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We had this plan that we were going to drop off the kids at my parents house and go shopping for a few hours to pick up some things we needed. I was desperate for new jeans. Chad needed a couple of long sleeve shirts. I had a list. We were prepared.
But then my Mom brain kicked in and I started to think about all the things I should pick up for the kids while we were out shopping. You know, because the kids need so many things that they don’t already have.
3 hours later Chad came away with several hundred dollars worth of goodies, Matteo and Mia had Christmas gifts, and yours truly had a big old pile of nothing. Nothing because we ran out of time and the one shop where I was sure I would find something, I found nothing and I didn’t want to waste any more time looking. I came away empty handed and quite disappointed.
I used to work in the fashion industry and I took home a wide range of free clothing and accessories each month. My closet was packed. I had so many things to chose from I actually managed to wear a new outfit combination every day for an entire year. But then life changed and my wardrobe changed, and while I still have quite a few of my favorite pieces, my closet is not what it used to be.
It goes without saying, when you are a busy Mom, you don’t have time to shop for yourself, or spend hours fawning over fashion. Some people are lucky enough to have those opportunities, but I’m not one of them. So, without all this free time to shop or put together new outfits, sometimes it’s something small; a piece of jewellery, a colourful scarf, or a unique watch, that can spark interest and excitement into your less than impressive wardrobe.
I was recently gifted this stunning woman’s watch from JORD Wood Watches. I have never seen a wooden watch before and as soon as I was introduced to this brand I was blown away. Their time pieces range from classic to trendy, modern to sophisticated. There is literally a watch to match any style.
While pursuing the vast selection, I chose the Frankie 35 – Zebrawood & Champagne, because for me, it is the perfect mix of casual elegance. I have started to collect gold jewellery but didn’t have a watch to compliment my pieces, and I didn’t want to opt for a solid gold watch because I didn’t think I would get that much wear out of it. The Frankie 35, however, was the answer to my problem. The Champagne face allows me to dress it up with some gold bangles, while the funky Zebrawood is casual enough to be worn with a T-shirt and jeans.
With my new watch in hand I was inspired to reach into my closet and put together an outfit with what I had. This simple task actually got me thinking about how to re-work some of the pieces I had in my closet to create new and exciting looks just by thinking about what I had that might compliment my jewellery instead of the other way around.
And so, while my shopping trip was a total bust, this stunning woman’s watch was a win. I now want to think of all the way’s this time piece will work with the clothes I have to inspire new outfits. If I can’t go out and buy something new I might as well have fun with what I have.
Hopefully one day soon I will finally get to buy that perfect pair of jeans, but in the mean time I’m just going to sit here and tell you all what time it is with my dreamy wooden watch.
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**This post was sponsored by Jord Wood Watches. All photos and opinions are my own.**
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Be prepared for an excessive amount of cuteness in this post!
Matteo is still at the age where he’s not really into picking out his own Halloween costume. To be honest, until last week, he didn’t really even understand the concept of Halloween. So when it came time to pick his costume this year, I thought, I could take him to the store and see what he chooses, or I could go all out and surprise him with a costume of his favorite cartoon character – Nature Cat.
Matteo has been watching Nature Cat since it first aired on PBS last year. We have every episode recorded. He is a BIG fan.
Nature Cat’s outfit it fairly simple so I thought, though my drafting skills are a bit rusty, I would sketch a pattern and sew up Matteo’s very own Nature Cat costume. It was a feat of trial and error and a realization of just how rusty my drafting skills are, but I managed to get it done and I’m so happy with the way it turned out!
Tally Ho! Matteo was pretty excited and just loved that he had a tail to play with.
The Saturday before Halloween it was our turn to host the annual Chili Eating Pumpkin Carving Extravaganza. Given how many little ones there are in our group now, we opted for a lunch time adventure. Only problem was, Saturday morning was a disaster for everyone involved. We managed to get together for a late lunch and a quick picture of the kids, but there was no pumpkin carving to be had.
As you can tell, not all of the kids were impressed with having their picture taken!
Little buddies!
With my Mom’s birthday on Halloween we all got together on Sunday to make her her favorite dinner (which by the way is Liver and Onions and no the rest of us did not partake in the delicacy). After dinner we got the kidlets together in their costumes for more pictures!
My niece Aliya, who is 2 1/2 months younger than Mia, was dressed up as Snow White. Is she not the cutest thing ever! Oh my gaa!
