From a Mother’s Day mystery and random dinosaurs to a contemporary cozy mystery based around the owner of a bakery whose best friend and soon to be employ is embroiled in the murder of her previous boss at the local bank. Vanilla Bean Murder by Deany Ray is the second in her Ouna Bay Cozy Mysteries series. This lucky free find was a lovely novella length mystery with a touch of romance and a dash of humour.

Now keep in mind this is a second book in the series (I really lucked out with a freebie), so there are some moments where you feel you are missing a bit of information. The relationships are more defined and there is a hint of that being something that came out of the previous book so I won’t give names and details.

What I really enjoyed about this one is that I didn’t see the murderer coming… I mean, towards the end I was getting the feeling that something wasn’t quite right but I was just as surprised as the main characters (Becky) as to who did it and why.

I am definitely interested in taking a look at the first novel in the series as well as continuing on (once the book budget allows of course…). Deany Ray does a terrific job creating interesting characters. The story  felt well thought through and had a great pace. The mystery, as I mentioned, was intriguing and unexpected. Definitely a fun read out in the hammock on a warm afternoon, especially since that is exactly what I did! And who doesn’t love a title like Vanilla Bean Murder. It sounds so… scrumptious.

For a couple of hours my busy little house was a whole lot less busy! Ken took all 3 boys off to the library for a Spring Break 1 hour program. It is nice, now that Emanuel is 4 more of the activities encompass both their age groups. This one was a 4-10 yr old activity. “Imagination Games.” I have signed them up for a couple more sessions this summer as well! For this session they kicked all the parents out!

Finished Hats! (Gavin middle)

We made a run out to Dollarama this morning as a family to get supplies for our Easter festivities. Since Trinity can’t have chocolate we picked her up some tiny tambourines (sadly High School Musical themed) and a little pink lunchbox style thing. I found some mini bubble bottles and some Easter coloured glitter. Hopefully all enough to make everyone smile. Trinity found a bunny in a bin that she VERY particularly picked out and snuggled, she then offered one of the same to her brothers who didn’t want them and proceeded to REFUSE to give hers back! For 1.50 we chose to just let her have it. She snuggled it all the way home.

Dinner tonight is a family favourite – pita pizzas! Even Trinity had her very own (sans tomato sauce of course). The boys get their own pita, Ken puts on the tomato sauce and then each boy is in charge of his own toppings. Tonight we went simple – pepperoni (a massive stick for 9.99 at the wholesale place), ham and cheese…

Creating the Pizza (Zander)

YUM! (tomato free for Miss T)

Ken went to BANK WITH the boys in tow! Still they are investigating – interviewing all the people whose names and numbers Ken gave them… but we did mention to them that we had seen (well my mom did) Global troubleshooters covering a case much like ours and that we had contacted them (email). Hoping that will light a bigger fire under them!!

We boiled our eggs tonight for tomorrow night’s dying. Something the boys are VERY excited about! There is a bit of an impromptu gathering for an egg hunt at the den Otter’s house tomorrow afternoon we are going to go to as well. Creating memories and of course I will take pictures!!!

Creativity abounding today!

I am coming to think our biggest writing conundrum to date is the concept of leaving spaces BETWEEN words. I can get them to copy the letters, even occasionally sound out the words… but there is a major misunderstanding about making a word stand alone visibly. Thankfully there are very few backwards letters though printing ON THE LINE is something we are also working on…

We finished our May baskets today, now to put them up somewhere to show them off… we stapled a piece of cardstock to the back to make it a basket and then glued the flowers all over to make it fancy and Spring like. The hands are traced and cut out to be made into lilies tomorrow!

Completed baskets

So Ken spent MOST of this afternoon at BANK. Apparently the belief was that since we paid for everything and got the van back that all is good??? WHAT? So the internal investigation that they SAID would be started was not with the hope that Ken would just not be back. So 6 hrs. later he got home cranky and with a headache but rather sure he made it clear that he WOULD be back. So said BANK was told Ken could come back tomorrow or the next day (they will not know) with the intention that something HAS BETTER be going on! Credit rating and money for fees… reasonable yeah?

Anyway I have been making stars with a vengeance and finding my rhythm with that. I think once I have 10.00 extra again I will order another batch of papers and make a set for my god daughter and maybe myself even! Makes me wish I had more spare spending money RIGHT NOW. Funny how impatient one gets when you find a new craft to go with. I used to play around with origami… maybe there is an affordable way to get started once again?

Gotta keep the WHOLE family busy! (Zander blue)

Today is definitely not my day of deep thought… in fact I think I kinda auto-piloted my way through the majority of it. I think tomorrow night I will take a mental health.. hour… and do some scrapbooking. I have already picked out the paper and have some ideas. The problem is a space to do it and the time to use that space… but isn’t that always the way? Some day I want a crafting area… not even a room just some place all my own!

Taking advantage of the quiet moments