What's New With You Link Up : APRIL RECAP

As I expected it to, the short month of April totally flew by. Things were busy at work, things were busy at home, and we ended it with a bang. The weather was super sunny and beautiful at times, super stormy at other times, and it even snowed. I'd say it also rained about 70% of the month which usually dampens my spirits, but it didn't as much as usual!! :)

Linking up with my favourite Kristen today to share what's new lately!!! I'll do a brief April recap with a few pics ;) Head over to her link up to see what's new with other people this month!!

So in April Lucy did a bunch of cute things and she is doing extremely well learning to read and write - we also had a bunch of meltdowns from being overtired. The girls finished up their swimming lessons and they restart this weekend. We had a crazy hair day at school, we had two stomach bugs (ugh), we celebrated Easter with my family and we celebrated Molly's first communion this past weekend.

We also went to a skating party for some good friends of ours on Easter Saturday. On Easter Sunday, the Easter bunny gave the girls 70 clues to solve before they found their baskets in our closet. We don't do big presents for Easter - just a few clothes that they need and a little game and some chocolate. We spent tons of time with my family, with Brian's family, and our extended families and it was nice despite a rainy weekend.

I did a lot of decluttering/selling online this past month and a lot of spring cleaning too. It feels wonderful. I just need to maintain it now. Sorry for the blurry photo below - the kids were just dancing way too fast!!!

We had a lot of family time too - we rearranged the living room a bit so it now has a cabinet with all of the girls' board games and they are playing them CONSTANTLY. Together on their own, with us, with their stuffed animals...it is great and they are getting better about not having a total sobfest when they a) don't get to go first or b) don't win. Haha. To be fair, they come by these feelings honestly. Brian and I are both super competitive and like to win board games. :)

I got to go out and see my cousin and listen to some music one night before Easter and that was fun - we used to do that kind of thing all the time but now I sometimes go months without seeing him (for NO reason!). I won free tickets to an early screening of Missing Link so I went with Molly, and it was a cute kids movie!! It was fun.

Now I feel like May will go by in a flash and it will be summer. The weather outside definitely doesn't feel that way, but soon!! Of course, it goes without saying that I read some great books in April which I will talk about soon. I'm in a bit of a slump now, just overtired and not dying to pick up the books I have on the go even though they are really good!!! Hoping to cure that this weekend.

What's new with you!?!

What's New: February recap

February flew right by me in the blink of an eye. Yes, it's true, it is the shortest month so it's a bit quicker anyway. We also  have 3 of my 5 immediate family members (my own siblings/parents) with birthdays in the month as well as copious friends. My children attended 4 friend birthday parties and then we had all the family ones too. SO much celebrating!!!

Now that March is here (just barely ;)), it is starting SO much to feel like spring! We have (knock on wood) had the mildest winter in Nova Scotia this year that I can remember since I've moved here, and it's been kind of weird, actually. There hasn't been much snow to play in (or to shovel/scrape off the car). It freaks me out a bit when I think about it too much, but it has reduced some of the winter stress with commuting to work/planning for snow days etc. It has been grey and rainy though and there were a few blah days due to that.

Linking up with the wonderful Kristen and Gretch to chat about what's new lately and to share what we did this month:

Making a snowman

Celebrating Valentine's Day

Celebrating a birthday :)

Brian also got a 3D Printer in February and he is OVER THE MOON so excited about it still. He has printed some cool things - a few fun bookmarks for me, a DIY guess who game for the kids, and a bunch of knick knack type things that he is really excited about. Haha. He also printed me this amazing lamp with lithophane photos of our family. I haven't seen him this extremely passionate about a hobby in awhile so I'm happy for him :) Here are a couple of photos, these are printed completely in plastic and they are sooo cool.

We also did a few fun family activities like heading to the Discovery Centre, a family walk in the sunshine, and a bunch of time at the playground. I have way more pictures but most of them are already over on Instagram and I've shown my kids enough here for one day ;)

Personally, I did some running, made a few new delicious recipes, read TONS of books (some of which were amazing and I can't wait to chat about more soon!!), and saw almost every friend I have who lives locally.

March brings March break for the kids, daylight savings time, St. Patrick's Day, Easter, and Lucy's 4th birthday!!! :) Can't wait even though that last one is pretty bittersweet :)

So, what's new with you lately?!



A Long Overdue Update Post

(Linking up today with Kristen and Gretch to chat about what's new lately!)

After reading Kathy's blog post yesterday, I nodded my head and thought "yes, this." I have wanted to blog more this month, I've had plans to recap 2017 and I still want to do that, but I just haven't had the time/energy/desire to prioritize these things. I am also a bit torn as to the direction I want to go with blogging this year. I don't really have a strong desire to make this much more than what it is - which is a hobby, and a fun way to connect with other people. I have no desire to make copious amounts of money off blogging or anything like that. However, I do want to become more a part of my local blogging community and I think I want to focus more on blogging about books. We'll see though - I have a few ideas in my mind and I am thinking maybe I don't love the blog title anymore, and I want to change things around...but it's still *okay*, so maybe not. I'm just not sure. That doesn't mean I can't still write when I want to though, right?

