This is my little garden. It's my first one and I'm so proud of it.

 In my garden I am growing peas, watermelon radishes, beets, giant spinach, kale, swiss chard, carrots, potatoes and turnips. I also have several planter boxes throughout my yard with more beets, carrots and radishes in them. The radish leaves are getting munched by little green worms. Lilli really likes to hunt them out and squish them. I also have basil, oregano, thyme, chocolate mint, chives and green onions in planter boxes. So far I have already been able to pick and enjoy spinach and kale. It is so exciting to me, and I seriously am out every day looking for weeds and pests. It is amazing how fast it grows. Oh, and I also have a couple of tomato plants. My life must be really exciting that I am entertained by such simple things. 

 Here's a funny thing about my guy Leif. He loves clips. You know the kind you can get at Ikea or the dollar store. You use them to close bags. Well they are his favorite toy right now. They can be part of a crane or a digger, they can even be bendy guys. He 

has played with and lost or broke all of the ones in the house. The other day at the dollar store he saw a bag of them and got so excited. " Mom look at those clips, can I have them please." I am not normally a very indulgent mother but they were only a dollar. We had to open the bag as soon as we were in the car, and the whole ride home " Oh mom I love my clips! Thank you so much for my clips mom. I'll share them with you. What clip do you like best mom? , I can't wait to show Daddy my clips" And then several hours later when Chris got home he went through the whole thing with him. He takes them to school and keeps them in his backpack. In the above picture he took one to his preschool fathers day activity. he even sleeps with them. He is such a sweet, funny little boy.

 Violet continues to terrorize just about everyone who comes to our home, or gets to close to her in the grocery store. Especially if they make the mistake of attempting to compliment her. she puts her hand out as if to push them away and says "No!" in a voice with such snarly attitude, I wouldn't think it possible for someone her age to  even possess. She is a real charmer. In this picture

she is trying to force feed her cousin Sam. I think he is 10 months younger then her, but she gives him a little too much love and attention because she thinks he is a baby, and Violet loves babies. He's not to impressed with the whole situation as you can see.

 Miete and Lilli finished school last Thursday. Regular public school here doesn't get out until the end of the month. Already I miss the routine, and I will do my best to keep them reading, typing and working on math and printing throughout the summer. I'm not going to work them to hard, but I don't want them to forget what they've learned recently, and there is a lot they still need to work on. Report cards should be sent to us in a couple of weeks. They mean very little to us though. I keep them for a record but I rarely discuss them with the girls. You will not see me bragging about my children's grades either. Because I work with them I know better then anyone how they are doing and their strengths and weaknesses. I have learned that aside from positive comments of encouragement their "levels of competency" don't tell me anything I already don't know. I try not to pay heed to comments like "You're third grade child reads at a mid grade one level" . My children learn at their pace, not at an expected level, and they are progressing at their own rate, so for now I'm not going to worry about it. I am so grateful that I have been able to educate them at home, and I wouldn't trade it for anything. Well if I could higher someone else to help me share the load I would to that. I really feel that I am doing the best thing for my girls, rather then them being lost in a classroom. I am not anti public school either, it is just not the best system for us.
 

all the kids with their "Aunty Rae-rae", my good fried Rae-anne.

Next week Chris and I are going down to Seattle for me to attempt to run The Rock and  Roll half marathon. I am not very prepared and haven't run in over a week due to some crazy calf pain. I really don't want to get a terrible injury like so many others I know have. I think I just increased my distance to fast, or don't drink enough water, or stretch enough or all of the above. I'm going to run regardless but I not expecting to improve on my last years time. I trained better then. My brave friend Rae-anne will be staying with my children. I hope she survives.

 That's all for now.

My darling Lillias with sparkly hair.

