Update

I have SUCH a lazy blogger! Yesterday I was email a girlfriend and thought I am going to nail two birds with one stone. I am going to copy and paste sections of this letter on my blog. So here it is..... fuzzy photos, hurried words and all. 

 I am in Spring cleaning "mode" at the moment and have thus abandoned the internet all together.  Today I tackled my laundry room, the girl's playroom and my closet. Tomorrow I will purge my linen closet and hopefully convince Nate to help me tidy up the garage. I can't even get in there at the moment. 

Nate and I have decided to start trying for our third in October. I am actually getting pretty excited about it. October 5th marks our tenth wedding anniversary and we are planning on going on our own to Tofino for a couple of days. We used to go there a lot before we had children and it holds a lot of good memories for us. In the past we usually camped or stayed in a hostel but this time I think we will stay in  a fancy lodge. 

We had a really low key Valentines. Amelia and I made a bunch of homemade cards for her classmates at preschool and Nathaniel and I made heart shaped pancakes for the girls and took them swimming.

We have had a lot of visitors.

Nate recently did the ERT candidate selection try out and said that it was REALLY tough. He was sore for days afterwards. He is currently off caffeine. We will see how long that lasts :0) His dad was with us for about three weeks and they spent a lot of time together. They took a trip to Vancouver, rode motor bikes, went shooting, talked into the wee hours of the night and worked in the back yard. I am hoping to visit my brother and his wife Jill in Victoria mid March for a couple of days. Jill and I are going to decorate her nursery (she is going to have a little girl early June) and help her start preparing physically and emotionally for the birth. 

My girls are thoroughly enjoying one another's company and have been  spending hours giggling, making forts, splashing in the tub, pretending they are kittens and going for walks. Watching my girls play together makes me SO thankful that I had two and makes me want to have another. And, they keep each other busy pretty much ALL day which allows me to do all sorts of stuff. It has taken awhile to get to this point, but it feels as though it has all be worthwhile.  Claire still doesn't say much, but she understands EVERYTHING I say. I started potty training her this month, but I am worried that it might be too early for her. She will be two in a little over a month, and I am ready to ditch the diapers. Amelia and I are planning her fourth birthday party. She really wants a Unicorn party - go figure :0)

I am SO excited for Spring. I want to buy myself a pair of mint colored jeans, wear dresses, host a tea party and make shortcake smothered with strawberries and frosting, paint my girls room, start biking again and get skinny!  I just started 30 day shred this week too!!!! I have not been very disciplined since I moved to Nanaimo and I have slowly let 10 pounds creep back onto my body. Now it is time to get rid of them. I would really like to get back to 143 and I am going to have to work hard to get there. I have pretty much cut sugar out of my diet, and I am trying to eliminate wheat as well. I have started making my own salad dressings, eating beets, hemp hearts, chia seeds, and all sorts of other "healthy" stuff. The other day I made pancakes out of oats, cottage cheese and some bran. They were pretty good!. I have started running again as well. There is a lake close to our house and it has a great trail around it. Hopefully I will be in decent shape by the time summer arrives. 

Now that the weather is milder we have been able to do a bit of work in our back yard. I took an axe the the ugly enormous stump in our back yard and managed to gain a few blisters in the process. Hopefully we will be able to finish our deck, put in a fence, get a HUGE load of topsoil, and put in some sort of flagstone or cement this summer. In the meantime we have been digging up ferns from the forest, snow drops from the side of the road and building rock walls from all the rocks lying around. I REALLY want to get the majority of it done before summer arrived so that we can spend our days swimming at the lake, camping, and sharing meals with friends.

 I recently ditched all my chemical laden cleaning products and switched to a evolutionary cleaning system by a company called Norwex. It is awesome!!!! I am trying to develop my "green thumb" instead of anyways putting Nathaniel in charge of all the garden stuff. I recently moved my bedroom around and I am in the process of getting rid of stuff in my craft room. I am trying REALLY hard to stay within our budget, but it is SO hard. I pretty much have forbidden myself from shopping. It is just too dangerous. I am afraid I will see something I love and want to take it home with me. Hopefully next month I will  be able to buy some linen to re-upholster my ottoman. It is in rough shape. I would also love to buy a light fixture for our family room, which is currently, quite cave like. 

Well, that is it. I am going to bed. 

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