Ah....spring (?)

It's the end of April and by now, we've had at least a handful of days that allow us the freedom to choose between pants and shorts without fear of looking crazy.

So far, we've had MAYBE one. That MAYBE is that I think we had the freedom of choosing between a heavy sweater or a lightweight sweater. No shorts (except for 2 hours on Thursday night where is suddenly skyrocketed up to 25 degrees to suddenly drop back down to 10 degrees only hours later).

So am I disappointed in spring so far? Yes, but I'm also making most of what sunshine we do get. I get Grayson out in the stroller for a walk to downtown Georgetown, which is only a ten minute walk away. Grayson loves watching the cars go by and squeals with excitement when we go down the hill.

We wander around, taking in the sunshine. I grab a coffee from my favourite little cafe and we enjoy the sights. Am I wearing my sandals and sundresses yet? Definitely not, but it's not stopping me from enjoying what I can.

I spent most of last summer still wearing a lot of my maternity stuff as I regained my figure after Grayson so I am excited to be able to make the most of my favourite tanks, shorts and skirts!! C'mon summer!!!

Snow Day

 Today we had a "snow day". Really it was a "freezing rain day". I woke up this morning to an email from the school board saying that all the buses were cancelled today.

I love having Mira home on these days. I chose not to drive her into school today, anticipating that come time to pick her up in the afternoon (when the freezing rain storm was to be at it's worst), the roads would be very treacherous. Considering she gets bussed to the other end of town for her french immersion, this was not something I wanted to do.

Instead, I kept Mira home from some mother-daughter-son-brother time.

It left me with the question: what to do on a freezing day. Well, we did make the most of it. We walked to the kidsignment store (consignment store of kids stuff) and the kids got to play in the toy section. I don't mind shelling out a few bucks for a toy they may fall in love with in there.

 After the consignment store, we went over to the libary. The new Georgetown library is beautiful. It has a huge kids section filled with an area for group story time and computers. They also have a space for younger kids (Grayson's age and up) where they can play with puzzles and other toys. It was perfect.

Mira sat in her bean bag chair and read about a million books. Grayson exhausted himself by crawling all over the library in search of the perfect toy.

Oh I am coming appreciate freezing rain/snow days :)

Two Months to Go

I have about two months before I have to go back to work. I have until June 17th off with my little man and my little girl. It will be tough transitioning back to work after having a year off to be a stay at home mom.

I have mixed emotions about returning to work. I hate leaving my kids at home, in the care of someone else other than me. I will hate not being able to schedule play dates for mid-day, mid-week. The perks are that I will be making money again, which will allow us to do a lot more for and with our kids. We can travel. We can put them in activities (soccer, etc) and it will afford us some luxuries like having new reliable cars. It will allow us the occasional date night or dinner out at a restaurant.

I am lucky that this time around, I will be returning to work in a very "kid friendly" position. I will be home for bed each and every night. I will be home for dinner with the kids each and every night.

I will also have some time to work on some of my goals outside of the home. Work is a great place to be for me. I do enjoy the people I work with and I love my job. I am lucky that I enjoy what I do. It makes it more fulfilling for me and it makes it easier to justify spending some time away from my kids.

I will make the most of the rest of my year off before re-joining the workforce. Back to the reality of the two-income family, which seems to be necessary to live in the GTA.

Chocolate....chocolate and more chocolate.....

Easter is a time of pastel colours, tulips, daffodils, pretty dresses and little handsome dress shirts. It is a time of going to church and spending time with family gorging on turkey and all the fixings. It is ANOTHER time of year when the kids get to stuff their faces full of chocolate and spend the rest of the weekend going berserk as the sugar takes over the mind and body of our little cherubs.

Ah Easter. How I love you as a holiday and how I loathe you.

I loathe the piles of chocolate that tempt me every.single.minute.of.the.day. It's not even the good chocolate. It's the crappy chocolate foiled eggs. It's not good chocolate, but somehow, the pretty little foil wrappers make them DELICIOUS. The giant solid bunnies with the blank look in their candy eyes make it less torturous to break off an ear, leg or tail and chow down. I especially love the chocolate bunnies with nuts or rice crispies in them. Glorious.

