Notefull Living

Stay at Home Mom

This has been a childhood dream of mine. I wasn’t always a stay at home mom. If your thinking about making the change to do be one, I hope reading my story helps with that decision.

Here’s how I became a stay at home mom.

A dream is a dream, it’s healthy to dream. Dreams do come true, for me it came in the least way I expected.

I actually went back to work after my maternity leave for a complete year (in Canada). My job before my maternity leave was only contract, so I had no job to go back too. I ended maternity leave on a job hunt and thankfully got one. I worked for full year with having our son in childcare.

Here’s what happened next:

Sometimes life circumstances pushes you in a different direction, in the least way you expect.

I kept hearing over and over from family and friends, “you need to work to get that second mat leave”. Peer pressure, lots of it.

Long story short: We wanted to grow our family, we did get pregnant AND then we lost the baby at 17 weeks.

After many long months of grieving and attempting going back to work. We made the decision for me to stay home. Since growing a family was important to us, I obviously needed to stay home. My first pregnancy ended with a difficulty in regards to my health.

Life as a Stay at Home Mom, meant a BIG lifestyle change.

It’s a massive adjustment. We did learn I wasn’t really making any money with working and having a child in daycare. We would actually be losing money with 2 in daycare. Good thing on maternity leave I already was doing whatever I could to learn a more frugal lifestyle.

My miscarriage left me in a dark place and it wasn’t how I imagined being a stay at home mom.

Not to get all “listen to my sob story”. But this is a part of my story. It took moving out of our townhouse to a new home to really give a new and fresh perspective for our family, lifestyle and me being home. IMG_4269 - Copy

Being a “Homemaker” isn’t all, home baking and made from scratch, all the time. You can give yourself some grace when something is store bought. Or if you need a day to just REST, it’s OK.

When I mentioned it’s a big lifestyle change. I truly meant it. A big reason you resort to learning how to make things on your own, well it’s a whole lot stinking cheaper. Learning how to make a lot of my own stuff, lead me to reading blogs and watching lots of YouTube videos. I’ve been reading blogs for so long, I feel more confident than ever to be able to share my tips and experiences on here.

I’ve never learned to be more frugal. I thought my childhood growing up was frugal living.

What does my typical day look like?

39973006_425586547964896_1666949040337584128_n We now have 3 kids. Thankfully our oldest son is mostly independent, I love watching him learn. Still teaching our second son to potty train (its rough) and our little girl, just loves to give lots of smiles and is super easy going.

Some days I can make the yummy drop cheese biscuits (pictured above) to go with Sunday soup. Other days I grab a bag of cheese buns when I go grocery shopping.

If there was one thing I recommend if you are home like I am. Invest in a Kitchen Aid. I would NOT bake as much as I do if I didn’t have this on my counter. When I’m in a good mood, and want to bake, I run this thing a few times a week.

**Here’s my affiliate link for a Kitchen Aid.

Can I Bake, Cook, Clean, Sew, Mend Clothes, Cloth Diaper, Cut Hair and Have time for myself. Yes, but not all at the same time. I definitely do my best to do all those things but in the end give myself space to take some time “off”.

Being a mom there is no “Part Time or Full Time”, your a Mom “ALL the time”, in a good way.

Allow yourself a break. Even if that means when your husband walks in the door and you hand him the kid that’s been crying all day and walk out. You need to get away from the kids after a long day. I’ve done it, it happened one time that I had to GET AWAY. I’ve learned now how to decompress during the day. Remember when I said it being a big lifestyle change?

It does help that our oldest is starting to shift into helping more around the house. Yes, my husband is a HUGE help too.

Life is sure changing though since I first became a mom. Life with 2 boys is busy. Now there’s a lovely little girl in my life.

I’m not a perfect parent. I have friends and family that are parents that I look up to, they think I’m crazy when I tell them that. I’m always learning how to do things to make home life easier or flow better. There is lots of great advice and NOT great advice out there, be mindful of that. You just gotta figure out what works for you and your family as a mom.

What’s it been like for you? I grew up with a stay at home mom and it’s such a different world we live in today compared to what my mom grew up with and what my parents had when they raised me. We can always learn something from sharing our stories.

Now I’m making the transition to being a “work at home mom”.

