Paint colours

As mentioned before we have a lot of potential painting projects to tackle in our new home.

What I love is that Matt actually cares (a little) about what colours we pick to paint.

On the weekend we were out doing errands and stopped to look at some paint chips.

This is when we ran once again into our problem.

Matt likes something like this

http://www.benjaminmoore.com/en-ca/for-your-home/colour-gallery?cd=2058-20&col=CP

BOLD and BRIGHT!

I on the other hand if we went the blue route would choose a more subdued grey tinted version like this main one or even of the pairings suggested!

http://www.benjaminmoore.com/en-ca/for-your-home/colour-gallery?cd=719&col=CC

So until we can happily marry our visions our basement will stay neon green....

I can't help but wonder...

how do others decorate/paint their home together? 

Working from home

There are so many benefits to being able to work from home the bulk of my work hours.

Hours can be flexible.

I can be at home and focus on Hannah.

I don't have to deal with any commute or parking frustrations 4/5 days of the week!

etc.

That said I still feel like I have a lot to learn in this area.

This week our staff team is doing a lot of meetings full of review/evaluation and strategic planning. Today and tomorrow is at our house.

Awesome because it is at our house so I get to be there some of the time and Hannah can nap in her own bed.

Difficult because its tough to balance paying attention to a little one, being involved in a meeting and not distracting others from the task at hand. Not to mention trying to prepare the staff meal that was to be ready by the time meetings ended today (although that was only for today, tomorrow no dinner to prepare!)

Thankfully, we have a gracious staff team who love Hannah.

Thankfully, we have a little girl that LOVES people and totally enjoys acting it up when people are at our house. I'm sure tonight she will be dreaming of what crazy things she can do tomorrow to get laughs and attention.

If anyone has advice on finding that balance of being involved in work or serious stuff (like a Bible study) but also paying attention to your little one without letting them distract others too much I'd love to hear it!

Working from home

There are so many benefits to being able to work from home the bulk of my work hours.

Hours can be flexible.

I can be at home and focus on Hannah.

I don't have to deal with any commute or parking frustrations 4/5 days of the week!

etc.

That said I still feel like I have a lot to learn in this area.

This week our staff team is doing a lot of meetings full of review/evaluation and strategic planning. Today and tomorrow is at our house.

Awesome because it is at our house so I get to be there some of the time and Hannah can nap in her own bed.

Difficult because its tough to balance paying attention to a little one, being involved in a meeting and not distracting others from the task at hand. Not to mention trying to prepare the staff meal that was to be ready by the time meetings ended today (although that was only for today, tomorrow no dinner to prepare!)

Thankfully, we have a gracious staff team who love Hannah.

Thankfully, we have a little girl that LOVES people and totally enjoys acting it up when people are at our house. I'm sure tonight she will be dreaming of what crazy things she can do tomorrow to get laughs and attention.

If anyone has advice on finding that balance of being involved in work or serious stuff (like a Bible study) but also paying attention to your little one without letting them distract others too much I'd love to hear it!

Embracing children's educational "shows"

Seseme Street was actually the first children's show to ever present some educational value. From that point on a new phenomenon happened and a very good one at that!

There are a few people who can live well without any type of show watching, but for the most of us it is our down time, our way to unwind, our way to be entertained or learn about something new.

We do not have cable anymore and I like that fact, because I have always been weary of getting too sucked into tv watching. When its available and we had it I had it on all the time mostly because I hate silence, so being home alone (or with a small infant) it was my noise/company! But I didn't need to sit on my butt and watch endless shows all the time, so Im glad that now I just watch select ones online!

I have also never been one to push Hannah to like videos too much. For goodness sake she is only 15 months, so there is no need for her to watch to watch a movie or show all the time. That said there have been exceptions. Praise baby saved us sometimes in our house when Matt and I needed to focus on work for a couple minutes or Hannah was feeling cranky and sick and needed to just sit still and relax (but wouldn't let herself unless something was on to distract her) but even still it has never been a norm to put something on and she still has a pretty short attention span for watching things (she prefers being active and so do I).

That said we have a favourite in our home and it is wonderful. A short 2 minutes and 24 seconds of pure fun and learning for Hannah! Introducing the Animal Sounds Song!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t99ULJjCsaM

In my opinion it is the best animal sounds song I have seen. Hannah dances along and smiles anytime she watches it. She has also learnt a number of her animal sounds (not solely from this since she has a lot of books with animals and we do the sounds all the time but it definitely has helped!).

If I ever need to focus to cut up meat for dinner or have a serious phone call I know I can put this on and Hannah will be more than happy! I love seeing Hannah dance, I love seeing her love music and I love seeing her learn, so really what can be wrong with watching some fun educational songs online?