ANYWAY, I missed this link up in January, so that means I haven't really even talked about how amazing December and Christmas were! I'll just leave it at one line: WE HAD A GREAT TIME. So much family, so many friends to visit, some new friendships formed, a lot of Lego building, a lot of books read - no complaints here at all. January has been more of the same, really. We've finally gotten some snow here (about 4 storms so far - one "shut down" the city due to loss of power but the other storms have been relatively mild). My girls are finally old enough to really enjoy sledding, so we've done that a few times. I've honestly spent most of the month getting organized around the house (AKA purging things we don't need and finding a home for every single item in the house), doing yoga, running a little bit, and reading tons and tons of books. My French class started back up with a new teacher, who is excellent, and I am really starting to notice a difference in my fluency. We've tried a few new recipes and a few new crafts. Really - life is pretty straightforward and you could almost call it boring at times but overall I am enjoying this down time in a lot of ways.

Here are some recent photos (another thing I've stopped doing is taking a lot of pictures but I would like to start taking more again because kids grow like WEEDS.

(L-R clockwise: a fun building toy from my brother, our Christmas chalkboard, the girls with my niece and brother in law, new panda pyjamas from my in-laws, our Christmas tree 2017, playing Just Dance on the Wii)

(L to R clockwise - an amazing book I listened to this month, some delicious chocolate that is so pretty from our friends, view from our deck after the snow, and out sledding and having blast)

I can't wait to chat about all the books I've read this month: I highly recommend The Beau & The Belle by R.S. Grey which releases today on Kindle for 2.99. I had the privilege of receiving an advanced review copy from the author and it was a cute romantic comedy. It was hovering around 3.5 stars for me but after thinking about it more, I did really enjoy it and I'd say it's 4 stars for its genre. It was the third of her books I've read (all this month) - and I really feel like reading one of R.S. Grey's books is like watching a romantic comedy (which is great, because I have seen most GOOD romantic comedy movies but I think there are plenty more romantic comedy BOOKS out there for me to enjoy. YAY!) If you like the genre at all, I'd pick it up!!! Two other five star reads for me this month were Last Christmas in Paris and The Great Alone <--- a Book of the Month pick if you are American and have access to that (lucky!) and out next Tuesday.

Could this cover be any more gorgeous?!

Anyway, that's about it...honestly. Not much is new because I have read 19 books so far this year so I haven't had much time for anything besides that and parenting and working part time and yoga and house organizing. Yay for February though! We have a lot of birthdays to celebrate this month in my family and a holiday and a few fun things coming up! PLUS, it's the month of love! (hehe). Hope you have a great one!!! I'll be back tomorrow with 5 on Friday :)

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??

18 Things Before 2018

For some reason, I feel substantially more motivated in September than I do in January. I love the start of the new year in January and all of the goals to accomplish in a calendar year, but truth be told, January is SUCH an unmotivating month where I live. It's not easy to start to develop fitness goals when it's -30C outside for the next 3 months and there's a pile of snow 6 ft high in your driveway (this is an exaggeration but not too far off). It's harder to find fresh and delicious veggies too. However, I love setting reading goals and writing goals in January, and it is a good time for decluttering and organizing.

This year, September feels like a fresh start. Next week, I am switching to a permanent part time position in my current job. When this came up as an option for me as my full-time contract was ending, I talked to Brian about it and we both decided that this is right for us right now. Our younger daughter will now have the chance to go to preschool, and I'll have more time with both of them. I'm also hoping to have more time for ME. (and maybe a cleaner house, too :)). It's very exciting and very motivating overall. 

All of this being said, September is feeling great so far. We are eating quite healthy and making real lifestyle changes. I have been running more than I did in the summer heat. I'm getting back into reading after vacation left me drained. I have more energy, and I am sleeping better. I am nurturing my relationships as best I can. I am hoping to get back into blogging more too and I have some fun updates in mind. 

So here are 18 things I'd like to accomplish before 2018 (thanks for the inspiration for this post, Steph!)

1) Complete my Goodreads goal. I know, I know, quality over quantity, etc. Actually, this should be no problem if I keep reading at my current rate, but I always read a bit less when I'm not working full time because I am parenting more, and I don't have as much commuting time to read (Right now I'm at 76/100).

2) Beat my 10K time from 2015. I'm aiming to do this at the end of October in my last race of 2017. 

3) Par down my wardrobe. I don't think I'm ever going to be cut out for a capsule wardrobe, but working only 3 days a week means I don't need quite as many "office" outfits. 

4) Develop a new budget and stick to it. Our finances will change a bit with my work situation, but there's no reason we can't stick to a new normal. 

5) Sort my way through the ultimate homemaking bundle I purchased earlier this year and start utilizing all of the resources. 

