Merry Christmas - a little late and WOW happy NEW YEAR!!

Shame on me it has been alomst 4 months since I posted - it's not like I am that busy or anything!  I don't even know where the time has gone and that is the truth.  One of my new years resolutions is to be more organized and in doing this I am hoping that it will allow for more time doing the things that I love!  Soooo let's back up a bit here.  The three older girls have been doing highland dancing since September and have been really enjoying it!  In fact they are getting quite good at it!  Avri adn Mika will be competing on January 15th so that is very exciting.  They have also been doing there piano but are on a bit of a break as there auntie/teacher is just about to have her little baby girl!!!  A GIRL COUSIN!!!  YIPPEE - very excited around here!  The fall literally zipped by, I think the months just ran into one another!

This is Avri doing the fling at the old folks residence in Maple Ridge Bailey House.

This is Zoe getting ready to do her high cuts and Pod - a- ba's (that is spelled very very wrong!)  Anyway they are important steps they learn for the other high land dances!

This is Mika getting ready to do the Lilt!!

Christmas was wonderful - it is my favorite time of year!  I truly do love it.  I love the baking, the shopping, the music, the entertaining, the magic, the whole thing!!  My girls seem to have inherited that love for the christmas season as well!  It sure comes and goes quickly though!  THis year I joined a small choir that performed in our Church Christmas service and I loved it!  I am by no means a great singer but I love to sing and I worked quite hard it!  I think the end result was good - at least that is what most people told me!!  One of the things the girls really enjoyed doing this year - as a family was the operations christmas child.  Where you fill show boxes with gifts that are sent to third world countries!  We had so much fun doing them.  Each of us did our own box.  It is very important to teach my girls how to be compassionate and generous and giving.  I also want them to grow up with grateful hearts.  It is a huge goal of mine to raise my children this way.  I don't ever want them to take for granted the life that they have been blessed with.

The christmas break was fun - gotta admit I am a big fan of the no schedule - but 2 weeks is long enough.  They even let me sleep in until 8am a few times!!  We ventured out to the movies twice - and it was an adventure - me with all 4 girls!!  But even little Leah sat though them for the most part, of course the big tub of popcorn helped with that!!  Josh took the older 3 ice skating - which they loved, even though there were a few falls on the ice!  Overall we spent alot of time together as a family, just simply having FUN!!  But I am happy to be back to routine again!

 This is the girls all dresses up for our church christmas party!!

This is the girls in their new jammies on Christmas Eve!!

So here we are in 2011 - I can't believe it.  I hope that this year will be as great as 2010.  I am sure it will bring many surprises and challenges - I hope I am up for them!!  For now I hope that I will be able to some what achieve my resolutions which are first to be more organized and second to find joy in everything - and I really mean EVERYTHING!!  I am a little bit of a pessimist at times and I don't want my children to see me that way so I am going to try really hard to change that!    Oh ya and thirdly - to keep on top of this blog :)

Back to reality

I can not believe that I am sitting here typing this and it is labour day weekend?  Where or where did the summer go?  It was a wonderful summer but it zoomed by so fast I can hardly believe it!  We got home from veranda beach last weekend - that was an amazing week.  It was hard to come back home.  I could have stayed there for another month.  This week has been a little challenging as the kids are bored and they had just spent a whole week with Josh around to help entertain them.. Apparently I am a little disapointing when it comes to entertainment!  The weather has been a little cooler but the sun was out most days this week so we can't really complain.

Today was a little challenging by times.  Leah got a hold of a bottle of nail polish from my bathroom and managed to get the lid off when I wasn't looking.  The she proceeded to paint her arms legs and face - yes face with this lovely shade of burgundy.  Then she dumped the remained out on my cream coloured carpet.  She toddled back into the bathroom and looked at me and said "pitty" her word for Pretty.  I didn't know whether I should laugh, cry or scream.  So I stood there stunned for a second trying to figure out what to do and in what order.  I managed to get most of it off Leah - I left the one toe nail that she had painted!  THen the carpet...........I looked up a few things on google and then I attacked it.  After 2 hours I managed to get most of it out.  Just how I wanted to spend two hours of my day!!

Well we will try and make the most of our 3 day weekend - life is pretty hectic right now as we have a new store opening in Vancouver in 2 weeks.  Josh is run off his feet right now.  Below are some cute pics from veranda beach!!

Here we are at the beach in front of our cabin.  We had just been to church down in Orville and got a rare family shot with everyone in it!

      

heaven on earth

Here I sit on the very warm deck of our cabin  in Veranda Beach - an amazing resort in the small town of Orville (the US side of Osoyoos).  We have been here 4 days and already booked for 2 weeks next year!  It is so beautiful.  We are right on the lake, the cabin is perfect ( and big enough to hold 5 adults and 5 kids!)  We only have 3 days left which is kind of sad.  We have been boating, tubing, swimming, building sand castles, lounging by the pool, eating,  reading, laughing, playing games and having an amazing time!  I do not want to go back to reality in 3 days.