I originally wanted to get the Unicorn costume from Carter’s, for Mia, but it sold out very quickly. My Mom ended up picking up the Flamingo one and I’m so glad she did because it was beyond adorable! I took so many pictures of Mia (if you haven’t noticed). I want her to wear it every day!
It was actually quite amusing scrolling through social media Monday night to see just how many of my friends had dressed up their little ones as Flamingos too. So cute!
The outtakes from these two were ridiculous. I just love them so much!
Thank God the rain stopped just in time to trick or treat. We went out for about an hour which was perfect because Matteo got a good haul and Mia graciously put up with me carrying her around instead of being snuggled in her bed.
Chad stayed home and handed out candy like he usually does. He always enjoys that part.
Look at her little face! So over it haha!
I got a kick out of how many people gave Mia candy when we knocked on doors. I was carrying a bag for over flow purposes not because I wanted to collect candy for my 4 month old. None the less, it was much appreciated!
Matteo loved knocking on doors and saying “Trick or Treat!”. It was so cute. It was a great Halloween had by all!
It is a truth universally acknowledged that when a mother promises to write a blog post, children, work, and life will get in the way preventing her from doing so. I should know better by now and yet here I am. Two weeks late. But! None the less! PUMPKINS!
It is ingrained in my blood that I MUST go and buy pumpkins from a patch the first weekend in October. It just isn’t Fall if I don’t go and do this. Part of the reason is I like to have 50,000 pumpkins ready to decorate my house for Thanksgiving, and part of the reason is, there is no better way to kick off everybody’s favorite season.
This year we broke with tradition and visited Laity Pumpkin Patch instead of Hazelmere (though to be honest, we may check Hazelmere out next weekend). Having only been once in my life (when I was 5 years old with my Kindergarten class) I wasn’t quite sure what to expect. Needless to say, I was thrilled with everything we came across on our visit.
Beautiful displays decorated the farm. They were all so lovely I tired to take them home with me.
It’s hard to say who enjoys farm animals more, Matteo or myself. Just look at him all crouched down behind me talking to the bunnies. AH! so cute.
Papa Rossi reminiscing about old farm equipment.
The Fairy Tail Trail was super cute with lots of characters to see. Matteo enjoyed running through it all, checking everything out.
Naturally I loved the Little Mermaid section.
Because we went to the patch so early in the season, I only picked up a bunch of small decorative pumpkins, which were conveniently piled up at the from entrance of the farm. However, that didn’t stop us from letting Matteo wonder the fields in search of more pumpkins.
The corn maze was a little more tricky to navigate than I expected. We found out that my Mother has a fear of mazes as shes scared she’ll get lost and be unable to find her way out. So it makes total sense that she tried to take a different route from the rest of us so she could get a better angle on a picture and naturally wound up lost…
Eventually we found our way out.
An adorable little family photo
They had the most gorgeous wood paneled barn where they sold treats and coffee.
The weather was a little iffy all morning so we didn’t get to check out the farm in it’s entirety.
There were more activities for the kids but Matteo just wanted to wonder and the clouds just wanted to rain.
Laity Pumpkin Patch was great fun for the whole family. I was a little disappointed with the variety of pumpkins they had only because I am used to Hazelmere Pumpkin Patch which has such a wide variety of pumpkins and gourds. In comparing the two, I would say Laity has the upper hand on family fun and activities for kids, while Hazelmere has the upper hand on actual pumpkins and gourds. So REALLY it is necessary to visit BOTH pumpkin patches during the month of October (at least, that’s what I’m telling Chad).
The days are flying by and she is getting cuter by the minute. Half the time I just can’t even.
For the past 16 weeks I have been sleeping in Mia’s room. Since her room was originally the guest room it made sense to leave the bed in there and for me to “move in” so as to not disturb Chad with all the night time feeds that go along with a newborn baby (he is a very light sleeper and a tired Chad is a cranky Chad and I don’t want to deal with that). It’s been working out great, but after 16 weeks I decided it my be time to finally move back into my bed.
It’s been 5 days, and to be honest, it feels really weird to be back in my own bed. I mean, my bed is ridiculously comfortable, so I’m glad to be back for that reason. Oh and Chad, yea, he’s nice too. But now it just leaves me missing Mia. We’ve been sleeping in the same space together for over a year now so it feels weird to all of a sudden be apart.
