I have about a thousand things rushing around my head today so its going to be a short post, but I want to just quickly talk about anticipation. I don’t know how everyone else operates, but I LOVE having something to look forward to. Whether it be a big event, a little date, life changes for those around you, or a good cup of coffee in the morning, I really love knowing something good is coming.
I am so blessed to have so many good things coming up in my near future 🙂 Dekker’s birthday is in TWO WEEKS! So thats nuts, haha! Laela’s is six weeks after that, and Brady’s is two weeks after that! Lots of fun to be had just in those events alone. Plus some family visits, friends visits, parties, and Lord willing, the sale of our house and the beginning of our build. So many positives 😀 Keep happy things in mind, even when you’re overwhelmed otherwise. It sure helps me keep my head on straight!
I was making plans today about a few meals I’m planning to make for a group of family I’ll be seeing soon. It seemed a little bit ominous at first, because I have a few different things that need to get done and I was listing very very haphazardly, just writing down was popped into my head, rather than dish by dish. Anyway, I finally got my head on straight and I feel very organized in that one small way.
Getting that all written down and organized made me feel really excited about my meal planning plan. I’ve mentioned a little bit here and there, I think, that I want to start meal planning, and if you remember very specific details, I said I was going to make a plan for September. I never did find that perfect template, but I just made a big list of all of the meals that are our usual go-to meals/suppers. I made sure the majority of them included meat and veggies, which should go without saying, but I’m not great at always having perfectly balanced meals. Anyway, I was surprised to easily come up with 15 over the course of maybe two minutes. There are many, many more, but these were just the ones off the top of my head. That was encouraging already. So I listed my suppers, then I wrote lunches down as salads and then all of Bradys usual stuff, and then I made a breakfast list. The kids currently have cereal and toast every day but I think I’d like to make muffins in there too and mix it up a bit once in a while. So this is my rough rough plan.
5 planned suppers per week. 1 leftover supper. 1 free supper (ie going out, Pinteresting, macaroni, etc.)
Brunches on Saturdays
Meals planned every other Sunday. We usually spend the day with my parents every Sunday, so this way, we’ll alternate.
The first 2-3 months, we’re using our well-known recipe. We’ll branch out with new foods once the habit is formed.
As you can see, this is a pretty lame plan, or “plan” rather. And its wildly imperfect. We may need two leftover days per week, or maybe Brady will take the majority of the leftovers for lunch, and then I’ll have bought him too much lunch stuff. I dont know, it will definitely be trial and error at first, but this makes it seem easier I think. I’ll order all of the non-perishables online before the month begins, and then we’ll shop for fresh stuff each week or two, depending on how fast we go thru it all. I think thats our plan?? Hahaha! I dont know, if its a total flop, just laugh at me. At least I’m trying! I’d love to be organized enough to make this happen 🙂
Maybe I’ll post the menu once I get it all together, and then I’ll let you know if I succeed or crash and burn.
Does anyone else consistently forget to empty the lint trap in their dryer?? I think I heard that the HE ones don’t have a lint trap, so if thats true (and even if it isn’t) that will likely be the way we’ll go with our next set of machines. Because I ALWAYS forget to empty that stupid thing!
Today was laundry day. I used to despise laundry, and now I truly enjoy it. Its low key, it really does its own thing, and I’m just there is hang it up at the end. I had a decent amount of laundry to do today. After two consecutive holidays, it had really built up. I always say that, after a holiday, I basically dump out the suitcases and just wash everything. After our lake holiday, however, I had one evening to do laundry before leaving in the morning, so I saved the things that were still folded up relatively nicely at the bottom, and just washed what absolutely had to be washed. But now, after our Winnipeg trip, I have all of our dirty laundry, the folded stuff thats been folded for way too long, the towels from the lake, other laundry that I didn’t do before Waskesiu, and an unreasonable amount of blankets that travel with us for kids bedding. Oh, and all of the towels that we switched out for the prettier ones for the new listing pictures. SO MUCH!!
