What’s New (October recap)

October flew by SO quickly. I think it’s because there were tons of days that still felt like summer and the girls and I took advantage of being outside as much as we could. We had a lovely Thanksgiving weekend (but busy), I am settling into my 3-day work week, and Halloween was so much fun this year!

I am excited for November to be here because I have a few projects I really want to work on, and of course, the excitement of Christmas is in full-force by the end of this month. So much to look forward to near the end of the year here 🙂

Linking up today with Kristen and Gretch for What’s New With You?

Here are a few photos of our October adventures:

We spent Thanksgiving weekend seeing LOTS of my huge extended family. It was great, but also a bit tiring, and we all ended up with a bit of a cold afterwards so that’s what happens 😉 We also took the girls to the new Ikea store (the first in Halifax in many, many years!) #mindsblown They were super excited. Brian built me a desk that weekend (which is where I am currently typing this!!!) and of course, we managed to find a playground or two to play on.

After that weekend, Brian had to go away for work for a few days so I held down the fort here while simultaneously losing my voice and coughing like crazy…haha. It was then that I discovered that the audio versions of many of our favourite picture books are on YouTube, and some are read by the author! #raisingreaders Lucy ended up listening to a lot of those that week (and is still totally obsessed) because my voice just couldn’t read to her.

I went to my first HUGE book sale the following weekend and picked up a few things, while Brian took the girls to the Discovery Centre and I met them there. It was fun!! We also got a chance to go back to the farm where Molly had fallen in love with the baby donkey, and this time they got to go in the pen and pet the animals more, which was a blast. This little llama is sooo fun.

Towards the end of the month, the focus of our time, was, of course, on Halloween. I have a post coming about this tomorrow but our girls have recently developed a huge obsession for owls so I made their costumes this year. I made one for myself too although I prefer to think of myself as more of a Hedwig and the girls are trying to be owls from their favourite chapter book series, Owl Diaries. I absolutely did not expect these costumes to consume as much of my time as they did. Haha. BUT it was worth it because they loved their costumes. They wore them to the Halloween howl at Molly’s school, to their last race of their series, and the wore them to school on Halloween and out that night. This was the first year that both of our girls really truly embraced trick-or-treating although they were both pretty tired too. It was a fun night! Friends of ours offered to come over and help pass out candy, so it was great to catch up with them too and to see my niece all dressed up 🙂

I finished a few awesome books this month that I can’t wait to talk about in a few days for SUYB!! I also got some Christmas presents bought, ran a 10k race (the last one for 2017), and met up with a few friends I hadn’t seen in awhile. All in a month’s work! Anyway, what’s new with you? Anyone doing NaNoWriMo? Anyone have anything fun to share?

May Recap – what’s new!!!

May fleeeewww right by and now it’s time to recap the month & link up with the wonderful Kristen & Gretch for their What’s New with You post!!

I knew May was going to be a busy month; we had Mother’s Day, a lot of plans with friends, and my sister-in-law’s wedding. It was also a bit of a busier month at work because my (awesome) co-worker reduced her hours, and then finished up and moved on to a new job yesterday (sob!!).

This month, I tried something new in my bullet journal. I wrote a “line a day” every day. Sometimes, it was hard to think of what to write if my day was pretty standard, but I tried to write what book I was reading, whether I exercised, and if anything interesting happened. I’m going to share some of those lines here & also share some photos of our month.

In May, I:

tried curlformers. I still haven’t had great success with them, but I think I need to try them with a bit more product. There is also NO WAY I can ever sleep in those!!
Fell in love with Beartown (I promise I will stop talking about it soon #sorrynotsorry ;)) Also read Lucy the book Little Red Riding Hood about 50,000 times.

Sent in our taxes & got our refund!
Met our friends’ brand new baby daughter on the day she was born (so tiny! so beautiful!)
Celebrated mother’s day with my lovely children. They showered me with wonderful gifts (thank you, daddy ;)) and I got to sleep in, which was so nice after being up late the night before!!

Spent time with some of our good friends who live about an hour away

Saw Everything Everything in an advanced screening – cute movie but I would have enjoyed it infinitely more as a teenager. For some reason, I don’t mind reading YA occasionally, but seeing YA on the big screen feels kind of…embarrassing?! haha.

