Time for another random library grab. This one is a “Heartwarming Inspirational Romance” by Lissa Manley called Her Small-Town Sheriff. A Christian contemporary romance based in Moonlight Cove, this sweet romance centers around a divorced and sad Sheriff (Carson Winters) and his daughter Heidi who moved to escape a sad and difficult past. Enter the owner of the ice cream parlor I Scream for Ice Cream Phoebe who was widowed 2 weeks before she managed to marry.

With baggage on both sides and grief still fresh in heart and mind this novel is a story about redemption and the chance to love a second time even if you don’t think it is possible. I really appreciated the fact that everyone involved had to go through some strife and growth before a happily ever after could come about.

I love the tagline on the back of the book:

Moonlight Cove: A beachside town where love and faith blossom.

This book is another light afternoon read. I actually found I read it in a relatively short period of time. But, if you enjoy a good romance with a Christian theme this could be the book for you. Another accidental library find in my favour! Enjoy!

With the intention of leaving the city end of the month (we darn well better!) we have been trying to see the people who live here. Saturday it was a playdate with the den Otter family. The kids absolutely love playing together and are a great crowd to watch. With Echo showing off her amazing sitting skills, how much she can eat and her intense cuteness factor and Izaac doing the 2 month old baby sweet thing we were a house full of baby loveliness.

Little Izaac

We had a brunch, hung out, visited and generally just spent time with good friends. I have to say I always feel better after a good chat with a friend. And this time the kids were rather accommodating so Xinny and I got in lots of talking time. She is hoping to bring the family down to visit after we get settled. She has an aunt that runs a coffee house in the same city.

Emanuel and Isabella

Alexander

Friday we did get some very sad news. My mom has had to have her dog Phoebe put down. She was acting sickly so mom took her in to the vet who did some tests and found out she had a rare blood parasite. Two days later she took her back to be re-tested and the levels were twice as bad. That left mom with the choice to attempt to continue treatment which would be expensive and potentially unfair to the dog or let her go. The vet thought she potentially had this parasite even before mom got her. So they made the decision not to continue with treatment and mom is going to take a break from dogs for a while. It will be very different going to visit with no dog around. And the kids did love Phoebe.

Phoebe and Fat Sheep

Today was another busy day. We decided against taking the boys to Sunday School as we had Karyn and Victoria over and I wanted to go out with them. There was  tentative plans to take the kids to the park but it was just too windy.

We took Echo with us and went to a mall for lunch, shopped at Sephora and stopped in at my favourite small grocer to get red pepper dip and little pitas… something Karyn got me hooked on back when she lived a block away from the store and we were not in the city yet. It was one of my “to do before move” list.

Mmm

We sent chocolate cookies and sugar cookies home with them this evening to take to work (Victoria works with Karyn) as a thank you for all the boxes – in fact they brought MORE boxes with them this weekend!!! Yay! Karyn also came with Fat Sheep’s new business cards! I picked out one to keep here with me… they are ADORABLE! You can read about there HERE. I am thinking of getting some for the kids… 20.00 for a hundred. Could be a neat Christmas thing.

Business cards

Echo has found a new best friend in Victoria… I am so glad she is starting to branch out and be more sociable. She wowed everyone with her cuteness this entire weekend and was a busy busy girl. She even tried to WAVE GOOD BYE when Karyn and Victoria left!!! That was a definite first!

I think she wore Victoria out!

While I was gone Ted and Sean ran out to pick out a laptop for Ted. He is trying it out to see if it will work for him (he has some time to make that decision before it can’t be returned). We are working out the details to getting the twins their own laptop/netbook now that our funding is through for the second term. I want to have this decided BEFORE we move. I am also going to get a payment order at our favourite school supply store and get a few new items for the boys to enjoy when we have moved.

Hiding from the camera

Mom and Mike stopped by on their way home from my brother’s to drop off their trailer. We are going to use it to move. It is large enough that we may even be able to fit almost EVERYTHING in it! Mike will have to drive it for us but we have ample volunteers for the lifting and emptying. Once we pick up a lock for the back it will make it WAY easier to finish packing as we can start filling the trailer right away.

Sitting with Grandma

Karyn brought with her some new Hello Kitty things for Trinity – the big hit – a hair clip! She is such a girly girl sometimes.

New clip

In fact, today she spent the whole day in costume. She calls it her butterfly costume as it has a butterfly on the front. We tried on her Tinkerbell costume but it is still too big.

Butterfly Baby

With all the busy fun I HAVE found some time to stitch. The piece is well on its way and if I REALLY concentrated I think I COULD finish it right off… the next project is to start our god-daughter Anna’s stocking. I don’t want to be stitching it right up to Christmas after all!

Work in progress

Did I mention I weighed Echo here at home on her 9 month birthday??? She gained about a half a lb in around 3 weeks! That is HUGE for Echo. According to our scale here at home she is just over 11 1/2 lbs! The continuing gain (be it smaller than other kids) is so uplifting. She has a lovely large appetite and is not having any sort of excessive throwing up or pooping. All good signs that she is using what she is eating, maybe not for weight gain but for SOMETHING, perhaps the energy she has to sit, roll over, play and smile??

