Project 365 - Week 13

Wow, can you believe that we are already 13 weeks into 2012??  Where in the world does the time go?  Anywho, I'm linking up again with Laura from Between The Lines for Project 365 :)

Sunday - My daughter does an awesome Blue Steel.  This was as she was ripping her kleenex to shreds.  It was kind of funny :)

Monday - Nora received a new table from her friends Eden, Lyra and Desmond (and their parents Pam and Colin).  She is IN love with this table, and although she can not sit at it by herself - she wants to constantly lol.

 Tuesday - We pushed our dolly Bianca to the door to meet Daddy when he got home from work.  She's getting close to walking - but still needs my assistance, it makes me happy :)

 Wednesday - I was doing dishes in the kitchen (we have an open concept house) and Nora was rolling around and scooching backwards like usual - and then I didn't see where she was... somehow she managed to get inside her exersaucer.  And she enjoyed it in there lol.

Thursday - It was little Miss Nora's 9 month birthday today - so we had a mini photoshoot.  The pics turned out okay - not great but mostly useable :)

 Friday - Again, she is a backwards scoocher.  She managed to get her chair underneath the kitchen stool, with her under both of them.  Life must be rough lol.

Saturday - we went swimming on base today and we finally remembered to grab a picture of her in one of her swimsuits.  Even though I know you're not allowed to use a camera or phone in the changerooms (but we were inside the stall and not taking pics of anyone else lol).  She was SO excited to go swimming.  She last for about 30 minutes before she got super cold!

And that was our week in pictures :)

Budget vs Me - Round 1

Budgeting.

My enemy. Lol.

Not really my enemy, but I sometimes get frustrated because I wish I could just spend whatever I want.  But with my maternity ending and that beautiful government paycheque disappearing – I’m starting to get worried about money.  It seems like that is always one of the biggest worries people have nowadays.  I think it’s because so many people live beyond their means (us included).  We don’t have to go out to dinner, I don’t have to go to Stars and Strollers, we don’t have to go for drinks with friends.  There are lots of ways we can start to cut back (and let me tell, that will be starting MAJORLY next month lol).  I have one month and 20 days left of Mat leave.  So if I don’t go back to work, we will be out $800 per month (which in all reality boggles my mind because I don’t feel like I made that much money in a month working… but that’s just me lol).

My new project right now is Meal planning and food budgeting.  I follow a couple of “budget” blogs and they have such awesome ideas for couponing and great stuff like that – WHICH WE DON’T HAVE HERE IN CANADA.  It’s really frustrating.  However, many of the grocery stores are starting to price match – and it’s saving me a BOATLOAD of money.  For 3 weeks in March our food budget went from $125/week to spending only $220 for the 3 weeks.  I hope that I can keep that up for April, my goal is to get our food budget to $75-$100 per week.  We buy most of our meat in bulk from Costco so that lasts us quite some time and now that I’m a price matcher, I watch for good deals at the different stores. 

Granted, I ruined our great streak by spending $40 at Michael’s on Tuesday, and $20 at Homesense and $40 at Walmart on frivolous things that we didn’t REALLY need.  But I’m trying to do better.  I find that I shop and spend more when I’m sad or frustrated.  (and these long nights with Nora are leaving me quite frustrated).  But I’m trying to use up the “stuff” I have at home now, and hopefully that will curb my spending for a little while. 

So here is our meal plan for this past week so you have an idea, I only write down dinners because we plan to have enough leftovers for Paul to take for lunch and I usually eat whatever is in the fridge when I remember to eat at the right time (it’s 11am and I just ate my cereal lol).  And breakfasts are either cereal or scrambled egg wraps.

Monday – Tilapia & Rice

Tuesday – Crockpot Chicken & Rice (a Pinterest recipe)

Wednesday – Spaghetti & Chicken meatballs & Salad

Thursday – BBQ Pork Chops, Potatoes and veggies

Friday – Tilapia & Quinoa

Saturday – Homemade Pizza

Sunday – Slow cooker Honey Sesame Chicken (Pinterest).

We buy yogurt at Costco when it’s on sale as well, and eggs too (although last week you could get 3 dozen for $5 at Loblaw’s and that was cheaper than Costco!). 

So that’s part one of my budget revamp!  Here’s hoping for a good result.

