Annual Stocking Photo

We are back from a wonderful Christmas in Kingston! The best part was watching Nicholas play with his cousins P and S. They had SO much fun!

As per tradition, I take a photo of Nicholas with his personalized stocking at Poppa and Gram's house. Last year he would not sit still (maybe it was the double ear infection!) But this year I got a super photo!

First Christmas (2011)

Second Christmas (2012)

Third Christmas (2013)

Hope everyone had a magical Christmas! All the best in 2014!

xo,
Meg

The stockings were hung...

We have finally finished decorating for Christmas! We would have been done earlier but Dan and I really wanted to find some stockings. First of all, I had no idea the price of stockings. Yikes! But alas, we found these at Target. They were on sale too!

I love them! And yes we bought one for baby. We knew if we went back next year they may not have them again. 

The snow is falling as I type this! Bring on Christmas!

xo,
Meg

Another sign of Christmas

Candy cane ice cream! Dan claims he doesn't like "the chunks" but he managed to eat the majority of the container!

Yum-o! Another Christmas tradition from my childhood.

Hope everyone has a Christmas-y weekend! We sure are in countdown mode. Today we are going to cut down our tree and then we have a Christmas party this afternoon. Tomorrow we will decorate the tree!

xo,
Meg
 

Liebster Award

I honestly feel like it is Pay it Forward Day. First I ordered a small tea (for me) and 2 timbits (for Nick) at Tim Horton's this morning and they gave me a medium tea and 4 timbits. But don't worry they charged me the right amount. And then my friend Heather got nominated for a Liebster award and has passed on the love and nominated me!

Here is the explanation of what it is:



“Liebster” is derived from the German word lieben, which means to love. Loosely interpreted, it can also mean sweetest, kindest, nicest, or beloved. So a Liebster Award is essentially a token of appreciation passed around in the blogging community. It’s also only given out to up and coming blogs with less than 200 followers to encourage new bloggers. At least, that’s how I’m interpreting it.

Cool! I don't actually have many "followers" although I know people read it because they comment on my posts in person!

So now I have to answer the questions Heather has made and then nominate a few blogs and have them answer MY questions. How fun!

1. What’s the first thing you do when you wake up in the morning?

Well, considering I am almost 15 weeks pregnant I pee first. And I multi task by reading my phone while peeing. Too much info?

2. If you could go back to high school would you? Why or why not?

No way. Looking back highschool was oh so easy. But we were oh so dramatic about it. I like where I am in life right now!

3. Do you crave sweet or salty?

These days I crave both of them. I usually want some chocolate and then after I have it I want salt and vinegar chips. 

4. If a celebrity were to play you in a movie who do you think it would be?

Oh boy. Umm... Julia Roberts because we clearly look alike! Lol. No I just love her. Especially her personality in Run Away Bride!

5. What’s your favourite attribute about yourself?

I like my eyes. Most people seem to prefer blue or green eyes but I like my brown eyes. When my sister-in-law got married in Ottawa the makeup artist told me "I have a secret, you have the nicest eyes of the whole wedding party." I guess I let that cat out of the bag!

6. If you could have any job in the world (and money was no object) what would it be?

I would wrap presents for a living.

7. If you got to have a professional in your life (for free) what would it be? Personal chef, professional cleaner, personal trainer, or professional driver/chauffeur.

Personal chef! I don't love cooking. 

8. What’s the best gift you’ve ever received?

My son. Hand's down. 

9. What’s your favourite gift to give?

I love giving kids clothes. They are so cute and fun to shop for!

10. What are your plans for the holidays?

A few parties and a trip to Kingston (my hometown) for a few days. I love family time!

And now for my nominations: I could only come up with 5 because I don't follow that many blogs!

Out of the Woods 

Hunt Family News

The Lock Family



Our Journey


Tenth Avenue South (this one technically has 221 followers but it's one of my favs!)

Here are my questions:
1. Are you a day person or a night person?
2. Why did you start your blog? Bored on mat leave? Keeping family up to date?
3. What would be your death row meal?
4. Do you believe in horoscopes? Why/why not?
5. What is your favourite holiday?
6. What is your favourite Christmas song?
7. What do you take in your coffee? Tea?
8. What brand of toilet paper do you prefer?
9. Did you watch the entire series of Breaking Bad? If so, how long did it take you? If not, when are you going to?
10.  What cheerios do you like the best? Original, multigrain, chocolate or honey nut?

Thanks for the nomination Heather! Her wonderful blog can be found here. 

xo,
Meg 

November ends and December Begins

Let's look back on what all happened in November...

