What’s New – November recap

Time for another recap of the last month!! Linking up with Kristen and Gretch today for What’s New with you?

November flew right by, but we really weren’t “super busy” or anything, and when I went to look back on pictures, we didn’t do a ton of super exciting things. BUT that’s okay. I got a lot of our Christmas shopping done – and got the house prepped for the holidays although we didn’t decorate til this past weekend. I also read a lot of good books, Brian and I started a new show, and we had a date night out 🙂 Here are a few random pictures to share from the month:

We spent a fun weekend overnight at our friends’ house, and the girls loved it. We will probably see them again later this month before or after Christmas.

I read a lot of wonderful books that I can’t wait to talk about next week, including this one (Wishtree):

The girls wrote their letters to Santa and mailed them – they received letters back from Santa last week and they were SO excited. 😉

Brian and I went out for supper and saw Murder on the Orient Express, which I actually liked a lot more than the rest of the world, apparently. I agree that the book was better (isn’t it always though?!) but I still liked it, and I’m not even the world’s hugest Kenneth Branagh fan so that’s saying something too. I thought the visual aspects were quite well done.

We set up our Wii in the living room (it has been sitting in the basement unused for a couple of years) and tried to play Wii bowling with the kids – it didn’t end well but I think they are just a bit too young/too competitive. Lucy created her Mii that looks like this (because it is sunny and cold out, so she says)…haha

On Black Friday, we were driving down our street and someone had a HUGE dollhouse on the curb for garbage day. I was completely baffled but we decided to take it home. It’s in almost perfect shape and the girls are loving it – although they aren’t playing with it quite as much as I expected. It has since been moved from that corner but it is a permanent fixture in our living room now….

Honestly, not much else went on in November! We were able to see some of our friends and we have a few groups of friends going through some hard stuff these days so we’ve been trying to be there for all of them as much as possible. December is flying right by, as it always does, and I can’t wait for a wonderful Christmas season (and some time off work!) with our little family. My brother is coming for a visit for a week (CAN’T WAIT), and we will have lots of other family to visit with too. The girls are already pretty wound up and excited constantly, but that’s a children’s Christmas, right? 🙂 We also got to spend a lot of time with my adorable niece:

I’m also reading a lot of Austen retellings/adaptations this month!! I hope to share more about this next week but I was really just craving these types of stories and I’m happy to be spending her birthday month reading (very loosely adapted) stories 🙂

What’s new with you lately??

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?

What’s New and Exciting over here

Completely unedited sunrise this morning from my back deck 🙂

Since I missed the last link up with Kristen and Gretch, I knew I wanted to be sure to post this month, even if I am a day late linking up!!! August and September are always extremely busy months in our family and this year was no exception. Sometimes I’m just a bit too busy living life to blog about it, haha 😉 Instead of recapping the last couple of months, I’m going to do a general update on some things that are currently new and exciting via some photos.

Fall has arrived in Nova Scotia – last week it was 30°C on Tuesday and 10°C on Wednesday and pouring rain on Thursday. The wind is getting chillier and the humidity is gone. I’m not complaining. I love fall. I feel SO much happier walking/running/playing outside in the fall than in the heat of summer, and I feel like I have a bit more energy or something too. It’s been nice!!

Of course, Molly started back at school this month and also turned 6! Lucy started preschool two mornings a week. She loves it.

We are getting into the routine of working part-time. My three year old is having a LOT of extra mommy time, and she is loving it. She is constantly cuddling with me every single time she sees me and I love her for it – no one else in my family is very cuddly. haha. My 6 year old is feeling a bit left out since she’s at school when I’m home with Lucy, but we are working on making our time together more special too. Last week, I took both of them to a nearby petting zoo and playground and they LOVED it.

I am HIGHLY enjoying taking a French course for work. My professor is enthusiastic, energetic, and quite funny. It’s beginner level, and a review of the exact same course that I took in 2014 but I am enjoying being immersed in this language for 3 hours/week. If you’re looking to spend a bit of time learning a new language, I can’t recommend the app Duolingo enough. It is really fun and doesn’t take long to make progress!!

We have tried tons and tons of new recipes this month because Brian has jumped on the low carb high fat train with me. I am feeling quite a bit more motivated and successful having him change his eating habits too. For him, it has really involved drinking less beer and less treats, so it’s not super deprivation or anything but we have obviously indulged in a treat or two here or there. A few favourite recipes that I hope to share soon include pad thai made with cabbage noodles, spaghetti squash alfredo with chicken, and a delicious fall soup.

