Advent calendars

Don't you have the best memories of advent calendars as a kid? They were always such a fun reason to bounce out of bed in the morning and I'm excited for Brigs to have similar experiences.

I decided to make one for him this year and fill it with 20-month old appropriate gifts...think finger puppets, chocolate coins and the ever-popular stickers!

I made some very simple square bags using plaid fabric which are big enough to hold a Hot Wheels car, and bought a wooden tree form from West Elm that looked much more festive painted green (the tree came complete with 25 hooks already attached). I attached some navy ribbon with a glue gun (obviously forgetting to do anything about fraying ends!) and wrote the numbers on Martha Stewart label tags from Staples.

All in all, I'm happy with my afternoon craft. Despite time being impossible to find at this time of year, there is something nice about homemade gifts and decorations to get you in the festive mood.

living with men

Three years ago today, I married the most incredible guy. He's the best kind - sweet, funny, smart - and he's consistently like this despite the fact that I know living with me can be challenging at times.

To say I'm 'territorial' with my home wouldn't be inaccurate. I think it's an occupational hazard, but given my choice of interior design as a profession, it seems obvious (to me) that I would expect to make the design decisions for our home - with input from him on an as-needed basis of course! These three years have gone swimmingly in this department and I was a happy girl, until....

This arrived on the weekend after Cam won it in a golf tournament with his friends.

 

You guys! Seriously! What do I do with this? Obviously I'm really happy for him that he won it. His friends are super competitive and the fact that he won after not having played much golf since Brigs was born is a big deal. I get that. But the thing is over three feet tall. With a faux blue marble base and the finish on an electric blue bowling ball. IT'S ON OUR MANTLE! He insists it will stay there but if I really have an issue with it, we can move it to our bedroom. Ha!

What would you do? Anyone been in this situation before where compromising seems impossible! Do you think he'll notice in a week when it's not there and I've moved it to the basement? (Ignore that if you're reading this, Cam!).

week in review

It's Friday already! I can't believe it! This week flew by and all my good intentions to post regularly were overshadowed by the week's events, namely, Halloween.

I know there are lots of kids out there who had to postpone their Halloween celebrations because of the hurricane. Here, we got hit with strong winds and some rain and lots of power outages, but NOTHING compared to the devastation in the U.S. We're thinking of all of you that were affected and hope for the quick restoration of your communities.

Despite the rain and dismal weather, the kids in our neighbourhood were out in full force. Brigs got to enjoy Halloween for the first time, really. He was just 7 months last year, so didn't pay much attention to it, but this year, going door to door and being given treats was pretty incredible for him.

We dressed him up as a garden gnome. As encouragement we threw together a last minute costume for Cam because Brigs was not having it being the only one in costume. They looked so cute walking down the street together! Gush!

 

Isn't this photo funny? It looks like Cam's head is on fire. I haven't quite figure out 'night mode' on my camera!

 Every time someone gave him a treat in his little pumpkin bucket, he would try to sit on their steps and eat it. Needless to say, we made it to about 5 houses in an hour and then called it quits! It was so fun though. I'm so much more in the spirit of these events now that he's in my life. Don't even get me started on Christmas! I CAN'T WAIT!