Also, your car is loud. You should get that thing fixed. Maybe tomorrow.

Today was a good day 🙂 I got a ton of meal planning stuff organized for September, which I am super excited about! I thought I’d have all of August to get really organized and feel like I had my plans as perfect as I could get them, but we’ve been much busier than I thought we’d be, and now I’m getting to it late. But better late than never. Its possible I won’t have everything together by the time September starts, but I’m still going to try. I have my shopping lists made for the one big monthly shop, and then we’ll just buy the fresh stuff for the week every Monday. Hopefully that works anyway. I’m new.

The kids napped the afternoon away and I got some apricot chicken going in the slow cooker. The house smelled pretty good, I’d say, when Brady arrived home. He got cleaned up and helped me wrangle the kids and get some dishes done. Around 5:00, our friend, Reid, arrived. We all snacked on veggies and hummus in the kitchen while we waited for the rice to finish up, and then we sat down for dinner. The kids took their precious time, but no one was in too big of a rush. However, when I made a point to mention to Reid that maybe we’d like to go for a walk/bike ride after supper, the kids cleaned up their bowls fast and we were good to go!

We did our lap around town, like we’ve done the last few days. Brady walked beside Dekker and I pushed the stroller. When Laela wanted to be out and running, Reid kept an eye on her. And when she ran and fell and scraped up her knee for the very first time, I carried her and Reid rocked the stroller. It was so nice to have that extra set of willing hands. I carried Laela for a few incredibly cuddly moments, which abruptly ended with a high pitched “All done!” and my little girl was squirming to be free. She bounces back so well.

The kids needed to go to bed right when we got home, so again, Reid got Rowan while Brady and I put the others down. I could hear him and Ro growling at each other in the dining room while Dekker and Laela squealed and goofed around with us. But they went down pretty well, and Rowan did too, after his bottle. It was a very smooth bedtime.

Ice cream and hot drinks were next on the agenda for the three of us, and in no time at all, it was midnight!! So Reid is currently on his way home, I believe, and we’re all settling in for bed. Today was really a lovely day, and I’m thinking tomorrow will be great too. Kim and her kids are coming for the day, I believe. Its such a treat to have people in my life who fit so well. I know things are not always perfect, and I also know that good things are definitely worth working for, but recently, I feel like its so easy and comfortable with all of our friends. Finally.

We are truly blessed.

After yesterdays party, Brady and I were pretty dead to the world. When we finally climbed into bed, we watched about five minutes of tv and fell asleep. Rowan woke up to eat once or twice, neither of us remember how many times. When he woke up for the day around 6:30, we tried to make the best of it. We sat up, turned on some Seinfeld, started up the Keurig, and woke up. Usually Ro is awake for a solid hour or two before going back down, but he only made it until 7:30 before he needed to go back down. So he was sleeping, and Dekker and Laela were barely stirring. So we snuggled in for another quick episode…

Aaaaand woke up at 10:00am. Thank you, Lord, for giving us such relaxed and content children who entertained themselves for who knows how long while Brady and I slept in waaay too late. But oh my gosh it was fabulous.

We got the kids up right away and fed them some breakfast. We were overwhelmed by the dishes yesterday, and didn’t do any, so the kitchen looked pretty rough this morning. While the kids ate, I unloaded and repacked the dishwasher, and made the executive decision that we would not wash anything by hand that we didn’t absolutely have to. So needless to say, that poor dishwasher has been running all day, each load containing a couple of big bowls. But the impending dish wash is coming, as we’re running out of bottles, and prefer to hand wash those. Reality will hit tomorrow.

The kids napped after lunch. It wasn’t their best nap, and they were grumpy when we got them up. But with the promise of a bike ride, they were enthusiastic to get dressed and go out. We did that for probably a solid hour. I’m so impressed with how far Dekker has come even in the last couple of days on his bike! He’s got the pedalling motion down, and he even is pretty good at steering. We’re now just building up his strength! And realistically, he’s got to start paying attention, haha! He just looks off into nowhere and veers off the road, or he’ll just stop out of nowhere, because he’s deep in thought about something. Its funny and endearing, but my goodness, we could just sit stationary in the middle of the street for ten minutes if I weren’t there to bring him back down to earth!! Haha! Its terribly cute.