• We babysat Lia. She outlasted Nick which is a rare event. She also ate better than him. Also a rare event.
• My inlaws came for a weekend. New doors were installed and trim was painted. What a difference!
• We took Nicholas to the Santa Claus parade. What a difference a year makes. He loved it this year!
• I went to a Christmas bazaar. It's been a long time since I have attended one of those!
• Illness hit our house. Everything from fevers, to barf to pink eye. My theory is that we are in the clear for Christmas. Please let me be right!
• E and Lia came for dinner while Chris was in LA. 
• We made our annoucement that Baby Dill is coming in early June. Thank you everyone for the amazing messages through email and facebook. Feeling the love!
• I had dinner at Boston Pizza with a few teaching friends. It's so nice to catch up!
• I almost completed my Christmas shopping. Just a few more little things to get!
• I went to see Hunger Games: Catching fire. Great movie!
• The G's came over for a visit. It's nice to be sharing this special (sometimes nauseous time) with someone else!
• We renewed our mortgage...woot woot!
• We had dinner at a friend's house... yum! Nick loves big kid toys! (Attempting to dump an entire box of little itty bitty lego? Yes please!)

I am super excited about December. Christmas parties, a school field trip, more decorating, baking and some time off from work. I need to just get over this double case of pink eye...

xo,
Meg
 

I'm in love with an Advent calendar!

The search has ended! I have found what I was looking for!

$16.00 at the Super Store! It doubles as a stocking which is just too cool. And no I didn't buy two. Nick will have to share this with his sibling!

xo,
Meg

Card Clothesline

Last Christmas I didn't really give any thought to wear we put things because Nicholas wasn't overly interested. But this year I knew our card clothesline needed to be placed up high so that Nick was not tempted to pull them down.

So I put them under the clock in our kitchen.

I hung it with painter's tape so it wouldn't ruin the walls and then picked up some fun felt Christmas "bows" at Target to hide the tape. I love it!

xo,
Meg

 

From Brown to White

This past weekend my inlaws were up for a visit and to help us with an indoor project. We replaced all of our interior doors. We are not quite done yet but we sure got a lot done! The previous owners sure loved brown wood. But we needed to lighten things up in here and replace the cheapie doors that they chose. We still have a few more closets to do and they are only primed so Dan will paint them down the road but I thought I would share a few snapshots because it is hilarious how much better it looks in here. My mother-in-law did some trim painting for us in our family room (around the new doors and around the windows) and it just brightens up the whole room. See for yourself:

Such a difference right?!

xo,
Meg

It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas!

I am in a Christmasy mood... maybe it is because of the snow falling today or the fact that I am drinking a hot chocolate as I type this. Or maybe it is because of this awesome plant that greets us at the front door!

Thank-you Heather for picking it up for me at Costco and thanks to Elysia for delivering it from Heather's house when Nick was sick.

xo,
Meg

Halloween Favourites

Halloween is not my favourite thing. I like it but I don't love it. But Kindergarten kids love it so we went all out last week. We called it Halloween Extravaganza Week! We sang songs, read stories, had a school-wide costume fashion show, made witch hat treats (a cookie with icing on it and a hershey's kiss on top), made Witch brew (a mixture of pop and juice), we watched Halloween shows and made a few crafts. I didn't catch everything on camera but here are a few highlights:

Above is a craft we did with our students. Everything was prepped ahead of time by one of the ECEs (hollowing the paper plates, cutting yarn, and hole-punching the perimeter of the plate.) The kids weaved the yarn across the plate and could do as many as 3 strands. The last piece was left untied and we slid a spider ring on it and then tied it. Too cute. This was a fun activity but very hands on as many students could not tie knots. The web in the picture was done by a JK. I was mucho impressed!

This was a treat brought in by a student. His mom is a stay-at-home mom...can you tell? The cookie had the consistency of gingerbread but was actually chocolate. It was good. Nick and I can vouch for that!

And my favourite part about Halloween was this cute guy. He was not sick this year (only a lingering cough) and he was much more outgoing at Dan's work and handing out candy than I thought he would be. What happened to my shy kid?!

Hope everyone had an awesome Halloween!

xo,
Meg

Did October happen?

 I love October! 

• I met a few friends at Coffee Culture for some over due chat time. Thanks A & M!
• I continued lane swimming. I find it to be good exercise and quality thinking/planning time.
• I volunteered for the Pink Ribbon Campaign by freezing my ass off selling ribbons outside of Sobeys one Saturday afternoon.
• We went on two weekend outings: apple picking and the pumpkin patch. Nicholas loved both! Both resulted in some yummy baking too!
• We enjoyed dinner at a friend's place. Yum fajitas!
• Nick had his monthly play date at his pal Lia's house.
• We travelled to Kingston for Thanksgiving. It was quieter than normal but a lot of fun. I have so much to be thankful for!
• We went to a few birthday parties- first for Nick's pal Cooper who turned 2 and for my friend E. Cake and pie in the same week... yes please!
• I joined my staff for a good-bye send off for a very special EA who was transferred to another school. She is already missed!
• Head colds hit our house. There is something about Halloween week that wreaks havoc on our immune systems!
• I went to E's house for a girly belated birthday get together. I could only stay a short time but it's always nice to hang out with mommy friends.
•  We celebrated Halloween! Pumpkin carving, trick-or-treating at PTC and a few special visitors made for an awesome night. Nicholas LOVED handing out candy and greeting visitors. That was always my favourite part as a kid!

