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: 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?!

November Recap (What’s New link up!)

November was a pretty low-key month overall, and that was just what we needed in our family. I didn’t even take very many pictures so this post will be a bit boring but I like the idea of looking back on each month and I can’t NOT link up with Kristen and Gretch for What’s New With You?

I only worked the first Friday in November and had the next 3 off for various reasons (Remembrance Day, sick, vacation day). It was nice to have 3 long weekends in a row and I could get used to that!! We went to visit my sister, brother in law and niece on the first long weekend and hung around their house/playground and did some shopping. The girls loved it, and Lucy loved playing a different piano:

It is always so fun to see my niece (almost 1 year old!) and spend some time with family. The girls did great on the drive too (one hour each way).

We spent the next “long weekend” overnight at a friend’s house for their son’s 8th birthday. It was a great night with some adult beverages and board games after the kids went to sleep. BOY was I ever tired the next day though.

I also got the majority of our Christmas shopping done (mostly online) because we have an Amazon Prime trial right now…so awesome. It is such a relief to be in a good position with regards to shopping and I also know it was smart to spread it out over a few paycheques.

On the last weekend in November, Brian and I went to Fantastic Beasts (I wasn’t even sure if I wanted to see it but I’m SO glad we did because I loved it!) I spent the next night binge-watching Gilmore Girls with one of my best friends and that was fun too. Look at our awesome Luke’s Diner mugs!! I am totally up for talking about the new episodes if anyone wants to e-mail me!!!!

This month, Molly got her first report card from school and she is doing incredibly well, which we knew but it was such a relief to talk to her teacher and hear positive feedback about our child and parenting. I am so happy with our decision to put her into French Immersion this year and she absolutely loves school which makes our lives as parents much easier.

November went by quickly, but it was a good month. It was nice to have some downtime on the weekends and we definitely made some progress on house-cleaning, house-sorting, and preparations for December. Tomorrow we’re getting our Christmas tree and decorating this weekend (the girls are BEYOND excited!) We have all been a touch under the weather off and on this month, so the downtime was really something we needed.

My reading was allllll over the place this month, and we also started watching Season 5 of Suits so that is taking up some evening time 🙂 can’t complain though!!

On to December – one of the most festive and fun months of the year! Our girls are so excited for Christmas this year and I can’t wait to celebrate with them.

I have a few fun posts planned for December including a day in the life, some book round up favourites posts, goals for 2017, reflections about 2016 etc. etc.!! Let’s hope they all come to fruition! haha.

What’s new with you lately?? Anyone want to chat about Gilmore Girls?!

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?!?!

What’s New and Exciting over here

Linking up with Kristen and Gretch today for their monthly “What’s new with you” link up. Since I missed the link up in September, I was determined to get a post up for this month!

If anyone who saw me this week asked me, “what’s new”, I would first tell them this ridiculous story. I left the house on Tuesday morning with the kids at 7 am and Brian left at 10 am to go to the airport. He was going out of town for work for one night. Typically, I am not an overly anxious person, but I do sometimes feel a bit of anxiety being in the house overnight with the kids on my own. However, I wasn’t feeling that way this day. I came home from work with the kids at 4:30 pm and when we pulled into the driveway, Molly said “hey, why is the front door open?” and I looked up to see that our front door was, in fact, WIDE OPEN. Cue panic. I called Brian right away and asked him if there was any possibility he could have left the door open (not unlocked, OPEN), and he said “well, yeah, maybe.” SERIOUSLY?! I was fuming and freaked out. I left the kids in the car and went through the house and everything seemed fine but I was still pretty freaked out. Move on to the rest of the evening and I am finally coping with the fact that our house was in fact safe all day long despite the front door being open for 6 hours and living on a bus route street up from a high school. Then I call my parents and tell them about it, and my dad says “I hope there aren’t any mice or rats in the house” and there comes another panic attack. #thanksdad I made Brian go on a pretty big hunt just in case any got in while he was gone. I am beyond grateful that we have a guardian angel somewhere keeping watch over our home because holy smokes would my husband have been in trouble if our house had been ransacked…haha.

Anyway…September was an absolute whirlwind, as I knew it would be. Molly starting school also meant a change in daycare for Molly (before & after school care), which was a whole transition in and of itself (and remains to be). As expected, our little scholar absolutely (seemingly) LOVES school. She is loving French immersion, she seems to really enjoy her teacher and has made some friends. She is happy to report on all parts of her day at suppertime each night, which I love. It has been wonderful watching her flourish in this new daily routine. She originally (and still) isn’t the hugest fan of the new daycare, but I think it’s growing on her. September also means that Brian is busy for 3 weekends straight with extracurricular activities, but I think that will be changing next year because it was insane this year.

Here’s a bit of a recap in photos:

Molly started school and a new daycare

Molly turned 5 🙂

We went to see Beauty and the Beast at Neptune Theatre

We went apple picking near my sister’s house in the Valley (1 hour away)

I ran my final 5k of the year (I am missing one in October to go to Calgary) and it was a fantastic race. Cool weather and finished it in 30 mins. Brian brought the girls out to the finish line and surprised me there, which was sweet.

Other than that, I also signed about a thousand papers for Molly’s school (I did NOT realize how many handouts she would be taking home), we revamped our closet to accommodate organizing all of the new paperwork, we went to a parade and saw a truck convoy (200 trucks!), we spent a couple of hours at the beach (loved it) one afternoon, and had a few movie nights at home. I also got my hair cut, which I am looooving. Here it is, straight, but I usually wear it wavy ish 🙂

I also flew through a ton of “fluffy” books in an effort to escape the stress of everyday life AND because I had a cold for a week. It was wonderful and I’ll be talking about all the books I’ve read lately on Tuesday for Show us Your Books.