out a bit more before tucking in for bed early and getting some real rest on the clock for myself. I woke up for the day at 4:00 this morning for no good reason, and I do not care to repeat that.

Unrelated. We had chicken alfredo for supper tonight. Noodles were safely dairy-free, and while I didn’t have my butt in gear to make up a safe alfredo, I cooked up a tin (I know) of diced tomatoes, and my dairy-free kid was totally happy that topping on their noodles. Win!

Ok! Back at it!! 💪

Quotation marks are important. They should not be used willy nilly.

People should really pay attention.

But when I say grilled “cheese,” you’ll have to take my word for it.

See, dairy-free eating is mostly ok, except for the cheese part. I got more acceptance on my margarine post than I expected, but I think we can ALL agree that a cheese-free life is a tough one. And that vegan cheese should really just give up.

But today, I wanted to make grilled cheese. Because its yummy, and easy, and when I’m nice enough to make it on raisin break, my kids (wait for it) eat it up!

Except now, that one kid is dairy free 🙄 and you’d better believe they require everything that everyone else gets. So. Grilled cheese.

The raisin bread was fine. Dairy free. No “may contains: milk” moments, either. But its the cheese part. Nothing else sticks the way cheese does! There is nothing else even close!! Unless you guys know something I don’t know.

So I bit the bullet and I bought dairy free cheese. Now, I talked to someone who cooks for events, and she tipped me off that some dairy free cheese is ok. Some can melt. Some can taste close to cheese. Not many do both. I did some googling and found one that people reviewed and specified that it works well for grilled cheese. So I bought it. Spent a fortune and got this 😳

NOTHING about this mess looked like cheese. However.

It smelled close to right.

And it melted mostly normal.

And the kid ate it like every other grilled cheese they’ve eaten. I never got over there for a bite, so I can’t tell you how it tasted to me, but honestly, if the dairy free one is happy with it, so am I!

But you’d better believe I’m parcelling this out, freezing it in two slice increments, and making it last as best as I can! No grilled cheese cheese should cost this much, but especially not “cheese.”

Today, Cher came over for a couple of hours this morning and helped us punch out some work in the garage!

If you’ve been over here, you know our garage is pretty much a mess :/ And it’s only gotten worse over the summer and since bringing the whole camping season home. Unfortunately, something that is also worse since last winter is Brady’s mobility 😅 So we NEED the garage to work. We NEED it.

We were able to procure a platform lift to get Brady in and out of the garage, but it needs some work, as well as the entry landing, as it is about a 6″ drop 😅 Not especially well planned out in there.

Brady, Cher, and I made decisions, hauled things to and from, threw things away and stacked more for removal, and cleaned and organized. Dekker came and joined us after his morning stuff was done, and he eagerly did much of the heavy lifting for us. He was eager to move the golf cart batteries, put a bunch of things up on high shelves, and help me get the one loose van seat back in place. He helped Cher lug things into the shop downstairs, and we all got things into the shed and the backyard. We moved some things around so the winter stuff was more accessible and the summer stuff was packed up further back.

In the midst of the garage work, home care came, so that was another thing 😅 But we were already in a great groove so he just ducked in, met with her, and came back out to join when they were done!

But guys. WOW. There is still LOTS to do in there.

We have to make the lift work. Meaning we have to remove one side, and try to move the ramp to the other side. We also have to get it off the beast pallet it is currently sitting on. Its a rust bucket but it’ll do the job!

We have the build up the landing so Brady can actually use that doorway. Ideally, we’d rebuild the whole thing and install a barrier-free door, but its just not in the cards or budget right now and thats ok. Maybe in time. For now, it just needs to work better than it works currently.

We need to install railings on our ramp, which will get those out of our garage. I think thats arranged for next weekend tho!! Thank you to our lovely willing neighbour!

We also need to switch over our tires. Which will briefly free up space, and hopefully when tires come back, we will have the tire racks installed. We’ll see if we get there.

We need a dump run – a bulky one – to get rid of some furniture and bigger garbage. I’d love to also offer some furniture out to people, but always teetering on the edge of winters snow and rain, I can’t just leave stuff out for free :/ So again. We’ll see.

I have chairs to get recovered. I could get those out of there if my upholstery lady is ready for them.

Once we get Dekker to SARCAN one of these days, that’ll free us up a HUGE amount of space!!! He’s saving for something exciting!!

I need to find a way to better store car seats because WOW I have SO MANY that no one is using anymore!!! Hahahaha! Man alive, SO MANY car seats!

There is no shortage of work to do, as always, but today, we got things open and ready enough that Brady could pull his minivan in for the night 💜 Which is HUGE considering he can’t even scrape his windshield anymore. Goodness what a change. It never even occurred to me before today.

Maybe we should just get into Christmas decorating. That’ll bring some things out of the garage! 😅 We did in fact get a couple of festive things going in here…

I’m not sure my Wavy girl could be much cuter 😍

Anyway. Wish us luck! There is never a shortage of work to do around here! 💪

Today I had the pleasure of stocking my freezer full of freshly butchered pork. Not only that, but it was smoked, prepared, packaged and labelled so beautifully. At a really lovely price, as well. I was VERY happy to be on the receiving end of such an incredible gift and haul!!!

