and here comes the sun!!!

whew! Maybe we made it? Maybe the rain will stop for a day? Maybe it won't snow, then rain, than freeze again? Maybe my bulbs will begin to come up?

I'm not whining, believe me! I love living here. It's everything I hoped. I just get a little dragged down by the gray, the gloom and the rain. Just some days. I don't even realize until I read this and realized, THE SUN WAS SHINING!!!

I'm still in a bit of shock living here in this gentler climate. We lived in Calgary (above Montana for you Americans) until a year and a half ago. It's a great place with terrible, unpredictable weather. We would go to bed with the sun shining and the grass staring brownly at us and wake up to a wind so cold and stiff that it could strip paint off the house. Or there'd be snow drifts up to the steps one day and plus 15 the next. I have to admit I do miss that prairie sun! Now I barely even have to take my sunglasses out of the case from about November to February. I think I've made a fair trade though.

I can hear the boys out jumping on the tramp and the girls are dancing to their new favorite CD behind me.

Maybe even the soccer games will be a go this weekend?!

A little pat on the back...

It's kind of embarrassing to post stuff specifically about me but...
I'm proud of myself and excited about my first race plus it's a great way to send my mom pictures. "Hi Mom!"

On Saturday after our company left I was sick as a dog. Why does this matter? Well it doesn't really except that I had entered myself and my two running pals in our first 10 km trail race. We were all set and here I was puking up a lung. UGGG!

I set the alarm super early so that I would know for sure if I could do it and all seemed well. Must have been a 24 hour bug. Maybe my body was on it's own cleanse? Who knows? I had hubby pray for me and I woke up all better - yay!

Lucky for us it's just a local trail race, so no chips etc because being the brain surgeons that we are, we

1. got there late
2. parked in the wrong parking lot
3. had to run 2 -3 km just to get to the race start
4. were not on the list of runners (okay so this one was NOT my fault)

But all this aside...

WE DID IT!!

Ange, the most competitive of our little bunch ran ahead of the group and finished 9 mins before us, that's why she's not in these end of race photos.

Randa and I got caught behind tons of hill walkers on the first 5 km and finished in 64 mins

.


Not bad for our first race I thought!




I had such a great time! The next one is the 24th so wish us luck and less snow:)

Snow, rain, oceans, ski hills and old friends....

Sorry I'm been a bit mia. Our friends arrived Wednesday afternoon with their eight great kids in tow and I've been otherwise occupied since then.



We had a wonderful time!

Thursday was supposed to be spent at the Vancouver Aquarium BUT the dad's ended up working too long and the aquarium is on winter hours so....

Off we went to the beach. It was raining and windy but oh so fun! The kids made discovery after discovery in the tide pools.




Check out all the great shells we found!!!! (remember these are prairie kids!)


The ran through the sand and puddles getting water into their snow boots and not really caring in the excitement of it all.




It was cold, and relaxing and beautiful...


Check out this angry sky as the rain began to come down...

It was amazing. We could see the weather coming on the horizon long before it got to us!




Bree is officially a beach dog. This was her first beach trip and she ran and ran, loving every minute of her adventure!




A trip to the beach is not complete with out a snack! The sea gulls almost mobbed us when they noticed the kids got more chips on the ground than in their mouths!



In looking back at all these photos I was suprised at how much the light changed. It went from light to dark back to light again, all in the course of two hours. We had sun, rain, hail and wind but no one minded, we were having too much fun exploring!

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The next day the older kids spent at Mount Baker skiing and I have no photographic evidence. Hopefully our friends took some snaps?!

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Then we had to say goodbye. It was a short visit but wonderful. There's nothing like old friends!

the girls....



some of the Boys.....




moms....


The whole gang one more time....I just realized we are missing one boy from this picture....CRAZY!

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Sniz gave me this...thanks girl!

SNOW DAY!!

Look what we woke up to!!!




Well I'm a homeschooler so it's not like a snow day should affect us in any real way, but it does. With all the beautiful glistening white play area beckoning just outside the windows, it's almost impossible to get any school work done...and why should we?! The kids suited up and went out!

In my defense:) the snow won't last that long here on the west coast so you have to enjoy it while you can. Hopefully it will stay for a couple of days but there are not guarantees!

Even the dog got into the action...


She loved it! Crazy mutt! Jumping and sniffing and eating the strange white stuff.

They were red, cold and very very happy.


Yummy warm soup on a cold snowy day!

The neighbor kids got to stay home too which is an extra treat so back into their gear and back outside them went!

I've had a couple of uninterrupted hours to vacuum and clean (and blog, but I finished my work first!). We have good friends coming tomorrow, with their 8 kids,to stay for a couple of days so this time to clean and organized was very appreciated!