Kelly put hair tinsel in my girls hair and it should last a month or so, but I've had to replace a few already with their rowdy life style. It looks really neat in the sun though and they get tons of compliments which of course they love. They're going to send some to their cousins Bailey and Brooklynn. We even put one in Violets hair. She doesn't know because if she did I'm sure she would rip it out.
Speaking of my little Giant Violet, ( that is what we call her due to her giant personality) she is becoming quite a little terror. More so then I remember  any of my previous three children being. When she was still a baby I remember  her crying and throwing her head back as if  to start a tantrum, and thinking this child is going to be a handful.  Well she has proved me right. Not only is she very mischievous,  smearing chocolate syrup all over herself and the floor, 

putting black mascara  all over her face, dumping, no make that throwing her cereal/ jello/ yogurt/ pudding across the table or onto the floor. I can't feed her, she yells and knocks the food out of my hand. She has to do it herself, even the messy stuff. She mostly uses her hands to eat, and squishes it between her fingers and smears it around the table, and when she's finished what is left gets dumped on the floor. This isn't the half of it though. This girl can yell so loud and so long when she doesn't get her way. She hits all of us, she bites, she picks up what is closest to her and throws it. The other day Chris wouldn't let her go outside with the big kids so she got a boot, holding it high above her head and came after him yelling  her head off. I started to laugh, so then she went to throw the boot at me. I know it shouldn't be funny, but sometimes all you can do is laugh. 

Miete and Lilli are in swim lessons on Wednesday and Friday, so I have to bring Leif and Violet along for that adventure. Violet has thrown herself down on the pool deck screaming because I won't let her throw whatever she can get her hands on into the pool. I dread those afternoons. This is a lesson for me. I used to judge those parents with out of control children, and think why do they let them get away with so much. I've learned you pick your battles, especially when in public. I am not a horrible parent either. She has a strong will and wants to do what the big kids are doing. As well she is so quick. I was standing right next to her when she dumped the chocolate syrup, and when her little hand grabbed the mascara out of my make-up bag, but my back was to her. 

 She also terrorizes her siblings. When Leif is playing quietly with his trains and trucks she sneaks up and knocks them all over or grabs them and runs. The other day while sitting next to Leif on the couch she bit a mouthful of his hair out just because she felt like it. She hits Lilli a lot especially when Lilli tries to mother her a bit to much and Violet won't have any of it. When I try to make her apologize she snaps "no", and walks away or pushes Lilli away.

Okay she's not all monster though. She goes down for naps and to bed really easy. She seems to like sleeping and look forward to it. She gets that from me. She loves to kiss and to cuddle and she loves her baby dolls. She carries dolls around wrapped in blankets with my purse over her arm, and she sings to them and feeds them. She's also the best little dancer of any kid her size, and she'll dance to anything, even the dryer. She does love to wrestle with her siblings and daddy, and once when Lilli was crying Violet got a wash cloth and squatted down by Lilli and tried to wipe her tears. That was so sweet. We hang onto those precious moments. We do love her and are entertained by her, but she is hard to contain. She really is a giant in a little body.

I made these flowers yesterday. The two small ones were simple and are to be put on hairbands or hair clips for my girls. The yellow Dahlia took me hours to make and was very tedious. I don't know if I'd do it again. It's to be a broach for my mom. 

This is the wreathe I made my mom for mothers day.

 I don't have to much to say, I mostly wanted to post pictures of my adorable kiddies. I'll say, since it is Mothers Day that I have the best mother in the world. I'm not even exaggerating. Anyone who knows my mother would agree. She would do anything for anybody and she does. Everybody that knows her loves her, most of all her children. I feel so lucky to have her, and I truly aspire to be more like her. She is such an inspiration for service and charity. I always wish I could adequately express my appreciation for all she does, but she's so humble she just laughs compliments off. I want to be a mom like my mom because she is the mother of all mothers in her quiet, modest way. I wish I had a picture with her to post, but I have very few. I'll have to make it a point to take some.