Let me know if there is a topic you want me to cover?

If you made it to the end, Thanks for reading!

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** I’ll be adding products to recommend from Amazon. This helps with everyday living. What could you do with a little extra money?

I’ll also be adding pictures with Arbonne in use in my home. Pictured above is the Shea Butter Duo by my Kitchen Aid.

I have a public Arbonne Facebook page that your welcome to join to find everyday living tips and product offers there, send me a message if your interested.

You can also find my direct website link here.

10 Wedding Tips

I promise the nursery blog post is coming. I’m learning September and “getting back into routine” is a bigger task then I thought.

Until then I’ll share a family post with why September is more special around our home. Wedding Sept 12 359

It’s been 10 years since my husband and I got married. September 2018 has been a wedding month for us, this month is almost over. We have been talking about our dreams and goals that we are currently living.

YES, Dreams do come true.

We even watched our reception video (lots of fast forwarding), made a favorite meal, read our wedding bible verse and discussed our next dreams and goals for what’s ahead.

But, If you have been reading my blog then you know some of those future goals already and I don’t want to repeat myself.

This list I’m going to share are often the things we let our friends or family know when they are getting married. Everyone gives advice, but we’ve learned couples want to hear from those who have gotten married in the last 5 to 10 years.

So, here’s a list of 10 Wedding Tips:

1: It’s a celebration of you and your future spouse, it’s YOUR day. Wedding planning can get dramatic. I was one of three brides living under one roof to know how “dramatic” it can get. I’m just going to leave it at that.

Wedding Sept 12 305

From experience here’s a few….

“Do’s and Don’ts”

2: Do your research for a wedding photographer. The one we wanted would have costed a good chunk of our entire wedding budget. Wedding photography isn’t cheap, do your research.

3: Don’t make your own veil. I thought it was crazy what they charged and what you got for the veil itself. 1/2 way through making mine I knew WHY. I love a good DIY , however no matter how much I did my best to secure the beads my veil was coming apart most of the day.

4: Do find a good rental company. We rented our table centerpieces. The rest was made by family or gifted. Our wedding arch is a part of my garden currently. I love decor and decorating but having the same of 20 plus table centerpieces can add up and you have to do something with it after. No, Unfortunately I don’t have a picture of what ours was.

True fact: Pinterest didn’t exist when we got married

Yes, I’m technically a “millennial”, pinterest would have been a great help particularly in this area. However, I do like that we got to use a lot of our own creativity for the decor. Their wasn’t much online back then for “ideas”.

Attention BRIDES: Someone I know locally has a business just for this and I wish her business was running 10 years ago.

If you live in the Fraser Valley, check her website Elegant Decor Rentals

5: Don’t make your own invitations or thank you cards. Just like the wedding veil that was time I could have spent doing other things. We had a “card making” party with family which was fun, but in the end was a big job. There’s lots of great options now that can still give that crafty vibe I was going for.

6: Wedding Car: I’m grateful for the car we got to use. Here’s the thing, it was a MESS. If your ever planning to lend your vehicle for a wedding. PLEASE, clean your car out. We unexpectedly got to borrow someone’s summer convertible before it went into storage.

Wedding Sept 12 349 I got a sunburn on our day, it was HOT out.

A convertible car was fun, but not when your feet can’t reach the floor boards from all the garbage.

7: Remember to write a proper “Thank You” speech for the reception. We didn’t pay attention to this detail and were fully caught of guard when we got called up.

Going to other wedding since our wedding we always joke and look at each other at what a good job the couple does when they list and name everyone, that helped make their day happen.

8: Wedding Cake:

Wedding cakes don’t always have to be wedding cakes.

This was one of my favorite of breaking the “wedding cake” tradition. We had homemade cream puffs done by my mother in law. Every time I see this picture I just want to eat some.

Wedding Sept 12 419

9: Destination? No our wedding wasn’t, I’m not talking Mexico or Hawaii either. I can’t take credit for this.

One of our friends did this recently. Our wedding guest list hit 200, a lot of that is family. Our friends list easily was 300. So they chose to go to a resort a couples hours drive from where they lived. The capacity of the resort was much less and helped refine the guest list.