I am sitting out in the warm air  listening to a frog while the kids are sleeping peacefully because they are absolutely warn out from swimming and playing outside in the 35 C heat all day!  Josh is sleeping on the window seat in the living room as he is absolutely wiped out too!  I feel like I am on another planet.  I am so relaxed and just enjoying all this family time!

I have some amazing pictures to share but I forgot my cord to connect the camera to my laptop o it will have to wait til I get back home.  Til then - good night

Victoria - it was an adventure!

I do not know where the time goes!!  The past couple of weeks have been super busy and have flown by!  We have been busy going here there and everywhere!  Nana was here for a week back in July - while she was out Josh and I had a little get away to vancouver for 2 nights which was so great!  We stayed downtown and went out for breakfast, lunch and dinner and slept in!!!!  It was so nice, we had beautiful weather and ate at some pretty yummy restaurants too!  Ok - we kind of missed the kids.

Then me and my mom and Emily headed to Victoria for 2 days with all the kids.  Probably won't do that again any time soon without Josh.  It just isn't the same.  The kids don't listen as well to other people!  They were pretty good though and the weather was great there as well!  The kids loved the ferry too!  We went to visit my great aunt - who is turning 84!!  She unfortunately was not feeling well so we could not take her out for lunch but we managed to get in a visit!  Then we took the kids to the beach - it was fun!

the girls had a great time playing in the sand and wading in the water.  Leah did not want to sit still for any pictures so we bribed her with Jelly Belly's ;)

This picture of Avri was taken right as we were leaving the beach - a seagull flew over head and pooped right on her arm!  We had some pretty good laughs about it - she was a good sport and let us take the picture!

Beach days and water parks

Well the sun has been here for a while now (although the last few days have been much cooler!) We had a super fun day out at crescent beach in whiterock last week. Lots of kiddies and fun times! Leah loved the sand and managed to eat some too! She also loved stealing chips from J.J!

The other ones enjoyed exploring the beach and making sandcastles! Mika and Emily worked very hard to create a princes castle master piece! We had a nice picnic lunch too - and really enjoyed the nice cool breeze. A seagull pooped on Leahs head too!! Luckily she had her hat on at the time!

We got home around 3pm and it was so hot at our hosue that we decided to head to the water park for the evening to keep cool while the kids splashed around in the water! The kids had a blast and the best part was they totally crashed by the time we got home from this VERY busy day!!

She's here!!

Finally after waiting for what seemed like a loooong time - our Emily is here. Emily is my cousin from PEI who has come to spend the summer with us. She is going to help me keep my sanity this summer. She is coming to Calgary and Osoyoos with us. She will be my friend, my helper, my support!! We are so excited to have her here. The girls could barely fall asleep tonight. I picked her up at 11:30pm so the girls won't actually get to see her til the morning! In fact Zoe snuck into my room at 6am this morning asking if she could go wake Emily up!! She didn't realize that she wasn't arriving til tonight!

Tomorrow after the girls finish their swimming lesson at 9:30am we are off to Crescent beach in whiterock! HOW FUN!! I have not been there in years. The girls lessons are going well so far. Of course it helps that the weather has been so nice as they are swimming in an outdoor pool! It was super hot today - the girls had a fun day though - they went swimming in their GG's pool! I had to drive tot he states to pick up some things for Josh for the stores. The border wasn't too busy thankfully! I only Leah with me too so it was a nice break. We got some groceries while we were down there too!

I went to a new Yoga class tonight - that was fun. I enjoyed it but the studio it was being held in was so hot! I felt like I was going to pass out anytime I stayed bent over for more than 30 seconds! Having low blood pressure was not exactly helping either! Anyhow I really did enjoy it and I am looking froward to going back!

well time for bed - I will try and post some pictures tomorrow from Crescent beach.

Happy Canada Day - even if it did rain all day!

Well the day got off to a great start - the girls quietly got up at 7:45 and went and cleaned the playroom and basement! It was their mess but still they did it without being reminded 50 times! I made French toast and smoothies for breakfast YUMMM! Then we got packed up and headed out to Maple Ridge Park for the annual church picnic. It was freezing - like chill you to the bone cold! I had a jacket on the whole time and wished that I was wearing pants! The kids had fun regardless though. It is such an awesome park and they had their friends there so they were happy. I of course enjoyed the company of some great friends! The beautiful thing was - the kids played so hard that they actually collapsed into bed early!! Josh and I are about to watch a movie.

The only really disappointing thing about today was that I did not make it to the gym :( I have been really trying to get my butt in gear and get into better shape. I have been going to the gym a few times a week and trying to walk/run with the dog. Ok walk with the dog - I hate running. Anyway I managed to hurt my back while bending over doing the laundry - like really hurt it! So I had to take a few days off the gym and go to the chiropractor. It is feeling better so I need to get back to the gym. Man I feel old these days - since when do you hurt your back sorting laundry??

Thank goodness tomorrow is Friday and thank goodness my cousin arrives in 6 days. Day 3 of summer break - and I am tired, I even napped for an hour today on the couch!! I have been enjoying have the girls around more but it is tiring. I am finally getting my hair done tomorrow - it has been five months so it is long overdue!