Christmas Crafting!

This past weekend, my Mum, my two sisters and I got together for a Christmas Crafting Girl's Weekend! 

Surprisingly... we actually got some Christmas crafts made. I'm especially excited about this since this is the first year Joe and I will be hosting my family for Christmas. I'm also having a friends' Christmas party, so I want to make sure my house feels festive!

Before the weekend, we got all of our ideas for crafting together on Pinterest.
The first craft we tried out was this one:

Instructions can be found here.

It was surprisingly easy... and with some tinsel from the dollar store and some cereal boxes, we made these bad boys! My sister and I may attempt to make a few more if time permits.

Next, we decided to try this one.

Luckily, my Mum's husband, Rick, has a massive and ridiculously well-stocked shop, so we had no problem preparing the wood. It turned out ok...not really my style and not sure how I'll hang it. We'll see!

Next, I had originally liked this idea, found here.

But when I started actually thinking about it... I remembered that Joe has a dislike for all word-art in homes. This may not work so well! So, I decided to give a silhouette of a reindeer a shot! I googled and sketched a picture... and used a dollar store canvas and dollar store paint. Not bad for about $3!

It may need another coat of gold paint, but I think it's a nice addition to my mantle...which will be more decorated this weekend :) 

Finally, my Mum had the great idea to make a greenery "swag" for our front doors. It was a last minute greenery-collecting-in-a-forest and throwing-it-all-together craft, but might be my favourite! With some more dollar store red berries, twist-ties and ribbon, it turned out pretty fancy on my front door! It is dark all the time these days, so these night shots will have to do.

I can't believe it is December this Saturday! I'm getting pretty excited for the upcoming holidays!

Hopefully this weekend I'll get around to posting our bathroom update!

Pregnancy Update: 30 Weeks!

I am 30 weeks today. Only 10 more to go!

I think I'm officially in panic mode... 10 weeks doesn't seem like a long time any more! And there is so much to do.

Angle #1

Angle #2

Answers to commonly asked questions:

1. How are you feeling? Tired... heavy... but excited! And anxious. 

2. Are you sleeping? Sometimes yes. Sometimes not so much. Which adds to the tired.

3. Do you have names picked? Yes! But they are a surprise!

Other cool facts:
- The baby weighs over 3 pounds right now. Whoa!
- If it were born now, it would probably survive and be completely OK.
- I can sometimes feel a knee or elbow sticking out from my belly! Wierd!!
- My grade 2 girls are obsessed with my belly. It gets more attention than I do some days. I'll be sad to say goodbye to my little munchkins when baby is born :(

A Few Sneak Peaks

I've been so busy lately with working on various projects around the house that I haven't had time to stop and blog about any of them! (Not to mention that none have them have quite been completed :)

He are a few ideas of what we've been up to around here.

1. Fall garden clean up: I thought this would take a solid day to do. Apparently it needed to be spread over 3 Sundays... We have a lot of gardens. And I'm pretty low energy these days :) Joe was definitely a big help with those as my energy wavered...(Oops...no photo!)

2. Nursery Prep: we have the crib, the change table and a glider/rocker. We even have a few newborn hand-me-downs from my sis. That being said, the room still looks pretty barren and boring. It's proving hard to decorate before knowing the sex of the baby. Some things will have to wait :)

3. Painting the bathroom tile: I finally got around to painting the bathroom tile. Again, I thought it would be a weekend job.... but there were a lot more little patch-ups needing done than I expected. Plus I'm working at preggo speed. So, I got the priming done so far. I'll definitely be doing a more detailed post about this when things are more finished!

4. Starting to decorate for Christmas! This will be our first year hosting Christmas for my family, plus a party with friends. I'm really looking forward to it!

On a completely unrelated note, I have been OBSESSED with this gingery kale and tofu recipe from my Simply in Season cookbook. We've made it 3 weeks in a row and I am already planning the next batch :) (It's even better with avocado...but what isn't?!)

More updates should be coming in the near future!