Dreams do come true. I’ve said this before. This wedding was BEAUTIFUL. The ceremony was on a frozen lake and it was SNOWING, during the ceremony. The name “Narnia” kept coming up. Just to give you an idea of how to picture this incredible day.

10: This tip isn’t actually wedding related but worth sharing. This was told to us before we got married, we did this and deeply appreciate the tip.

Go on a DATE just before the wedding.

One rule: No wedding talk allowed.

As I shared before, wedding planning can be dramatic, and obviously busy. This date just brings you back to the one person that you want to be with.

Marriage to my husband and I is a big deal. It’s a day that you start being a family. Your life isn’t all about you anymore it’s the loved one that you get to share it with.

Wedding Sept 12 374

If your reading this and getting married, congrats!

Relax and Enjoy your day when it comes.

Have fun, be yourself.

I hope some of these tips are helpful.

This last picture, is one of our favorites from our wedding day. It’s “US”.

I remember thinking the photographer was crazy to ask me to pose like this, but I couldn’t stop laughing. First picture we framed and was on our wall right away.

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I’m hoping to now that a routine is starting to take shape at home to keep up with posting new content.

Boys Bedroom

Here’s is the Boys Bedroom. Here I share some tips to help make a small shared bedroom space work.

Boys Room(Shared) Here’s a look at our boys bedroom. With the arrival of our little girl, we knew we had to put the boys together.

Here’s the thing: The bedroom is 10′ x 10′

We learned, from visiting friends houses with bunk beds in their kids bedrooms, that it wouldn’t be a safe option for our second son.

We were given the matching bed frames, which do stack into bunk beds. However we are missing the ladder and some important hardware to make the set into bunk beds again.

There’s many things about this room that I love.

With it being small, keeping it SIMPLE was key to making this space work.

Our oldest wanted the room to be ALL red. So we worked on a compromise. We talked about making a red racing stripe.

While doing our researching we really liked the classic: red, blue and grey “Superhero” colors.

We have a house built in the 1970’s so we took the red and painted it on the boxed out curtain rob (They are ALL over this house).

Here’s the “stripe” we made. I can’t get over how great this turned out. The boys call it many things, but not a racing stripe.

The boys think it looks like a super hero cape or a laser beam, and many other creative things.

TIP: Use yellow painters tape if you want to make the same look.

Here’s all the colors together. One of my favorites in this room is the artwork on this wall. It can fit in many different spaces in a home. I was hoping it would still work in their room and I think it still does.

What also makes this space great is the bedding and decorative pillows.

Can you see where the color scheme idea is coming from? The motorcycle pillow originally comes from the first bedding set we bought for our oldest. This has been “driven” all over our home.

We got the bed sheets recently from Costco. The comforters are duvet covers from IKEA.

I fully thought I bought matching bed sheets, nope, matching duvet covers.

It worked out in the end, the boys had different comforters so this helped keep everything matching without buying all new bed sets.

Curtains are still original and work as great black out curtains. Plus the grey worked out. So I’ve kept them for now.

Keeping a shared space organized can be tricky.

I went to the dollar store and bought these bins and put some in the closet and some under their beds.

Remember my oldest wanted an ALL red room. You can tell which side is his.

I love these bins. They are easy for the boys to clean up and move toys back down to the playroom if they bring some up. The bins are also great to store, artwork or paper work from school.

Here’s another angle with the blue wall again.

I’ve purposely not shown the closet, I’m still trying to figure out how to make some kind of system. This is where sharing a room is challenging.

We are still planning to build and add our own DIY floating shelves. The floating shelves will go near the end of their beds on the wall.

Currently all their personal stuff that would go on them are in the closet.

Hope you enjoyed this small tour of our sons small shared bedroom.

The paint we used was by DULUX:

Fashionable Grey
Salty Dog (Blue)
Positive Red

TIP on saving money to buy paint: buy the small cans when doing a feature color. Since this room is small that worked the best for us. We had enough to do 2 coats.

Additional tip: Wait for paint to go on sale. We always buy the cans on sale and don’t tint them right away. We wait to tint them when we are ready to paint another space.

Can’t wait to share the nursery next.

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Have a great weekend.

August Birthdays

Sharing a family update today. The end of summer is more then just busy with back to school, we have birthdays in our family.

