Merry Christmas

Wishing you and yours a very Merry Christmas!


                                                                                 (source)

Christmas Home Tour

I am linked up at The Nesting Place 2013 Christmas Tour of Homes so for anyone joining me from there, Welcome!

It's that time of year again, Christmas home tour time!

I'll be honest and say this is not a Perfect home tour in fact its anything but, (moving six people into a smaller house takes awhile to get things Perfect ) Good thing I'm not striving for perfection! And like one of my favorite bloggers, the Nester, always says, It doesn't have to be perfect to be beautiful.

So without further adieu, here is the tour!

Our tree was incredibly easy to find this year, we actually found it in our back yard! It is set up right in the middle of our great room so it can be seen from the kitchen, living room and dining room.

Favorite Christmas Books (a repost)

This is a repost from last year, you can check out the original post with a lot more links HERE

We love Christmas books (OK we love books in general!) but we love the Christmas ones especially because they only get seen for a short time each year. I usually keep them in storage the rest of the year so that they are extra special when they come out around the end of November.  We keep them in this basket by a good reading chair in the living room so that we make sure to share and enjoy them together.

Although I have to admit that this basket is getting pretty stuffed!

Onto the books! First we have our Nativity themed books: The First Christmas,  the top one is a nice pop-up story about the Nativity and the bottom one is a "changing picture book" so both are a bit interactive. You can get the bottom one HERE.  The two on the right Room For a Little One and A Child was born I actually ordered through book orders for the kids school and Room is my absolute favorite I just love the gorgeous illustrations and it is such a sweet story. My kids love it as well as the story is told more from the point of view of all the animals in the stable and they love searching for the little mouse :)

And on to Santa books :) We got I Believe in Santa Claus last year for Christmas and though it looks boring it is a really great story about the similarities between Santa and Jesus. Another favorite is Santa's Magic Key (this version is a kindle version, not sure where you can get a hard copy).This is extra special because we got it from my Grandma and as she is friends with the author, it is a signed copy :) This is a fantastic story and has really helped me answer Gabe's question of how Santa gets in the houses of people without fireplaces (we don't have a fireplace anymore :(    As soon as he asked I pulled out all the Christmas books to find this one :) Anyways, the other two are fun, It's Santa! is a lift the flap fun one and My Christmas Treasury is filled with a bunch of different stories including Twas the Night Before Christmas :)

Snowman Books: I guess they aren't necessarily Christmas books (well The Annual Snowman's Ball and Snow What Fun are) But I like to include them in the mix :) We got these from various places, most were gifts though. The kids love Snow Bear as all the pictures of the bear are fuzzy! (Especially great for the younger set)

Since we're Canadian, we had to get the Porcupine in a Pine Tree! We got this one last year as well I think (I'm just realizing we got a lot of books last Christmas!) and we really enjoy this fun adaptation of the Christmas carol, The twelve days of Christmas. Some highlights~ Eight mounties munching, Five Stanley Cups, Four calling moose....:) it's a lot of fun. Then we have I Spy a Candy Cane~ my kids love I spy books and this one is for the 6 and under crowd. I'd love to get the bigger one as the kids are all getting bigger. And next is Teddy's First Christmas (I think Gabe is the only one who reads that one anymore :) Mortimer's Christmas Manger is a cute story and then we have The Elf on the Shelf.  Snoodle (that's our elf's name :) has been kicking around here since Dec. 1st  although he might have gotten lazy once or twice and stayed in one spot for a few days :) This is a fun tradition with kids especially if you start it when they are really young and your elf isn't lazy (or forgetful!) like ours is sometimes :) I checked on amazon but they are super expensive there so I would google other sources if you are interested and I think I saw them at Chapters/Indigo too.

And last but not least, we have The Christmas Hat and Disney's Christmas Storybook . I left these for last cause they have been around the longest :) Nyla got these from us when she was a baby her first and second Christmases and they are enduring favorites (they are well used as seen by the damaged spine from one too many drops from little hands :) I think more from all the memories of Christmas past than anything else. They are both good books though and the Christmas hat one is fun because the pages are all embossed so they feel neat.

Oops!

Such sweet beautiful illustrations.

Well I hope you enjoyed seeing our favorite books, if you want more ideas for Christmas books you can check out Memories on Clover Lane blog or The Sunny Side Up blog which are two places I have gotten ideas from in the past.
Have a great day!

Ordinary days....

      Just a quick little blurb today about some of the goings on around here. I cant believe it it the 11th already! We have been busy bees working on house projects and Christmas decorating, but last night I decided I wanted to make some creative mess.
     I had ordered and received a SNAP December documented scrapbooking kit some time ago with the intention of taking a picture every day in December and using the kit to keep up with our Christmas traditions. Well, as previously stated I cant believe its the 11th already and I hadn't even opened the package! Last night I decided to remedy that and got my craft on :) I have to say even though I hadn't opened the kit up I had been fairly purposeful in taking photos with this album in the back of my mind but not as much as I had hoped so from now on there will be so many pictures taken my family will think they are celebrities!

                          

Our dog is a little nuts and I swear she thinks she is part human. The other day I came into the living room and found her sleeping like this,

What a goof!

Have you heard of this book?

                           (source)

It is fantastic so far and I'm only just over half done reading it! I think most parents of teens and tweens need to read this. You can also check out her blog HERE

Have a great week!

