On Saturday not only did I get to go to swimming and gymnastics, but I also got to go to a birthday party. And today I went to a Halloween Party too!

He said

Now that we have the couch and chair picked out there are a million other things we have been stewing over to complete the transformation of the front room. Curtains, pillows, area rugs, table & side tables, and artwork to name a few. Danielle and I have been using Pinterest as our cork board for collecting ideas and designs and then searching through stores and vintage shops to find the perfect pieces to compliment the look we are going for.

The latest stumbling block is the chair we want to have over by the turntable for the time I am listening to records as well as adding additional seating to the room that we have never had. The challenge is that it needs to be smaller to fit in the space, as well as we want the style to suit the mid century modern look we’re going for in the room. We have lots of possible chairs we like, but it’s just so hard to judge what will be the right fit and not be too big with the couch and chair we chose. I am sure there will be lots of consternation over this one for the next few weeks…

We’re also having some challenges on the curtains. We spent a lot of time and more importantly money on the curtains that we chose for our bedroom and Danielle, rightly so is concerned about doing the same for the front room. We were at an impasse at what to do about them until I pointed out that we’re spending a lot of time and money on all of the other details because we felt our previous attempts at the room looked like a mixed bag and modge-podgey because we tried to always look for economical solutions and only every updated pieces at a time—here and there. I didn’t want the curtains to feel – and look – like an after thought or that we cheaped out again.

So I think I have Danielle convinced we need to find another vintage pattern from Tonic Living that we love, like we did for the bedroom. The panels certainly won’t need to cost as much as we’re going with simple Roman Blinds, and will be able to spare the expense of having the block-out material as we want light in, just not sight in. This will also allow Danielle to explore all the fun pillows she has been finding online from Society 6.

As for Emelia this week… I worked an overnight shift on Thursday night, so that gave me Friday and Saturday off work which meant I could watch Emelia at gymnastics. After getting up early with Emelia on Saturday morning to let Danielle sleep in. After Danielle got up and recognized I was still a little tired from the overnight on Thursday she took Emelia to swim class so that I could get another couple hours of sleep. When they came back I was refreshed and ready to have a Saturday with my ladies!

I am consistently amazed at how well Emelia has taken to gymnastics—it’s a natural fit for our active little climber. But what I am most amazed at is her focus and attentiveness during the hour-long class every week. Some times I even catch myself wishing we could get this amount of attention and focus from her at home! As Danielle says, I think this may not be a passing fancy for her and we’ll likely get roped into the more competitive side of gymnastics soon enough. As her parent, it’s just such a joy to see the amount of exercise and confidence she is gleaning from it. And to see her excel at something long before she’d ever begun it, talked our ears off about it.

After gymnastics we were off to the birthday of one of Danielle’s daycare kiddies which I am sure she will tell you about. But after that we dotted all over the west end of the city in search of ideas and solutions for the front room. One of the best stops on that journey was at Memory Lane Antiques—a place we had been meaning to check out for some time. It has an amazing collection of very well cared for or cleaned up antiques and is hours of fun and discovery. I can see many more stops here in our future!

We wrapped up our day with a stop at the grocery store to pick up one of their roasted whole chickens and some roasted potatoes and settled in for the night with some wine and more importantly couch time as we further internetted over solutions for the front room. It was the perfect end to a near perfect day.

Today found me back at work but home in time to dinner and bedtime routine with Emelia and Danielle. And this week’s schedule affords me a lot of the same evening time with my ladies so I am very thankful for that! So before I waste any more of this Sunday evening and time with Danielle on the couch, I am going to sign off for the week.

She said

This week flew by quickly, it was a strange week for John’s work as he had more time at home in the day as he has some meetings and an overnight shift in there. So what this meant is that I was trying my best to keep the daycare kids quiet in the day so he could get the sleep he needed opposite of his normal sleep pattern. It was a challenge but the daycare kids were so good about it. Add in a week of sunshine and mild fall weather and it did make it a bit easier to balance it all.