Anyone else busy with August birthdays?

It’s a busy month, it’s not just summer holidays in the mix too.

Today is my birthday. A big shout out to all my other birthday buddies in the world.

Happy Birthday

3 years ago this date was also my seconds sons due date. He is the only one of my kids that’s gone overdue, so thankfully we don’t share the same birthday. Having birthday’s close in the family makes for interesting family get together’s. I have lots of nieces, nephews, uncles, aunts and cousins with August birthdays.

My Aunt and I share the same day!

Does being a year older make me wiser? That always is my grandfathers question. He’s 96 years old, I think so.

How I celebrate my birthday today is very different then how I used to. As a kid I counted down the days in August. A teenager, I learned where the present hiding spots where. End of August birthday also meant no one was around for your birthday party as they were all going on that one last holiday with the family.

When I graduated, it meant the first week of college was literally a week away. Just after I turned 22, I was getting married in a few short weeks.

For a short time when we first got married I didn’t want to celebrate my birthday, it’s just another day, NO IT’S NOT. Why bothering sharing this. Believing your not worth it is a dangerous mind set to live with.

Celebrate YOUR day. Your worth it.

Today, as I said, I’m celebrating differently then I used too.

I texted my husband spontaneously and we had lunch together as a family. Dream come true, that was never possible before. I put on my favorite earrings, summer dress and did my makeup. After lunch we picked out candies at the old fashioned store and sat at the park across the street and enjoyed our treats.

My oldest asked me today when my friends where coming over, “isn’t that what your supposed to do?“. I also bought a bunch of sunflowers from the flower stand in the little village.

“Mom, your friends are supposed to buy you flowers, not you”……

On the drive home I told him I was having lunch with my friends. It’s my hope that when your older you will see me more then just a parent but a friend you can always talk too.

Side note: Fighting in families isn’t fun, it makes for birthdays and other special occasions especially difficult.

The day isn’t over yet, looking forward to what’s ahead.

Again, if your birthday is today, August 28, HAPPY BIRTHDAY.

Remember: celebrate YOUR day, YOUR worth it.

Home Tour update: I’ve learned attempting to photograph the kids rooms on top of regular family life is quite the challenge. You will see more once it’s done.

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Have a great day, I know I will.

Home Tour

I’ll be doing a series of post with a Home Tour of our home. We are finally have the time to start the much needed renovations. I’ll be sharing our Kitchen, Living Room and Upstairs bath.

Noteworthy Tip: If you are buying a home and it’s been “renovated”. Take someone with you that’s done renovations or does renovations for their line of work.

No one wants to re -renovate a “reno”.

Brief Background:

Since before my husband and I got married I’ve binged watched on home renovation shows. Have a huge appreciated the work of Interior Designers and their creativity with designing and Home Decor.

We live in the Fraser Valley, just outside of Vancouver BC. The housing market here is nuts. 4 years ago we sold our renovated townhouse and bought this house.

With our budget and the neighborhood we wanted to buy in, this was the right house for us. Since we had already done renovations with our first home our realtor knew he could show us homes that needed some much needed reno’s but still livable.

The only rooms that have done are the kids rooms. Everything as you see in the photo’s is still as is.

The Kitchen – 1970’s anyone? This kitchen is hanging onto the 1970’s.

We suspect there was an attempt to paint the cabinets? I think that’s why there’s a 2 toned thing happening? At some point this kitchen got a new counter top and flooring.

This kitchen may seem big, but this is it for cabinets, it’s a challenge for food storage.

Living Room

I’m not an expert on home decor or furniture. There’s lots of “styles” out there. Here you get a glimpse of what we like. Home Decor and Furnishings can get expensive fast. Working at a home decor store and helping interior designers taught me that. I’ve done what I can currently with a limited budget to still have solid pieces.

When it comes to “styles”, I found this in one of my magazines which sums up what I think is my style. I would change the word cottage for country.

Rustic Cottage Style: Distressed paint, tarnished metal and reclaimed wood; collected antiques, heirlooms and flea market finds. This style is a reflection of a well-loved space with a story to tell that gets richer over time. Style at Home Magazine

There’s a lot in our living room of heirlooms, antiques that is well- loved with stories to tell. When it’s time to fully renovate the kitchen and living room, you will see the Rustic Country style more in our home.