Saw Jenn Grant in concert with my friend – it was SUCH a good show

Applied for a permanent part-time position doing my current job (the silver lining to my co-worker leaving)
Celebrated my sister-in-law’s bachelorette at which I ate a delicious salad that had deep fried deviled eggs in it (so weird but so good) and came on a slate slab (yes, the dressing went everywhere, it was super weird but the food was delicious)

Celebrated my sister-in-law and brother-in-law’s wedding at Hatfield Farms (more to come on this someday, I hope!) It was a wonderful, beautiful weekend with family and friends and our girls rocked their flower girl roles!!

(as you can see, Brian took advantage of the BYOB situation at the wedding)

Bought a new tent at Costco

Said goodbye to my sister-in-law and her new hubby as they flew back to Ontario.
Read a lot of amazing books & got in some running and yoga as well as some walks outside!!!

June is another busy month: Brian’s birthday, our anniversary (5 years = weekend getaway this year!! :D), two other birthdays, father’s day, and my sister, brother in law and niece move closer!!!! We are also going to try to get out camping at least one weekend if it warms up a bit!! The girls start soccer next week so that will keep us busy during the week…they are SO excited.

So, what’s new with you!?!

January Recap

View from our back deck of which I never tire.

January is always a little bit of a blah month, and I definitely felt that way going back to work after 2 lovely weeks at home with my family. BUT, I started trying to get outside more, I started religiously taking vitamins and doing yoga or stretching, and I have to say I mostly kicked the winter blahs away. It helps that we have (so far!) had a relatively mild winter compared to other years!!

I had big ambitions for reading and decluttering this month, and I definitely made some progress, but some nights I just didn’t have the attention span to read, or I was too tired, and that’s okay. We made our way through Season 3 of Brooklyn-99 and that was enjoyable, and also played some board games, so I considered this a month to really cozy up and spend time with the girls and Brian.

Anyway, here are some fun highlights from January:

The girls singing “happy birthday” to my brother-in-law in French 🙂

We ate a lot of delicious low-carb suppers:

zoodles with bolognese sauce // my favourite brussel sprout caesar salad (recipe coming!) // brussel sprouts and bacon // fathead nachos (delicious)

We had a date night in January and the girls slept over at my parent’s house! We went out for sushi (we had a gift certificate) and then to the board game cafe to try out a few new games. We were both super tired so we came home pretty early, but it was still really fun. Unfortunately, Lucy got sick to her stomach overnight at my parents’ house which started a downward spiral of sickness in the whole family over the next week, but that’s life.

Sick munchkin in the car//checking out the trains at the doctor’s // Molly a day before getting sick

Brian built the girls a desk for our living room!! // Preppy 2 year old dresses herself // faces for supper!

We had a lot of relaxing days/nights at home relaxing and recovering and we also had a busy weekend when my sister in law and her fiance visited from Ontario for the weekend! We had them for supper, then went out for supper the next night and had a shower for my sis in law on the Sunday. It was lots of fun to see them for the first time in MONTHS and we are so stoked for their wedding (here!) in May. We also had a bit of an upset when Lucy fell down 4-5 stairs at my in-law’s house and bumped/bruised her entire body. It was super scary and really upsetting, but she seems fine and had no residual effects besides a couple of bumps.

Brian drove for date night! (usually I am DD) // Sad tiny toddler // SUSHI yum

Lucy built this herself // Girls playing // bullet journaling // my magnetic block creation (a big pile of nothingness)

We bought the girls these super-fun magnetic blocks for Christmas and I have to say that I am impressed at how much they have played with them (nearly daily). I also watched a brief webinar from Modern Mrs. Darcy about bullet journaling for book lovers, and I’m trying to keep a bit better track of some of my favourite quotes from books this year. Brian and I have laughed over the magnetic blocks because he is a structural engineer and loves to built amazing and elaborate things, and I like to be a bit more artistic in a modern art kind of way hahaha.

I also took in some live music, saw a few friends, ran a 5K race in pretty decent time, enjoyed the effects of getting back into yoga, and started on the 52 list project which has been great for self-reflection.