I’ve been doing a lot of reading and I can’t wait to chat books next Tuesday. I am working on a new balance because I certainly don’t get tons of reading done on the days I am home with the kids now, but we have been plowing through some audiobooks so I’m content with that new normal. For awhile there, I really felt like I had to listen to a particular genre on audio (i.e. classics, non fiction, etc) and while I still prefer those overall, I am enjoying pretty much anything I can get my hands on on audio now. Also just listened to Deadly Manners this week with Kristen Bell and it is intriguing so far! Definitely check it out if you are looking for a fun murder mystery podcast. It reminds me a bit of Clue.

We went to Antigonish to visit my grandmother last weekend and celebrated my 10 year university homecoming at St. FX. It was great to see a few friends and be around the campus and see family too. This weekend is Canadian thanksgiving, so we have Monday off work and we are spending a lot of time with extended family all weekend. Can’t wait! The leaves are changing colour and the province looks absolutely beautiful at this time of year.

Hope you all have a great weekend!!!

What’s New: July recap

I feel like I say this every month, but July was a BUSY month!! haha. Really though, summer is always a bit busier than winter for us. We have soccer, Brian has baseball, and more friends want to get together. (I love it!!) Linking up with Kristen and Gretch to talk about what’s new lately!!

In July, we were also super fortunate that my brother and his girlfriend came to visit for a week from Calgary to celebrate my mom’s birthday! It was great to see them, and it was the first time Brian and my girls had met my brother’s girlfriend so that was special. We spent lots of time with them despite them staying at my parent’s house 30 minutes away and working a lot of the week. Another great thing that happened this month was that my sister, brother-in-law, and niece moved to the city! They are only about 10 minutes away from us, so it’s been great to see them more often and for my daughters to nurture their bond with their younger cousin.

Here are a few pictures from our month:

We celebrated Canada Day with some friends and it was great! Didn’t end up seeing any fireworks, but our kids are at a not-so-good age for that anyway. The day off work was certainly appreciated too.

My brother arrived a few days later, and we got some family photos taken while he was here, including this one of my little foursome:

Photo credit: Chantal Davie Photography

I had the opportunity to hear my cousin’s celtic string quartet one lunch hour

And got to spend lots of time with my favourite younger bro:

We spent an afternoon babysitting my niece, in which I realized that I am absolutely 100% satisfied with having 2 children:

The weekend after my brother left, we went camping for the first time with the girls and with some friends. It was wonderful, overall. The campground is 100% geared towards families and it has an outdoor pool, a huge playground, and an inflatable air pillow (pretty crazy). We had a campfire, and some drinks, and got dirty. It was also Water War weekend, so we went on a wagon ride and got totally completely soaked ( hoses, rubbermaid containers of water, and crying children)…it was kind of intense?!?! After we dried off, we were much better off. The girls slept pretty well, Brian and I did not, but we survived our first night in a tent as a family!!!

Here’s a view of the campground with the slip n slide set up and the inflatable pillow in the background:

A couple days after camping, Molly lost her first tooth when she spent the day with Brian’s parents!! It was so exciting for her. She actually somehow lost the tooth WHILE my mother in law was reading a book about the tooth fairy. LOL. It was fate. She was a bit freaked out but mostly excited.

My awesome hubby and I got to go on a random Tuesday night date out for sushi and to see The Big Sick (which I cannot recommend enough – I laughed so hard at some parts and cried a bit at others). Definitely go see that movie if you can!! It was worth it, in my opinion.

And on the last weekend of July, we went to see the Tall Ships in Halifax and got to hear Natalie MacMaster playing with Symphony Nova Scotia (this was amazing). It was a great atmosphere down on the waterfront despite being EXTREMELY crowded. Such a great way to end off the month. I was pretty tired the next day though 😉

Also read a bunch of awesome books this month which I will talk about next Tuesday and got to spend a bunch of time with friends and family. All in all, an amazing summer month. Gorgeous weather, wonderful people, and August is going to be amazing too. It’s my birthday month and we are taking a 12 day vacation to Toronto Ontario to visit family and see Coldplay and go to the Toronto ZOO. So excited 🙂

What’s new with you lately?!?!?