I am a sucker for chocolate. I love it. I could eat a ton of it everyday if I had no will power. Any dessert I eat, I much prefer to it to be as stuffed full of chocolate as possible. Brownies. Chocolate mousse. Chocolate fudge smothered in chocolate syrup.

This year, I decided to fight my own desire to buy $80 worth of the brown goodness for my kiddos (one of which can only look at it anyways) and buy more practical, fun toys. Toys that won't cause my daughter to fall into a sugar coma and turn her into a defiant little being (too much sugar and junk causes her to seriously act out).

Oh, but how I will dream about the chocolate that could have been.....

Nine Months

 Our little guy is 9 months old!! Here are some recent pictures of Grayson scooting around the coffee table. The expressions on his face were priceless.

Happy 9 months baby boy!

Blue Mountain Escape

Our March break plans to go to Ottawa were put on hold so we wanted to come up with a fun little getaway for the kids (and us of course) to a place we have always loved to go.

I had a credit on a room at Blue Mountain and so we packed up the kids and headed to Collingwood for some Blue Mountain Village fun.

The conditions were not great for skiing. It was mild and rainy, but that didn't stop us from having a great time.  Mira joined in the dance party that broke out in the centre of the village. We shopped (they have 50% off kids outerwear!) and we enjoyed the hot tub.

 I cannot wait for the day where both kids will be old enough to ski and we can start going on more adventurous ski trips (hello Vermont, NH and Whistler) but until then, there is plenty for us to do as a family at places like Blue Mountain.

We were going to do some pottery painting, but the pieces we paint weren't available to pick up until we were back home. Mira came up with the brilliant idea that the people in Blue Mountain could DRIVE the pottery piece down to Georgetown for us. Um, not sure they would be up for that drive. So we put off pottery painting until our next trip up there.

 While we were in Collingwood, we dropped in to see our friends Dillon and Jodi who have opened up their Crossfit gym in Wasaga Beach. Crossfit Indestri Beach is now open and ready for some hard core workouts and "machine building" for those interested ;)

It would be a dream for us to live up in Collingwood. It has everything we would want for ourselves and our children. It would provide the perfect outdoorsy outlet in all seasons. The kids could become avid skiiers or snowboarders. They could take up golf and mountain biking in the summer.

We could have beautiful views of the "mountains" in our day to day and the downtown Collingwood area is beautiful and charming. One day perhaps that dream will come true. Until then, we love our Georgetown and all it has to offer us and our little growing family. It is home to us and will be for quite a while. Luckily, Collingwood will always been a short drive away for us.

Girls Night Out

Here I am at the age of 34. Once again, as it does every year (as of recent history), it snuck up on me and without fully realizing, I turned another year older. I am another year deeper into my 30's.

What do you do for your birthday when all you really want is to spend some quality time with your best friends, drinking some wine (or beverage of choice.....like say....Red Bull) and doing something RELAXING.

Rather than hitting up a bar or club, I opted to try something that involved working at a much slower pace that most of my friends and I are used to. We all have some major stressors on our plates and many of us have kids that can limit the activities we can partake in (without disaster and destruction). 

So, for this year, we all trekked out (and I mean TREK) to the Alton Mill Art Centre (in, you guessed it, Alton) where there is a painter by the name of Mark Grice. Mark teaches you how to paint. He teaches you to paint one of several pictures (your choice) and you spent 3 hours, wine (beer, coffee, red bull...) in hand, painting. You paint and you forget about the diapers and the feedings. You forget about the stressful jobs or the bills that need to be paid. You just paint.

A group of  my closest girlfriends came out and it was exactly the birthday I had hoped for. Spending time with those that mean the most to me. Another year older, but another year richer. I am a lucky girl to be so rich in friends that are incredibly good to me. Love all of you ladies who make life fun and memorable. Cheers!