 So what I love about being a mother is, well there is just to much. We laugh, and we play and we create beautiful memories together. We have a lot of fun. I sometimes try to imagine what my life would be like without my little monkeys, and it would be lonely and boring. I am a lucky woman, and so grateful for these four little darlings. Well sometimes they're darlings, like when their sleeping. They all have their challenges, but we love them for the creative, spunky, often emotional, and sensitive little people that they are.

Aren't they beautiful. I'm biased, I know, but really!

Leif in his element at Maple Ridge park. Nothing makes him happier then being outside. Well, trains make him happier then anything.

Violet also loves being outdoors. Today she lost a boot and didn't even seem to notice despite the wet, muddy ground. Shortly after this she was digging in a mud hole and flinging dirt on me as I tried to get more pictures of her.

I LOVE MY BABIES!

Cutie pants enjoying the spoils of our Easter egg hunt. She couldn't stop shoveling the chocolate in, but isn't she darling!

Violet discovered ladybugs recently. She's 

fascinated with them, and is so gentle and careful. She gets so excited just to watch them crawl all over her. She's enthralled with most bugs actually. The other day she was following a fat, lazy bee around the yard, trying to catch it. I was relieved that it got away.

So I have recently started making these wreathes. My sister in law, Holly inspired me and then I just found all sorts of great ideas on Etsy and other sites. I made this one for my sister Jacquie for her birthday and I have a cute one on my own front door. Sometimes I use colored yarn and sometimes ribbon. It's a great mothers day idea. I will be making one for my mom. I also make little hair clips and clothing pins with the felt flowers as well. I've really fallen in love with felt. I Think I'll make myself a wreath for each season.

I also found several owl stuffie patterns online and combined them to make my kids these adorable owls for Easter. Took me two strait days of sewing, but they turned out okay and my mistakes aren't noticeable to my kids.

I would love to be able to sell crafts on Etsy but there is so much on that site already I don't know if it would be worth it. Maybe if I advertised being from Canada I could get the Canadian customers who don't want to pay huge shipping fees. I don't know when I'd find the time, between homeschool, pre school, swim classes and all the other classes my girls attend through Summit. Well summer is soon so we shall see.

I'm also trying to find more cleaning jobs if anyone local knows of any hook ups. I have several semi regular jobs that I work around preschool, homeschool and finding a sitter, but what I'd really like is an evening office cleaning job a couple of times a week. If you know of anyone and you live in my general area send them my way.

Other news, but not really, is I have been training for The Rock N' Roll half marathon that is in Seattle at the end of June. Last year I ran my first half and I'd really like to improve my time by 5 minutes this year. I don't know if that is a realistic goal. I feel like I've hit my prime in the short 5 years that I've been running and it's all down hill from here. If only I had started running in my twenties instead of waiting until I was thirty. I am not sure if it is possible for me to improve my pace by much if any. Worse, would be to come in a slower time. Oh, that would be just awful, and the thought of it torments me.
 For my birthday Chris got me one of those Nike things you attach to your shoe, along with a wrist band. It doesn't have a GPS on it but once I can get it set to my pace it will tell me my distance, calories and pace per run. It's been kind of hard getting it regulated. This past Saturday I had to run 12km. I was excited because I had new shoes and I was eager to try them out. Well it turned out to be the longest, slowest run. I had to keep adding to my route to make up my goal distance and it seemed like my pace was dreadfully slow. By 7km I had bleeding blisters on the back of my left heel, and I was feeling exhausted. I really had to push myself to pick up my pace and complete the 12km distance. When I finished I felt so discouraged and depressed that it had taken me so long to run 12km. I decided to map my run online just to be sure I was as slow as I thought I was. Well to my delight it turns out I had actually ran 14km, which is why I must have felt so exhausted. So I have since reprogramed my Nike thing, and am feeling so happy that I am not as slow as I thought I was. There is hope for a new PR after all.

A couple of weeks ago we had a fun filled girls day on Granville Island with Rachel and Emma (cousins). We watched a funny play called Muncha Mia, and then hung out at the children's market.

