small style #30

# 30!? 

crazytown.

i have to apologize for being a terrible blogger this month. 

work has been a bit more tiring than it was initially and we have some family things going on as well.

you can just bet that one of my new year's resolutions will be to pick a regularly scheduled blogging evening a few times a week!

at least we have Morgan to thank for the small style posts!

woo hoo!

here is a little Christmas Eve small style:

Isla amoungst present chaos

miss Isla was full of shenanigans this holiday, 

hamming it up for everyone that she spent any time with.

Christmas Eve, she did not go to sleep as planned, but she just sat in her play pen until i came and got her for the family photo.

then she promptly stayed awake until we left at 10pm.

sure wish i had a pic of her in her car seat sleeping. 

Thom put her in, and she fell asleep even before we finished packing the car!

what a lovely little tiny.

my mom got her an outfit for Christmas, but it was too big 

(our almost 14 month old is still swimming in 12-18 month pants and skirts)

but the shirt and sweater fit, so that was paired with the stripey leggings that we love!

sweater: Gymboree

red shirt: Gymboree

pants: Gap Kids

socks: Old Navy

shoes: Pediped (finally used my Groupon to Kiddy Kobbler!)

we had a fabulous time with family, but we sure are glad to be home :)

you can find all kinds of christmas cuteness over at small style this week!

small style #29

small style, christmas tree decorating/home made pizza night making/night with friends/watching a funny movie with the Roebuck's

Isla loved the pizza.

Isla did not love sitting beside the tree to have her picture taken.

(but Isaac did!)

however, Isla did love the tackle hugs that Isaac gave her

:)

we may not have gotten a true Isla and Isaac christmas tree picture, 

but we sure had a lot of fun!

long sleeve onesie: Carters, consigned
t-shirt: Joe Fresh
jeans: Gap Kids, consigned

i am sure am looking forward to next week's christmas style!

linking up here :)

small style #28

whew,

with Christmas and work getting busier and busier, i almost forgot about small style this week!!

and really, i was so excited to show off this new little dress.

so here is miss Isla after our Church meeting on Sunday.

so cute.

this dress is divine!

i found it at Value Village for $3.99.

can you even believe?!?!   

dress: handmade, thrifted

tights: Zuta (or something!), from liquidation world in Campbellford for 99 cents!

shoes: Mexx, consigned

don't you just love when a cute outfit comes together for so little cost?

i think this one was a total of 7 dollars!

love!

you know the drill :)

linking up here with Morgan of Mama Loves Papa

small style #27

small style number twenty-seven

featuring the serious rocker.....

well, not that kind of rocker...

Isla discovered the rocking chair thanks to her Gramma Kiki.

she doesn't really look like she loves it, but she seemed to enjoy it a lot,

i just wasn't able to capture that.

silly girl with those chubby cheeks.

so precious.

shirt: Gap Kids, thrifted

pants: Old Navy

socks: Old Navy

shoes: Wonderful northern slippers from Isla's great (grand) Auntie Susan

Isla has been wearing the same size clothes for quite some time, 

she still has some 3-6 month shirts that fit, she is wearing almost all 6-12 month pants, 

but she seems to finally be stretching out a wee bit,

 and plumping up too, so we may see the end of some of these favourites, 

like these stripey pants, they have ruffles on the bum and i love them!  

I know that it will be fun to pull out the next size, but it is a little sad to say good-bye to these ones.

linking up with Morgan at Mama Loves Papa :)

some thoughts

i took a few days off of blogging post 30 Days Hath November, it was a very interesting challenge to put myself up to just at the same time that i was going back to work.

it was indeed some days challenging to remember to post, but it felt nice to be writing something every day.

some of the things that i truly enjoyed was:

Day #17: My Family - i'm going to try and post a family picture each month, a little portrait of where we are at, and what we've been doing.

and Day #15: Some Style Inspiration for the Season - i think doing the 'kids style' as inspiration was pretty genius for me, as i am always loving the cute clothes that kids wear. i may not make this a monthly feature, but expect to see it around again!

and a few others that i enjoyed and may play off of are: 

Day #2, Day #4, Day #12, Day #13, Day #16, Day #24, Day #26.

you can probably expect to see something more like: 

-something/someone/some blog that is inspiring/ me

-some quotes/scriptures/sermons that i've been hearing/listening to/inspired by

-something/someone i'm proud of/means a lot to me

thanks for reading last month!

small style #26

small style, weekend style.

my mom and aunt and my sister and her husband were in town this weekend.

Danielle and Alex brought along a belated birthday present for Isla.

but why open presents when there is tupperware to be had?

really, there is no contest.

they gave Isla a little musical play mat, she was pretty smitten right away.

as you can tell.

she figured it out pretty quick, even though the box said 2+, that's right folks, my girl is play-matting at a 2 year old level ;)

then she figured out she could walk on it too.

she had a great time, and we had a pretty great time just watching her.

sweet little thing.

dress: Joe Fresh, consigned

leggings: Gap Kids

socks: Old Navy

boots: Robeez

hair bow: Dollarama

i love small style.

check it out!

a few more thoughts on motherhood.

I have been told that motherhood looks natural on me.

And I have mentioned before that I feel like I have found my life’s calling.

