It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas...

This past weekend, Joe and I got our Christmas tree!

I don't know if it was the Christmas crafting weekend, the Christmas tunes I keep hearing or the snow on the ground, but it seemed like the right time!

Now that we are car-free, I thought that getting the tree home might be a little trickier. However, Joe convinced me that he and his family often carried their tree home from the store a few blocks away. I figured it could be extra tricky with Henry in tow, but as you can see, Joe found a solution.

 

Henry was pretty excited by the whole thing. He really wanted to help decorate! (And by help, I mean hinder!). Regardless, he was pretty intrigued by the tree, especially once we got the lights on. Oh... and check out Joe's sweet Movember 'stache. How many days left until December??! (aka Decem-beard, followed by Janu-hairy? I guess we'll see.) I guess I can't complain since I've been partaking as a Mo-sistah! Haha...

It is definitely feeling Christmas-y around here! As for our ornaments: We bought most of the glass ball ornaments last year at a local thrift shop. Some of them look really antique. The rest have been collected over the years (my Mum tends to give me ornaments most years!) or homemade. And there are also quite a few special ornaments from Joe's and my students. We chose to hang the baby-friendly ornaments on the bottom. I love our eclectic, mismatched tree! Less than a month until Christmas!

2nd Annual Christmas Crafting Weekend

You might remember that last year, my Mum had my two sisters and I over for a Christmas Crafting weekend. Well, this year, she invited along her sister, Corinne, my two cousins, Kristen and Lisa, and my brother's girlfriend, Micaela. We had SUCH a blast! We each brought a craft to share with the group, and worked on them all weekend. It was a huge success, and I love all of the crafts that I got to bring home! 

Of course, we found most of our inspiration from Pinterest. For example, this was the craft I brought:

link

I love the yellow so much that it "inspired" me to do yellow as well.
Here are some of the other beautiful crafts I made! It was so much fun, and definitely got me in the Christmas spirit!

Henry's Orange & Mint Nursery

Our first new house project is complete! Or at least, as complete as it's going to be for now. As I had mentioned in my last post, we decided to go with an orange and mint nursery, as inspired by the nursery on this blog.

The first order of business was replacing the nursery furniture. Henry's nursery in our other house was a fairly large room (I think about 12 x 12 ft?), so when we put his furniture in his new nursery (which is much smaller, about 8 x 10 ft, with awkward doors on 3 walls) it seemed like the furniture was swallowing the space. Not good.

I noticed that a few of my favourite nurseries had the same crib in them (It is the Hudson by Babyletto)... and then I found it at a local shop, The Baby Boutique. It was fate.

We also decided to go back to using his first change table. It is a dresser we found on Kijiji for $30. It fits nice, although it is a bit trickier to fit all of his things in it! But it works since he also has a good-sized closet. 

When we first began painting, I was a little panicky. The paint was looking rather 90's sea-foam greenish. But as we continued painting it definitely grew on me. And once we put everything back into the room it began to come together. Thank goodness!
 

As for where we got things: Most things were budget/DIY/gifts/thrifted. Our one splurge was the crib, but we even got that on clearance since it was the floor model. (We saved $115 even though it was in perfect condition!) We got the shelf, frames and carpet at Ikea. 

I do still have a few small items on my wishlist. Although none of them are overly necessary - such as a bunting (this one, perhaps?), and maybe a new crib sheet and/or changing pad cover in oranges/tans/mint. I'm also trying to figure out a book display/storage so that they are within reach of the chair. For now, they're just in a basket.

We are pretty happy with how it has turned out!

DIY Graphic Lampshade and a Nursery Sneak-Peak

Joe and I have finally started working on Henry's nursery. It was only a matter of time, since it looked like this from the day we moved in:

Pretty sad. But that is all history now. We have changed almost everything. Yes, everything - including the crib, change table and carpet. I'm excited to show you what it looks like now! However, there are a few final touches to add before I post it on the web for all to see. So for now, I'm going to show you one little project I did for the room, and tell you the colour scheme we chose.