Checking In

This week has been very trying.  We have had one cranky little lady on our hands.  During the day she is MOSTLY okay but come 7pm – we have a crankypants on our hands.  She is teething in the most ridiculous way right now.  Hand in her mouth constantly, runny nose, a bit of a diaper rash – all common teething symptoms.  Oh and swollen little gums.  It breaks my Momma heart that I can’t make her feel better.  We rock and rock and rock at night.  She constantly wants to be held and wants to wrap her little hands in my hair.  It’s frustrating to say the least.  Plus we are trying really hard to have her sleep in her crib, in her room, and not in our room in the playpen or the bed.  It’s tough on rough nights like these.  But I’m surviving so far.  I’m just tired.

I feel like I’m really complainy today so I’m not going to write much because it just won’t be a happy post.  Here’s hoping Friday is a better day!

Project 365 - week 12!

Linking up with the Lovely Laura over at Between The Lines for another exciting week of Project 365.  It has been VERY nice here for the past week so I've been excited to take pictures outside :) 

Sunday - It's posting season in our neck of the woods (that's PCSing for all y'all Americans lol).  What this picture doesn't clearly show is that on this street alone there were 5 houses for sale already... and it's not even April yet.  April and May are prime House Hunting Trip times for the Canadian Military. 

Monday - I drove up to Ottawa with the little Miss and we went to IKEA!!  My fave store ever.  Thank goodness it's within driving distance.  She absolutely adores riding in the cart now.  And she was super flirty with everyone she saw in the store too.

And the other reason for our Monday trip to Ottawa.  We got someone a big girl carseat.  It made me proud and happy and devastated and sad all at the same time.  It's a 3 in 1 carseat, it starts rear-facing, then goes forward-facing, and then it's a booster seat.  It's good until 140 pounds.  I guess technically that means I could use it too.  What child is 140 pounds and still needs a booster seat??

Tuesday was SO nice out.  So we walked down the street to the park and Nora tried out swinging for the first time.  She liked it, can you tell??  We went to the park twice on Tuesday - once with Zachary (the young guy I watch on Tuesdays) and once with Daddy when he got home from work.

Wednesday was another beautiful day.  We had our weekly tea morning at my friend Tracy's house and Nora wore her pineapple jumper and some superfun Baby Legs.  I love those things :)

Thursday - She's a back scoocher.  And she often gets stuck and then looks at me and smiles.  It's adorable.  And like usual, instead of helping her get unstuck, I take pictures instead hehehe.

Friday - Paul was having a not-so-great day on Friday so I made him Oreo cupcakes.  They were delicious.  So much so that I didn't really take an after picture, only the before lol.  Oh well, I'll make them again.

Also Friday was the beginning of MOC weekend at RMC.  MOC stands for Military Occupation Classification - another name for no weekend at home lol.  It was a semi-good thing because we know his career path after he's done school now!  We went to Tracy's house for pizza with the girls and babies since the guys were all at work, and Nora fell asleep relaxing in Hanna's inner tube.

Saturday was grocery day.  And once again, Nora stole hearts everywhere.  It was cute.  And I'm proud to say our grocery bill for the past 3 weeks was only $220.  Which is down about $100 from what it would normally be AND we have a ton of food in the freezer! Go us!!!

And that's our week!!

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Project 365 - Week 11

Linking up with Laura at Between The Lines for another fun and exciting week of Project 365!!

Sunday - Snuggling with baby in her room.  I love late night snuggles.  She's so warm and cozy.

Monday - It was absolutely gorgeous here on Monday - so we went for a walk.  We have a pathway that goes through our neighbourhood and if you follow the entire thing you will walk 5 kilometres.  It's pretty handy.  And very pretty too lol.  That's our labradoodle Bella, she's still not great on walks but she's only 2 and still very rambunctious.

Tuesday - Our Watertown trip.  It was a blast.  That was our dessert.  Delish!

Wednesday - Tea Morning with the Otter Wifey's.  This mini ball pit is in the basement at my friends house, it's awesome and Nora LOVED it.

Thursday - our prenatal St. Patrick's Day party.  Not the best picture, but I haven't loaded the ones from my camera onto the laptop yet.  Nora was so chill while the other babies were all over the place.

Friday - Nora loves the Backyardigans.  This is how she is every time they come on.  And it was a Friday so we were both in red shirts to Support the Troops.

Saturday - HAPPY ST. PADDY'S DAY!  We made green beer.  And green wine.  It was a great night, we had friends over and we played Cranium.  Love that game.

 Looking forward to next week's link up!

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Watertown

Our trip to Watertown.

I love going shopping in the USA.  It's awesome.