This week was quite expensive, in the middle of the decision to redecorate our disaster of a living room we had to deal with replacing two pricy items that broke in the last few months. About 4 months ago our vacuum died. We had made due by borrowing a vacuum from time to time as needed and been grateful that we have very few rugs in this house. But it was wearing thin. I have a need for clean and organization in our otherwise busy day to day and it was time to budget and find a replacement. I had planned on making due a bit longer but an email from Dyson with a sale on a more compact and rechargeable vacuum moved the purchase up to this week. That was the excitement I did for my birthday, yes I am a dork that anything that makes my life easier and cleaner is priority over anything else as a present.

Earlier in the week we had another big purchase, about 2 months ago our over the range microwave died. I don’t use the microwave often but you still feel it, well John did for sure. He was getting more than sick of cold suppers when he did longer stretches with later work shifts. And honestly I cannot blame him. We did rely on it enough that it needed to be replaced. The problem is that over the range microwaves are much more expensive than counter top ones. So we had to search around for the right deal and this week one fell in our laps. We managed to get a stainless steel LG one on sale for less than ½ of what we paid for our microwave we bought 8 years ago.

So it was an expensive week but we did manage to save a ton on everything it made it a bit less painful.

With saving so much on the things we needed to replace it made it easier to stay on budget for the living room. So far we managed to get the couch and primary chair at half price. So now we need to find an accent chair in a fun colour to give the room a much needed pop of colour. A grey room, grey couch and grey chair it needs some fun accents. So we are searching everywhere but the list is long. I have a chair in mind now it is a matter of finding it. We also need an area rug, new coffee table and side table, bookshelf, curtains (which is a debate right now – I am not winning this debate) oh and art. So needless to say this will be a longer process than I would like but I know we will love the end result. Now to keep in constant mind the budget, the budget, the budget.

The one key thing that did arrive this week to my happy surprise was our cupboard inserts from ikea. They were originally set to arrive next week but much to my happy surprise on Friday they arrived. John was off and made quick order of setting them up and I could not be happier. The goal of this living room is to have something fun, livable, family friendly and for me free of the look of a kid zone. The change over of the cupboards from clear bins and mismatched baskets to a clean line is what I needed. They look amazing, they look less like mismatched bookshelves and more like built ins which makes me super happy. And the best part, all the daycare toys are still there just cleanly organized and out of site when not in use. YEAH for me, I finally feel like we are not putting the daycare over our needs. The kids will always be an insanely huge part of our lives but I love that we are moving in a direction that makes our home and daycare life balance more well balanced. As parents we are beyond the toddler/baby stage, professionally I am happily there, it is just nice that at the end of the day we can really close it off.

The weekend was another busy busy time. But busy for all the right reasons. Saturday was our normal swim then Emelia’s beloved gymnastics. But after we were off to celebrate the birthday of one of my favourite little person with one of my favourite families. We were honoured to be invited to the first birthday of one of my daycare girls. This family goes way beyond being one of my clients, they are definatly an extension of our family. So we made the mad dash after Emelia’s gymnastics over to the other end of the city to celebrate Presley’s first birthday. And what a doll she is, she gave me lots of snuggles and smiles. I could not have thought of a more perfect way to spend our afternoon.

Once we left the party we took advantage of being on the west end of the city and went to some accessories and furnitures stores that are not close to home. We didn’t have luck finding what we were after but gathered lots of ideas. Emelia was incredible being dragged from store to store and she seems to be enjoying as much as we are finding the right fits to the new living room. We did sneak in a visit to Toys R Us to window shop for Christmas ideas and she came out with a little list that has a strong theme this year. But more about that in the weeks to come.

Today John was back at work, so bright and early we brought him to work and Emelia came along to help me with our weekly errands. Once again she was amazing helping me and just going with the flow of the morning. By morning’s end we had to make our way home as Emelia had a special afternoon planned. Norma (one of my daycare moms – and mom to Miss Presley I was speaking about above) had invited Emelia to a halloween party with her son Reece who was with me in daycare for 4 years. Reece has become like Emelia’s fake little brother. She just adores him. Norma insisted that I take the afternoon to have a break from wee ones and I didn’t need much convincing.

Emelia headed out and I got a ton done, errands done, halloween crafts planned for this week and the rest of the house cleaned. It was a great day.

And that was the packed week that was, off to spend the rest of our Sunday together before we are both back at the grind tomorrow.