Oct
2016

Getting ready for winter

fullsizerender-6I am excited for Halloween! I spent the whole day with my best friends helping them get their costumes ready!

fullsizerender-2He said

This week with the first real colder weather starting to make itself present, we had to start thinking and planning for more inevitable things that need to be done before winter became more serious. One was figuring out when Wolfie would get put way for winter storage. While that was quick and easy to sort out with the guy we’ve been storing her at for the past three years, it did mean that we had to accept that camping season was over and that snow would be here soon. It looks like next Sunday afternoon will be the day we put Wolfie away for the winter.

fullsizerender-3The other nagging thing we had to taker care of is scheduling the Pilot in to have the snow tires put on, as well as getting some snow tires for the Mini Cooper. I managed to find a set that came on aluminum rims that had only be used for a part of last winter. The price worked out to be about $600 cheaper than a brand new pair, mounted on a set of steel rims which I don’t like. The only kicker was that the person selling them was in Toronto. Having Saturday off this weekend, it made a nice excuse for a trip down to Toronto to check them out and buy them if they were as advertised. And Emelia approved of the trip since it meant we could make a trip to the American Girl store at Yorkdale as well as see the other stores they have there to help her make her Christmas wish list.

fullsizerender-5We were down to Toronto by noon, looked at the tires, paid for them and were on our way to Yorkdale in under an hour. We then went to Yorkdale, so Emelia could check out the American Girl store there, and we could do some window shopping. That mall has undergone such a huge upscaling over the past few years it’s incredible to see the growth and change. Certainly there are some stores we can’t even afford to set foot in, and it is an interesting place to people watch. After, about three hours there and some lunch we were all ready to move on. Sadly, it was only as we were leaving that I remembered to point out to Danielle the Jamie Oliver restaurant they have there so resigned to visit it another time.

img_0305From there, as it was on the way home – and way less busy than the Toronto locations – we opted to stop by the Ikea in Burlington. We’ve been bouncing around ideas for some various redecorating and renovating we wanted to do and this would be the perfect spot to check out as they have a lot more on display than we do at the Pickup location we have in London. Plus, we needed to pick up some more LED replacement bulbs that they have on the cheap. Emelia is getting to the age where she is becoming her mother in that she loves watching home reno shows and an afternoon walking through an Ikea coming up with design ideas for her room (and the house) are the perfect kind of an afternoon. And I know her Mum felt the same. It was as we were walking through Ikea that I realized what with camping and a job in retail that it had been a while since we’d spent an afternoon this way, and I had missed it.

img_0319As it was getting closed to six pm we decided to get some Swedish vittles for dinner there and then head home. Emelia loves the trays and the carts they have there in the Ikea cafeteria, and I never mind the opportunity to have the meatballs — especially when all three of us can eat for $22! By the time we got home last night, we let Emelia uncork a bit and then we got her off to bed. Danielle and I settled in to the couch, a movie, some snacks and maybe a grownup beverage or two. It was the perfect end to a near perfect day. If only we could have gotten the snow tires for free it would have been. But I can’t complain about getting them for half the price we were going to pay.

img_0307Tonight after dinner, Emelia and I are going to carve our pumpkins for Halloween tomorrow. I am doing a Baymax pumpkin and Emelia is deciding between what emoji she wants to celebrate—right now it’s looking like the poomoji (💩) is the odds on favourite. We’ll see if we have the fortitude to sift through the pumpkin guts to collect seeds for roasting. Carving pumpkins through, is definitely another great memory to add to a pretty damned great weekend, and a perfect note to end it on.

