have you ever?

While checking out blogs and hats, and hats and blogs.. I came upon the cutest hat ever.

Yes. Ever.

And here it is.

~source~

Another great year almost over..

{photo via jacqueleen bleu}

No hippopotamuses for Christmas this year.. (thankfully) but a great year over all.

The kids will be much easier to occupy for the next month or so and I have lots to keep me occupied too! Some new crafts I'm getting excited about- a giant canvas I just bought at 50% off with my Michael's gift certificate that will hopefully be decorated by the kids and on my mantel by the beginning of January. A new wreath form so I can get a jump on next years holiday season. A recycled magazine clipping painting and perhaps some fancy Thank you cards for all these wonderful presents we received. Stay tuned!

snow

~image from Ohdeedoh~

I'm always on the look out for fun free stuff.. and this makes my list as long as our snowsuits and mitts stay the same lovely colours they have always been...

Add food colouring to a ice cream or margarine container full of water and let freeze overnight.. just pop out and play! (you can always grease up your containers ahead of time if you so desire)

robot alphabet

We have enough robots. What? Never. Found this on etsy and had to share the cuteness!

another excellent filth wizardry find

I love how easy this looks! You can get the kids involved making all sorts of gift tags and ornaments using Model Magic! Just use the Crayola Model Magic colour of your choice and a rolling pin, plus your favourite cookie cutters! Let dry and wowsers you're done!

Sadly, A Christmas craft I missed out on this year

I haven't been that chatty lately I know. I hope you understand with the holidays and all. Perhaps you've been busy too and didn't see all the lovely christmas crafts the wonderful blog-world people were doing? Neither did I. I'm especially sad I missed out on these!

The wonderfully creative and brave-for-putting-beads-in-a-muffin-tin-in-the-oven Filth Wizardry blog came up with these!

Happy Holidays!

From our house to yours - Happy Holidays!

blooming

On November 25th I took the kids to buy Paperwhites. We planted them, watered them and have been following there progress. It's now December 19th and we've got blooms! Here's a few pics incase you haven't seen a paperwhite bloom.

stocking success!

Family arrived today from Calgary and with them was a wonderful little present for the kids.. hand knit stockings with there names! This was just what I was looking for and I love them! (I'm already planning how I can ask for some for my husband & myself) Yay knitting!

keeping tradition

Well, I'm not really following any kind of family tradition.. but I know it is often a traditional thing to do that gingerbread house before Christmas. Isn't it? Is this your tradition?

This year I bought the kit.. and added to it with all the left over candies bought for J's cake. E and I decorated over two days and here's the result. It's been 4 days now and we haven't had so much as a nibble.. we'll see how long we can hold out.

snowpeople

Another fun Christmas craft that a four year old can really get into. Take white paint (white ink pads work the best) and use your finger pad to print the face and your thumb to print the body. Then add a carrot nose, clothes and last use your favourite sharpie to add the face and arms! So many possibilities with this one!

good old paper crafts

We've been getting back to basics this year. E is learning all about sissors and J is learning all about grabbing and ripping so this is a perfect year to break out the paper.

flower power

Remember the paperwhite bulbs? Well I'm glad we planted two that's all. One still looks just as it was pictured the first time around, the other looked like this only a few days after it was planted.



and already is looking like this:



Not to shabby for less than 2 weeks! I'm betting there be paperwhites come Christmas! Arr!

as good as its gonna get robot cake

After all the dreams I had of buying an icing spatula and making fondant, as well as trying to create the perfect shade of grey icing. I completely bailed and made up a batch of Butter cream icing and used my trusty butter knife to do the job. We must have bought 10 different types of candy at Bulk Barn the other day and in the end.. used 3 of them.

So I need to say that's not at all what I expected our robot cake to look like.. but hey. It's a cake.. and it should be edible.. so I'm done and very happy I've rinsed out the icing bowl and can start to recover from the self induced sugar high.

I guess I should sign up for the Cake Decorating class at Michaels before my husbands birthday in February and try all my fancy ideas then. Right now, I'm off to bed.

Robots

With J's second birthday right around the corner I needed to decide on a theme and cake.. which came at last to a battle between Batman and Robots. Now if you ever need to choose between the two I'd love your thoughts but in the end Robots seemed to win. So I'm about to embark on a new adventure. The challenge of The Robot Cake. For inspiration I found these amazing cakes by typing 'Robots' in the search at Google Images.



This white cake with the chocolate wafers is my favourite so far but I'm hoping to incorporate bits from all three. If I succeed I'll post the outcome. If you enjoyed these Robots I found some great Robot Party accessories at a wonderful blog called Wendolonia. She's amazing!



This calls for a trip to the Bulk Barn and I know just the 4 year old to help me!

no seriously. how long will my kid actually PLAY with it?