All in all, we had a great month. I read some fantastic books which I can’t wait to talk about on SUYB day (February 14!!). I also returned several books unread to the library, but I’ll get to those ones someday!! There are some fun ones coming up! 🙂 February is shaping up to be a great month. My brother (who lives in Calgary), sister, and dad all have birthdays, so we usually end up doing quite a bit of celebrating. We’re also going to a concert and having another date night this weekend while the girls stay with the other grandparents!! PLUS, Shubenacadie Sam, our provincial groundhog, said that we will have an early spring this morning, so I am excited about that! haha

What’s new with you lately?!

Linking up with Kristen, Gretch, and Kristin today.

December/Christmas Recap (What’s New link up!)

Linking up with Kristen & Gretch today for their What’s New With You? link up.

I think I’ve always taken time off at Christmas while working, and I really enjoy the break at the end of the year. It’s a great chance to regroup, spend tons of time with family, and enjoy our children. Last year, we were SO sick all throughout Christmas and although we had a few little health blips this year over the holidays too, it was so nice to be happy, healthy, and together for almost 2 weeks straight at home.

BUT, for the purposes of a monthly recap, let’s start back at the beginning of December 🙂 On December 3, we left the kids with my in-laws and went to Brian’s work Christmas party at a hotel downtown. It’s always a fun event, and this year it was fantastic except that I had laryngitis and could NOT talk. I like to talk, so that was tough 🙂 By the next day, my voice was so strained that I couldn’t even get out a sound and it didn’t come back fully for about a week. Anyway, we really enjoyed the party and the date night out regardless of all of that.

I had a little day date with my favourite 5 year old on a day when she got out of school early. We did some Christmas shopping and got a treat. She was in heaven. haha. We also bought our tree!!! The girls were super excited 🙂

On December 6th, St. Nicholas visited the girls overnight and brought them some new books which they enjoyed throughout the holidays. This was a tradition for my family growing up, and I love the idea of it so we have continued it with our girls too 🙂

The following weekend, we took the girls to see Santa and went to my niece’s first birthday party.

I made this delicious giraffe cupcake cake for her party, which was a bit giraffe-themed:

My sister and her husband rented out their local community hall for the party and it was so nice – lots of space, a ball pit (belonging to them), Christmas decorations, and we put on Christmas/kids music too. It was a fun day and a nice chance to see some of their friends and family on my brother in law’s side. My niece enjoyed herself too! We had a bit of a super-cold snap around this time too, but it has mostly passed (for now) and all of the snow melted before Christmas.

In the middle of December, I went to a concert with my parents and aunt and uncle which featured the group Coig. They play Celtic music and they are SO upbeat and talented. They mostly played Christmas music from their album Carols, which I loved. It was a fun night out but I was sooo tired afterwards (didn’t get home until midnight – haha).

The following weekend, we gathered at my aunt’s house to see one of my cousins who went home to New Zealand for Christmas. Then we had a few more days of work/school and I was off from Dec 21-Jan 3. It was a nice break! We were able to see a lot of our family and friends. It was REALLY busy though. Busier than I expected. The girls were really overtired by the end of it, and I was sort of ready to come back to work too.

Magnetic blocks – a big hit!

Our house at 7 am on Christmas morning #bookworms

Christmas morning in our house was a big hit – Santa came 🙂 I also gave myself a second degree burn on my hand while flipping bacon & trying to do too many things at once. (It still hasn’t completely healed, but I think it will be OK according to my doctor sister). We enjoyed a lovely Christmas Eve at my in-law’s house and Christmas Day dinner at my parents’ house. We were able to skype with my sister in law and her fiance and my brother. We had hoped to squeeze in another date night while on vacation but instead we are doing it this weekend (thank you Mom & Dad!)

Christmas tree pancakes 🙂

We had 3 friends over for a low-key New Year’s Eve of board games and they ended up staying until 2:30 AM which was brutal when Molly woke up at 6 am on New Year’s Day. Oops #badparenting. It took me 2 days to recover from that. We had a great time though #yolo and enjoyed fireworks from our deck (mostly people setting them off on the beach and the horizon – it was sooo cool).

Bring on January though! I’m sharing some of my goals and aspirations for the year tomorrow.

2016: a quick recap of the year

I’ve loved participating in Kristen & Gretch’s What’s New With You link ups every month, and I find it nice to look back on the year and just see everything notable that happened each month. Especially as the girls grow up, I think it’s really important for me to focus on some of these small but fun things. Here is some of what we did in 2016, mostly for me to look back on, but also to share.