What’s New: Summer time :)

It’s time to recap the month of June here on the blog. Linking up today with the lovely Kristen & Gretch for What’s New With You?

{bonfire on the beach}

Things have been a bit quiet here for a bit – life has been busy and we’ve been soaking up the summer!!! I have about 10 posts half drafted that I want to share soon though 🙂

In June, Brian and I enjoyed a wonderful weekend away to celebrate our 5 year anniversary. It was relaxing, quiet, and fun too. I think it was the longest we have both left the kids but they were obviously fine and spent one night with my parents and one night with Brian’s mom at our house. It was perfect. 🙂 We are thinking of doing it once a year because it was really a great chance to reconnect and recharge.

We also celebrated Brian’s birthday and Father’s Day, spent a bunch of time with my family, and work was insane for me. I didn’t get through nearly as many books as I would’ve liked and I am still feeling super overtired, but it is getting better now that things have slowed down.

The girls started soccer (Lucy’s first year playing!!). Molly plays U6 Monday and Wednesday nights and this is her first year in which parent participation isn’t called for – although we do have to be present (obviously). Lucy is in U3 and parent involvement is pretty intense, especially if you are a helicopter parent like Brian thinks I am. Oops. Haha.

Brian had to take a work trip the last week of June, which was exhausting, and he’s away again this week but coming home tonight (thank goodness). Solo parenting is not easy (not that I ever thought it was, haha).

Other than that, we’ve just been spending time outside, organizing the house, and barbecuing!! Loving the summer. July is going to be a great month – my brother is visiting from Calgary with his girlfriend, we’re having a huge party for my mom’s birthday, and we have some fun weekends planned!! Can’t wait.

What’s new with you lately?!

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!?!

April Recap

I didn’t take as many pictures as I would’ve liked in April, but I’ve scattered a few throughout this post anyway! We had a great month in April with some wonderfully sunny and beautiful days and a few really rainy/cold days too. Not too much snow though, so can’t *really* complain!! 😉

Linking up today with Kristen and Gretch to chat about what’s new 🙂

In April:

We celebrated Lucy’s 3rd birthday which I already talked about last month. It was a great April Fool’s Day party 🙂

We had our second parent-teacher interview with Molly’s teacher where it was confirmed that she is still excelling and that she hopes she isn’t bored in grade 1 next year. (We hope so, too!) She also told us she would send home some more challenging French books for her to read with us since she has flown through the others.

We watched Daddy play in a work hockey tournament and heard my old wind ensemble play at the library. Also came across this adorable Poet Tree for Poetry Month at the library 🙂

We had brunch with some friends to meet one of our friend’s new boyfriend – was such a great time and so lovely to see them all. Molly and Lucy spent a lot of evenings playing cards.

We celebrated Easter with my parents & with my in-laws and had such a wonderful time. The girls loved hunting for eggs at our house, my in-law’s house and at my parent’s house too. It was a busy day but I had the Friday and Monday off so lots of time with my special girls. See this lovely photo below of our girls with my adorable niece in the middle (didn’t want to share her photo all over the internet).

Had a follow up speech appointment with Lucy where it was confirmed that she is speaking at about a 4 year old age level (she is 3) and we have no worries moving forward after getting her tubes in last year.

I spent most of Easter weekend with an eye infection but it resolved itself. More of an annoyance than anything else but did involve seeing two doctors & a lot of eye drops and some discomfort (and a little break from reading).

Lucy and Molly had their first race with the Youth Running Series in a park in Halifax – it was SOOOO cold and quite a long walk to get to the start, but they did it! Brian ran Lucy’s 500m race with her and I ran with Molly. Molly mostly kept up my usual pace so that says something about my running…haha.

We followed up their race with a trip to the Discovery Centre in Halifax where they got to make these cool spinny paintings:

I spent a few days in a congested brain fog last week but happy to report that I mostly kicked it without getting very sick. Lots of rest and neti-potting.

The girls had another race in the series this past Saturday but this time Brian was at baseball so I ran with both of them. It was SO hot compared to the week before and I was grateful to have all four grandparents there as spectators!

Finished the month off with a 5K that was super challenging due to extremely windy conditions! I need to get back into training more; my next race is a 10K at the end of June and I don’t feel anywhere near ready for that at this point!!!