Why I am peeved about this whole lint trap thing is that I lost HOURS to my first stupid load of laundry. I was trying to chuck all the kids stuff in at once, which was obviously not the smartest idea. After chucking in over half of it, I realized it was definitely two loads worth, and I just quit and ran the washer. I switched it to the dryer and threw in the rest of the kids stuff, which was just a few pieces of clothing and about thirteen receiving blankets. I know, its a ton. Dekker sleeps with one (kind of in lieu of of a teddy bear?), Laela still sleeps with one, and Rowan obviously still uses them. But we wipe up barf with them, we hang them on playpens so babies can’t see out as easily, we lay kids on top of them, etc etc etc. Then, the kids and I played while I listened for the dryer to buzz. It took forever, but as soon as it buzzed, I rushed over. I felt like it had gone forever, and I had a lot of loads to do. Aaand everything was still soaked. I ran it again. It ran for probably a half hour, and was STILL WET! I started it again and texted Brady that I was so angry at our crappy dryer. He responded with a gentle “Maybe the lint trap is full?” I cleaned it, and a very short cycle later, everything was dry.
So. That happened. Turns out that, if you remember, that thing fills up every load or two! But I stayed on top of it and finished every single load today!!! Brady is currently folding the last dryer load, and the last load from the washer is hanging. Did I mention there was a load of delicates in there? There was. But its all done now, and I will FINALLY let down a bit. Tomorrow will be another big day of actually putting everything away from our trips, reorganizing a few things about the house, getting certain parts of it back to showing readiness (no, no showings booked, just trying to stay on top of it) and maybe even making up the guest room a little early for our company next week!!!!!
But first, a bath, and sleep. Its always good to sleep in between days, I hear.
I opted out of laundry and grocery shopping today to hang out with Kim and her boys. They came out in the late morning bearing lunch and a beautiful personalized birthday gift for me. It was really the ideal gathering. We had some tv on the in background, and the kids played pretty well while we drank coffee and snuggled the babies.
Everyone ate lunch and we watched a movie before they headed on home for supper. Neither of us had made any plans for supper for our families, haha, whoops!!
After they left, my kids began (or continued) their throwdown, and cried practically until Brady came home. Not our best evening. Brady has been lovely and has given me a bit of time off, so I’m able to blog right now, listening to YouTube in the background. Thank you, hubs. LOVE YOU.
Our evening plans changed, and we’re staying in after all. We’re hoping to still rock a bit of a date, though we’re not sure of the details yet. We’re eating once the kids go to bed (definitely earlier than usual!) and who knows. Maybe a movie night downstairs? Maybe drinky drinks on the deck? I haven’t decided yet, but hopefully just a little bit of something even slightly out of the ordinary. Or, truth be told, it might be really really nice to do our normal evening routine, restfully, and just make more of an effort to hold hands and be close.
Sure sounds like a lovely day to me <3 Tomorrow will have to be somewhat back to normal in the day. Laundry laundry laundry!!!
Ok, whew! Its official. We’re home, all three kids are asleep, everything is carried in from the van. No unpacked, but inside nonetheless. A bathtub is running (how we’ve missed our tub!) and I’m laying in my bed, writing this out to you guys. It feels SO nice to be home!
We had a long but great day of travel. We ducked in to a Value Village along the way and found a PERFECT dress for me for this gala-type event I’m attending at the end of the month. I’ll show you when I have the rest of the outfit, but I’m attempting to assemble the look solely out of thrift stores or borrowing/reusing/recycling items. Could be interesting, but the dress alone is beautiful, and would likely speak for itself if I couldn’t find anything to accessorize it with.
As we drove, Brady and I continued to dream about the house we want to build. It was so exciting to spitball ideas back and forth, and see what things we felt really strongly about and what things we figured didn’t matter as much. Lots of discussion and of course, lots of decisions still to be made. But it was fun to dream together.
Once we got home, the kids were super giggly and funny, which was a lovely surprise! We tickled and wrestled and enjoyed our time getting them ready for bed, and there was little to no fuss at all. Those kids were at the perfect point of being ready, and not quite overdone. It was perfect.
Brady unloaded the van while I put at least some of the stuff where it belonged. At least in part. Toiletries bags are in the bathroom but not unpacked, things like that. It was so fun to unpack some of my fun new purchases! I didn’t do anything too overkill, but I did come out of our trip with some fun new stuff. Treats!