"Leave it to Bryan" - Prioritizing

I just finished watching an episode of a new show I'm quite enjoying watching online called "Leave it to Bryan" on hgtv

here's a link to watch it yourself sometime. http://www.hgtv.ca/leaveittobryan/episodes.aspx?sectionid=470&categoryid=5944685632439579779&postid=261020

What I find so interesting is that Bryan is a trusted contractor, so people call him in to do a job they want done on their house. The catch is that although say they want their bathroom done, he looks around, takes everything into consideration, he gets their budget and they have to trust him to come up with the best plan, which means he could end up doing their basement instead and leaving the bathroom alone! So far he usually does something they didn't want but everyone always seems to realize that he did make the best choice in the end.

I wonder if my list of priorities is realistic...

The other night I made a list of all the things I want to do around our new home

• make headboard for our bed
• repaint nightstand and dresser for our room
• repaint shelf and little craddle in Hannahs room
• paint kitchen cupboards
• get new hardware for kitchen
• either paint all doors or replace then (inside ones like bedroom and closests to be simple white)
• paint dining room
• paint hallway
• paint basement 
• make fun chalkboard downstairs 
• get new vanity for main floor bath
• use main floor bath vanity to add to upstairs bathroom one and then get new countertops and new sinks to make a double sink one
• get new light for upstairs vanity
• fix slates on deck 
• fix backyard gate
• board up extra area in backyard that fence is lacking
• create a den room out of part of storage room downstairs
• add dishwasher to kitchen
• get new countertops in kitchen
• get new drapes to replace 70s ones on dining room patio doors
• oh and the list could go on! 

So how would I prioritize now? 

Painting projects like painting furniture and chalkboard are easy things I can do as I have time. 

The headboard is happening next weekend because we have great friends that are going to help and our bedrooms were my priority to making this house feel like our home!

As for big ones the one I want to focus on this spring is getting a dishwasher in and painting the cabinets and hardware. Ill price the countertops, but that can wait, its not absolutely awful. 

Why the dishwasher? 

The dishwasher was Matt's big thing he really wanted in a house, but he didn't get it. I have also realized that as much as I do dishes every day with all the baking I do with Hannah now and the fact that I cant do huge loads without Hannah getting bored and wanting to help I feel like I can never keep up (and now I try to work during naps so those times to do housework are gone). That will just get worse as we get a larger family. Since adding a dishwasher and doing a kitchen update will add value to a house, so we probably would do it eventually, we may as well do it so we get to enjoy the benefits too! And well if we are doing something to the kitchen we may as well do a simple update to the cabinets to make it look a lot better at the same time! 

Next for the spring we will focus on the backyard stuff like fixing the deck stuff and fence, so Hannah can play safely out there and enjoy the backyard we were so excited to get! 

The vanity stuff I think I would budget to be able to do or at least start (I can do the downstairs one and just keep it to do the upstairs one later if need be) around boxing day. I have noticed that there are always great sales on vanities then! So because I'm a sale girl, I'm not buying any big ticket house stuff unless on super sale! 

The thing is that everything on my list I want to do eventually, so if Bryan came to fix something in our home I'd be okay if he picked something else first because I know he would do it well and he knows more than I would like to think I do!

Confidence

If I were to put some words to label my little girl, confident would definitely be a big one, right up there with happy and determined!

Tonight I was reminded yet again of her confidence and healthy self-esteem that she has. She was setting up her bowling set that we made. Its a little tough some of them because of how I made them so sometimes they tip over, but when she gets them to stand every single time she would lean back, smile and clap! She celebrated her job well done because she was proud of her accomplishment. It was so cute to watch!

I was also looking back this week and memories just flooded back as I finally got a lot of our old pictures loaded oh my new computer. This one I love!

I love it because there is such obvious joy in the picture! I love it because she is with her papa who she does not get to see that often. I also love it because it shows and reminds me of how she has always been a little baby confident and ready to try something new. She never showed fear swimming in a lake or pool! 

We did help instill the whole clapping and celebrating her accomplishments thing. We started that one at an early age. And I know that when kids feel comfortable and safe they are more confident to try something new because they trust their parents that it will be okay. But I can't help but wonder when does this change and will Hannah always be the super confident self-assured girl or will she struggle with worth and value like so many girls do as they get older? 

My prayer is that Hannah always knows how special she is, that she always has confidence to try new things and that she knows its okay to fail! My prayer is that she will always feel safe and secure to be real and honest around us and that she will always know how special she is not only in her parent's eyes, but also in her Saviour and Creator's eyes! 

