Holy Crap, I quit my job today!

Wow, today marks the first day of the end of my Maternity Leave (we get a full year off for mat leave in Canada) and I'm quietly terrified and excited!  I let my work know that I will not be returning and everyone was very supportive which helped make the decision to not return easier.

One small part of me is totally going to miss the social interaction that comes with working in an office.  I had an AMAZING group of women that I worked with and I worked for a fantastic company with incredible benefits.  The other part of me - the 95% part - is so glad that I get to be at home with my kids.  I get to be the one to drop them off and pick them up from school (both kindergarden and preschool for the girls this year) and I get to experience Mr. C's 12-24 month old stage.  I missed that stage with both girls because I was working and they were both at dayhomes and its going to be so neat to see how much more growing he does in the next year - the girls too!

I know I am going to have periods of "OMG, what have I DONE?!?  How could I have quit my job to stay home with screaming little banshees" but I'm hoping those days will be far outnumbered by the awesome days like I am having so far with my kids today!!!

On a different note - it was Mr. C's first birthday yesterday!  We took the kids to Heritage Park and I managed to get a rare picture of me with all the kids - and they were even ALL looking at the camera which is a major bonus!

Thanks for checking in with me and I hope everyone has a fantastic weekend.

I have embarked upon Insanity!!

I've been searching for a great workout to help get me back in shape and the best workout that I've found has got to be Insanity!  Its not for the faint of heart - and when they say its HARD they really really really mean it!  ;)

I started the program on Monday and go until October 18th - 60 days to seriously kick myself in to gear.  That being said I can't/won't go as hard as I possibly can since I still have to carry a little guy around quite a bit (I still can't believe my little Monkey turns ONE tomorrow!!!) and run around after a 3 and almost 5 year old and they need a functioning Mommy rather than a sore/exhausted/out of commission mommy.

Every two weeks they have you do a fit test and I'll do a quick update on how I'm doing with the program and if I'm still enjoying it.  I figure even if I hate it I will stick it out for the 60 days just to say that I've actually stuck with something lately and see what kind of results I can achieve.

I've got about 30 minutes until the girls go to bed and hopefully I can embark upon workout #3!  Then I have to wrap one of Mr. C's birthday presents for him to unwrap tomorrow morning before we go to Heritage Park and celebrate his birthday with a Train Ride!

Tidy it up Tuesday!

Wow!! Two posts in two days, oh my goodness I'm on a roll! ;)

I managed to get the kids cupboard cleaned out today and man do I ever love it when its easy to sort through all the cups, baby food, snackies and everything else!

I'm still trying to figure out uploading pictures from my iPhone so sorry if they turn out wonky!!!

Hopefully tonight I can get a few more blocks done on my Domestic Handbag quilt along with getting going on day #2 of the workout DVDs Insanity!

Happy Tuesday everyone.

Summer.....where did you go?!?!

Oh my goodness, its August TWENTIETH already!  Where oh where did the summer go?!?!  It seems like Miss S just finished preschool a few days ago and I was stressing out about what to do to keep the kids busy for two months.   School for both Miss S and Miss L starts in fifteen days and although I'm so excited for both of them to start school since I know they will have a ton of fun part of me is just dying that my little girls are growing up so fast.  Don't get me started on Baby C - my little man turns 1 this Thursday!!

Let me first back up and try to recount where our summer went - we spent 5 days camping at Gull Lake  a few hours from home which was a ton of fun and the kids loved it.

Then we entered the start of Birthday Season with Miss L turning Three (I still can't believe my little girl is three already!!)

After that we went to Mara Lake in beautiful British Columbia and spent 11 days camping in our beautiful new trailer (I haven't uploaded pictures from my camera and phone yet but they are coming!!).

Next up is my Little Mr. C's (I can't call him Baby C anymore - especially since hes walking already!) birthday this week and then we have one week of relative calm and then the long weekend and BAM its back to school.

On a positive sewing note I'm so happy to say that I've actually gotten a little bit of sewing done the past few days - which as been an amazing boost personally since its nice to get something done that is just for me that doesn't involve cleaning sometimes!  I've been working on my Domestic Handbag quilt for my Sister In Law and I am loving how its turning out so far.  I wish I could post pictures 'in progress' but I don't want to spoil the surprise for her.  We have set a drop dead finish date of the weekend before Halloween to finish each others blankets (shes making me an afghan and I can't WAIT to see it!!!) so I need to seriously get my butt in gear since this is the largest quilt that I have done to date.

So there you have it.  My summer life in a nutshell!  Thanks for checking in and hopefully I'll have some lovely sewing goodness to share with you in the next few days.

DIY Party Decorations

I can't believe my little girl turned THREE this past weekend!!  Miss L is the biggest girly girl I have ever seen which is funny since her bigger sister and I are so not into dresses or anything too fru fru so I'm not quite sure where she gets it from.

When I asked her what she wanted for her birthday she kept saying she wanted princesses so I decided to take that theme and run with it!

I saw This post last summer and totally forgot about it until I saw it again on Pinterest (my goodness how I love that site!!!) that shows how to make your own ruffled streamers.  When I saw it last summer I knew that I'd have to try it for one of the girls parties one day!

I am SO bummed that I didn't get better pictures of the streamers or other decorations - we had 31 people over for a 'small' birthday party and it wound up being crazy busy.  Needless to say I didn't get nearly as many pictures as I should of and I totally forgot to take pictures of my awesome decorations (which totally bummed me out!!!).  I can still show you how I made the streamers though.

I took two rolls of crepe paper and put the stitch length to the longest it could go and the tension to the tightest and with a little 'help' from Baby C I sewed the two rolls together overlapping them slightly.

Ahhhh the ruffled goodness!!!!!

For some reason my first try was way loser than the second and third rolls but they all still looked super cool.  

I'm planning on reusing these streamers and making a few more for Miss S's birthday in September - I'll be sure to take LOTS of pictures of that party.

I know its not quilting, but I feel fabulous for finally posting something about sewing for the first time in a very LONG time!  Thanks for sticking with me.....Have a fabulous Wednesday everyone!!