Something to Ponder...

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Christmas Inspiration

I've been getting my Christmas inspiration on!

Picked these up last week,

and of course I've been pinning away. I just love the simple red and white looks, like this;

(SOURCE)

although now that I look at it again I realize there are pops of blue in there too! I love it!

and there is this

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*sigh* I love this upcoming season!
          I'm not the only one in our family who is ready to crack open the bins of Christmas decorations (if we can find them in the crawl space!) the kids have been asking when we can get started on decorating :) Especially Gabe, that boy is a decorating maniac, for every holiday he begs to start decorating weeks and weeks beforehand. This morning I took down our basket of Christmas Books (it was in our closet as I don't want them getting wrecked somehow in the crawlspace) because Gabe asked if he could bring one for his sharing at school, so I guess our decorating has already started!
     How about you? I know a bunch of you from the States have Thanksgiving to get through this week first, but are you dying to get out the tinsel and lights? Or is it something to be put off as long as possible?
Have a fantastic week!
Update: You can check out my post from last year about our Favorite Christmas Books by clicking the links above highlighted in blue!

In My Garden....

I know what you're thinking, a post about my garden in November?! Yes this is real people, a gardening post in November. (some of you may be thinking whats the big deal? I live in Canada, the great white north!) 

Anyways, so far I haven't given much of a rundown on our outdoor space of this new property we just bought, so I thought I would do that today. Our new place is just a smidgen under an acre and its pretty much a clean slate as far as landscaping and gardening goes. When we got here there wasn't any outdoor storage so we added a garden shed ( a lovely housewarming gift)

to the right of the shed is the start of our compost pile (where our jack o lanterns now live ;) and to the right of that is where the garden is going to be! I'm excited! that strip of dark brown is the section pat and I tilled up and where I planted some garlic ( I was bound and determined to get some garlic planted before the snow came)

I was using boulders and large pieces of cardboard to pace out some future raised beds :)

 and totally different change of topic, do you think these cats are loved?? I took these pics just before I woke the kids yesterday morning (cats were asleep too, but awoke from the flash ;)

Have a great weekend!!

Outside my window....

there was all this white stuff on the ground ;)

The first couple snowfalls are my favorite, it always makes me want to break out into Christmas carols and drink eggnog and bake a bunch of cookies. ;) Two of those things have already happened and the third is gonna happen this week. Bet ya cant guess which ones!

Have great week!

Girls rooms are painted!

Update! The paint I used in their rooms is Icy Moon Drops 2056-70(walls) and Baby Boy Blue 2056-50 (ceiling) in Nylas room and Soft Pumpkin 2166-40 (walls) and Golden Honey CC-214 (ceiling)in Cadences room all by Benjamin Moore in their eco-spec line (no vocs)

So, last time I shared what the girls rooms look like, they looked a little like this,

A little lackluster in the colour department (a gross understatement :) Well, I finally primed and painted both of the rooms and now they look like this,

Lest we forget....

  

In Gratitude of Silence

By: Debbie Holick
Silent now the soldiers sleep, their tales long laid to rest.
I knew them not yet still I weep and place a poppy o'er my breast.

They were husbands, brothers, fathers, sons; so valiantly they fought.
On shores stained red,on hands and knees; it was our freedom that they sought.

Couageously they stood their ground but freedom carries a cost.
Thousands of men were wounded and countless lives were lost.

So in gratitude of silence and all those who have served,
sleep now, you have earned it. Your peace is well deserved.


Image found here and poem found here

New House Pictures (aka the before pictures)

OK so if you are looking to enjoy a really wordy post today, this is not the post to be looking at :) This one is all about the pictures! They are probably not the best photographic quality as they were taken on my first trip on moving day and I raced around quickly before they started bringing furniture etc in and there are a few random belongings scattered here and there, but they are a pretty darn good depiction of our new place. Also, these will most likely serve as Before shots for any future updates (I know this place doesn't look very Bad and it really isn't, in fact it is pretty darn nice, but we definitely want to put our stamp on things around here) Now enough chit chat, on with the pictures!

 

This is the view to the left of the front door

                                                                       Kitchen

                                                                 Living room

                                                               Dining room

 

Laundry room 

                                                                      Gabe's room
(the window in his room had to be moved as we added on a couple rooms and his room would have looked right into Nylas :)

                  this bedroom will definitely see some painting done in the near future :)

this is my sisters room (she lives with us full time)

                                                               Kids bathroom

 

                                                                    Nylas room
                                     (it has been painted so stay tuned for that update!)

                                        I love the sloped ceilings in here, so charming :)

here you can see over to Cadys room, hers is a mirror image of Nylas but it was so jam packed with stuff (all her stuff plus most of Nylas as I was getting ready to paint in there) I couldn't get in to get pictures. These pictures were taken after we moved in.

 

The Master bedroom

this is looking in from the door

                                                            and last but not least, the master bath

 

So there we go, our new Kozy Kabin :)
Its been a busy busy month and a half and we are settling in quite nicely. I have been painting up a storm in the two girls rooms so stay tuned for that and working on major decluttering and organizing as we downsized a bit and now have a crawl space instead of a full basement to fill up with our crap unused stuff. Feel free to question or comment below