January

I started working part-time for 6 months. Molly started preschool simultaneously. We all settled into a different routine.
I ran a 5K race, my first race ever in winter. It was good, but chilly and icy!
I lost the solitary diamond from my engagement ring but Brian was able to find it in our kitchen sink trap. One of the worst days of my life – the stress I felt was unimaginable. I will now ABSOLUTELY commit to getting my ring inspected twice a year without any exception, ever.
We went to see The Arkells live and it was the most amazing thing ever.

February

We registered Molly for primary (grade school).
I continued on my path of decluttering our home (it’s a continual project, really)
We saw most of my family for Valentine’s day and that was great
Brian renovated our kitchen/hallway floors on the same weekend Lucy had surgery to put tubes in her ears (all went well)
Molly absolutely loved preschool!

March

We had a wonderful Easter holiday
Lucy turned 2 years old!!!
We got completely hooked on White Collar

April

I read my first Louise Penny book ❤ I also finished Eligible in a day! What a great reading month, actually.
I ran my second 5K race of the year at Citadel Hill and got my fastest time post-children
I started in the advanced yoga class with my teacher
Brian and I became godparents to our beautiful niece, my sister’s daughter

May

We saw Shrek: The Musical at Neptune Theater, which was Molly’s first Neptune show. She really enjoyed it but she got a bit antsy
We saw Raffi live in concert for the second time (Lucy’s first time)
We enjoyed brunch and lobster dinner for Mother’s Day with my mother in law and mom 🙂
Molly had primary orientation at Brian’s elementary school

June

We went out for dinner & to The Board Room Game Cafe for our 4th anniversary
we celebrated Brian’s birthday
we went to Brian’s cousin’s wedding and saw a lot of his family that we don’t see very often
We celebrated a friend’s daughter’s 1st birthday in the park
I ran a very slow 10K race in 100% humidity and extreme heat (the day after that wedding I just mentioned)
Molly “graduated” from preschool (cue the mom tears)
We took the girls to Upper Clements Park, an amusement park 2 1/2 hours away – they absolutely loved it but it was definitely a looooong day of travelling! We will be back though!
We were on vacation for the last week of June & first part of July
Molly started summer soccer

July

We had a great Canada Day with friends
I started back at work full-time again & one of my awesome co-workers came back from maternity leave
Lucy got her first hair cut!
I saw Love & Friendship with a close friend
We travelled to New Brunswick for the weekend to visit friends and it was a nice break

August

We went to one of my best friend’s weddings 2 hours away for the weekend; Molly was the flower girl
I saw some old friends from university and was so happy to catch up with them
We celebrated my birthday
I listened to The Arkell’s new album non-stop
I devoured Harry Potter & the Cursed Child in a day

September

I ran another 5K race & Brian and the girls surprised me at the finish line
Molly turned 5 & we had a family party for her
Molly started school and a new daycare
Molly was super overtired and this was a challenging parenting month, but we got it sorted out by October
We saw Beauty & The Beast at Neptune on Molly’s birthday weekend ❤
We went apple picking in the valley with my sister & her family & my parents
I joined the PTA at Molly’s school

October

I went to see The Barra MacNeils with my family & absolutely loved it
We had a fantastic Thanksgiving dinner at my parents’ house with 30 people
We took the girls to a few indoor playgrounds around the city, which they LOVED.
I spent 5 days away from Brian and the girls in Calgary to attend my cousin’s wedding
I took Molly to her Halloween Howl at school & we took the girls trick-or-treating
I saw one of my old roommates and her boyfriend, which was SO great. I was beyond happy to catch up with them.