Give the girl a spoon

We all know the saying....

"If you give a man a fish he'll eat for a day, teach him how to fish he'll eat for a lifetime."


I don't want to admit it, but my little baby girl is growing up and with that comes a need to give her more chances to be a "big girl". As much as I would love to have her be my little baby for ever I also really want to help her grow and flourish and learn and do all that she can.

Enter spoon.

Hannah is now at the point where if she has a bowl of soup she wants to feed the whole thing to herself all by herself! And she actually does a pretty good job! Some makes it on the bib and its hard to clean the last bits out of the bowl, so she will ask for some help but for the most part she does it all! She is a big girl!

How did we get to this point?

I let Hannah hold her spoon from really early on
I let Hannah try to get food into her mouth for months now
I helped guide her in holding her spoon, scooping it up and getting it into mouth without pouring it back out, over and over and over and over again and then some more...
I learnt that I need to not be starving myself when we have meals she can be using a fork or a spoon because I was too tempted to feed her quickly
I learnt to give ourselves lots of time (3 times the amount I would normally) to eat before naps or bed so I wouldn't be tempted to take the spoon back and hurry up the eating
I learnt to be patient and enjoy seeing her pride in herself when she could feed herself

But seriously what happened to my little baby girl?

3 Reasons why to make Valentines day special for your family

Yesterday was Valentines Day. Yes, Valentines Day is just another day. And yes, we should show love to those around us every day! But I still love the idea of Valentines Day and fully believe it is one to be celebrated. It does not have to be anything huge, but just doing something little to show those around you that you love and care about them.

Here are my top 3 reasons why celebrating is good for the family

1) Makes the kids feel extra special - kids know when it is a holiday, and kids love the hype. Doing something special for them can make them realize that they are worth a lot and are super special to you. Growing up my parents did an awesome job of making us feel loved on this day. My dad always gave each of us girls a different coloured rose and my mom would give us little treats and notes in our lunches or little things special like that. Those little things meant A LOT to me and I fully believe it helped me grow up feeling secure and knowing true love!

2) It helps your kids learn how to go out of their way to do something special for others! 

(unfortunately pictures would not save the right way, so just tilt to see, sorry!) 

This year Hannah and I made some special cookies for Matt (not that she really knew it was something extra special) and a special valentine. It was fun doing something special together and it was fun to see her excited to give them over to Daddy when he got home! In the future I look forward to making it a big deal of making things for friends and family and making valetine cards to fill out!

3) Kids need to see parents showing love to each other. When they see their parents doing little things for each other to show love and can feel the love between their parents, children feel secure and the benefits of that security are endless! So do not be afraid to show your spouse how much you love them in front of your kids it benefits the whole family to feel the love! (within reason of course!)

Side note: For now quality time and words of affirmation are big love languages in our home. So spending fun together, specifically enjoying each other and those time and making a point to tell the other person how much they mean to you is a focus in how we show love. If it turns out our kids recieve love in other ways we will change how we show it for them, because it is important to know how people really feel loved! 

Baptism Sundays

I love baptism Sundays!

I love them because...

• I love hearing others stories of how God impacted their lives. 
• I love seeing people take that step of faith and make it so public that they don't just believe in God and that Jesus died to save us all, but want to live for God unashamedly. 
• I love being reminded of when I took that step as a teenager and it challenges me to live it out each day
• I love how the whole church is just full of love for a person they may not even know personally, and just clap and share that joy! 

This Sunday my heart was full as I got to watch some of the kids we get to work with in the kids ministry get baptized. I also loved seeing not just kids take that step, but seeing a girl that came to Christ because of a friends testimony and changed life and how God helped her out of depression and drugs and a guy who grew up in the church, but had ups and downs, but as a young adult has decided he really wants to make his faith for him and live it out. It was a special time this Sunday and I feel blessed to be a part of it! 

How much is too much?

I'm all for trying to have a balanced diet.

I could never be someone that lived off of KD or pizza even in university.

But what I could live off of...

Cereal!

I just love it!

I love healthy kinds, plain kinds, sugary kinds (for the night time treats)...I love it all.

Currently we have 8 boxes of cereal in our cupboard (for a family made up of myself, my husband and 15 month old!).

We are a cereal family and I have realized we passed our love for it on to our daughter. Even if Hannah already had a huge breakfast of oatmeal and fruit if she sees either of us pour a bowl of cereal she can't resist it!

I try to make sure we eat other things in our day, but sometimes I just want that 4th bowl of cereal...

there are worst things to be in love with right?

Harder for the baby or the parents?