After our long bike ride outside, the kids are feeling really trashed. Despite their nap, I think it might need to be an early night for everyone. I’m thinking that bathing the kids might not be the most fun its ever been…

In case you’ve somehow missed the memo over the last few days, Dekker turned four yesterday. Today was his party. I had the idea planned really well, but hadn’t thought much further than that until last night.

The idea was to invite people that Dekker actually knows and likes rather than just people that Brady and I know. We wanted him to be as comfortable as possible, so we planned no activities or events, had lots of snacks but no formal food, and figured we had things taken care of.

Yesterday I began listing off the things we needed to do for the party. And it turned into a bigger list than I thought! Even just for a small, unassuming party, there was more to do than I expected. That left Brady and I flying by the seat of our pants this morning!! Brady put away laundry from yesterday, helped the kids get their breakfast, tidied the upstairs, and helped make the lemonade while I did more stuff in the kitchen. I chopped veggies, made dip, chopped fruit and stuck it on skewers, and did dishes. I only realized yesterday that I had NO plan for any kind of cake! So this morning, I made a popcorn cake. If you remember from a recent post, I flopped a nice dessert I was making for my mom’s birthday, and as a joke, I made a popcorn cake. Humorously enough, it had been yummy. So I popped popcorn, melted marshmallows, broke up pretzels, and dug around in my freezer for any chocolatey treats I could find. I’ll be honest. It felt like a bit of a mom fail that I served a birthday cake that was essentially a rice krispie cake, but with popcorn instead, covered in Christmas m&ms.

But I am THRILLED to say that the party was fabulous!! It was a windy but sunny day outside, so we left the patio doors open and the kids came and went as they desired. We put all of our big tonka trucks outside, and the boys played tirelessly. The rest of us filtered in and out, snacking, drinking coffee, visiting, and really just enjoying each others company. It was super interesting because, besides my parents, none of our friends knew each other! They are all from completely different places, and it was kind of fun to watch worlds collide, if I can be dramatic. I really enjoyed it! Though we were missing out lovely Hailey and her boys. I wish you could have made it, my dear. Next year.

Dekker’s presents kicked butt, too! I won’t list it all, but I can honestly say that everyone there today knows him very well, because everything he received hit the nail on the head. The favorite was his new bike helmet, which he wore from the moment he pulled it from the bag until we took it off to put his jammies on at bedtime. No lie. He loved his gifts, and while his thank yous were abrupt and shy, pleeeaaase know how happy he was!!! You all did so very well.

One of our more muscly guests helped me cut the pretzel-filled cake, and weirdly enough, people actually liked it! I can’t even believe it! But I’m thrilled 🙂 I liked it too. I feel like the whole “event” went off so much better than I thought it would. As one of our friends put it, it felt like family. I love that. I hope there are always at least some people who can feel that way around us.

And then it was 6:00!!!!! I couldn’t believe it was suddenly so late! The kids were all happy, no one was complaining of hunger or fatigue, and it seemed kind of disappointing to cut the conversation off. Our final guests packed up and took their windswept children home.

Jerilee stayed for the evening, as we had made plans yesterday, and even helped us clean up the place. Ok, let’s be serious. Its not cleaned up. But the garbage is thrown out and the dishes are at least stacked. We fed the kids toast and bananas for supper. They were so tired. But it was perfect. Everyone was so happy. I had no idea such a “lame” party could turn out so well. I feel like today was a complete answer to prayer. Best. Party. Ever.

Just ask the boy in the helmet.

