2013 Goose Pow Wow (in the field behind our house)

One night this week, while we were hanging out, setting things up in the new office, we heard honking. Being that our house backs onto open fields, we're pretty used to groups of geese chatting to each other - but the honking we heard this time was different. It was louder and much more intense.

We opened the back door and it was obvious by the sound (deafening, layered honking) that there were dozens and dozens of geese back there, so of course I grabbed the ol' camera and tried to capture what was going on.

Then the unimaginable happened. Dozens and dozens more geese started flying in and joining the Pow Wow. It was amazing. By the time all the meeting guests arrived, there must have been a few hundred geese back there and it sounded like they were ALL talking at the same time.

They stayed for about 15 minutes, chatting the whole time, and I snapped these pics when they started to leave (I wished out loud I had a better zoom lens!). What an amazing sight (and sound) to behold. 

Stickergate 2013

There is a decorative box in Emmy's room that had some stickers in it. Toy Story stickers.

Earlier this week she didn't want to sleep, but I asked her (ahem...told her?) that even if she didn't want to nap, she had to stay in her room and have some quiet time. I gave her some books and left. My guess is that she wasn't interested in the books I provided, because she obviously spent some time exploring her room and found the stickers.

I found a few random stickers scattered around her room earlier this week and chuckled, however she took it to a whole new level last night.

At 10pm I took a peek into her room to make sure she was sleeping and I found her awake. Singing in fact. As I got closer, I could see that she had dozens and dozens and dozens of stickers all over her hands and had made little stacks of them and was adding to them. It was terribly difficult to keep it together and not roll on the floor in laughter, but I calmly explained that it was time for sleep and we needed to put the stickers away. Then I got into her big girl bed and we had a snuggle until she fell asleep.

I guess that would explain why I had two stickers stuck to my shoulder this morning.

Here's the evidence I captured this morning of Stickergate:

I thought I had cleaned all of the stickers up, but when I made Emmy's bed I found this:

I think we'll keep her sticker-free:

The Office - ITW

After a full day of putting together the desk (seriously, I took a lunch break with my Dad, but other than that it was Glee (season 2) on the laptop, an Allen key and dozens and dozens of pieces of Vika Alex) here's where things stand:

We (ahem...I) have a LOT of office supplies!

Lots of tweaking to do (e.g. the drawer unit on the right hand side was missing a drawer bottom), but you get the basic idea. It fits PERFECTLY! The room is 118.5 inches wide and the total desk width ended up being 118. Nuts!

What's next? We are thinking about adding six shelves (three above each of our desks) in the same dark brown as the desk top.

Aiming to have things a little further along in here by end of the week!

The Office Transformation: A Desk for Two

Tomorrow we are headed to (ahem...my favourite place on Earth) Ikea.

Not just for hot dogs (how do they make them SOOOO delicious?), but for the pieces of our new Desk for Two that will transform the current repository for all things without a permanent home into a usable space!

(you know that episode of Friends where Chandler finds Monica's secret closet that looks like it's from an episode of Hoarders?...this is our version of that!)

End goal is to create a desk that closely, but not exactly, resembles something like this:

We want to be able to both sit at the desk on days we both find ourselves working at home, but also have ample space for storage both seen and unseen. I see a lot of Allen Key usage in my near future. Stay tuned for an update on this Desk for Two adventure!

Happy New Year from our home to yours!

I took a blogging break over the Holidays since there was SO much going on.

E.g > last minute Christmas pressie shopping, baking, making sure everything was in order for our Christmas morning feast.

Plus the little Lady was home with us quite a bit over the last two weeks, so we spent the majority of our time in "the yellow room" (aka > her playroom) building puzzles, stacking things, watching Toopy & Binoo, dressing up, playing store with her new cash register and pretend food and so on, and so on, and so on.

I did, however, find a few minutes over the last few days to finish up/make progress on some already started projects and wanted to share.

CHALKBOARD WALL:

TA DA - four coats of chalkboard paint (to ensure that over time I don't wipe away the paint) is all it took to transform this bare wall into a monthly calendar/message board/grocery list station! We love it...even if it's not 100% square. 

Love having our schedule up for reference - it's already coming in handy!

These amazing chalkboard markers were a Christmas present from my sister Kristi who is a teacher. She tells me that all the teachers use these in their classrooms > I can see why. They are semi-permanent (come off with a wet rag) so you can use them to draw calendar lines that you want to stay put when you erase your January engagements and replace them with February! Love them! Great gift!

 CONTINUING DECLUTTERING/ORGANIZING OF THE YELLOW ROOM

I think this will be one of those rooms that is ALWAYS in progress - since Emmy's taste and interest in toys seems to constantly change, but I've moved some of the adult items into other rooms and want to get some more storage bins for this monstrosity of squares to reduce on the amount of loose items. It's coming along. 

THE LITTLE LEMON'S ROOM

Every little girl's room needs some butterflies in it, yes? I love the 3D texture these Umbra butterflies add to her room.

Still on the search for some baskets to fit in those lower cubbies - she is LOVING the bench cushion and I am loving the curtains! So happy with how her room is shaping up!

We hung up my all-time favourite piece of art - the painting Max created for Emmy when she was still in my tummy. Love this beyond words. 

 PICTURE PERFECT

It's kinda crazy how hanging a few pictures can make the house feel SO much more completed - but it does!

Proud Mum - this is one of Emmy's daycare creations. Love it. 

Super dark photo, but those are her footprints in the stacked frames. 

This one is a piece of leftover wallpaper from a work project that I threw in an Ikea frame. Love the colours and pattern and also the fact that it was FREE!

Slowly but surely, things continue to come together and I am trying to remind myself that it doesn't all have to get done right now. Even if that's what I yearn for.

Our next big project is tackling the office > we urgently need to get a desk set up in there! Hoping to post about that tomorrow! Stay tuned!