 Last night my heart broke as Hannah threw up quite violently a number of times. Matt just held her over the sink or toilet, I changed the sheets, we changed her only to have her sick again. She was upset after awhile which of course was harder for us to see our baby girl sick and so upset by it. At first we thought it was too much food from small group and staying up later, but when it continued we thought maybe a bad case of the flu. When she seemed so upset I called the nurses hotline to talk to someone because I was worried.

But as soon as she had thrown up all of her food she had eaten all evening she fell asleep and woke up at 8am this morning happy as can be as if nothing had happened. No one could tell she had been sick the night before!
 

She was back to happy little Hannah ready to take on the world! 

So our conclusion is, similar to what the nurse said, she likely just had something her body wanted to get out of her system and then she would be fine! 

I on the other hand had an awful sleep because I was worried she would wake up again feeling bad, worried it was something else wrong, worried about her in general. 

Throwing up sucks, 

but being a parent of a sick baby also sucks! 

Step 2 completed! Bring on Step 3

This is how our room looked when we bought the house

(Matt snapped the picture at night, so as you can see it doesn't look that bad, but believe you me that green was blinding in the morning light!)

Step 1: wallpaper the accent wall (wallpaper I got on a super amazing sale of 2 double rolls originally $140 each for a custom order on sale for $6 for both since they were extra and not needed from an order before we were even looking at houses, but I knew someday I would use it!)
Thank you to Leah and Katie for helping get this up 2 nights before we moved in!

Step 2: Paint
This we completed finally this weekend! (This was also Matt's first real paint job, didn't he do a pretty good job?) So here is how the room looks now!

(again the picture doesn't really do it justice. The paint is a really nice grey/brown and the wallpaper is a beautiful steel blue colour)

Step 3: Move furniture in place and put away all those clothes finally in their right spots!

Step 4: Move back into our room and enjoy it!

Step 5: finish trimming the wallpaper edges on top, hang pictures, get bed, decorate and repaint some pieces to make it the wonderful grown-up bedroom retreat we have never had before!

a room is a special place - Welcome to Hannah's room!

Finally I snapped some pictures of Hannah's room as it stands today. Here it is

View from the door

She loves playing in there (which was my goal!)

 A traditional mobile lasted I think 5 days with Hannah. Given, we left for 3 months soon after she got into her crib and when she came back she figured it was something to pull herself up on to stand and realized very soon it was not as sturdy and she needed it to be, so out when the mobile and in came  tissue paper pom poms (hung high)!

Our girl loves to read, so I wanted to give her a special comfy spot to read her books. This picture was not posed at all, I went into her room, she followed and jumped up on the pillow right away with a book! so sweet!

Fun wall!  She LOVES looking at pictures of herself and pointing at all of them. And she LOVES touching every single flower (she helped stick them all and even fixes them when they start to come off these days from the humidifier going all the time!) 

 Lots of floor space to play on!

 The all important mirrors! She is hilarious playing and looking at herself!

Change table and shelves (painting done by her amazing talented Aunt Tara). I don't know why it has now become the messy part of her room and dumping ground!

I love her room and best of all Hannah loves it! Which made painting the stripes worth it. She loves to play, she loves to go to the different sections I set up and read or look at things or play on the floor and it's awesome!

But it's not done.

Things I still need to do
- sew her curtains (roman shade style with cute bows) and hang blinds
- on the paintings on the wall I want to do something special (and hang them straight)!
- hang the rest of her pictures on her fun wall and put up the words we made (read, play and I forget the last one) Some pictures the glass cracked so we just need to fix some things first.
- clean off the change table
- recover the chair and big pillow, and make a couple more pillows for her reading lounge area!
- trim the ribbon from the pom poms
- hang her letters for her name by her mirrors (the sticky part on them were lost in the move, so I just have to figure out a way to get them up to stay so she can touch them without them falling down all the time)
- repaint her shelf that got quite destroyed in the move
- repaint her little cradle

When will this all get done? I don't know, but it works for now, and at least Ill never run out of projects that I could do!

Blog Design

Last week I decided to look into doing something more fun design wise for my blog. Catch is that I got caught up in the searching.

It is fun to see different backgrounds, headers, etc that you can apply to your blog to make it personal and fun. I love design stuff so I got right into it.

Problem was not only did I get caught in looking, my top choices wouldn't work for me and now little things like I can't figure out how to change the post title colour to at least match what I have now.

Will this design stay? Probably not. But I like the tea cups because it represents taking a break and in finding the balance in life breaks are KEY! And I love the tea or coffee breaks, so that I love. So we'll see maybe it will grow on me.

For now Ill stop trying to change it and focus on other things!