Today was officially the day that Dekker turned four years old. We celebrated all day with Dekker-specific things. It was not extravagant at all, but neither are his tastes. We had croissants, bacon, grapes, and cheese for breakfast. Then we got everyone dressed and gave Dekker his birthday gift – a bike. Its his first ever bike, and it even has Lightening McQueen on it. It was a huge win. If you haven’t seen, I posted a video on YouTube of his first bike ride. It was wonderful. He was so natural on it. Sadly, it started to rain and get pretty cold, so we went inside to his very emphatic disapproval. But we got into dry clothes and had some snacks and a nap, and got some laundry going. I would have loved to keep them up from their nap on his birthday, but its been a busy busy month (at least) and they need some extra rest right now.

While the kids rested, Brady and I put together a bit of the decor for his party tomorrow, and got some food ourselves. We didn’t rest long before Rowan woke up, and absolutely would have none of anything. We tried to figure him out, and maintained the laundry.

Dekker and Laela woke up nice and late in the afternoon, and we let Dekker choose his birthday supper. We offered him all of his favorites, but he picked what he really wanted that wasn’t even on the list. That is how we found ourselves eating noodles and butter for supper. No lie.

Jerilee arrived for our evening date, and joined the fam on another bike ride. It really showed, though, that Deks was much more tired than his first ride. We didn’t go quite as far as the first one. The gravel is a challenge, for sure. Once again, Everyone was very sad to come inside, and even more so when they learned it was bedtime. But they ended up going down happy, thankfully. It truly was an awesome day.

Now that we have celebrated Dekker as a family, we’re having a little party at our place tomorrow. While we’re all thanking God for my fabulous firstborn son, let’s remember to ask him to keep the weather light and lovely. I would LOVE to just be able to play outside all afternoon! But either way, it’ll be nice to celebrate him again.

Love you, Dekker. Lots and lots and lots.

Hugs. Kisses. George.

We had a lovely time visiting my family this week, but being home feels grand. After we left this afternoon, we headed to the city for some things we needed for Dekker’s birthday party this weekend. I’m actually a bit nervous, as our only real plan was to play outside, and the weather isn’t looking so hot. If anyone has some awesome ideas, send them my way! We don’t have a big group, but they’re all five and under, so I’m not sure what a good but very casual activity would be. Thoughts? Ideas? Gosh I hope its at least a little bit fun!

After a longer shop than anticipated, we finally got home and put the biggest littles down for night. Rowan has been sleeping like a… something that never sleeps ever, so we’re hoping to keep him up a bit tonight in hopes that he is good and ready to sleep when he finally goes down. (As I type this, he’s finally started whining on my bed next to me. Yay?) Brady carried everything in from the van while I fed Ro, and he’s putting the groceries away while I blog. Tomorrow will be Dekker’s actual birthday, and we were hoping to have a big exciting outside day for him, so hopefully thats still possible. But I’ll also need to do a bunch of chopping and preparing for his party on Saturday. It is super minimal work, but I don’t really want to pour over anything too crazy, honestly. Dekker isn’t a high energy kid, really, and we’ve been super high energy the last little while, I think he’ll actually appreciate some quieter downtime.

I think we all will, actually. If its too crappy to go outside tomorrow, a movie and playing inside will have to suffice. I’m so thankful for my adaptable, fabulous children. I can’t believe that, at this time four years ago, I was in labour. I don’t think I would have had my epidural yet even, or maybe they would have just put it in. It took three hours of fussing with it before it finally worked. So thankful I had it though, whew!!!

I love you, Dekker! Can’t wait to celebrate you extra these next couple of days!! <3

