Want it Wednesday - Christmas Gifts

Halloween is over and although it isn't quite Remembrance Day (my personal official start to the Christmas season), it may be time to start thinking about Christmas gifts.  In our new neighbourhood there are many nice shops within walking distance so this year I've decided to 'shop the neighbourhood' (coincidently the motto of the local business improvement area), and try to get all of my gifts from here.  Not only do I want to support the local merchants, I also want to avoid the malls for Christmas shopping. Don't get me wrong, I love the mall, even at Christmas time, but I tend to go to the mall on my lunch break or quickly on my way home from work and I am too rushed and end up overbuying and overspending.  If I can get all of my gifts near home, then when I do go to the mall, I can enjoy browsing and soaking up the hustle and bustle.
 

I don't need to buy for a lot of people, my family is small, but I do like to get little things for people along the way - teachers, friends, co-workers, so I do need a few different things.



The Bloor Meat Market and Snappers Fish Market both have some fun sauces, spices, and other accoutrements to cook with.



The Coffee Tree and Say Tea have lots of nice teas and coffees to buy in bulk, not to mention some nice mugs.



Marlborough's Stationary has Playmobil toys, books, and art supplies for kids.



And there are many other little gift and clothing shops that I have not even visited yet.



My Arbonne "store" is completely local, and the holidays would not be complete without some fun products.  Sometimes buying skin care products for other people is not an easy task because everyone has their own tastes.  But these spa inspired products are great for gifts because who doesn't want to feel pampered?

Sea Salt Scrub

 

Sea Mud Face and Body Mask

 

Fortifying Hair Mask

 

And some nice things from the holiday line:

 

This Sparkling Citrus Luxury kit includes body wash, sugar scrub, and body butter. Plus it is adorned with a fun holiday pattern.

 

And for the kids in your life, this Bubble Bath Set. It comes with day time and night time bath scents (although we used both at night time), and a soft washcloth.

 

 

Have you started your shopping yet? Are you the type to get it done in July, or are you usually at the mall on Christmas Eve?

 

 

Weekend Recap - A walk in the park

We had another busy weekend - Sportball, a birthday party, and still trying to organize our house.  On Sunday, we explored a park near our house with some friends. 

Peeking out from the tree

Checking out the waterfall

Enjoying the sunshine

Fishermen in the Humber River

And then we came back to enjoy some homemade turkey soup.

 

 

We also got a lot of boxes emptied out and I put all my books on the shelves in the basement.  Next up will be organizing winter and summer clothes, and E's clothes that are too small.

 



What's On...?

I am linking up with Andrea for her "What's on?" series.  This month it is What's on your bucket list?

 

For the record, I am not a fan of the phrase "bucket list". I don't know what it is, I just never use it.  I prefer to refer to things I want to do, as "things I want to do" not have the overture of kicking the bucket.  But I will use it today.

 

I thought about this and things that I want to do are all involved with travelling.  Whenever I pin something in Pinterest related to travel, it often has something to do with a beach, but there are more travel goals than that.  I'll give you my top five trips I'd like to take, in no particular order.

 

1. Fly into Paris, rent a car and drive up towards the Beaches of Normandy, and then head across to Belgium and into Germany, visiting the Canadian war sites along the way.  Yes I'm a war nerd, but I'm okay with that.

 

This is Mont Saint Michel

 

2. Fly to Santiago, Chile, connect to Punta Arenas, and then stay at The Singular Hotel.  I saw this on Lesley Murphy's travel blog (Lesley from Sean's season on the Bachelor).  This trip was not on my radar until a couple of weeks ago, but you can't deny these photos are beautiful. 

 

 

 

 

3. Fly to Kenya, and do a safari and stay in one of those fancy huts.  Then go over to Zanzibar to enjoy the beautiful beaches. Then while in Africa, I want to spend sometime in Cape Town.  This, by the way, would be way out of my comfort zone, but I do want to visit Africa sometime.

 

 

 

4. Stay at the Four Seasons in Bora Bora, and stay in one of those huts over the water.  Go paddle boarding, snorkeling, and basically do nothing.