November

Molly got her first (excellent) report card & we had our first interview with her teacher, which went extremely well. She also had her first field trip & learned a French song for Remembrance Day, which was adorable and sweet
I had 3 Fridays off (sick, holiday, vacation) which was kind of nice. I got used to 4-day work weeks
We visited my sister & her family for a day
We saw Fantastic Beasts in theatres (loved it) and I watched Gilmore Girls with a close girlfriend all in one night (marathon! haha)
We got a heat pump installed

December

I’ll share more about December tomorrow, but we had a wonderful but busy month
We attended Brian’s work Christmas party (I had laryngitis but it was still a fun night out, haha)
We celebrated my niece’s first birthday & saw Santa in the mall on the way down (the girls were fantastic!)
We celebrated Christmas, probably our best one yet; the girls were so excited!!
We visited a lot of family & friends
We played a lot of board games
We had one huge snowstorm but no snow for Christmas, Molly had 1 1/2 snow days
The Nova Scotia teachers began work-to-rule, which hasn’t affected us in huge ways but means no extra-curriculars at school etc. We are hoping they resolve it all soon.

Tomorrow I’m linking up with Kristen & Gretch to share what’s new with me, including a Christmas vacation recap 🙂 On Friday, I’m planning to share some things I’m looking forward to in 2017 and some goals!!!

What’s New and Exciting

I feel like I say this every month, but October was a busy month. BUT it was so good, too!! There was a lot of fun things on the go. I’m going to recap them all in this post & link up with Kristen & Gretch for their monthly What’s New with you link up 🙂 Kristen has some really exciting news this month – I can’t believe how quickly her house sold!!!

I started October off with a bang and went to a concert with one of my favourite Celtic groups, The Barra MacNeils, that we grew up listening to – my whole family (parents, sister, aunts, uncles, grandma + me) went to the concert and it was amazing. The Barra MacNeils performed with Symphony Nova Scotia and it was incredible because the symphony really added a lot to the performance. I will for sure be attending this concert again; I think they do it almost every year but that was my first time there.

We took the kids to a few indoor playgrounds this month because there were some really rainy days & they are at a great age to enjoy this type of thing right now:

I also got a chance to catch up with my old roommate from St. FX and her boyfriend – what a great night. I hadn’t seen her in 2 years so it was great to chat. Ran into another old friend from university the same night out and that was fun too.

Canadian Thanksgiving is in October, and it was a busy weekend for our family. We spent the entire day Sunday with our extended family – at my cousin’s baby’s baptism and with all of my aunts and uncles, and then we had Thanksgiving dinner at my parent’s house which included 39 PEOPLE (Molly made a list of everyone). There were 2 turkeys and a ham, about 15 vegetable dishes, and pie. It was great. Brian took the girls home early & I stayed overnight at my parent’s so I could chat more with my cousins (I always feel sad when I have to leave just as the party is getting started). My niece was also the life of the party 😉

We did some shopping with the kids and I got a start on Christmas shopping, too. Here are some new friends they made at Costco:

I also took my first trip “home” to Calgary since 2013. For those who don’t know, I grew up in Calgary (nestled nearby the Rocky Mountains in western Canada ;)) and lived there until I went to university. With my parents moving out east, we haven’t really had as much motivation to go out to visit with the kids, even though my brother and dad’s family all still live there. When one of my closest cousins got engaged, I decided to head out to Calgary for a visit and to attend the wedding – by myself! Brian stayed with the kids here. This was kind of a big deal for us because I haven’t been away from the kids for that long before (5 days!) and I am more of the primary household-runner in our house, so there was a bit of anxiety leading up the trip, but I’m SO GLAD I went and it was a much-needed break. I’m very grateful too that my in-laws live close by to help Brian out 🙂

The Rocky Mountains near Calgary

Flying out of Halifax

Flying back into Halifax at 6pm

I read about 4 books on the trip (yay long flights!) and spent some quality time with my brother, my dad’s family, and some close family friends. It was wonderful. I was pretty off when I came back (very jetlagged and tired), but we seem to be back in the swing of things now. Molly also seemed to regress a bit while I was gone and has gone back to some crazy tired tantrums, but we’re working on that. She gets so overtired with school and daycare that it can be really hard to get through to her sometimes but it’s coming along slowly.

The wedding, of course, was beautiful too. It was so nice to be there & to see a few of my first cousins I hadn’t seen in about 10 years. Everyone from my family except my sister & her family and Brian and the kids was able to be there, so that was really special. We had a wonderful time dancing and chatting.