With all of the siblings together, we attempted a family picture this afternoon. It doesn’t happen too terribly often so we do our best to get a picture. Thankfully it was really casual, because we didn’t bring anything fancy or even really nice for our family to  wear. Just about everyone wore neutrals or toned down colors, except for our family. I was fairly neutral, but the kids and Brady were not. Either way, we got all set up in the backyard and my mom used her remote to take five quick pictures in a row. The kids did pretty well, but when that stint was over, it started to go downhill. At first, it was so adorable!! Laela wanted to put her hand on Rowan. It was terribly sweet. Very quickly, she opted to have her arm around him. Then, it was a full on hug with a little “smack” kiss on his cheek. And he BURST out crying!! Now, we can all laugh at family pictures that include a crying baby, but he wouldn’t come back to us! He was just ticked! While we worked to calm him down, Dekker and Laela sat down for a rest. When we were going for another bout of photos, both of them started crying and practically refused to stand back up. Well, no, they didn’t refuse, but they were not having it. Lots and lots of crying. Hopefully those first five pictures are golden! If they’re not, at least Ro and I have this great picture while mom was trying to get the camera centred. 

He’s cute upside down too. I’m glad I tested that out.

Today was mixed with crazy activity and some peaceful quiet tv time. There was lots of big meals, and little snacks throughout the day as well. My kids wore their jammies all day long. It was a good day.

I’ll be honest. Tonights supper is likely my favorite kind of down home mennonite food that exists. I haven’t been able to sink my teeth into it for YEARS, and tonight, my sister and brother in law prepared if for our group. I ate an unreasonable amount of it, and have been mostly asleep ever since. It was delicious. I didn’t even have snacks this evening, unless you count the cup of decaf coffee I had while we all visited and took turns playing Mario Kart.

Its been a lovely evening, and now I’m sleepy. I still want a little bit of Seinfeld in my life before sleeping, since I don’t think we’ve made it through an episode since we got here. We’re just unreasonably tired for some reason!!!

So I’m calling this post a shorty and I’m heading off to bed. Well, let’s be real. I’m in bed. But I’m still in jeans, which is not ok. Its not bedtime until the jeans are off for the night!

I can’t say a whole lot for myself today, but I can say that the kids had a riot.

I was part of the morning walk that took place between their breakfast and our brunch. My brother and I walked around the block with all of the four big kids. We threw rocks into puddles, into the ditch, and predicted the moves of cars and trucks nearby. Dekker was pretty on top of that part. “Oh, they’re just parking.”

Brunch was an enormous feed of custom made omelettes, and instead of following that up with naps as per usual, Simon and Stefan took the kids outside for an epic water fight. And I mean epic as in there were water guns and small children who got to squirts their uncles. That fight went on for quite some time. I watched them through the window occasionally when they made their way into the front yard. Both of my brothers were solidly soaked, Simons boys were soaked, Dekker was pretty dry except from his sweat, and Laela had her perfectly dry game face on. They played hard, but came in sweaty and dirty and tired. All four of them removed their shirts, grabbed a bowl of popcorn, and watched some Netflix.

There was another walk leading up to supper time, but I was in charge of supper tonight and as it drew near, I realized I had messed up the timing completely. I think the thing I am worst at in regards to preparing food is getting it all to be ready at the same time. I hear that comes with time, but for me, its taking its precious time. I’m just not good at it. However, the meal was saved and each part of it managed to survive and taste good.

Dekker was very upset, after all of his play, to have to sit at the table and eat food that was not in the mood for. Honey chicken is always tricky with him, because he insists that he doesn’t like it, but we know he does. Every. Single. Time. So I spoke to him in advance about it, since he was upset about the food long ahead of time. I told him that I understood if he wasn’t in the mood, but he needed to have a good attitude about it. I said that, if he had a good attitude about it, and ate without whining, he’d only have to have three bites and then I’d figure out something else for him. BUT, I said, if he whined a whole bunch about it and made a big fuss, he’d have to have five bites. To my pure delight, he came to the table and barely whined as Brady put chicken on his plate. And suddenly, his entire serving was gone. He loudly requested more chicken. He wanted it separate from his rice today, even though I had shredded it. Brady scooped some onto his plate, and again, he ate it and loudly asked for more. OH MY GOSH!! It was so lovely to feed him today 🙂 As he ate, he’d say “Watch me!” and take really big, emphatic bites. He asked me “Mommy, did you make this supper?” I told him I had, and he was like “Oh, thank you for making it, mommy!” I love those “thank yous” the most. The unprompted ones that quash all of the beliefs that kids his age don’t understand the concept of thankfulness. He ate beautifully and was so well mannered and charming. I was so very proud.