Most people don't understand the awesomeness.  That's probably because you don't realize that we can't get certain things up here in Canada that are readily available to you every day down in the States.

This was the view from the middle seat in the van.  It was me and my two girlfriends and Norabear and little Hanna.  I got to sit in the back with the babes.  It was nice :)  To get to Watertown from where we live, we cross this HUGE bridge, then cross the border into NY and then cross another HUGE bridge. The first one the view was nice.

The second one - the view was not so nice - it turned into COMPLETE fog.  It was kind of crazy and intense.  But it makes for a good story for the day.

So things we can't get in Canada (or at least not in the town we live in) - Applebee's.

I heart Applebee's.  There is one in my hometown in Canada.  But not here.

But there is one in Watertown.

And they have shooter desserts.

We shared the cheesecake one.

It was delicious.

Other things you can not get in Canada:

1 - Bugles - any flavour of them.  (and yes I used the Canadian spelling of flavour even though it tells me that I'm wrong on my blogger spellcheck). But especially the Caramel ones.  I love them.

2 - Spring Oreos. and Birthday Cake Oreos. They are all so yummy.  And I can't get them here.

3 - All Keebler Elf cookies.  It's a crying shame.

4 - Yoplait yogurt.  You know the commercials where they talk about Key Lime Pie - yup those yogurts.  And they are good.  And good for you.

5 - Also milk is MUCH cheaper in the States - $2.62 vs our $4.99.  And Cheese is less expensive too.

6.  Cherry Coke.

7. Pillsbury cake mixes.  We don't have them at all.  Oh and the Strawberry flavoured icing.

8.  Chex Cereal.

9. JoAnne's fabrics.  I love that store.

10.  Hobby Lobby.  Also love that store (there isn't one in Watertown, the closest one is in Syracuse but that's only 2 hours away.)

The list could go on and on and on and on.  I mean, we have some great things up here, don't get me wrong - but I like the inexpensive fun groceries and other things I find when I go on my USA excursions.  We've been down once every month so far this year - it's AWESOME :) 

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The Monday Real

Linking up for The Monday Real with Jess and Brittany . It's my first time linking up with them!  Woohoo :)

So we put up our shelf on Saturday night.  It still looks like that.  I have grand plans for it.  None of which have happened yet.  I'm having my prenatal class over on Thursday (I guess they're technically no longer prenatal since we have all had our babes and they are all 8 months old lol) for a St. Patty's Day lunch.  I want to have it done by then.  I hope it will be done.

 

This is what we did today.  It was gorgeous out, so we took Nora and Bella for a walk - I made them walk ahead of me so I could take a picture to document this.  I think I have a camera problem.  Or an iPhone problem.  I have over 1500 pictures on my iPhone.  It's an issue.

This is my dining room table.  WE JUST ATE DINNER ON IT 2 HOURS AGO.  And yet it is now covered with stuff.  And when I say stuff, I mean the contents of my Christmas present bag.  Yup, that's right folks, I received most of those items over 2 months ago and didn't even take them out of the bag until tonight.... that is an issue.

 So that's my Monday - keeping it real :)

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Project 365 - Week 10!

Linking up with Laura from Between the Lines for Week Number 10.  

Sunday - Someone got REALLY tired and fell asleep sitting on the couch so I moved her to laying down and then her paci popped out.  It was adorable!!

Monday - We had a great Monday night, just me and Nora - Daddy was out studying and doing school work.  She's fairly mobile now with rolling but has just learned to push herself backwards.  So she was in her jammies and decided to push herself under the chair.

Tuesday - I went into her bedroom on Tuesday to get her out of bed - she was babbling and I could hear it on the monitor.  This is what I walked in to see.  Guess we need to lower that mattress. 

Wednesday - she was SO happy.  I love happy pictures.  She's been so smiley lately, it's awesome :)

Thursday - she slept in our bed in the morning after we woke up.  And that is Giraffey.  He had an accident. Or at least that's what Nora said lol.  Unfortunately her cloth diaper leaked through onto our bed.  So we had to do a sheet change, and a diaper change and an outfit change lol.

Friday - Playing with her table.  It plays music or sounds or english words or french words.  It's pretty awesome.  Sometimes she stands to play with it and sometimes she sits on her pillow.

Saturday - MY NEW SHELF and sconces.  It may look crooked but the shelf is level - we found out that our ceiling is not level.  But I don't care - I have my self now.  My project list has been started!! WOOHOO!!!

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Project Time!

Project Time!