Since being back from Calgary, I’ve been doing some more decluttering in our house while listening to audiobooks, and just getting ahead on some things that need to be done before winter comes. We also had a great Halloween. Molly had a Halloween howl night at school which was fun (but so chaotic) – she dressed up in her Belle costume for that, and then the girls went out trick-or-treating as bumblebees. And now I have two huge boxes of candy & chips sitting in the front hall closet and two girls asking for a treat every 5 seconds (don’t worry, I’m going to move the box ASAP). #tempting.

Brian carving his pumpkin with a dremel drill & knife attachment

I’m really looking forward to November, because I love the holiday season and it’s coming up so soon! Our girls are going to be so fun at Christmas this year. I’m going to share some other things I’m looking forward to tomorrow 🙂 I’ll also share what I’ve been reading next week!!!

What’s new with you lately?!?!

July Talk (link up!)

July was a busy, busy month in our house…and August is shaping up to be busy too! That’s what happens in the summer around here. It has been wonderful too though – I am loving catching up with so many wonderful friends and family members. Our girls are at a great age to be “on the go” and that allows us a lot more flexibility this summer to skip naps, have sleepovers, and travel around the province a bit.

It seems like lately all I’ve had the time (or energy) to write blog posts about include this what’s new link up with Kristen and Gretch and the Show us your Books link up. Honestly, I think I’m just saving people time…I consolidate all of my life into two posts a month. hahaha. I’m actually hoping to start writing a bit more, but due to the busy-ness of life, it just hasn’t happened yet. And I’m okay with that. I just like these monthly link ups so that I can look back someday and see what happened 🙂

Linking up with Kristen and Gretch to share some of what we did this month:

Lucy got her first haircut (and Molly got an unpictured one too :))

We celebrated my mom’s birthday with my sister & her family (how adorable is my baby niece?!)

I stalked social media while Sidney Crosby (who grew up in the neighbourhood we live in) came home with the Stanley Cup, but we skipped the parade because it was SO HOT OUT and my kids are too little to care, unfortunately.

(source)

Ate a lot of kale caesar salad (the healthy version – I hope to share this recipe soon!) from our garden

Saw Love and Friendship with a good friend – the movie was super enjoyable!!

Went to a lot of Molly’s soccer practices 🙂

Took the kids to the beach by myself, which was fun but also a bit nerve-wracking. Lucy is absolutely fearless and does not understand that waves are a BIT scary for Mommy. haha.

Spent last weekend visiting good friends in New Brunswick which included Brian and his 2 best friends taking the kids out on their boat on a lake while I went to the mall with the women (what a nice break!)…also included a stop at a wonderful splash pad on the way home, which was SO fun for the kids.

excuse the random stranger (that’s not Brian)

Read a lot of great books which I’ll be chatting about next Tuesday including HARRY POTTER AND THE CURSED CHILD ❤ which I obviously adored.

And that’s about it. I also read Molly about 10 Magic Treehouse books, watched a bit of TV with Brian, went for a couple of runs, went to a few bootcamp classes & spin classes, socialized with girlfriends, enjoyed time on the deck, nearly melted in the 100% humidity, made some plans for the fall, and deep-cleaned parts of the house (still more to go, though!). What a great month. August looks like it will be even better because it’s my BIRTHDAY MONTH 🙂 So…what’s new with you?!

MAY recap – (What’s new with you? link up)

Linking up with the wonderful Kristen and Gretch for their monthly What’s New with You? link up. Truthfully…what’s new with me is NOT MUCH. haha. I can’t believe how fast May flew by. We did do a lot of fun things, and enjoyed a lot of sunny days, but it went by fast and a lot of it was pretty relaxing and close to home. Here are a few things that my little family and I did in May:

1) We took Molly to her first theater production at Neptune Theatre for Shrek: The Musical. She LOVED it but it was 2 1/2 hours long and she was pretty fidgety by the end of it. My cousin played as a musician in the performance, and the music was phenomenal as was the acting. What a fun production.

I promise she was actually happier than she appears to be here 🙂

2) We took the girls to see Raffi in concert. Raffi is like a 5th member of our family some days and we listen to his music around the house constantly. Brian and I both grew up listening to his music and the girls love to sing his easy kids songs. We saw him in concert 2 years ago (left baby Lucy with her grandparents), and this concert was VERY similar to that one but both girls seemed to really enjoy themselves and it was definitely fun to sing along with him for an hour.