The kids got into their jammies well, and while good nights weren’t the smoothest they’ve ever been, they went down really really well. We had a nice visit with everyone else, but around 10:00pm, Rowan started to move around and we decided to call it a night. My parents are already down for the night, and I’m sad that we’re not out talking with my siblings, but I’m just so sleepy, and all of the busyness is making me miss my husband more than I thought I would. So we’re going to have some normalcy, tucked away together. A bit of snacking and Seinfeld 🙂

I hope tomorrow is this good!

As I keep posting blogs, and my summer gets fuller and fuller and more and more fun, I’m struggling to titles these posts!!! There have just been too many fabulous days, and I’m not creative enough to name them all different things. If I could call them all “A Great Day” and number them off, I guess that would be one way. Either way, it goes without saying, today was a great day 🙂

We had made a bit of a plan yesterday that we’d all go into the city for a short shopping trip this afternoon. My parents decided to hang back, and our kids were in pretty rough shape, so we left Dekker and Laela to sleep while we took Ro with us. We did a bit of shopping for ourselves, and for the kids. I am incredibly proud of myself, actually! I didn’t buy anything for my kids at Carters, and I only bought the necessities at the Gap outlet, which meant new jeans for Dekker and Rowan. I’m not sure why I haven’t tried their jeans there before. Rowans fit him perfectly, which is rarely the case. I think lots of parents can relate to me about the long legs and the little waist. My kids aren’t particularly thin as babies (or not at all) but finding jeans to fit their waists and their leg length sometimes seems impossible. However, I found a great fitting pair for Ro! Dekker’s new ones are pretty long, but they fit his waist great, so they’ll likely fit for a good long time.

We got home pretty much just in time for a delicious supper of mashed potatoes and pork chops. Rowan is eating better than ever today, for some reason, so he actually had eaten and was down for a nap during the meal. Our kids went down on time, which is FABULOUS considering the excitement in the house.

I had a really wonderful chat with my sister after that, kind of spontaneously. We forgot time and visited for well over an hour, which was much needed and appreciated. I loved it. It ended with ice cream and joining the rest of the family.

Shortly after 10:00pm, Rowan woke up, and everyone seemed to disperse at that time to their separate quarters. Much earlier to bed tonight, which I think is good. Brady is back to work tomorrow, which is sad but good. Hopefully being this much closer to the city will bring him home a little bit earlier too. Its always so nice being all together <3

We are the company this week 🙂 We’re hiding out at my parents house for most of this coming week with all of my siblings. There are 13 of us under this roof, and it is a FULL HOUSE!

Before we got here and settled in, I spent the morning shopping with my friendy friend, Kim. We killed a solid three hours in Value Village together! I probably tried on fifteen shirts and none of them were quite right. But I bought a dress, a jacket, ad a couple of cute belts. I bought the kids a ton of fall/winter clothes, and I got a cute little decorative bowlish thing for jewelry, keys, or something else pretty down the line. It was a nice successful shop, and just a nice date in general. Starbucks and shopping is a really easy, fun time. And we were actually kid free this time around!!! We will definitely be doing that again!

I got home in the early afternoon and Brady and I packed while the kids napped. When they woke up, they got baths, piled into the van, and we drove to the party at my parents!

The house buzzed (the loudest buzz you ever did hear) until about 8:00pm, and then it quieted for the night. Until now, that is, when Rowan woke up considerably earlier than usual. Brady and I had to bow out of the visit a bit sooner than we had hoped for, but frankly, I am wiped out, and going to bed sounds lovely. Tomorrow will be another super lovely day, with an outing to the city too!!

One of these days I’ll put pictures up again. I have SO many that I’ve been too lazy to post, going back as far as Waskesiu!!!

I hope you are all sleeping already. Its late o’clock.