I never got to have this kind of bonding time when Matteo was first born, so I feel little extra clingy to Mia. She’s my little mini me and I just want to snuggle her all night long.
Sleep is very important in our house hold, as I’m sure it is in many. When Matteo was a baby sleep was very important because the more sleep he got the more time he spent on CPAP. Once he came home from the hospital it took me a while to establish a bed time routine with him because I just had no idea what to do, but once we figured it all out, putting Matteo to bed became effortless because he knew what to expect.
Then along came Mia and I realized just how much I had also become so dependent on routine. I knew I had to wait to establish a bed time routine with her, because no 1 week old is going to listen to their Mother about what time is bed time, but because Matteo already had a bed time routine in place, Mia just sort of fell into one on her own based on what we were doing with Matteo. By 8 weeks she was bathed, changed, fed and in bed by 7pm and her night time sleep started to improve from there.
I am sort of obsessed with establishing good habits and I’m paranoid about establishing bad ones when it comes to eating, and sleeping, and generally all things baby. Sure there are times when you have to let things slide, or you just give up because the toddler has worn you down, but I always like to try and get back on track. This is why I was anal about getting Mia’s bedtime routine established from an early age.We’re a little more fluid with nap time. She sort of set a pattern for naps pretty early on and I’ve just followed it from there.
I feel like you can have flexibility in a routine as long as most of the steps are the same most of the time. We have so many routines that we do through out the day that sometimes I just want to throw it all out the window and go with the flow, but then the busy days come where our routine does go out the window and all I want is to get it back again! Sometimes it’s nice to know what to expect next.
I’m tired tonight, though that shouldn’t really come as a shock.
I try to do a lot of things every day because I am crazy and can’t keep still. Like this morning when I decided to top up all my spice bottles. Was that necessary? Nope. But I’m crazy and it gave me great satisfaction.
I also went 0 for 2 this morning when I made Chad his lunch (I used to make it every day because I am a good Italian housewife, but then we had kids and he took it upon himself to make it because I was busy dealing with the kids and I much appreciated that he did that) only to find out he was having a lunch thing today and didn’t need to bring anything. Then I popped his English muffin in the toaster and slathered it with peanut butter only to find out he doesn’t eat English muffins that have been peanut buttered by someone else. I’m sorry, what? We’ve been married for 8 years and I’m only finding this out now? I swear I’ve put peanut butter on his English muffins before…
It’s very interesting to me what you discover about your significant other only after kids are in the picture, such as Chad’s need to mentally prepare for things. And I don’t mean big things, I mean every thing. For example, my Mom is hosting a little party on Sunday for Mia (a pseudo baby shower if you will) and Matteo will be staying home with Chad. I had to make sure that Chad knew about this well in advance so he could mentally prepare for the fact that he would have to stay home with Matteo solo. If I were to have just written it on the calendar and not made a point of explaining what it meant, Sunday would have come and he would have freaked out. And it’s not like this is a new thing. Chad says this is how he has always been, but I guess there was never really anything in our lives prior to the kids that would come up that needed so much mental preparation, therefore, I never noticed it before.
It is adorable, though, to see how much more relaxed Chad is with Mia. If she is fussing he does not hesitate to go and pick her up and comfort her. He always viewed Matteo as so medically fragile when he was a baby so there was always this cloud of caution surrounding their interactions. Now of course it’s a different story and Chad helps him break into the cupboards to find all the good snacks.
Speaking of Mia fussing, the 5pm witching hour has been giving me headaches. Once 5pm rolls around everything we do is timed. The only way to get everything accomplished by 8pm so I can relax (and by relax I mean check my phone and then go to bed) is to follow a fairly strict schedule of events. This means when baby whines because she wants all the attention I have to ignore her to stay on schedule. Now, that makes me sound neglectful, but it’s more like “here, sit in your chair and I’ll chat with you while I make an overly complicated dinner, but I’m sorry love I can’t hold you and bounce you around the room till the end of time”. Sometimes when Chad is home he will whisk her away and all is good, but the last few nights he’s been going to the gym + I’ve been trying to get dinner on the table a little earlier to give us some wiggle room and it has meant that Miss Mia and her lack of napping the last few days has made 5pm my nemesis.
And then after all of this you realize it is way past your bedtime and you are still up trolling the internets and talking to your boss about photos for his website…