Our usual evening includes, blogging, Brady making his lunch for the next day, him playing some games on his iPad, myself watching a bit of YouTube, and then a soak in the tub. Today, I counted back, and I am behind 60 VIDEOS!!!!! I don’t even subscribe to that many YouTube channels, but a number of them video daily, and I have not been watching! While I’m thinking I’ll never catch up, I’m actually quite pleased that I was able to let that slide and just vacation without it 🙂 I don’t feel like YouTube is an addiction for me, I don’t have to watch it everyday, but when I get behind, it bugs me, and I really want to catch up. But this is much too much, and I actually feel fine about that. I’ll go back and watch the ones I really want to see, but certainly not even close to all of them! I’m happy that I don’t care, haha! Our last week and a half has been WAY too much fun, and I have not missed that guilty pleasure at all!
But now, I am missing the guilty pleasure of relaxing in a bubble bath with my husband. Here’s hoping its not hot enough to tick my sunburn off again!!
We had another lovely day here, visiting my sister and brother in law. The plan was for a home day, and for the most part, thats what we did. We played outside on the deck, ate a delicious brunch that seemed to go all morning, and kept very busy having fun. When the kids went down for their nap, the four of us got some snacks and drinks together and we sat out on the deck for a while. Caity and I stayed out for quite some time, but the boys wound up going inside for some brother bonding time of video games. I got a sunburn. It is incredibly evident where my shorts ended. Ouchy!
When the kids woke up, Brady and Stefan took Dekker and Laela to his parents farm for a bit of a tour and a ride on the tractor. The kids had a great time there, or at least thats the impression I’m under.
Ok, just kidding. The uploads are taking way too long. Maybe more farm pictures tomorrow.
Caity and I stayed back with Rowan, who napped most of the time, so we actually just grabbed some snacks and watched a bit of tv. She and I both appreciate a bit of down time when we can get it, so it actually really hit the spot.
We had a super yummy meal of barbecued chicken and mashed potatoes for supper, in honour of my recent birthday, and spent the last chunk of the day out on the deck. Or at least that was the plan, until this happened.
Laela was going down the deck stairs and, from what we can mostly assume happened, she tripped on the bottom step, bowled over, and cranked her forehead on the concrete pad at the bottom. This picture doesn’t do it justice even, but it is easily the biggest goose egg we’ve ever had in this house. But, back in the day, I spoke to our doctor about head bonks, and she gave me a bit of a criteria to follow. But those standards, Laela was more than fine, but I was a bit concerned with putting her to bed immediately after such a big head bonk, so we got everyone ready for bed and turned a show on tv. She seemed to get more upset when we wanted her to sit still, but suddenly, she was just crying and crying and was SO sad. It was then that we discovered that we had no Childrens Tylenol on hand. We had stuff for Rowan but nothing for Laela. So Stefan rushed out to a nearby gas station and bought some. I can’t imagine how much her head must have hurt but Tylenol was really out best option at that point, to at least take the edge off.
It took the kids a while to fall asleep, but that actually did my heart good. The rest of us pulled out a game and played a few rounds before we decided to have one last fire outside. We put together some delicious snacks (seems that snacks were the theme of the day) and spent close to two hours outside around a fire. It was so lovely!!
However, I am now quite chilly, and I have that sunburn chill going as well, so I’m all cuddled up in bed, ready to snuggle in with my husband and freeze him with my feet. Its been a really wonderful day, but home will be good tomorrow too. Pray for good travelling weather!!
We planned for today to be our day to go out and about, and do some shopping. Moving some car seats around made it possible for Caity and Stefan to join us in the van, and we all drove into the city together.
On our way to the mall, we stopped at IKEA where I learned that Brady was buying me another BEAUTIFUL white drawer unit for my makeup/jewelry/hair stuff! I’m so thrilled to be able to spread out a bit in my first one 🙂 Great gift, Brady! Sanks!
Once we finished up there, though, we hit up Polo Park Mall. This mall is better than any of our malls for several reasons.
Better stores. We don’t have Forever21, H&M, or any kind of pretzel place. No Second Cup or Aldo Accessories either. No Disney Store, or Anthropologie, which is probably best actually, since I could absolutely not justify the $50 measuring cups I wanted so badly. But seriously, all big wins. I love those stores.
Better company. Today, this mall included my husband, my kids, my siblings, a doting auntie and uncle for my kids, AND some of our dearest friends, Cody and Jessica, who we hadn’t seen in a solid year. They sort of dropped everything and came when we called, which we hate asking for, but so appreciate when people are willing once in a while! Thanks, friends.