 

fullsizerenderShe said

This week for Emelia and the rest of the kids was all about the excitement building for Hallowe’en. Emelia is over the moon excited for the big night. She has been on a serious countdown for weeks. To add to her excitement is that her best friends keep changing their minds on the costumes they wanted so it meant on the PD day on Friday she and Anna and Grace spent all afternoon at their place planning and practicing their make-up and the last minute details of the girls costumes. Emelia long ago settled on Hermonine Granger from Harry Potter but the twins have changed their minds a number of times. I think they are finally settled on a creepy doll for Anna and Lady Gaga for Grace, but who knows what they will be when they arrive here tomorrow night. They spent the entire afternoon at the Carter’s house trying make-up techniques and generally having a great time. I went to pick Emelia up after the last child left for the day and she was less than happy she had to say good-bye. But gymnastics training called.

img_0328Before Emelia went to the Carter’s place she was my special helper for the day in the daycare. Because she had a PD day off school on Friday I had opted to do the daycare kids Hallowe’en party that day. Emelia had a ton of craft and game ideas planned for the kids so this along with the crafts I had set out we had quite the fun filled morning. The children adored having Emelia home for the day and really loved doing all their crafts and activities with her. I loved having her home as well as some extra time together. The entire day was a success although exhausting. I think one of my daycare mums took complete sympathy on me as she made loot bags for all the kids and for me as well – mine was a bottle of wine and box of chocolates. Needless to say I have amazing families who really get it!

With Friday done and Emelia home after gymnastics John and I could settle in over a glass of wine and relax for the night. The relaxing night was exactly what we both needed considering the very full day we had ahead of us the next day.

img_0339The next morning we got a bit of a sleep in and then got things moving so we could get down to Toronto at a decent hour to make the most of the day off together. Now I wouldn’t normally say hey drive to Markham to buy used winter tires but winter tires are annoying expensive, I could think of a million things I would rather have spent over $1200 on, we have a long list of things around the house we would love to do over buying tires. So when John found used almost brand new ones on rims for a $700 the trip was well worth it. And hey a trip to Toronto isn’t the worst thing to do on a Saturday. We got down and had the tires by noon so we decided to brave Yorkdale on a Saturday. Although busy it wasn’t nearly as bad as I had thought it was going to be. We managed to find a parking spot easily.

fullsizerender-4As soon as we were through the mall doors as per Emelia’s wishes we went to the American Girl store right away. Emelia is now on year 4 of being obsessed with American Girl. Thankfully it has calmed down a fair bit and this is the first year the wish list for American Girl is not a wallet breaking list. Now if Emelia had her way she would likely have come out with half the store but we got her down to a smaller list of a few ‘I love’ items. After AG we were all hungry and ready to eat so we headed up to the food court for a quick bite. After lunch we puttered around the mall more and found a few more stores Emelia loved including the Lego store and the Maplelea stores. She has a decent sized wish-list built for her birthday and Christmas.

img_0334We hit the point that we were ready to be done at the mall and tried to decide what to do next. Emelia wanted bigger items that were more full day activities so we mentioned Ikea and she was excited for that option. So braving an Ikea store on a Saturday is typically madness, add in going to one in Toronto it was not something we wanted to take on. So we opted to head back towards home and go to the Burlington location. We arrived around 4:00 which seemed to be the perfect time. It was still busy but not a madhouse. John and I have been building a list of ‘to do’ projects around the house. Both the kitchen and the upstairs bathroom are now 10 years old so we are wanting to do some refreshing to some areas and upgrades to others. Ikea was the perfect place to go to get ideas, see ideas we have had up close and personal and it also gave us some other ideas for future needs around the house. We came out with very little in the way of merchandise this time but we came out more with great ideas we are going to save towards that we hope can be done over the next year or so.

img_0333Today John had to go back to work so this left Emelia and I to find fun ideas to fill our day. There were some necessity errands that had to get done but after house cleaning, laundry and groceries she and I went over to the halloween store again to putter around. Before we knew it it was almost 5:00 so we had to get home to get a start on dinner so we would be ready for the activity she was waiting for the most, carving her pumpkins with her daddy. She and John love doing this activity together, the debate for a while is what they will make but as I type this they are making their way through the pumpkins and we have a pretty amazing Baymax (from Disney’s movie Big Hero 6) and Emelia is doing one of her favourite emoji – poomoji – yes she is a Teeter kid through and through.

That was the week that was, tomorrow is Hallowe’en and we have a pretty excited little girl here. Hopefully she gets lots of rest tonight so she is ready and raring tomorrow night!

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