3) We celebrated Mother’s Day with brunch and lobster. Molly also made me an adorable sweater with the help of Brian’s mom. SO cute. I need to take a picture of it, actually…

4) I read a lot of great books which I will talk about on Tuesday Jun 14 for Show Us Your Books. We watched a couple of movies and a bit more White Collar.

5) I did not complete the 30 day yoga challenge. I know this is a total excuse, but I find it very difficult to do yoga at home sometimes. We don’t really have a conducive “always clean” location for me to practice in. If I’m doing a Fitness Blender or strength workout at home, I don’t mind if there are kid toys in the room or papers on the desk. If I’m doing yoga, I find all of the clutter around me really needs to be gone or I will stop doing yoga and focus on cleaning. I know this is really weird and I’m definitely working on making our bedroom (aka command central for laundry etc) clutter-free so I can practice yoga in that space.

6) I went for a few runs, but I’d have to say I dropped off this wagon a bit too this month and I need to get back on it for my 10K on June 26.

7) I booked my trip to Calgary (my hometown) for October for my cousin’s wedding. This will be the longest I’ve ever been away from my kids (3 nights/4 days) and the longest time that Brian has been alone with them…so good luck to him! haha, just kidding, it will be all good. I am really, really excited to see all of my dad’s family.

8) Molly had primary (kindergarten) orientation this month. She is starting in French Immersion in September. We are really excited, and it also make me feel a bit nostalgic. She is loving chapter books these days too and we have read 4 Magic Tree House books in the past week.

9) We barbecued a lot this month and spent a lot of time in the backyard. SO enjoyable. You know what I love about barbecuing? NO (or very few) dishes.

10) We faced a few parenting difficulties this month. Nothing major, but just an overtired 4 year old who is trying to spread her wings and feels supremely jealous of her little sister. I am trying very hard to spend as much one-on-one time with her as I can when Lucy is napping or otherwise occupied, and it seems to have improved over the past week or two. The weekend that Brian was away was particularly challenging, and I yelled at her more times than I’d like to admit, but we have forgiven and moved on.

All in all, a pretty good but not SUPER SUPER SUPER exciting month. It was relaxing though, and I think we need that in our lives sometimes. I can already tell that weekend and weeknight activities will be picking up as the summer progresses, and that will be fun too. Our girls are at great ages to really enjoy the summer, so that’s what we plan to do!

Some other snippets from this month

Check out what everyone else has been up to on Kristen or Gretch’s blogs today!!

March recap (What’s New With you? Link up)

I read something great lately (I can’t for the life of me remember where) about perceptions of being busy. These days, when someone asks “what’s new” or what I’ve been up to lately, my default response is to say that we’ve been busy. And yes, in some ways that’s true. I’ve been busy filling up sippy cups and cleaning up spills and doing laundry and cuddling with a sick toddler and trying to maintain a life for myself and spend time with my husband and see friends and family. But that’s just life right now. It’s not necessarily busy. 90% of weekday evenings I have nothing planned besides cleaning up, reading, working out or watching TV with Brian, and an early bedtime. I am blessed to have tons of quality time with a lot of the people I love and value the most. I’m really trying to shift my thinking to realize that yes, there are moments when life feels VERY busy (i.e. getting home from work and trying to get supper on the table 10 minutes ago and chopping vegetables while two little people pull on my legs), but I don’t want BUSY to be my default answer. I am finding that by saying no to some things, I am able to say yes to things that I love to do.

Anyway, that might not have made sense, but there it is. I’m linking up today with Kristen and Gretchen for What’s New With You? and I’m sharing a brief recap of the month of March in the life of Heather 🙂

March was a great month, and I feel great heading into April…in some ways.

Here are some highlights (in random order):

Lucy turned 2 on March 31 and we celebrated last week on April 1 with family. She is doing great at chattering more now that she has the tubes in her ears (I think) and she is getting along reasonably OK with her big sister. She really enjoyed her birthday and although she hasn’t had a chance to try it yet, she seems to like the balance bike we bought her.

I had 2 half-days and one FULL DAY home during the week on my own because I had extra vacation time to use up before the end of March and we have to pay our childcare provider whether the kids are there or not. I got some house stuff done, got a massage, napped, read, etc. It was amazing. Definitely some much needed “me time”.