The nine of us moseyed through the mall together and got in some good shopping. I ended up with a few shirts, some leggings, a teeny tiny bit of makeup stuff, and part of Laela’s birthday present, even though thats still a ways off. Jessica even bought me some of my things as a birthday gift <3 I felt very spoiled and loved.
The kids were at the end of their ropes in the late afternoon so we parted ways with Cody and Jessica and headed home with Caity and Stef. We had hot dogs for supper, and ate out on the deck. It was a lovely evening, but the kids were pretty destroyed and actually went to bed early. Considering that we’re actually an hour different than they’re accustomed to, they went to bed VERY early, and Dekker is having trouble staying asleep, so this could be an interesting night for us. But the evening has been lovely, filled with treats and a photo walk thru of the trip that my siblings just went on. What an experience, and SO many fabulous pictures!! I’m sure not complaining about my birthday lipstick straight out of the Chanel in Paris either 😀 LOOOVE that!!! After a couple of episodes of Community, we were all ready for bed.
Well, most of us. If someone could tell Dekker and Rowan, that’d be cool. K thanks.
We actually did it! We drove to Winnipeg today! I know its not really a serious feat or anything, but we haven’t taken rowan much further away than an hour or two, so we weren’t sure how the trip would go. Especially so soon after the lake trip! Despite the few expected challenges along the way, we arrived in the driveway of loving family with a van full of smiling children! Granted, the smiling children all REEKED of poop, but there was no shyness or apprehension whatsoever.
After a good hearty playtime, we put the conked out. I can’t be completely sure, but I would be surprised if they’ve moved since then. They were SO done, but so excited to be here 🙂 It bodes well for tomorrow.
Ro was overtired, and therefore, didn’t eat too much before falling asleep. So we put him down for bed too, and had an unbelievably perfect meal of rice with sweet and sour sausage for supper. We even brought it outside and ate around the fire. There is an enormous full moon in the sky tonight, it was still and beautiful, and just the perfect night for it.
After getting back inside, Ro is up for more milk, and the rest of us as ready to hit the sack. So ready!! I’m not sure what tomorrow holds yet, but today has proved to be a great day on the road, with a fabulous reception at our destination.
This trip was a great idea! Thanks for the invite, Caity!!!
Straight up, we all pretty much forgot it was my birthday over here, myself included! There were still lots of funny and positive things about the day that I’m weirdly excited to tell you guys about, but first, pictures from beach day 🙂
First, breakfast.
Then, the beach!
Boogers and all
Onto today! Behold, my list of highlights:
We drank all the milk.
We had to purchase some groceries when we got to the lake, including milk. We got a 2L of skim and a 2L of whole milk, and on the very last day, we finish off the end of both cartons. Win! Yes, a lame win, but Brady figured that since it warranted a high five, it deserved to be on the list of highlights.
Someone thought Brady was a girl.
Brady offered to change Rowan’s diaper in a Tim Hortons bathroom on the way home. He was in there, changing the poppy bum, when a man walked in, said “Oops, sorry” and walked out. A few seconds later, the man returned and said, rather gruffly, “This is the mens room.” Brady responded in his equally gruff voice “Ya?” Apparently Random Man #1 backpedalled, peed as fast as possible, and got out of there. Also, as a side note, apparently poop glows in those blue lit bathrooms.
A bird rode on our hood.
We were briefly stalled in traffic thanks to come construction, when we noticed a silly little bird walk into the lane beside us, seemingly ready to stare down the cars. We both loudly rooted for this bird to find its way back to the safety of the shoulder, and when the cars started to move, he flew, fairly half heartedly, onto the hood of our van. He grabbed onto the windshield wiper for dear life. Brady shouted for me to take a picture, but of course, the little guy took off while my prehistoric phone took forever to open the camera app. So I have no proof, but the memory is there.
We found moms plates.
We stopped at Value Village in the city on the way home, and I found a few plates to go with my moms set. She’s had the same dish set forever, and all of us kids have brought home extra pieces for it at one time or another. Today I found some little dessert plates. Those things are hard to come by. Win!
Signs are up!!
When we were just about home, we started seeing our realtors signs. There are a few of them floating around town, to point people in the direction of our house. I’m so happy that we are not only listed again, but that the signs are up, and that she is ready to sell for us!!!
We broke into our house.