Currently we have bought a custom designed couch and my hubby got his big leather chair. We are looking forward to the day we can get rid of the carpet.

Upstairs Bathroom

On the listing for this house, it claimed to have an updated bathroom. This was the first house we settled with living with someone else’s DIY Reno. This is why I shared my noteworthy tip in the beginning.

Our realtor commented we weren’t his usual clients and picked out things most people wouldn’t.

You learn a lot about a house when you renovate one.

The blue, in my opinion is intense. It’s on the ceiling too. I’m glad my decor from our townhouse fit in. I also found a shower curtain that works with this space.

I’m not a pro photographer, this picture was hard to take.

This bathroom is functional (ish). We have gotten used to the outdoor tile on the floor. I’m surprised the cabinet doors and drawers are holding up, considering the granite (I’ve learned to dislike) is custom fitted. The under mount sink also doesn’t fit the counter top, it’s a mold fest under there. We’ve stopped trying to fix the drain plug.

What’s next?

We’ve been shopping for supplies and this weekend will be moving things around to start making this place more our own.

If you have been reading my blog, you will know Music is a big part of my life. To give a hint of the space we are updating, you will notice my piano isn’t in these pictures.

My Piano is in the area of the kitchen.

When the renovation is done I’ll post a before and after.

Until then I’ll give a tour of the kids rooms. I love how our boys room turned out. I’ve already shared on Instagram a sneak peak.

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Camping mistakes and how to avoid them

Summer 2009 023_LI My husband and I have been camping, mostly with our tent, for 10 years. We’ve made some camping mistakes over the years. Most of this happened in our early years of marriage, communication might have played a part. Either way we have learned from the mistakes and our love for camping hasn’t deterred us.

Camping Mistake #1: Not making a packing list

This might be super simple and complete common sense. I just need to share that on one of our first trips ever camping together I thought I had packed everything from my list that I kept in my head. 2009 Random 161 (2)

Somehow I didn’t mentally check off pillows and condiments for our hot dogs, to name a few things. This happened at Weaver Lake BC at the forestry campsite. A convenience store is just “down the road”. Also our site was covered in bugs that got into EVERYTHING.

Make a packing list.

Start with basics and as things pop up in your head, WRITE IT DOWN. As you pack cross it off.

Camping Mistake #2: Not checking the weather ahead of time

We didn’t do this on another one of our earlier trips and didn’t know that at night the temperature was going to go below zero. Everyone else was in RV’s and giving my husband funny looks as he set up the tent. The resort on the other side of the lake liked our business as we ended up renting a cabin for the rest of the trip.

Check the weather, just do it……

Camping Mistake #2: Not researching or reserving campgrounds

We definitely have a list of campgrounds we will NOT camp at again. The location we will go back to but we will be reserving a campsite at a different campground. 2009 Random 255 (2)

In my top places to camp in BC and Alberta I mentioned Tofino. Yes, we will go back, it’s amazing there. But we will be booking ahead. We had such a bad experience at the campground we stayed at we actually cut our losses and left early.

This happened….the entire town ran out of water. We happened to score the best tent site. We weren’t camping in the open field and having to parallel park our vehicle in front of our site, like everyone else.

Research and Reserve

Despite all the above, we’ve made some great memories and so fun stories that my husband likes to bug me about.

I’ll never hear the end of the story another time we didn’t research and reserve and ended up tenting BESIDE an active train yard. By the way a long coal train backing up sounds like a shot gun going off over 100 times. Somehow my husband, who is a deep sleeper, was asleep and I woke him up, that wasn’t a good idea.

I hope this is helpful. As someone who didn’t grow up camping I’ve learned from these mistakes. We’ve learned as a couple to communicate better and just about do all the packing together so nothing is missed and spend the weeks ahead of a trip planning.

Plus they make great stories around the campfire while camping.

Happy Camping

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Top Places to Camp in Alberta and BC

Here’s my list of “Top places to camp in BC and Alberta”.

I have Family in Alberta and I went to college there. Now I live back in the Fraser Valley and we like to explore lots of different places with our family.

1: Banff, Alberta

Our honeymoon was in Banff. Honeymoon 062

Obviously the first time we stayed in a nice hotel….the next time we stayed at the provincial campground. Ironically the campground is right beside the resort we originally stayed at.