  Yesterday we had a hilarious April Fools day. My kids had no idea what April Fools day was, so I prepped them the night before so they would know why tricks were being played on them, and not cry about it. They are a sensitive lot. The day started out with the kids waking up to discover their faces all had pictures drawn on them. I heard Miete say from her bedroom " I think a bad guy snuck into our house at night and drew on Leif's face." They then had red milk on their cereal. I suggested the sneak up to Christopher in bed and draw on his face while he slept. They were delighted at this idea, but could barely stop giggling. Good thing I warned Chris ahead of time not to wake up while the girls drew on his face. We used washable pens and they didn't show up very well, but he acted very surprised anyways. The girls then put canned fruit in the bottom of his cereal bowl and added the red milk. After that it was non stop ridiculousness. The girls set their dolls up in their room with their clothes on, put catsup on a toy knife and yelled down to us that we had to come quick because there were dead bodies all over their room. Morbid humor. Miete put more catsup on her hand while playing outside and tried to fake cry that she had fallen and was bleeding everywhere. Now I know she can fake cry a lot better then she did as she does it on a daily basis. I went out for a while and when I came home the girls and christopher actually had me temporarily convinced that my sister Beki had called and was pregnant. It could be true, and I expect it will be in a few more months. The best trick though, was shortly after Violet had filled her diaper I put a small pile of macaroon chocolates on the floor in the living room. Chris and I made such a big deal about the stinky mess that the kids were all horrified. I tried to convince Miete to clean it up but she wouldn't go near it. I got a baby wipe and went over and poked the fake poop pile. The girls screamed and made such faces of disgust. I then picked up one of the pieces of chocolate and proceeded to take a bite out of it. The look on Miete's face was priceless. She looked as if she might throw up, and they both squealed. i really wish we got the whole episode on video, because it was a definite Funniest Videos moment.

   These are some fantastic shots taken today of Violets first experience playing in the rain.

                                                Reflection of the Rainbow in the puddles.

I'm thinking of renaming my blog something like "Fun and Frugal". Not really, that would take to much effort. I would like to write a little bit about frugal living right now though. I have a lot of great ideas when it comes to living on a tight budget. Budget aside it's good for anyone to try to consume less, although so challenging. Several months ago I had the idea that we would only shop second hand. That lasted little over a month. It turned out it was often cheaper to buy items new and on sale. Besides as a woman it is only natural to like and want STUFF. I got weak. So when I talk about frugal living it is a similar situation. I can do really well on a tight budget when I have to, but when I don't have to is when it becomes really difficult. 
 Recently we had an incident. I don't want to share the details, but through little fault of our own and involving student loans, we ended up in a really tight spot. Tight is an understatement, but I can't think of a better explanation. I don't get to upset when these situations arise because I know it won't last and I like the adventure. So I dug my cloth diapers out from the back of our storage room. I am so grateful that I kept them, and that they fit Violet. I started baking bread and treats everyday. I love to bake anyways and in the process found the most amazing recipe for rolls. If you are someone that sees me on a regular basis and have noticed that I'm looking a little bigger around the middle it is not because I am pregnant. It is the baking. I'm just kidding. I'm still running all the time to balance out the sweets. I also found a bunch of candy canes in my food cupboard and made yummy chocolate peppermint crinkles. What a treat. When I bake I put half of everything in my freezer for another time, or if someone else needs some cookie cheer. My freezer is full. 
 Another thing I started doing is walk/running my kids to school. I have a double stroller which I am very grateful for and the weather hasn't been that bad this past week. Miete and Lilli cheerfully rode bikes the first few days, while I ran behind with the stroller. It was only when it started to rain one day and we had to beat it from Lilli's school to Leif's pre school that Miete really started to complain. The worst part about that morning was I arrived at Leif's school only to realize I had forgotten his snack at home. Thankfully his teacher had extra snacks that day so he didn't have to eat the soda crackers I had in back of the stroller. Also my dear friend who's daughter goes to preschool with Leif offered to drive him home after, even though it was out of her way.
 So these are not major things but I do want to continue using cloth diapers, at least while at home. I want to continue walk/running to school with the children when the weather permits. Gas prices are ridiculous right now. I may not bake quite as much or my waist line really will start to grow. We buy a lot of produce and I want to buy less snacky garbage for the kids out of convenience.
 I do want to mention how grateful I am for the help and thoughtfulness of my good friend and some of my family members. I really feel blessed and loved. I hope none of this sounds like I am complaining because I really am not. I am happy and life is good to my family. We are healthy and we live in a safe and protected country. Not to mention beautiful.