When E was more interested in the drapes and utensil drawers than any of the toys we had.. I started buying more toys. I was hoping if I kept her occupied she'd forget all about that utensil drawer. Yeah, right.

When J came along he was much more interested in the plumbing systems in every home and building he went into and he was fascinated with every vent cover he saw. It was a very long time before I was able to pee without that dreaded feeling that he would choose this moment to stuff his leg down a vent, or the TV remote.. and so on. So what did I do? I sought out more toys.

After 4 years of medicating with toys I have two conclusions. First- no amount of toys will distract my monsters if they choose to chuck that tiny My Little Pony down the central vac opening.. and second Wedgits is a fabulous toy. It seems to capture the interest of both a 2 year old and 4 year old almost every day. Thank you Wedgits. Thank you.

Here's a look at what E did in the minutes it took me to write up this post:

Rockin' that lunch box!

If you haven't already see or heard about the Goodbyn Lunchbox then here I am to tell you about it!! I started seeing design blogs post about the design and practicality of this months ago and it seems to be taking the market by storm.
With lots of room to put all your child's snacks and food/drink for the day it's a hit with moms, and kids love that it comes with stickers so they can personalize there own byn. Check out at www.goodbyn.com or at www.bellylaughs.ca for more info.

paperwhites

There are 4 living plants in our house.

These plants are survivors. Hardy. These plants can handle me remembering to water them after weeks of abandonment. These plants can say they really live.

Well for the next 2 months or so they will have visitors. I'm not sure how long they will stay.. but I hope long enough to bloom anyway.

After a 20 minute drive to Carleton Place Nurseries yesterday, E was able to pick out our own paperwhite bulbs. That place is gorgeous and really left me inspired! If you're in the Ottawa area I suggest there Christmas Shop- I've never been to a better one!



It didn't take long for us to plant the bulbs in dirt (that I dug from the empty lot beside our house..is that bad?) we have 2 of our 6 bulbs planted, watered and ready to nurture. The others are wrapped in a paper bag in our freezer, in case these bulbs actually grow.

And here is how our new plant looks now.



I found the picture below on Wikipedia when I was researching Narcissus or paperwhites. I hope I can show you something a little like this in a months time.

take me away from here

I don't know about you, but I haven't had many date nights in the last 4 years. My husband and I have gone out to dinner a handful of times, gone to roller derby, a few concerts and even an art gallery. We were even lucky enough to get a mini vacation to Nova Scotia once, but the rest of the time.. It's not that we couldn't find a babysitter.. it's that we're just so darn tired and busy that I've used my FREE time to do such exciting things as sleep, run errands and clean the house.

The babysitter really got the good end of the deal on those trips.

In a week J will be two and we won't have a baby in the house anymore. I've got to get use to the idea that we have a very independent toddler and a Kindergartner now. I'm finding it sad to say goodbye to the baby years but I'm looking forward to devoting a little more time to my other relationships. So I'm bringing back date night and I'm throwing in a twist. Discovering our city again. It's changed a lot in the 4 years we've been changing diapers. So if you've ever dreamed of visiting the National Capital.. here's a couple things I've just learned about or that I am remembering fondly that sound kinda fun!

*Bowling. There's great bowling allies in every city and anyone can bowl!

*Museums.

*Spend the weekend at the Brookstreet Hotel and enjoy fabulous food, golf, gym, and spa facilies.

*Play Lazer Quest.

*Catch an NHL game at Scotiabank Place

*Spend the day (or weekend) at Le Nordik

*Drive through Gatineau Park

*Take a bus tour downtown.

*Tour the Parliment Buildings

*Head out to Yuk Yuks comedy club for a night of laughs

*Go to the Casino or Racetrack

*Go Ballooning

I haven't made my short list yet, but I'm hoping we'll get that babysitter soon and I can start crossing things off the list.

Do you have any ideas?

A new tradition

I suppose I didn't notice the first year or two, but it seems I've started a Holiday tradition for MY little family and I love it. But first.. I've got plenty of posts planned for the holiday season- some I'm so excited about I can't help but spill the beans a bit. First I have some great crafts planned including Fingerprint snow men. Then I'll be posting about the newest baking and decorating ideas I've come across.

Today's post is one of my favourite! Our family likes to seal the memory of Christmas in ceramic at Gotta Paint. Every year since my first was born, I've been going to Gotta Paint and making something with the kids hand prints to commemorate the year. This year I'm thinking of a plate with the kids hand prints as the antlers. I've done hand and foot Christmas ornaments and plates. Here's last years plate- E's hands are on the bottom and J's hand is on the top. Then E decorated the tree with ornaments. She got a little crazy with the trunk and I always smile when I see it.

how embarassing!