Expect to see lots of wildlife. We witnessed a LARGE bull elk chase (thankfully not charge) a nature photographer; we wondered why he was packing up and moving so fast. I’m guessing the photographer got to close to his ladies.

This area has A LOT to tour around and see. We stayed for a week and did lots of excursions. We did go outside of Banff for Horse Back Riding in Kananaskis.

This will probably be the one and only time I’ll ever get my husband on a horse.

The top thing to do there is the glass elevator that takes you to the top of Sulphur Mountain (pictured above). The view is incredible. You really get a bird’s eye view of the Rocky Mountains, it can’t get better then that.

2: Waterton Lake National Park, Alberta

I’ve been to Waterton a couple of times.

The last time, my brother got married IN Waterton Lake Park. It’s quite something to watch my husband be in the wedding party and have pictures taken in such a picturesque place.

Camping at the campground we saw LOTS of deer and even a few foxes running around. While we were there a bear was trapped in town and got relocated.

We plan to go back. We haven’t done the boat cruise yet. Plus, we love this photo.

3: Osoyoos, BC

I mentioned in “Camping Adventures”, about family camping in Osoyoos. It’s tradition. My husband’s family has been camping with his mom’s childhood friends from high school since they all got married (I think?). Osoyoos_003

What started out as 3 families camping, became 11 (last time I counted), adding in the extended. Let’s just leave it at, it’s a LOT of people. It’s taken me some time to get used to it.

In camping adventures I mentioned I didn’t grow up camping. Camping with extended family is a little different then just with your own family, or my husband and I doing our own trip. It’s fully worth it for the memories that are made.

Osoyoos, like Banff, has lots to see and do. I love to go trail riding. There’s wine tasting tours and of course boating, to name a few.

I could go on….It’s a great place.

Noteworthy Tip: Book ahead if you want to get a good campsite.

4: Tofino, BC

I’ve been to Tofino as a kid. My highlight on that trip was flying on a float plane over the ocean and seeing the coastline. Having a father with a private pilot licence, those are the “tourist” things we did sometimes.

2009 Random 257 My husband and I went to Tofino in our first year of being married. We had a great time and the WORST time here. I’ll explain more in my “camping mistakes” post, coming soon.

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Yes, the views are incredible and I had no idea BC could become more beautiful.

I thought Banff with the Rocky Mountains was amazing. The campground we stayed at was right on the beach. They had a mini trail and there was the beach (pictured above) and the ocean.

We plan to go back, when it works for our family.

5: Harrison, BC

This place is close too home and if you haven’t visited here, you will want to come back. My number one place on the list was Banff; Lake Louis isn’t far from there.

If you like Lake Louis, Harrison Lake is the BC version.

However, we don’t camp at the lake. We camp at a friend’s private property, not accessible to the public on the river. The picture above is taken on the river. That water is beautiful.

I have so many memories of this place and I haven’t camped there near as much as my husband did during his childhood, I can see why it’s one of his favorites and becoming one of mine.

We only go when our friends are going, but camping is just that much better with friends anyways.

My sons favorite bear has the best view from our recent trip. The kids love this place too.

There are lots of other campgrounds to go to or hotels to stay at. We’ve stayed at the Hot’s Springs Hotel for our anniversary a couple times. A Breakfast buffet with a view of the lake, is a nice perk along with the hot springs pools.

I think I’ve officially written my longest blog post. I’ll stop here.

Comment if you have visited any other these places? Love to hear from you.

Remember, “Camping Mistakes” is coming up.

If you want to read about Tofino being one of the Worst….subscribe.

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Camping Adventures

Camping Adventures, is something I didn’t grow up with but have grown to love.

On the first couple dates with my husband we both said we said we liked the “outdoors”, but we both had different ideas on what “outdoors” meant.

I grew up in the country and love to be outside in the yard, with animals or gardening. To him outside is hiking, camping, and fishing to name a few things.

The only “outside” thing we had in common, at that time, was hiking.

The more we got to know each other it didn’t take long and I was heading up to Osoyoos with him and his family, camping. That was just the beginning of our time together and the many camping adventures ahead.