As I had mentioned in a previous post about Henry's nursery (here), the accent colour I had to work with was orange. We had a little old Ikea lamp that we've been using in Henry's nursery (the one on the change table, above), and I thought it could use some sprucing up.

I looked online for a simple, graphic pattern that I could free-hand. It had to be organic looking (one cannot free-hand straight lines very easily.) I decided on this pattern, which is on a lot of wallpapers that I've seen around:

 I took a Sharpie paint marker (it's the one I previously used in Henry's artwork) and started the pattern on the bottom of the shade.

 
Then, I worked my way up. Et voilà! I decided to stop before reaching the top, because I liked how it looked.

And now it looks like this in his nursery (please excuse the junky iPhone photo...)

 
Yep, after some debate, I decided on going for the orange/mint combo for his nursery. I am so happy with how it is coming together and can't wait to share!

New House: The not-so-fun stuff.

We have lived in our house for 3 months, as of yesterday. It seems a little crazy that it has been *only* 3 months. In some ways, it feels like we've been here forever and our last house is a distant dream. That being said, we are still loving it!

Moving here, I had (and still have!) many dreams of quick updates, like painting, that I would do right away. Well, 3 months in, and I haven't changed a thing esthetically. And I'm feeling OK with that! To be honest, I'm enjoying just living in it for now, and really thinking about what I want to do before taking the plunge and doing it. In our last place, we hastily painted all of the rooms. While I was mostly happy with the colour choices, it felt a little too neutral for me. So this time around, I have been doing a lot more reflecting before making changes. I'm getting there... changes will be happening soon!

Our last home: Perhaps too neutral?

To add to my lack of haste to make changes, Henry is entering a super busy stage (which I think will last...oh, 10 years or so? Ha!)

Our house is usually looking something like this. Needless to say, I spend a lot of time picking things up. I've also been really focusing on Henry and enjoying him as he changes more and more every day! He is so much fun.

Unfortunately, we've also had to focus on the not-so-fun parts of home ownership. Like installing a water softener (and then scrubbing years worth of water damage, sometimes unsuccessfully, off of everything it touched). And the big one: When we turned on our furnace for the first time, it didn't turn on. Yep, broken. Instead of pouring money into fixing a 15-year old, mid-efficiency furnace, we decided to expedite our wish to install a high-efficiency furnace instead. Although the furnace itself is going to save us a few hundred dollars per year in energy costs, it was still a pretty big expense up front.

Oh, and did I mention we're getting a new roof? And new basement windows? We signed those contracts before our furnace broke. Basically, we have been bleeding money here. And the house looks no different! And our wallets are almost empty.

Oh well, that's home ownership for you.

Henry at 9 months

Today, Henry is 9 months old! And it was harder than ever to get a good shot of him...

If I could describe his month in one word, it would be BUSY!!

Looking for some trouble to get into!

Henry is on the move... always. He is doing the army crawl, standing beside tables and couches, trying to take steps (with help, of course), trying to pull himself up on things, opening drawers and doors, turning on lights, and exploring everything... it has been busy, but it is such a fun age.

Playing with my toys.

Checking out all of the fallen leaves

All of this playing makes me dirty, Mum!

This month Henry had his first Thanksgiving and his first Halloween! He also, unfortunately, suffered his first bad cold. But he's all better now! Here are a few highlights!

I got to spend Thanksgiving with Nanny's great big family at the cottage! It was the highlight of the month.

Thanksgiving Hike

I ate Thanksgiving dinner by the lake. I am a lucky boy!

My pumpkin

I have LOVED all of the leaves this fall. So fun!

My Family - October 2013

I love the park more and more!

Exploring

I love bedtime stories!

Halloween!

It was a zoo on Halloween!

Daddy taking me out trick-or-treating!