I also mentioned that I gave both girls a haircut this month. They are getting used to it 😉

I know they look super sad here but they are actually just watching TV.

In terms of any social events, Brian and I both mostly stayed in this month. We had one date night which was lovely. I think I just kind of felt like being a hermit and reading and cleaning the house. Lame, but it happened. That being said, I read a ton of fantastic books this past month (which I will chat about next Tuesday) and Brian and I watched Suits on Netflix. I started Big Little Lies but haven’t finished it yet – not liking it as much as the book so far but will stick with it.

What’s new with you lately?!?

February Recap

February was a bit of a weird month in some ways, but it was really good too! We had a series of crazy snow storms, so I got to spend a lot of unexpected time at home with my little family. We also had a little bit more illness than I would have hoped for, but I think we are all on the mend now.

Linking up with the wonderful Kristen and Gretch today to share what’s new with me 🙂

Here are some of the things that happened in February:

We had a date night while the girls slept over at my in-law’s house. We went for all-you-can-eat sushi (and managed to not eat TOO much), browsed a bit at Chapters (book store), and watched Inferno. We also slept in a bit the next day. It was lovely. 🙂 When we picked the girls up the next day, they had made these fun k-cup flower bouquets with my very crafty mother-in-law:

We also took the kids to an indoor playground, or, rather, Brian took them to the indoor playground and I went to Costco and Walmart. When I went back to the indoor play place, there were millions (ok, at most 100) of kids running around and screaming and I questioned my anxiety levels. We left pretty quickly after that. haha. I am way too used to my quiet children.

After that, we had a sick toddler on our hands (SEE ABOVE) and then we also got the MASSIVE snow storms I mentioned. On one day, the entire city was basically shut down and it was suggested that nobody should be on the roads at all unless it was a complete and utter emergency. We all stayed home, built forts, read books, and ate comfort food. haha. In the midst of that, we celebrated Valentine’s Day.

Brian had gone into work on Valentine’s Day, but our daycares were still closed from the snow so I stayed home. It was a lovely day overall. I also made us some DELICIOUS steaks for supper. Brian brought home flowers that night – one dozen for me and a half dozen each for Molly and Lucy. They were SO excited and surprised and it was super sweet of him.

We made it out (thankfully!) the night after that to see the Arkells in concert. They are one of our favourite bands, and this is our third time seeing them live. They did not disappoint. It was a great show and I can’t wait to see them again sometime soon. The girls slept over at my in-law’s house again that night (a weeknight!) and we actually were unable to pick them up until 3pm the next day due to MORE snow. It was quite a relaxing snow day at home without the girls, I must say.

I met up with some girlfriends for a delicious supper on Friday of that week and it was amazing to have some girl time together. I really cherish that time with friends that I don’t see as often as I’d like to. We also did some sledding out at my parent’s house that weekend, which was SO fun, and I made it out for another run while the kids were entertained there. That night, we had some friends over for board games. We went out to a pub the next evening to hear my cousin play some fiddle tunes – the girls loved it. We don’t get to bring them out to hear live music as much as I’d like to because it is often so late at night.

We had some good friends over for brunch the next day, including some toddlers and a baby. It was fun to cuddle with a baby again ;). We also went over to another friend’s house for supper. The long weekend was basically the busiest weekend of my introverted life in recent past because I had spent SO much time cooped up at home during the snowstorms and we just really wanted to get on the go!

At the end of the month, we celebrated my dad’s birthday (yay!), got new kitchen appliances delivered (finally! I love them!!!)

Now that I see all this written out, it’s pretty clear why I didn’t get in as much reading time as usual. That AND the fact that I did get through about 6 more hours of The Count of Monte Cristo in audiobook format but I still have 30 hours to go…hahaha. I’m also really enjoying Life in Pieces on Netflix and we watched a few other movies: Girl on the Train, Arrival, and Fences.

Plus, there’s this:

Anyone else checking on April at least a couple times a day? I signed up to get e-mailed when she is in active labour. I know it’s ridiculous but the internet has just gone and sucked me right into that no problem.

March is off to a great start! It’s a fun month with March break for the kids (but I’m working), St. Patrick’s Day & BEAUTY AND THE BEAST, Daylight savings time + first day of Spring, and Lucy’s 3rd birthday!!

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.