Here are some photos

                                           Violet changing her bears diaper

                                             
                                      Lilli and Miete received some pretty new pens from
                                     Rae-anne and this is what they did with them.

                                           A rare loving moment between little rascals

I am having trouble uploading photos today, so this may be a photo free entry. How boring
Just a simple update today:
 Violet is fierce, and can throw a tantrum unlike any of my other children. She is strong willed and stubborn like Lilli, but loves to cuddle. Lately she is really into babies, and carries dolls around, feeding them bottles, rocking them and kissing them. It is very sweet. I think she might also be the best dancer of any of my children at this age. She loves her blankies more than her parents. She is starting to say more words but mostly still speaks in her own language. For the most part she has a very happy disposition.
 Leif used to be a really sweet little boy. Up until the age of 3 I thought he was a perfect child. He rarely cried, he loved to take naps and went to bed easily. He always said please and thank you, and he adored his sisters and parents. he played quietly by himself and rarely got into mischief,  and he loved to cuddle. Well, although he still loves to cuddle, most of those other things no longer pertain to him. He whines and cries constantly, he demands everything and rarely uses manners. He tries to come into my bed on most nights, fights taking naps, although he really still needs them. He also seems to think that he can do whatever Violet does and get away with it. He throws everything, hits Violet a lot, although she probably hit him first and whines, whines, whines. When he's really having a fit he actually makes a "waaa" cry. Of coarse we tell him that is unacceptable. I guess children can't be sweet forever. At least
I have the memories.
 Lilli is having a tough time lately. She really hates school. She struggles with the work and it really effects her self esteem. When I go to pick her up after school she always looks so sad and dejected.  She frequently asks me how many days are left in the week, and is it a half day soon. For some reason beyond my knowledge she doesn't often have kids to play with. She tells me that she asks the other girls to play with her at lunch, but they are all playing with someone else, and she can't play with them. She's even tried to bribe them to play with her by giving away parts of her lunch. She's also taken to spending a fair amount of time in the school sick room. Sometimes at recess or during class she says she has a stomach ache so she can go lay down in the sick room. It's kind of odd to me, but she is very comfortable there. It's like her own personal bed at school. She is begging me to let her come back to home school, and I am considering it. I miss my Lilli being happy.
 Miete enjoys homeschool for the most part. she has normal complaints about doing the work, but does it anyways. She has such great opportunities to show her creative side working at home, and I really enjoy working with her and seeing her imagination in action. She continues to have anxiety issues at church and achievement day activities, or any really social situation. I think she really just wants a good, close friend but doesn't have anyone she really clicks with yet. She is young for her age, and that makes it hard for her to relate to the other girls, so she often plays by herself or around the other girls. It makes me sad, but I'm glad I am there to be her friend so she isn't completely alone. I hope that she soon meets another girl in her homeschool group that she clicks with. girls really do need that social interaction. I'm so glad her and Lilli have each other.
 I don't want to talk about myself and Christopher. We are stressed, exhausted, busy parents, but we love each other and we get along fantastically so that makes even hard situations easier to bear. And we share the responsibilities of raising our children equally. I am a lucky woman.
Pictures to come in next entry.