This is a very special thing I never expected to do on my birthday, haha! When I dropped the plates off at my moms, I brought a chunk of my keys in with me, as I carry one of her house keys. That chunk also carries my house key. And I left them there. So Brady broke into the house. I have some great pictures, but a concerned party suggested I maybe not put those on the internet 🙂 A very smart party, I should say. But if you want to see them, I’ll private message them out to friends. WAY too funny!!
We’re going to Winnipeg!
A fun new twist in our plans is that we’re adding another destination! We were hoping to get to Winnipeg this summer, but opted instead to go to the lake as a family, which is something we haven’t ever really done. Especially not with all five of us. But my sister sent me a text today saying that there was still time, if we wanted. And somehow, we decided to go for it! We asked Dekker if he wanted to see Auntie Caity and Uncle Stefan tomorrow, and he said “Today maybe?” We reiterated tomorrow, and he started whimpering and crying. That about settled it for us!!
So we’ve been unpacking, laundering, and repacking the last few hours, and we’re so excited 🙂 I’ve had a super funny day, and I’m expecting some more fun to come.
Yesterday was rainy and today was sunny, so we decided to beach it up today. We gathered up all of our toys and got the kids dressed in their swim stuff. We decided last minute to drive to the beach. It was such a short walk, but after the hamper full f beach stuff fell off the double stroller and spilled all of its contents, we changed our tune.
So I’m not going to sugarcoat. Today has been an incredibly difficult day, and I don’t care to go into detail about it, since this is our one and only holiday this year, and I’m hoping to remember the positives more than the negatives. But Dekker wouldn’t be on the sand, in the water, in our arms, or really he just wouldn’t have any of anything. So he sat and sulked on the blanket with Rowan in his car seat, while the rest of us had a lot of fun! I took a quick dip in the lake before Laela was brave enough to play in the sand. She had walked in it just fine but it took a bit of convincing to get her to really get into it.
We had purchased a huge sandcastle bucket at Dollarama, so Brady and I made a few runs back and forth to the water to get a really good patch of wet sand going. I can’t remember the last time I really dug in the sand but MAN was it fun!! No word of a lie, I had a blast. Brady and I dumped out bucket after bucket, making castle after castle, and Laela would take her shovel and scoop the tops off into her pink sparkly pail. (Just for the record, no, we don’t force her to be pink and girlie and like dolls and princesses. But she loves it all. She will get filthy on the beach, but she’ll do it with her pink pail in her floppy sun hat.) We pulled out snacks for lunch, but somehow, even after there was food, everything sort of crashed and burned. I didn’t know moods could get worse than they already were. So we packed up and hauled the kids back to our place. Dekker was crying, because he hadn’t really ever stopped, Laela was crying because she was sad to leave, and Rowan was crying because he was so overstimulated that he couldn’t drink his bottle. And let’s be honest, I was almost in tears, mourning my afternoon spent at the beach that I wanted so badly.
We put everyone down for naps, including ourselves, and we all felt relatively refreshed. We went out for supper, and we came out the other side, so thats an improvement. We fed Rowan back at our place, and decided to give one last wander around before we came in for the night. We grabbed a few of those rectangular wafer cookie things and two bubble swords before venturing out one last time.
Dekker chose the wooden dock to go run down. It was SO windy and the wind was biting, so we all huddled at the end together and ate our cookies. Within a minute or two, we were leaving the dock. As has been the theme this trip, Dekker and I started to move quicker, with the goal of beating out Brady and his double stroller full of children. He’s been gently letting Dekker win each and every time. But tonight, he gave her, and outran us. As it was happening, I realized in my head that Dekker hasn’t lost very many times in his life, and I wondered if we’d have to have a talk about being a sore loser, or how it would all end up. But at the end, Dekker was laughing and, completely out of breath, he shouted “That was awesome, Daddy! Give me a high five!” I was thrilled to see him handle it so well! I’m sure it will change with time, and with competition with different people – friends, siblings, older or younger kids – but this one was a win for sure.
Getting the kids to bed was sad. We came into this trip kind of throwing the schedule out the window, because frankly, we didn’t want to be holed up by 7:30 either!! They still have been in bed around that time each night, but the lack of routine is seeming to be killing these kids. We put them to bed wailing at 7:00 tonight. And now, we’re happy to be holed up. We’re tired. Its been a long day.
Tomorrow is the day we head home. While today was a challenge, I’m still sad to leave. I love it here. I always have. I hope one day all of my kids love it too.