Brian and I finished Love on Netflix and House of Cards season 4 (MUCH better than Season 3). We just started White Collar and I am loving that so far. What’s not to love?!

The kids had a ton of trips to the playground and lots of play dates and time with grandparents. We read lots of kid books, made a lot of crafts, and had a lot of fun as a family. We got to spend a lot of time with my adorable baby niece and sister.

Daddy even came with us one time!!

Fun with our umbrellas

Easter was a fantastic weekend full of friends, family, and chocolate. The girls were a great age for egg hunts this year.

Literally the best picture of the two of them out of about 10 choices

I had an awesome reading month which I’ll be talking about next week for the Show Us Your Books link up. I really prioritized audiobooks this month and got through a few of them. I also only have one book left (The Nightingale) in my Book Challenge by Erin list. I am really proud of myself for reading some books lately that I might not have otherwise sought out or that have been on my TBR list for a long time. That’s what I love about book challenges 😉

I didn’t run as much as I would have liked to, but I did make it out a few times at 7 pm because it is light out now at that time! I love it. I am easing back into morning workouts a few times a week, and I’m still really, really loving yoga class once a week but it’s obviously not enough.

Here’s to another great month in April 🙂

Wanna know what’s new with some other bloggers? Head over to Kristen or Gretchen’s blog to check out the link up today!!

February Recap

Kristen and Gretch have a fun link up today called What’s New With You? so I thought I’d take a minute to recap the last month of my life (mostly for myself to look back on ;)).

My blog was down last week and it was a very simple fix but I just couldn’t seem to find the free time to read about it and figure it out. I’m still not exactly sure what caused the “error” but it seems to be working OK now with the exception of some formatting along the sidebar…but at least you can read posts OK now!!

February was an INSANELY busy month for me for some reason, but it was fun too. What have I been so busy doing? Mostly, mothering and decluttering. haha. I SERIOUSLY underestimated how much I would get done on my extra two days a week at home with the kids. They require constant, constant attention. Although I LOVE this extra time with my girls and I wouldn’t trade it for the world, by the time Tuesday morning comes, I am more than happy to pop into work for 3 days. It has been a total whirlwind.

Some events from February:

1) Fell in love with Persuasion (book + movie). I will be talking about this more next week for the Show us Your Books link up! I honestly did not get through very many books this month at all, partially due to being exhausted by 8pm many nights, and partially because one book I read was long!! I also invested a bit of time into Netflix which cuts out time for reading and I am commuting to work less so there’s less reading time then too!! Right now I have about 8 books on the go at once, so hopefully I’ll finish one soon…LOL.

2) Spent some time with wonderful friends, spent Valentine’s Day with my entire extended family at my parents’ house

3) Celebrated birthdays in my immediate family (brother, sister, dad)

4) Threw out a TON of stuff and donated 4 huge cardboard boxes of toys/clothes/books etc to Goodwill. I am still working on some more but this was MAJOR progress for us.

5) Caught up on Suits on Netflix (which is still a season behind regular TV)…Brian and I both love this show 🙂

6) Lucy had another ear infection AKA didn’t sleep well for about 2 weeks 😉

7) Lucy had her surgery to put tubes in her ears so that the fluid will drain and she will a) have less ear infections and b) be able to hear better AKA talk more. It was very minor surgery and it all went well. We are already noticing an improvement in her speech!

8) Molly is loving preschool and is learning how to read! She can read us about 5 books now #proudmom

9) Registered Molly for real school & we will register her for French Immersion on April 1.

10) Missed 2 yoga classes due to weather & a holiday but feeling much more flexible after doing it at home occasionally too!!

11) Started bullet journaling and fell down a rabbit hole on Pinterest. I am still not sure if my life is busy enough for it, but I like combining a journal and a planner in one book, and I like that it can be whatever you need it to be!

12) We replaced the floor in our kitchen. Brian has done most of it himself and he is ALMOST done but our entire main floor has been complete dusty chaos this week.

***ALSO, today marks the anniversary of the day that Brian and I first met 6 YEARS AGO!!! I wrote more about that experience 2 years ago here. Happy meetiversary, babe!! xo

Head on over to Kristen or Gretchen’s blog to check out the link up today and see “what’s new” with everyone else!!