There is nothing like old friends and I can't wait to share and laugh and pray together. (if we have a moment of quiet which is doubtful with 12 kids running around). We haven't spent any time together for over year and I miss them!

Another week...another crazy amount of food prep...

How do you keep your food bill down? Do you try? Is this an issue for you?

We're a family of six so naturally we eat more than, say the average family although most of us (Isaac and Amelia I'm looking at you!) eat almost nothing. It's more like an average family of 4 or 5 but whatever.
I'm not a crazy health food lady by any stretch but I try to feed everyone as nutritiously as I can. I try to feed them whole foods and lots of fruit and veggies (Okay so I do have nuggets and fries in my freezer but other than that...)

I drive out to a special grain store to by my freshly ground organic flour (look I'm not insane, it's just not that far from my house.) I try to by local, organic and fresh as much as possible. I'm not independently wealthy, however, so there is a limit to all of this of course.

I'm just finding we are struggling to stay within our food budget every month. Granted we have tons and I mean tons of company ... but I love to bake so I don't buy much prepared stuff. We also don't eat out very often. Have you take 4 + kids out to eat lately? It's expensive and not at all my idea of fun! It costs us almost $30 at Tims or Wendy's and to quote my husband, "it's like paying for the privilege of being in a food fight." I don't think it's quite as bad anymore but we still throw too much away for me to justify the whole thing very often.

I probably feed my brood plus at least 2 or 3 others at least three times a week and I feed 14 (the size of our extended family that lives near us) probably weekly. Plus we have company that comes to stay once a month.

I refuse to stop doing this.

I love that people feel they can come, hang out and stay for a meal. I like feeding people, which if you knew me when I first go married, you would be surprised to hear. I could just barely make toast and ... I'm NOT joking! I see it as a way to create community. It's not fun to prepare everything but it's a blast to have everyone over and get to know people better.

I'd love to hear any tips, websites, recipes that you swear by...leave them in the comments. It will be greatly appreciated. I have a link to an amazing recipe blog on my side bar. Her pot roast is to die for!!! Actually everything I've tried has been great!

Oh and I have one last question. Why when I have a house full of food, do my teen son and nephews think there's "nothing good to eat", if we don't have chips???!!!

Details, details....

I was so proud of myself I just had to share this. I know I'm probably over my limit on birthday posts but it took up so much of my time this weekend, what's a girl to do?!





(Yes Chey. That is a NEW bag of Mini Eggs. I didn't even eat most of them...baby steps!)

I've never attempted anything like this before, mostly because I'm notoriously bad at decorating cakes. Don't get me wrong, they're always super yummy but in the looks department, they fail miserably. I realize these ones are pretty amateur to the the seasoned pro but for me...they're as close to perfect as it gets.

The big problem is...
1. I'm not really a details person
2. I'm not a perfectionist...
3. I'm a procrastinator.

I marvel at people who are able to think of the minutia and who care to pull it off. You know her, the lady who remembers to paint her toes or who remembers that you might need a thank you card two weeks into your vacation...someone like that. I'm the one who forgets to bring my toothbrush or a hair elastic or underwear.

I figured it out though, as far as the cakes go. Do as much before hand as you possible can, freeze the layers and decorate frozen. It's amazing how well this works. It can be applied in all sorts of situations actually. If you get as much done before the actual event, you're much less likely to forget something. It seems my mother was right (again) after all!

I did almost forget to serve the cake though! BUT that's another story....

Click here for my inspiration...

Happy Birthday Amelia!!

I'm a day late with this but we had such a day yesterday, full of kids and cake and family and love.

She was terribly excited. Maybe I'll get time to post some pictures of the madness....

I just wanted to take a moment to celebrate my baby as she moves from toddler-hood to preschooler. She's moving away from baby-hood at break neck speed. It's bittersweet for me. I've never been one to wish my kids were younger than they are or that they'd stay small but at the same time I'm aware of how fast the years are going by. Please, Lord give us the wisdom to raise her to know who she is and how to be that with grace.


Here she is on the day of her birth.

Welcome to the world Amelia Lillian....5 lbs 14 ozs
January 21, 2004



Getting love on her first birthday from her big bro.'s.... (2005)




My big two year old....(2006)



I couldn't find one of her turning 3 so here she is just before her third birthday, decorating cookies for Christmas .... (2007)



And here is our birthday princess and her attendants yesterday....(ignore the background disaster)...



And opening the Polly's at the night time party...(2008)

She asked me this morning if she could take Jazz dance now (like her sister) or be on the soccer team? The problem with being the youngest is you have to wait for things a lot!

We love you our four year old. Enjoy every moment and don't try to get older too fast:)