Osoyoos (11)

Since being married I still can’t believe we’ve been officially tenting for just over 10 years. We have worn out his old tent and some camping gear. Bought a bigger tent, that my husband could stand up it (it’s a must have when your over 6 feet tall).

Recently we purchased a travel trailer; you can see that in my “Travel Trailer Tour”.

We have had our share of camping mistakes; remember I didn’t grow up camping. Learning to get to know each other and communication might have something to do with those mistakes.

“Camping Mistakes”

Post coming soon….

We also have camped at many places here in BC and some in Alberta. It’s hard to choose a favorite place as there’s many we would love to go back too. One main place we go is Osoyoos, we camp with family.

This Year we got to start new adventures with our new trailer. Plus we are camping as a family of 5.

“Camping with Kids”

“Places to go camping in BC”

Posts are coming soon……..

This past weekend we went camping, yes, we have a 5 week old Baby. We never would have camped with a newborn before.

I’m looking forward to more camping adventures, especially with our trailer.

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Summer Music Practice Sheet

Summer Music Practice Sheet Summer is finally here at our home in the Fraser Valley. We have had some cloudy cold and windy days lately.

Today the sun is shining.

I’m excited about today’s post. I have a resource for anyone who has a kid in music and how to keep them playing over the summer.

It all started when I saw a YouTube video for a Summer Clipboard system. I’ll add the link below. If this lady has it figured out for her 5 kids (soon to be 6) then this system must work.

We started out with our summer bucket list. It didn’t take long and we have a FULL list, of small items and big ones. I have to say, now that it’s written out, we’ve talked about it and we see it every day in our kitchen it’ll keep my husband and I accountable to follow through.

We made sure to keep most of this list cost friendly expect for some bigger items.

In the video where I got the free printables from she showed one of her son’s lists and there was a thing for soccer kicks.

Our son is in soccer this summer as well, so I added that to his list.

BUT……

He was also in Piano Lessons this past year.

My house and family isn’t as big as Jordan’s from Fun Cheap of Free so I didn’t use one of her printables.

Instead, I made a music one for my son and I’m actually making one for myself. I have it available for FREE as well.

I called it a practice sheet in the title, as that’s what this would traditionally be called, I find ‘music play list” is more fun for summer for kids.

Here’s the Summer Music Play List

Summer Music Practice Sheet

I kept it very simple with only having 6 things. It honestly isn’t that much. So long as he plays one thing a day I’m happy.

I have things like:

Play a song from your book
Play a scale
Make up a song (My son LOVES this one)
Memorize a song or section
Play for someone (I have a video of him playing for his baby sister)
Bonus: Do a mini recital

Want to use this but aren’t sure what to include on it? Ask their piano teacher OR go through their practice notebook from their weekly lessons to get ideas.

For me the point is to keep them playing and to make it fun. It helps them not loose what they have learned over the summer.

Let me know if you used it?

If you have a hard time printing it please contact me and I’ll e-mail it to you.

Here’s Jordan Page’s video from Fun Cheap or Free.

Happy Canada Day

Happy Canada Day

from our

Family home to you!

It’s here, the long weekend. I’m so happy my husband is home and we get to be together as a family.

Our Canada Flag (pictured below) has been hanging in the front of our house since spring. The flag post holder and flag was his father’s day gift last year.

My husband is very proud to be able to hang the Canada flag all spring, summer and a bit of fall, until I tell him, it needs to come down.

It just so happens to a cold and rainy weekend, typical BC, Fraser Valley weather. Last year was HOT and we got to join friends for the Canada Parade.

This year we are keeping it pretty low key. Plus, I can’t fit my Canada Clothes I bought last year. Shopping this morning I spotted a Canadian onesie for our new little one. I didn’t buy it – because she JUST grew out of preemie clothes, there’s always next year.

Tonight we are having BBQ’d burgers for dinner and tomorrow’s breakfast will include bacon.

Our Canada Day won’t include the parade this year as we will be in Church. We intend to see family tomorrow and get to be together as a family. Hopefully get to see some extended family from my side when they arrive.

I can only imagine next year will include the Parade, More BBQ and family time.

Thankful to have been born here in Canada, it’s a great place to have grown up and now have a family to raise.

Enjoy your weekend!