 

 

5. Take the train across the Rocky Mountains. 

 

 

This is really just five out of so many other trips I want to take.  What trips do you want to take?



Happy Halloween!

Happy Halloween!!  We will be exploring our new neighbourhood this year and hopefully meeting some of the neighbours.  Our house has been decorated and the candy purchased.

10 days old and hogging the candy

 

1st costume, a shark

Last year's costume - Fireman 

My handiwork from last year.

This year's costume, Batman!

 

Mockingjay Pumpkin!

 

 

 

Piano

This week our piano was delivered. 

Just waiting to be dusted and decorated

We had it shipped up from my home in Nova Scotia because we finally live in a house where it will fit and where it can stay for a long time.  I'll be honest, it was costly to move it up, but it is worth it to me.  The piano belonged to my grandfather's family years ago (family folklore says that his father traded a horse for the piano), and he had it with him over the years and one year it was shipped down to Nova Scotia because I was going to start taking piano lessons.  I took lessons from about grade four to grade twelve.  I was not a concert pianist by any means, but I was a faithful student, I played in church a few times, and I wrote and passed two Royal Conservatory of Music exams, grade 3 and grade 5.

Starting at a young age with my Nana Joan

I spoke at my grandfather's funeral a couple of years ago, and I mentioned how a lot of people's memories of him were him being at the piano - he played at parties, at church, as a hobby for himself, and he even played on Bourbon Street in New Orleans one time. He could play almost anything by ear and if he didn’t know it, he could play the right chords to follow along with the singers.

Jam session with my cousin

But my memories of Papa at the piano are standing over my shoulder while I played.  Usually when I started playing he would get up out of his chair and walk over to see what I was doing. 

 

I am looking forward to playing more often, and introducing E to a musical instrument.  I still have my old lesson books, but I mostly enjoy playing out of the United Church hymn book.  The tunes are familiar and pretty simple to play. 

Your Toronto Raptors!!

In lieu of my usual Want it Wednesday post, I wanted to mention the start of the Toronto Raptors NBA regular season.  They play the Atlanta Hawks tonight at the ACC.  Dave is going to the game, but E and I will be watching from home.

I admit, I was not a basketball fan, other than senior boys basketball in high school (but that was probably for other reasons), until I started dating Dave in university.  I claimed the old mantra of "they just go back and forth, it's so boring!"  Except for baseball, most sports just "go back and forth" so that makes no sense.  Dave has always been a basketball fan so I started watching, and like anything, once you understand the game and the rules, and know some of the players, it becomes interesting, and I was a fan.

I've been to a few games, even got to sit on the floor a few times, and we took E to a game last year.  E pretty much likes every sport that we do, and basketball is no exception.  Hopefully we can make it down for a few games this year too.

Good luck to the Raptors this year.  It is their 20th season, and they have some great momentum from last year's playoff showing.

Everett's second season as a Raptor fan (the first year he was more of a bench player)

Birthday Party

On Saturday we had E's 3rd birthday party.  Maybe we were a little crazy to have a party at our house just days after moving in, but we got a lot of things organized and it was a pretty successful party. 

Somewhat of a car themed party

Felt banner from Target.

 

I ordered these custom cookies from Sweet Flour Bake Shop for the treat bags.  They turned out really well. 

This is the cake that I made.  I think it was the favourite from my post last week.  I used Mix and Match Mama's Celebration White bundt cake recipe.  I got the black icing at Michael's and just used Betty Crocker French vanilla icing dyed green.  It was a perfect cake and easy to make. 

Hey, a family photo with the cake!

The kids loved the icing, although the black led to some interesting smiles.

 

 Everyone enjoyed the new gift of the race car track.

 

We also made cars out of cardboard boxes and used paint, glue and other items to decorate them.  It was hard to take good pictures during this activity and I don't like posting pictures of the faces of other people's kids without their permission, so I don't have any I can share.  The kids liked getting into the paint, and although the cars don't exactly look like the inspirations on Pinterest, they were all works of art. 

 

I kept the food simple with homemade guacamole and chips, mango and strawberries, candy, and some delivery pizza. 

Thanks to everyone who came to the party.  As the first party in our new home, it helped warm it up a little more.