Meanwhile, to make room for my aforementioned porky present, I pulled out a few things for supper. Some old bags of hash brown patties that I bought for grilling at camp that never happened, and some breakfast sausage. I made these things, along with eggs, for supper, and the whole thing was dairy free!!! Without even trying!!! 😎

Ok I tried a little. Couldn’t fry the eggs in butter like I’d like, and the sausage was still in the pan when I was ready for eggs, so I couldn’t use that either. Settled for margarine. I know, no ones favorite. And no cheese in the eggs, but maybe the nutritional yeast cancels out the crap in the margarine 😅 Who knows. I’m still learning. But I feel extra capable knowing that breakfast for supper is going to be a pretty straight forward dairy-free meal.

I’ll stop talking about all of this stuff someday soon, but it still makes me feel accomplished to find wins along the way. Now to chase down all the baking ingredients I’m going to need to use for dairy-free Christmas baking without making things taste worse…

Remember that time when I was SO scared of cooking? While I’m still not exactly the most confident chef, I do ok, and am better in the kitchen than I was. I think thats a pretty accurate way to say it.

Which is REALLY handy because food is tricky over here these days!

Firstly, I have Brady, whose mouth gives him a lot of trouble, thanks to cancer treatments targeting his C-spine, and catching his mouth and throat in the crosshairs. Most meat hurts, and most seasonings hurt. This isn’t new, though, so I understand him pretty well and know what he can have.

Secondly, we have a toddler who is rocking a total dairy elimination diet right now. Which is HARD. Down to the “may contain” part of the label, we are avoiding ALL dairy at ALL costs. So, to name the obvious ones for cooking suppers, thats milk, cheese, butter, and lots of our favorite seasonings.

So. Brady can manage the caramelized onion butter seasoning. But the kid can’t, because butter. Kid could have dill pickle seasoning, but Brady can’t manage the zingy flavor.

Hence why I think I need to start cooking sheet pan meals in loaf pans 🤣

Sausage is a no-go for Brady right now, which I knew going into it, but everyone else eats it so we still have it.

I usually cook broccoli with garlic powder and parmesam cheese. Today, to save Brady, I decided to just put on parm. Of course, I realized too late that thats CHEESE! 🙄 Thankfully it was frozen broccoli that was still nice and frozen, so I rinsed it off and put garlic on the little batch, and parm on the rest for the rest of us.

And then potatoes are SO much better seasoned. So I put on simply “the blend” of salt, pepper, and garlic powder, but I made an “in case” batch with just a light salt in case Bradys mouth reacted.

This was an annoying way to cook, but I can confirm that it was actually super helpful and I will ABSOLUTELY use this method again!

Added bonus – Brady could totally handle the potatoes with the seasoning! Fun surprise! You never know when things will and won’t work, and today was a good day for food for him 💜 Yay!

Ok! Munchie Mix actually gave in to sleep earlier this evening, so I’m going to be done blogging and tuck in early!

Thanks for following along with our fam, guys. It means a lot to me.

We watched a movie this afternoon. This is not at all a common occurrence for family, but rather than a movie night where the toddlers are all over the place, breaking down before bed, we decided to watch one during nap time. The others definitely earned it yesterday, but we all agreed that maybe Saturday afternoon would be even nicer. So we did it.

We watch The Rescuers. This was an easy favorite for me growing up. I’m sure my children can now confirm as much, considering how much I quoted of it. Yes. I did an annoying thing on purpose. The kids do annoying things on purpose all the time 😏 So I felt justified.

If you’ve seen it, you know its charm. Its a GREAT movie. Plus it has a sequel that is also really, really good.

These movies would not be great for kids with abandonment trauma, because WOW is that ever a theme! “What kind of person would ever want a homely little girl like you?” 😳😬 Stuff like that.

Also, the hillbilly uncle in the white nightie is a raging alcoholic 🤣 He brought some great laughs, but man its funny what we don’t see growing up, watching these movies!

Anyway. It was a really peaceful time, watching an old favorite cartoon with the kids 💜 A nice way to spend time on a Saturday.

Our five day weekend was kicked off with a fresh layer of snow on the ground. Some were more excited about it than others, Wavy most of all.

It took a while but she did eventually convince Solly to join her outside.

Besides some outside play, we did some work in the house, and the kids played SO attentively to the babies for a while, leaving me real room to get some work day. These days, our babes are VERY attached to me, which is incredible, mind you, but restricting sometimes 😅 Every job I do, LD and Spoons are underfoot, or asking to be held, or crying while following after me. Its adorable, and I absolutely do my fair share of sitting down and loving on them really good 💜 But sometimes, when work has to get done, they cry, and its slow going. And today, it didn’t have to be. I was SO grateful for that 💜

Supper wasn’t special. Though, our one trialling that dairy free life got fried eggs and hashbrowns. I am not a mom that cooks different suppers for different kids, but we are in that boat right now, for at least a while, and I am not a fan 🤣

Ok. Munchie Mix needs me. Don’t mind me while I pop in an ear bud and watch a little true crime while the baby dozes in my arms.

Happy weekend everybody. ✌️🥱