Echo hanging out earlier this week

I think this week I am going to try and get some more photography done. I would love to have Trinity sit and pose in the window or Echo while she is playing on the floor. Right now the livingroom is so chaotic so if I can clear that out and take some lovely shots I would very happy.

So now my livingroom is cluttered up with flattened boxes, a large stack of laundry (we had an issue with the washer that took almost 2 weeks to fix so we are playing catch up)… back to work I go!

Butterfly in flight

We fulfilled our birthday girl’s wishes with her PINK KITTY PARTY quite well I think, we had pink… well everything we could… and the kitties hanging from the ceiling, on the cake, on the table, on printed colouring pages AND in the presents! We are officially a Hello Kitty house!

Amazingly enough these were sold in packages of 2, and 2 different people bought the sets... and NO duplicates!

We had a nice group of friends and family here to celebrate. Grandma and Grandpa Mike brought Phoebe along with a few new toys for the boys as well.

Grandma and all 5 kids

We had Esther come late (but not too late) bearing DRESSES for Trinity (talk about a score – now I don’t have to find a new Easter dress for her!).

Ted and the Esther

We had 3 little kids, well 4 if you count baby Izaac who slept through the majority of the party. Alexander, Isabella and Anna. So we had little ones everywhere playing and having a blast. With our pink clothed Hello Kitty themed birthday girl in the thick of it.

Chowing down

Wee Izaac

Our Anna

The cake that Karyn and I baked and decorated turned out PERFECT! We flavoured our icing mint and had two flavours of cake – vanilla and chocolate.

Cake and cupcakes

The two layers

Along with our themed cake we had our rainbow cupcakes. The recipe with the colour ratios can be found here. Topped with our 7 minute frosting. We had over 2 dozen of those. Though our single batch of the frosting was possibly THREE times as much as we needed! The consensus was it tasted much like marshmallow fluff and was perfect as clouds on top of our rainbows.

Birthday girl and her cupcake

Although Trinity LOVED the cake and couldn’t wait to get her hands on a cupcake, once the plastic shapes were removed and she saw that candles and was told to blow them out she was absolutely NOT having any of that! I am not sure if the candles scared her or everyone wanting her to blow them out but she was NOT impressed.

Birthday girl (note the eying of the cupcakes instead of the camera)

The presents were soooo exciting. She got a variety of Hello Kitty items as well as some Barbies, and clothing. So the evening and most of today was spent packing up, unpacking and playing with said new toys. I am going to have to crawl around on my hands and knees looking under EVERYTHING when we go to vacuum next!!

Opening presents

We had Kathy, Esther, Ted and Sean stay the night so while Ken took the boys and Emanuel to Sunday School I got in some quality visiting time. The boys apparently had a BLAST at Sunday School today and next week are a part of the palm procession for Palm Sunday. So, most likely that means taking the whole family next week or at the very least Ken video taping it for us.

Handprint sheep magnets

Emanuel and his binoculars (post Church clothes)

I honestly can say I have had one of my best weekend for the year 2011 to date. We saw friends we had not seen in quite some time… had some great food, the kids had friends to play with, Trinity was a wonderful and pretty birthday girl, and in the end on Sunday afternoon I got a nap! Kathy spoiled the boys with a new cash register. We have one already but it is much more the calculator, serious thing and not nearly as grocery store fun for ALL the kids sort of thing as this one! I think tomorrow we will start our day with playing around with the money and cards and just seeing how it works, then talking about money and how the different coins and bills work. We have collected 400 shiny pennies thanks to Ted and Karyn to show the kids how much a dollar really is.

Note the CANADIAN currency!

Echo is a lot happier now that we are back to basically immediate family. Though I was AMAZED at how well she went from person to person and dealt with the noise and chaos. We’ve had a couple decent naps today already and she is a chattering, smiling baby today. We had our very first Mum Mum cookies yesterday and she LOVED it. So far she has not had the reaction to the sugar content that Trinity had.

First cookie

Add to the excitement the fact that we are going to move in June and the kids are on one great big rollercoaster. Zander is STILL sure he DOESN’T want to move – doesn’t want to leave our church… Trinity doesn’t want ANYONE touching HER stuff (which makes packing it an adventure) and Gavin and Emanuel are VERY concerned we don’t move TOO far from GRANDMA. That last one is actually not a worry – we will not be all that much further from her, just in a different direction. I think I am the most excited about the whole thing. (well along with Karyn)

OH – Fat Sheep was in the thick of things at the party as well! She is now back at her home with Karyn, the kids are already missing her BUT we DO have Petite Sheepette to adventure with in her place. It has been fun having here her to play with and blog about. I am sure her adventures will continue now that she is home safe and sound.

Fat Sheep checking out the presents

Now if we could just get the kids down off their post party, cake and company high and back to the reality that is Monday. And of course there is the removal of all the balloons, collection of the kitties and general cleaning to do.

Colouring Kitties with Aunty Kathy