 

Hope everyone had a fabulous month! Bring on November... the month Dan grows a gross mustache.

xo,
Meg

Craft Club #1

I signed up for craft club this year and we completed our Halloween/Fall craft this past Thursday. The club is open to Grade 4 students since our school is huge so we had to pick one grade. Also, students in this age group are capable (for the most part) and don't seem to suffer from the "I'm too cool for school" syndome yet. We meet for each special holiday.

I found this cute idea on Pinterest: (the picture is an actual one from our club)

 Materials needed: 

• pipe cleaners
• orange beads
• pencil crayon for curling

Step 1: Twist the middles of 3 pipe cleaners together. We used white ones but ideally orange would be best. But whole packages of orange pipe cleaners turned out to be impossible to find.

Step 2: Open up the pipe cleaners so they resemble a star. 

Step 3: Put the beads on each pipe cleaner section. We did 15 per section but you could adjust this accordingly.

Step 4: Bring all sections together so they meet at the top and then twist.

Step 5. Hide the white by wrapping a brown pipe cleaner around it. This will be the stem.

Step 6: Curl a green ribbon around the stem leaving the ends loose to look like leaves. We used a pencil crayon to make them curly.

Step 7: Throughout this activity bend the sections to make them as round as possible and to look like a pumpkin.

They turned out great! The best part of this activity was that there was minimal clean up. No one dumped beads and it was completed in less than 1 lunch recess (only took around 30 mins.)

Happy Fall!

xo
Meg

A $30.00 light.. that's right!

The kitchen light above our table was hideous! Like straight from the 80's (even though the house was built in the 90's) hideous. We wanted a simple pendant with enough light for the kitchen. Thank you Rona for a $30.00 upgrade. Woo hoo!

Before

After (no it is not yellow, it's white)

A better shot to show the colour

If anyone wants the old one for a project, let me know!

xo,
Meg

Nauman's Farm

We are having so much fun with Nicholas this Fall! We crossed off another item on our "Fall to do list" (the one in my head lol) this morning. We went to Nauman's farm. We hadn't been there before and it's fun! The only disappointing thing is that all the extras (corn maze, fun play area and pumpkin sling shots) cost extra. But we weren't leaving without trying the pumpkin/gourd launchers. So much fun! Nicholas had a blast!

Check it out!

Picking out pumpkins/gourds for launching

Bombs away!

Pumpkins make great chairs!

Nick moves too fast for our camera lol

What we brought home. Aren't they perfect?!

xo,
Meg

I'm thankful

I am thankful for so many things: my family, my job, my friends, my house... the list goes on and on.

I am especially thankful to be Mom to such a special little guy. I snuck in to his room and took a picture of him last night sleeping. Pooh bear makes an excellent pillow :)

 Happy Thanksgiving everyone!

xo,
Meg

 

Apple Picking

Take a toddler apple picking! Nick was literally jumping up and down and tripping over apples he was so excited! The day was over cast but it made for some really nice pictures!

xo,
Meg

Things that make me smile!

So I love Fall. I wrote about the gigantic mum that I bought here. After a few weeks I wasn't thrilled by it. It was so big it split in the middle and hung over the sides of the pot. So I transplanted it into the garden. I am still meh about it as it has a wonky shape.

Yesterday I decided I needed a new mum in my life and this one sure makes me smile!

xo,
Meg
 

September Fun

 September I love. 

• We had friends over for dinner on Labour Day weekend. Their son started JK this year. Ah!
• We hosted the monthly playdate with Nick's pals. These used to be relaxing, not any more. "You need to share" can be heard A LOT.
• We went to a deck celebration at Cooper's house. Dan helped with construction so it was so nice to see the finished product!
• I returned to school. It was a mixed month of survival and fun. LOL (Open House happened, picture day, Terry Fox run, opening school mass etc.)
• I turned the Big 3-2. We went to Beer Town for lunch and enjoyed some cake from Norris Bakery.
• I got a black eye a la Nicholas' head.
• We visited at a friend's house and ate some yummy pumpkin pie and got caught up.
• Outdoor soccer season came to an end. We won 3 out of our 4 last games. I'll miss it as I am taking a break from soccer this winter. The late games just kill me. 
• We had an impromptu playdate with Nick's friend Lia. They seem to have a love hate relationship these days. lol
• The bathroom renovation continued and Phase 1 is done.  
• I had lunch with a girl friend and we exchanged school stories.
• I went to my friend Heather's "girl's night in" birthday party. Everything was adorable from the decor to the snacks. Great way to end the week.
• We went to Maggie and Jay's wedding. Congrats you two! 
• We caught my inlaw's gig at Lake Ontario Park when we were in Kingston. What a beautiful weekend it was!

October should be a fun month filled with Thanksgiving and Halloween fun. Stay tuned!

xo,
Meg