Loving the end of summer....kind of...

With the hustle and bustle of kids getting ready for back to school, and families  and children returning from their cottages or camp, retail stores make room for Fall fashin and mark down prices on summer clothes.  It is smart to buy clothes for your kids, one age up for the following year, saves you a bundle and can even sport the larger size this season still.   I love to buy one size bigger for the following summer, also, buy ahead for gifts as well.  Even with the bigger sizes, after a wash and dry allows for a bit of shrinkage and a lot more bang for your buck!   Can't go wrong with $3.99 prices for ts, $5 bathing suits at Bonnie Togs, $1.80 tanks at Target, the list goes on!

I'm also seeing Halloween costumes and Fall decorations too!  I'm picking my brain on what to dress miss d, miss e will be a pumpkin, hand me down costumes from her big sis, helps me save a fee $$!  :)

Summer coming to a close

I've been reading everyone else's great stories on their blogs, and love all the great tips and ideas and pictures that have been posted. 
Life has been busy, having baby girl #2, who is now 5 months old, days just pass me by. I think of things to write about and just put it on the back burner for now. 

Here are a few thoughts for now...

Summer is coming to a close, as the Great Exhibition Place just opened, signals to Torontonians, back to school is around the corner.
We will be taking the girls this week to experience the excitement and hope to start a new tradition every year.

We also went to Canadas Wonderland, on one of the hottest days of the summer, we barely survived :)

 

 

Fall is around the corner and looking forward to doing a Fall family photo shoot, now that we found a photographer that just photographed my brother in law's wedding last weekend. 
Leading up to Halloween, what to dress the girls in and do we take our two year old out this time?

Then comes Christmas, my most favorite time of the year!  My daughter knows the words to Jingle Bells, and has been singing it this past week! 

Bye for now!
Ps.  Hope to write more frequent and post some great pictures.

3rd day in 2013

Welcome to the 3rd day of  2013!

We had a great holiday.
Lots of food, family and presents.

Having a little one, sure keeps it interesting.  With a playroom already filled with toys, and all those that have been unwrapped on Christmas day, calls for a lot more bins and organizing.

Here is a shot of the CHRISTMAS explosion!

  Needless to say, over the holiday, I made a trip to IKEA to grab a few items to help with organizing.

The After picture to come.

Summer is here!

Well, the hot summer weather has arrived. I finally found some time to post an entry. I'm sitting here with the lights off, enjoying some quiet time. The evenings are busy, since returning to work from mat leave. There is always something to do. Regular house hold chores, mini projects and entertaining the little d. Life is good. I have a week off, as little d is off school for that time, and starts summer care on July 9. So R and I are sharing babysitting days. I spent the last two days catching up on house chores and tackled 2 of my mini projects. -rearranging my kitchen drawers: moved my junk drawers and cutlery drawers, moved little d's drawer too - took my piano certificates out of their frames and put them into page protectors - empty frames will be added to my garage sale bin - organizing my garage sale items into empty Pampers boxes (they sure come in handy) Photos to come(iPad can't upload photos) :(

Happy Belated New Year! Welcome 2012!

I've been viewing blogs daily! But haven't thought of anything unique to write about. So I figure, why not just a quick summary of the past few months, leading into 2012. Fingers crossed as I write this my little D, stays fast asleep, till the morning. Let's begin: October, we celebrated Danica's baptism.

November, time to clean up the clutter and get ready for the holidays! We bought our bookshelves and put together our office area, Ikea- White. (picture to come) December, Christmas at our house! With a new baby, I figured, it was probably easier to have her home, and invite our family over for the feast and gifts! It was easier, but VERY busy! It was my second time making the turkey, following my MIL's instructions ( don't tell her i forgot to mix in the parsely into the stuffing, after I stuffed the turkey) I was tempted to pull out the stuffing from the cavity, but decided against it, and did my best to make it look like the parsley was added. Regardless though, it tasted delicious! Little D was lucky to get her own tree in her playroom, and we put ALL her gifts there. Hubby was thrilled that we were able to buy a REAL tree! and I must admit- we shall get a real one every year. Though the clean up at the end was a B*&(&(&! It's worth it!

After dinner and gifts, we transitioned to annual Christmas Bingo game, decked out with prizes and additional green and red markers! no more pennies! The big winner was Melanie- AGAIN!!! They won in Christmas 2010, and she won the big pot with 2 prizes and $80 some odd dollars! * * ** ** December Eve, into January 2012.... was a quiet one at home, just hubby, D and I. I was a tad under the weather, and we all still recovering from the festivities. Everyone seemed to have laid low this year. Both D and I were already asleep, when the big ball dropped at midnight, poor hubby, rang in the new year solo on the couch. All in all, a great 2011 and so far 2012 is treating us right! ( the weather has been good to us) barely any snow and so mild and it's half way into January! D is almost 9 months old! And my mat leave has only a few months left! I need to enjoy every minute! She's already enrolled in Montessori daycare! On her second set of swim classes! The house is more less completed with renovations/extenstion. Now just little things here and there. But wait- there's a huge basement to finish- something that hubby will work on little by little.

How time flies!