So I have a small obsession with lists.  Ok.  It’s a large obsession.  And I have many notebooks that house my lists.  But I thought I would share one of my most recent lists with you.  Because then it helps make me a tad bit accountable.  I will look back and make sure I update whether or not the list has been completed.

So it’s a projects list.  I have MANY unfinished projects and I really need to get on them.  So here goes!

1.   Hang shelf, sconces, and photo frames over couch in living room.

2.  Cover N O R A with scrapbook paper.  And by that I mean the cardboard letters I have.  Not my child lol.

3.  Finish re-arranging bedroom – move dressers to other side of room, move bed, change curtains, hang pictures.

4. Make white yarn wreath.

5.  Finish/start our tax return lol.  Or at least get the stuff sent off to our accountant ASAP.  I hope I will be getting some money back this year.

6.  Clean Nora’s room.

Hopefully I can get SOME of this done this weekend.  I’ll keep you posted J

So What Wednesday

SO WHAT WEDNESDAY

SO WHAT……

- if I let my daughter roll around on the floor all day long, she has a great time J

- if I don’t want to be on facebook 24/7 – it doesn’t make me a bad person or a weird person, it just means that I don’t depend on facebook anymore.

- if I bought my husband an expensive video game?  He destresses by playing them – who am I to judge – I scrapbook.  If he wants to play video games for half an hour at night, why can’t he??

- if sometimes I let Norabear sleep in bed with us.  We actually got 7 hours of sleep last night because she slept the entire night.  Yup, that’s right, 7 hours of CONSECUTIVE sleep.  It was heavenly.  And I’m not ashamed to admit it.  I’m also not going to make it a regular occurrence but seriously, if it means we got finally got some sleep.  SO BE IT.

- if I have a cold – it’s getting better and some of the stuffed upness is allergies. 

- if my dog is following me around on a regular basis.  Other than it being weird, it’s kind of nice, she’s warm and snuggly at night when she’s sleeping on top of my legs lol

Thanks to Shannon at Life After I Dew for So What Wednesday!!

Project 365 - week 9

Linking up with Laura again at Between The Lines!  It's been a crazy busy week for us, and we've all been sick at some point this week.  CURSE YOU spring/winter colds.  And Nora has been teething again too (but still no teeth), so some nights have been fairly brutal lol.

Sunday - She finally fell asleep on the couch.  Arms wide open.  It was really cute - they stayed like that for almost 2 hours lol.

Monday - We received some new clothes from one of Paul's squadron mates for Nora.  So we dressed her up in them and put her on the couch for a mini photo shoot.  The sweater is SO cute. 

Tuesday - She was BEYOND excited to sit in her high chair tonight for some reason.  And her shirt says "I have the Best Aunt Ever"  That's for you Danielle!!

Wednesday - It was a sad day at RMC today.  One of the students went missing at the end of Reading Week and his body was found in Navy Bay on Tuesday evening.  Rest In Peace.

Wednesday - I also took a Nora picture for Wednesday because I didn't want to be sad all day.  We went shopping and I dressed her in her teddy bear snowsuit.  She doesn't really like it but I love it.

Thursday - She was so tired and didn't want to nap - I found her like this after 5 minutes of "playing" on the floor.  Sure, you weren't tired, were you??

Friday - RMC does a 24 bike-a-thon every year in support of Soldier On. They raised over $5000 this year I think.  Anyways,  Paul decided to do the 24 hours himself.  Usually they do it as a squadron and take shifts but a few CRAZIES do it themselves.  Otter Squadron's theme was Back to the '80's.  So Nora and I got dressed up too (as soon as I get some pics of my outfit, I'll post them too lol).  But here's Nora and her Daddy, all decked out.  We found Paul's outfit at the thrift store, and Nora... well that's all stuff we own for her.  I might be obsessed with BabyLegs lol.

Saturday - the last 5 minutes of the Bike-a-thon.  It was down to Paul and Dave, the old guy vs. the young guy.  Otter Squadron is all the UTPNCM's (so they were in the forces already and switched to the Officer trade), the regular RO's are 18-21, UT's are 27-45ish lol. They were pretty much tied the entire time so they decided to just giver at the end.  I thought Paul was going to die when he finished lol.  He looked exhausted.  And he slept from 8pm last night until 10am this morning.  Nora's crying didn't even wake him up lol.

And my final picture of the week - Paul biked 506.13 kilometres in 24 hours.  He beat Dave by .06km.  WAY TO GO SWEETIE!!!!

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