A Working Weekend

There are days where I swear that I work more being on leave from work than when I actually had to go in the office. Saturday we had a potential playdate for Lily so I did a complete clean of the main living areas, which was well overdue. What a job that was!! Throw in a little christmas decorating and wow there went the day. I took the evening off to work on my sock monkey ornament though ;)

Sunday, I finally tackled my nemesis, the fridge. I banished the science experiments, and those glass shelves finally shine again :) I love the look of glass shells but they are terrible to keep clean with two foraging males in the household that don't always notice when they knock things over :/ I treated myself to some Christmas baking after though and made the filling for some peanut butter balls. There's just something about getting started on Christmas baking that gets past that daunting feeling and makes it seem manageable and of course fun!!

Then this evening we had a lovely dinner with my sister in law and her family. It's definitely feeling a little more like Christmas!!

Stitchy Pics

Finally, some stitching... Lily's Stocking
Santaberry Pudding ~ Shepherd's Bush

Travels

Well, Santaberry Pudding is almost finished! We travelled up to Grand Falls as Matt needed to put on his winter tires that are stored there and there was a mass for his grandmother. I'm not Catholic and don't understand but that's besides the point. Ughhh...travelling with a baby is NOT fun. There's soo much to lug! Plus depending on where we're going Lily's sleep gets thrown off. Oye. I definitely am hoping to not have to juggle travelling into the holiday mix, it's just too crazy with two kids! Anyway, back to Santaberry Pudding. It turns out, surprisingly that Michael's had the two colours that I needed! Amazing, considering their selection, and even more amazing to find them because they are not stored in numeric order...no matter how many times it's pointed out to them that they'd sell better that way. At least I didn't have to order them in! Because of the aforementioned mass being at 7 pm, Lily's bedtime, I got to stay at the inlaws and stitch for three hours until everyone returned home. Now if only I hadn't forgotten two colours here! I could have screamed. So hopefully after I get my work hours in tomorrow I'll have a chance to finally take a picture of what I've been working on :)

One Down

Yay, one item down on the Maternity bucket list :) It's amazing how many clothes a little boy can accumulate over 10 years! In addition to that item I also decluttered our video cabinet, yippee!

Thankfully that's not all that's been occupying my spare time. I've almost finished Shepherd's Bush's Santaberry Pudding, I can't figure out how out of all of my stocking stitching how I could possibly be missing two colours of perle cotton! Oh well, at least I still need to order the charms for Lily's stocking so I can add those two in. Although tonight I'll be finally kitting up an ornament from the ornament issue to take for an over night trip :) Definitely exciting, especially where I haven't picked out my next big project.

It's amazing how much more you can get done when you're finally getting a little sleep again ;)

Some Much Overdue Pictures

Now for some very overdue pictures of the little rascal that takes up all of my time ;)

Look Who's Sitting on her own

Being Inspected by Uncle Steven

My Trick or Treating Cuties

Yummy pumpkin fingers

Going Green for Halloween

Lily and Alex on her half birthday

Showing off her first tooth

The Maternity Leave Bucket List

If I learned anything after Alex, it's that having as much as possible in order before you go back to work is a sanity saver...needless to say, moving back to Freddy days before returning to work taught me this life lesson. I believe that not having a big nagging to do list when you're already trying to balance work hours with the few precious awake hours you have with your kids when you get home is crucial. Also not having to spend weekends and vacation time decluttering and reorganizing any more than a season's worth of clothes would definitely have saved me some guilt I've felt over the years. So in an attempt to stick with my goals, I thought I'd put it on the blog :)

1) Sell the 10 years of boys clothes I'd saved in case we had another boy
2) Have Lily's outgrown clothing sold/ready for sale
3) Reorganize and clean kitchen cupboards
4) Declutter tupperware shelf
5) Declutter crafting supplies
6) Paint headboard for double bed that Alex wants to upgrade to
7) Lose at least 15 lbs
8) Clean freezers to make room for some premade casseroles
9) Establish a consistant cleaning routine with the boys
10) Setting aside Sunday afternoons for meal prep

and if possible
11) paint bathroom
12) paint kitchen

Why the last two? The rest of the main level has been painted in the ongoing renovations and if we've learned anything, it would have helped to paint these before doing the other renovations in each room when you're contending with dust. Plus the renovations for those rooms will be quite costly so having something in the interim to make small improvements to the rooms doesn't make the end task as daunting, at least in my mind. :) Plus I hate wallpaper borders and they are in these rooms and looking ratty and dated...they need to go while I have the time to deal with them :)

With 5 months to go, I'm hoping this list is reasonable