Watergeeks Insulated Stainless Steal Bottle

I'm just gonna come right out and admit it. since Which is no big deal since I don't have any readers yet..... I never, ever use a re-usable water bottle. I have one that I don't like and haven't felt guilty enough yet to purchase one I do like.

I know. My bad.

I guess to put it into perspective you should know I'm not a big fan of water. It's just so bloody boring. The only time I feel it's necessary is during a spin class or after brushing my teeth. Is that so weird? I'm more a soft drink kinda gal. Which is probably it's own separate blog post for another time. Anyhoo.. In my search for great stocking stuffers this year I came across some reusable bottles that I might be tempted to purchase. This is so unusual for me I thought I'd share.

I came across the Watergeeks bottles after hearing some positive comments on a mom board and I'm impressed! This thing is double wall insulated for hot or cold and has a large opening so you can stuff ice cubes in but a small opening that's far more comfortable to drink out of plus a built in tea strainer. Good Golly! I'm finally interested.

window shopping for wreaths

A Fabulous Etsy find

Find this wreath on Etsy here

Find this wreath on Etsy


I am not impressed with the stereo-typical Christmas wreaths that are smeared all over the grocery stores, Home Depot, Lowes, Canadian Tire and Sears. I find them all the same. So as I've mentioned before.. I'm on the hunt.. and these are the wreaths I'm in love with today.

who doesn't like a deal?

With a 2 & 4 year old.. it seems that with every load of laundry something one size bigger is going through the wash for the first time.. and 2 somethings are going in the too-small-now basket never to return. It's sad to see the kids clothes go. I have a memory box for just that reason. Well.. more like a memory 'Rubbermaid container' for each of my little heroes so I can save those special onsies, shoes and Halloween costumes for years to come.

So what to do with the piles and piles of clothes that have been adding up? Consign! I wouldn't recommend this as a steady source of income for anyone but it's great to see clothing get reused and appreciated by the new owner. It's also nice to get a couple dollars back to keep buying the new clothes that we always seem to be needing. Check your area for a local consignment store and follow these tips:

*Contact the store first to see what the terms of the consignment are. What % will you be making on the items? How many items can you drop off at one time? Some stores only take a certain amount of items. Some stores will return items to you if they are not fit for consignment, and others will donate any items they decide not to sell.

*Keep a list of the items you are consigning if you plan to pick any unsold items up.

*Does the store require a photo identification to cash out your account? (you want to make sure your money is only going to get cashed out to you!)

For all those new clothes we are always buying.. I'm ALWAYS on the look out for a good sale. What about you? If you're as excited about sales as I am check out BargainMoose.Ca in Canada or look for a coupon/bargain blog in your area.

Happy shopping:)

tis the season to find cards

The Stationery Position Polar Peace Card

TinyPrints.Com Photo Card

VistaPrint.Ca with customizable Caricatures
Penny People Designs Photo Cards

Holiday cards seem to be so much fun to send out and receive when pictures of little ones go with them. Some years its the only way we'll see some of our family & friends so it's become quite the search for the perfect holiday card & the perfect picture to go in it. Well.. with some of these cards your pictures can BE the card! Above are a few of my favourite companies because the their styles, designs, freebies and prices!

if I could invite myself for dinner...

I'd love to be invited to this table. This project is on my short list of awesome ideas to try. Get the details at Elsie Marleys blog: http://feeds.feedburner.com/elsiemarley

Christmas wreaths I might be able to make myself.. maybe

Oooh here's one I can really sink my teeth into.. heh heh heh! from Sugar Shack Creations on Etsy. What am I saying.. I'd so eat this before it ever became a wreath!

Perhaps I could try my hand at this beauty by Sunnydayz5 on Etsy

Or this wreath by lmcraftworks on Etsy
Not only am I looking to update our family stockings.. we're in a new house that has a double front door and neat little places all over that will be crying for wreaths come Christmas. So the search is on for wreaths I could maybe possibly make myself.

This is my current favourite by http://redvelvetgirls.typepad.com/

heroes that do pumpkins

Gotta love Dollar Store Halloween supplies. Found these cute No-Carve Pumpkin decorations that my heroes had a great time with today.

a little last minute craft

so simple it might get overlooked.. the napkin ghost. Yes napkin ghosts are pretty much free and quite easy to do.. but does anyone think to do them anymore?? This year the kids and I did some to hang in corners around our house and all it takes is this: scrunch a plain white paper napkin into a ball, take a second napkin and cover the ball, tie a string around to keep it together and hang it up- the finishing touch is to add some eyes with a black marker. I love getting back to the basics like that! Oh, and if you happen to have a ceiling fan with a slow setting..that you can safely attach them to, it might mesmerize your kids like it did mine.