Here we are mid August, with many things that has happened. I thought I would be able to blog about everything since I was put on bedrest during my pregnancy early March, but never got to it- what did i do with all my time? watch tv and more tv and more tv; and a visit or two more to the hospital for some scares. And then on the same night that I returned from an overnight stay at the hospital, that night my water broke, and our baby girl was born on April 23! She arrived three weeks early!

The contractions were horrorandous, and I only had to endure 1 hour of it, while waiting for my epidural
I had great family support. But will back track the whole experience in another post. ( or you can click here to view the post my dear SIL wrote and who was also one of my support person: http://ourdivineprovidence.blogspot.com/2011/04/welcome-to-world-danica-lin-bajc.html)
In the mean time, here is a photo of the wee one taken on July 30. (dressed up and ready to go to a wedding ceremony)

Age 3 months: Meet Danica Lin

Living Area and Foyer ~ Before and After

Oh the hideous wood cabinet that stops you at the front door. And also blocking beautiful sunlight.
We just had to take take it down.

Skipping along...to the Nursery Room

Thought I'd jump ahead to getting the nursery room started. We ordered the baby furniture. The crib, dresser and night stand. It will take about 8 weeks for delivery...which brings us till the end of Aril, leaving me about 2 weeks before my actual due date! Yikes!

Here's a pic of the crib.



The nursery is set up, but haven't the chance to take a 'done' photo, because baby sleeping in there, and only chance I get to update blog is when she's sleeping :)
However, I do have a photo of her closet...check out the clothes! I will get a photo of the nursery very soon.

Long time no BLOG

It's been awhile since I last post a message...going back to September, we went on a trip to Cuba, and since then a new beginning is about to start for us. We're pregnant! Though baby wasn't made in Cuba, it was a great coincidence to squeeze in a trip before our lives become hectic come, May 2011.
I have a photo updates to make, bathroom mirrors for example have been returned back to Home Sense, my husband noticed that the glass was slowly coming off, luckily they took it back even after 3 months, good thing I also kept the reciept! Luckily, we found new ones to replace them!

This is the latest update for now. Be back soon.!

Great finds at SS, NEXXT, HO and HS!

Did you know Home Sense, restocks every Monday, Wednesday and Friday?
I was at Home Sense on Sunday, didn't find any mirrors for the jack and jill bath...but on Tuesday, a whole different story, there were tons of new ones in stock!

Here they are!





But fast forward to the future, after we hung these mirrors, the glass started to peel off, we ended up returning them for different ones..photo to come!


Found some great deals at Home Outfitters as well!
Matching bedskirt and Euro Pillow cases- on clearance for $5.99 each! The duvet cover are from Superstore, the brown and white decorative cases are from the NEXXT warehouse sale



And opposite the bed, are frames from KSP, shelving from the NEXXT warehouse sale and vase and candle from the top shelf is from HomeSense and lower shelf, candle and brown vase were gifts

...And the wall comes crashing down!

The goal for this weekend, was to move our two rooms into the new sparerooms, so we can make room for the new hallway to be built.
The progress of the job:










The dust was so terrible!! Oh the hate for it! That's the worst part of renos, is the drywall dust!

In addition, my or should i say 'our' dressing room is finally complete, so that I can move our clothes in! Needless to say, the new dressing room IS BIGGER and MUCH MUCH, better!
The easiet part was moving clothes from closet to closet, but I had lost count of how many times I've went back and forth, BUT I did note it took me 3 hours to move 99% of our clothes and get it somewhat organized.
Here is a photo of 'his' side. 'Her' side isn't quite ready yet.

Closets are in...almost!

Busy last couple of weeks.
It's pretty much crunch time!

Custom closets for our dressing room, from Ikea! Preliminary drawings and layout.
What a pain to load carts, and load truck then to unload the truck...I believe we had bought 62 pieces!










Closets are in for the Jack and Jill bedrooms. These are from Closet Maid.

Out and about in the GTA

A jam packed fun filled weekend, with relatives visiting from Hong Kong. We had a mini break from working on the house

First stop - CN Tower




Photos from above





Second stop: ROM

Our New Old House..and First Renovation..the Kitchen

Both my husband and I were looking on MLS.ca to find our new nest. And fate had it that, he found the same home that I found and we went to view it.
We put a SOLD sticker on the 'for sale' sign; and so the story of our renovation begins.

The front of our humble abode

Back of the house-yuck -snow

There's a crappy shack and well, but we're on city water, so no worries!

Shortly after our honeymoon (3 years ago) we started our kitchen renovation.

Small kitchen, hardly any counter space

Walk way to the basement and laundry room and living/dining area

Do you love the exhaust fan?


We completely gutted the entire 1950's kitchen and added an extension.

Here are the prettier pictures, after the gut job...dry wall!

More dry wall and mudding

Primer!

More primer and pot lights!

We worked with Home Depot to design our kitchen layout..so let the fun begin!

The cabinets are being installed!

We also opened up the kitchen walkway into the living area

New appliances!

The extension which will be the new dining area..patio doors to the outside- this area replaces the 'shack'

The Finale!

Dining Area with bar fridge and buffet