I truly do love being a mom, I love my moments with Isla, I love the big ones, the beautiful ones, I can (usually later) cherish even difficult ones.

I have found motherhood to be more of a natural and organic venture.

I read books on sleep training and feeding cycles and no crying while I was pregnant, but for the most part, since having Isla, I have left those to the wayside.

I never was one to stick to a strict schedule with Isla. It was more along the lines of she ate when she was hungry and slept when she was tired.

She developed her own cycles, and she started to sleep through the night on her own at a fairly young age. Sometimes I feel guilty about this, like moms need another thing to feel guilty about!

I’m not saying that we don’t deal with any kind of parenting problem around here, we are currently dealing with a very early riser, this has been a little more difficult to deal with.

cloth diapers while camping!

I have dealt with the ups and downs of cloth diapering, and I LOVE cloth diapering, but it definitely has its downs (mostly ups!) but definitely some downs.

I started cloth diapering when Isla was 6 months, we do it almost full time, but it has been a bit more difficult due to bum rashes and daycare.

I also try my best to use organic products for her, but right now, it is certainly not the most cost effective, and if you can’t afford it, you can’t afford it. And we can’t always.

My family consists of myself, my husband Thom, and wee Isla.

We currently call our friends’ basement ‘home’.

We have our own bathroom, 2 bedrooms and a living room, but we share the kitchen and most of the living space on the main floor.

We have been learning what it means to live in community and be in each other’s spaces and faces every day.

We are Christians who are walking out our faith daily, and learning to show Isla what it means to love Jesus and to show others his love.

We are just beginning to navigate the world of full-time daycare, with me back at work full-time, which has been a transition, especially since my husband and I would both rather I could be at home with Isla in a greater capacity. But it has been a fairly peaceful process, going back to that whole Jesus and faith business.

We are living in the now, learning to appreciate every day, and every moment, and each other, and teaching it to Isla at the same time.

You can find three of my favourite posts

here-finding peace in stressful times

here-thoughts on motherhood and going back to work and mommy-friends

and here-my original disappointment with cloth diapering

I have written this post to enter into Today's Parent's search for some new Canadian blogging parents.

Day 30: three wonderful things that happened this month

#1

Isla girl turned 1!
one whole year has gone by since that we girl came into our lives.
this was a momentous occasion!

don't judge me because my daughter is eating a giant cupcake.

#2

i went back to work and it's been pretty great actually.

Isla transitioned amazingly, i transitioned mostly amazingly
-with a little tiredness thrown in, and of course, missing out on chilling with Isla all day.

#3

i discovered that i can indeed keep blogging while being back at work full time!

if i can keep up doing a blog post every day (i wasn't even late once!),

i can certainly go back to doing a few posts a week :)

Day 29: some place i'd like to visit

the place i'd like to visit is not a city or country (though you can find it in a big city)

the place that i'd like to visit is Purl Soho.

I have been a reader of the Purl Bee for a long time, but somehow i failed to realize that they had an actual store until they moved from their 2 locations (fabric and wool) into their new big location.  

i love going into fabricland and the various quilt stores we have in Ottawa, but Purl Soho seems absolutely swoon-worthy!

Purl Soho is located in the Big Apple.

Which just so happens to be where Blogher'12 is happening next summer.

funny enough, today when i checked Desiree's blog, 

the Fawn behind this whole 30 days hath November,

she has New York as her place that she would like to go.

she plans on heading to New York in the summer for Blogher :)

i would love to head to Blogher myself, but i think we may have a few things going on next summer.

what looks amazing about Purl Soho to me:
all the colours, and all the textures, just all that plain old happiness.
sigh.

Day 28: a skill i'd like to learn

i've been seeing a lot of this around the blog world lately:

source

source

source

source

i did some screen printing in high school, but that does seem like a long time ago!

it seemed like it would be impossible to have all the necessities to actually do this again;

we had a big machine that put the vellum on the screen and lots of space and ink and the necessary tools.

the 're-love affair' with printing started with this lady holding a fabric swap.
here are some of her prints:

i discovered that a lot of them have been done by stamping ink on fabric.

i have (incidentally) also done some stamp carving (also in high school)

and i think that i could do that again and make some of my own prints for things.

fun, no?

ps. miss Leslie Keating is a Canadian gal living in Australia 

(i'm starting to think that maybe i am drawn to Canadian bloggers 

the same way that i am drawn mysteriously to Canadian authors)

Day 27: myself, one year ago

here i am a year ago.

a very unedited photo, you know, so you can see real life

note on the armrest of the couch:

phone for updating family, nipple cream, pen and journal for recording feeding and pees and poops, remote for watching many seasons of How I Met Your Mother, and the Itzbeen.

we also still had sir Charles *sniff*

i still miss him.

miss Isla was only 25 days old.

wow.

Day 26: something i'm looking forward to

no surprise here!

i'm totally looking forward to Christmas.

i love Christmas

i love:

lights
music
decorations

carols
trees

gingerbread
paper snowflakes

candy canes

hot chocolate

egg nog

presents (giving and a little receiving)

some snow

family
friends
and i especially love that it is the time of year that i get to hear music about Jesus everywhere i go :)

does anybody else love Christmas as much as i do?
is anyone else sad that in 30 days it will be boxing day?




(click on the images for sources)