6) Read and implement suggestions from The Four Tendencies and Reading People. I've been anxiously awaiting both of these books and pre-ordered both of them to have on my shelf. Can't wait to learn more about personality and achieving goals. 

7) Carve out more quality time with Brian (at least 3 meaningful date nights before Christmas).

8) Set up and maintain a reasonable "office space" in our home for myself. Along with this goes blogging more regularly. Brian is all for building me a new desk, but I'm not committed to that idea yet. 

9) Organize and set up a great system for the girls' entertainment during the days I'm home: craft supplies, puzzles, etc. 

10) Send out homemade Christmas cards to all of our loved ones

11) Finish a travel scrapbook with Molly about our trip to Toronto this summer

12) Actively participate in my new French course (starts next week, 3 hours/week for 8 weeks) and move on to the next level in 2018. So excited to get back into learning French. 

13) Soak up all the fall things in our beautiful province (apple picking, hiking, soup-making, corn-mazing). 

14) Create a clear chore chart for the girls and work on cleaning up after ourselves.

15) Finish Erin's challenge. I have 4 books left: Beach Music, Dark Matter, and Young Jane Young (which I am almost halfway through), and Flowers for Algernon. 

16) Make a dent in my Netgalley shelf. 

17) Create some great playlists to enjoy at home for the kids and for myself. We have Google Play music (Spotify's best friend/biggest competitor? haha) and I don't use it nearly enough. 

18) Back up all of the files from my 2008 MacBook (which has seen better days) and sort photos

I love fall! We've still had pretty summery weather here, and I'm not complaining, but this time of year brings so much joy to all of us and I am especially looking forward to this change in my work-life balance. 

Here's to ending 2017 with a bang!!

Happy weekend, everyone :) 

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?!?!?

A few Summer Goals & Plans

Life has been BUSY lately. I'm not entirely sure why - but I know it has to do with the end of the school year, a change in our routine due to my husband's work schedule, and preparing for him to travel a bit for work in the coming weeks. We also have summer soccer two nights a week and birthday parties and family coming to town, etc. However...we've had gorgeous weather, we've already been to the beach once (it was cold but the girls didn't care!), and my summer reading is at an all-time high. So life is good!!!

Since our girls are at amazing ages right now (no one naps anymore so our weekends are pretty free), we have a lot of fun plans for the summer. Here are a few of our family plans/goals/ideas:

1) Go on a few weekend camping trips. We were supposed to go over the long weekend but with work travel, that got postponed a bit. We have most of the equipment though and we are so excited to give this a go this year!

2) Discover 3 new beaches. I'm not exaggerating when I say that we live 10 minutes away from the Atlantic ocean. You can see the beach from our deck. I think we went maybe (MAYBE) 5 times last summer. This summer, I want to do a few beach road trips and discover some of the additional beautiful coastline this province has to offer.

3) Tone down the competition between siblings. I re-skimmed Siblings without Rivalry a few weeks ago because the rivalry between our girls is UNBELIEVABLE. We're talking fighting over who gets to open the front door when we get home, fighting over who washes their hands first before dinner, fighting over who gets out of the bath first, etc. etc. etc. I am continually telling them that life is *not* a race to be first. To be fair, my husband and I are both competitive people but I don't think we really introduce that a lot into our everyday activities so I'm not sure where this is coming from but I want everyone to feel validated for doing things PERIOD and not doing it first or fastest.

4) Help the girls with their summer reading club. Our library, like many, hosts a kid's summer reading club (they also just started hosting an ADULT reading club with prizes so of COURSE I signed up for that :D). Molly set a goal of reading 50 books this summer. We're going to make our way through a few chapter books and audiobooks and she'll read a lot on her own too. We have plans to do at least a few French books a week since she's come so far in Immersion and we want to keep that up over the summer. Lucy is starting to "read" a bit on her own so I want to get her a few books to encourage that even more. I'll share some books on our list next week!!

5) Prepare to transition to part-time work in September. I am so looking forward to what will be our new normal in September: I'll be working 3 days a week and Lucy will be starting preschool 2 days a week. I just need to sort out a few of the logistics but the position is already all settled. So excited for some extra time with my girls.

6) Have 2 date nights with Brian. We really need to make this more of a priority and we both agreed to do so after having an amazing weekend away for our anniversary

7) Participate in the Wizarding World Book Club. Talk about Harry Potter all summer long on Twitter and Pottermore? SIGN ME UP. Today is the day it's launching!!!

8) Go to the farmer's market, the museum of natural history, and some summer festivals. Because there's no reason not to! The kids love this kind of thing these days.

9) Run my next 10K race in under an hour. I used to be able to do this, but I haven't broken an hour since having the girls. I really need to train harder this summer in order to succeed at this in September.

10) Complete 30 days of yoga. I take an amazing yoga class with my wonderful teacher every Monday September-June but she doesn't teach at the same location in the summer months so I often let it go a bit. Not this year!!!

What are your plans for the summer? Linking up with Steph and Sara for their final seasonal 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?!?!