Santa Claus Parade!

We have been SUPER busy the last few days getting ready for the Mississauga Streetsville Santa Claus Parade!!  Ryan's new company (not sure if I mentioned it but Ryan started up his own insurance brokerage... couldn't be prouder! Message me for details if you need help with you insurance if you're local!) decided to create a float and walk in the parade!!  Oh boy was it work!!!  We decided on a gingerbread man theme!  So one Saturday a few weeks ago Ryan's entire office came to our house and we made a Gingerbread House float!!  Couldn't be happier with the result! It wasn't huge but it was perfect!!  We painted it a nice reddish brown and decorated it up with dollarstore decorations!  I don't have a photo of just the house but here is the float with my brother, sister-in-law and nephew!

The next task was costumes!!  As you saw in the photo above they turned out amazing!!! My sister-in-law made hers and my brothers! They were completely AWESOME!!!!  I had the task of making 4 pairs of brown fleece pants, 2 adult sweaters and Norah's little sweater as well as 4 hats.  SO I got my sew on and hammered them out in a week!  Then I had to decorate everything with large white rick rack!  In the end I couldn't be happier with the result!!!! Ryan got to dress up as the 'Baker' for the parade! 

Norah had an absolute blast!!! She waved and smiled the entire parade and was SO happy to be sitting in her wagon most of the way.

My nephew was 'Frosty the Snowman'.... Ohhh I just wanted to squeeze him the whole time!! He actually fell asleep for part of the parade... hilaroius!!!

Overall the parade was so much fun and we learned a lot!!! First off... 6,000 candy canes is NOT enough... oops!  Second off, it gets VERY hot no matter how cold it is outside when you are running around giving out candy canes dressed in fleece and too many layers!!

And to just finish off because I know everyone LOVES a good screaming child pose.... As much as Norah LOVED her gingerbread costume this time (remember the incident with the peacock costume here) she did NOT enjoy sitting on Santa's lap at my work Christmas Party the day before the parade....

Poor child.... Just for reference she isn't normally a screaming child... I just love those photos so much I have to share them!!! They make me laugh!

Stairway to Heaven

Yesterday when I got home I just about had a heart attack,  I was running up the stairs to grab something for Norah. I didn't have the lights on so I could barely see and on the back of one step there was a LARGE thing... It looked like a tarantula sized spider. I froze! For those of you who know me you know I HATE spiders and what I hate more than spiders are those house centipedes with there freaky freaky legs that go everywhere and they refuse to die and they secretly plot against you on how they are going to eat you!! Ok maybe that is an exaggeration but I HATE all large crawly things!! Totally just shivered describing the bugs that haunt me!!  Anyway, I freaked out and ran downstairs to grab a shoe and turn the light on. 

WELL I discovered it wasn't a bug after all.... (silly me) it was just the paint peeling off the back of our stairs... BOOO!! Not as bad as a bug but equally crappy!!  I think the old owners of our house quickly painted the back of the steps... they looked great but its a thin coat of paint... its streaky and starting to crack/peel in areas. 

Sorry for the quality of this photo I can't find my other photo! This is our stairs... will update with a better picture later.

There is nothing wrong with them other than the peeling paint... I know I need to repaint them but that got me thinking.  Remember in the old house when we wallpapered the stairs here

I loved the look but it took a LOT of work to wallpaper those stairs.  Mostly because they weren't even.  But the problem with wallpapering our current stairs would be because of the banister. The photo doesn't show it but part of the stair goes to the other side of the banister... making it VERY tricky to wallpaper.  Thats why I hadn't even considered it before. 

While browsing Pinterest I came across this which is from Martha Stewart. I LOVE this idea!!  I know I have to repaint the stairs... why not add a super cool stencil!

I'm thinking of a nice grey toned stencil of a flower or a vine.  Something neutral... I may even add the stencil into the front hall on the walls to tie the stairs in... we shall see.  First step is getting Ryan on board with a stencil we can both agree on.  I want something neutral that adds a little fun to the stairs... maybe even a butterfly or dragonfly....

Family Fun Artwork

We have been absent lately... that doesn't mean we haven't been busy working on MANY projects... just busy having fun as a family!!!  I have a bunch of updates I just need to find the time to write about them!!

Norah LOVES to paint!! When I pick her up from daycare in the evenings the first thing she says when she gets home (other than Daddy Daddy) is paint??  She LOVES it... however she also HATES getting dirty... my little princess!  When painting she must use a brush so she doesn't get paint on her hands and when she does get paint on her hands she freaks out until I wipe it off.  I decided we needed some art work in the upstairs hallway.  I had previously hung a few of Norah's paintings but it was sparse and I had a plan in mind for the hallway. SO stealing an idea from Pinterest I taped off the word LOVE onto a canvas and let Norah have fun painting!!  

I let her chose the colours. She was hilarious!  She kept wanting MORE paint.  When she painted with the brush she would make the noise 'swosh swosh' and when she painted with the sponge she would dab it and say 'blob paint blob paint' so funny!! 

After letting it dry I peeled off the tape and this was the pretty result!!

I opted to hang it at the top of the stairs, I need to add something else to the wall but for now this is what it looks like.  I definitely need to centre it a bit more... the light switch (which is NOT centered) throws it all off... Oh well you get the gist!

For my birthday my brothers and sister in laws took some gorgeous family photos for us!!  Lets just say we like to have fun!!!  Yes we hula hooped!!!  I knew I wanted to frame the photos and decided the upstairs hallway was the perfect spot for them.  Here are two of my favourite photos!

I have seen people make their own photo canvas on Pinterest and I decided I would try the same thing. Instead of one photo on a big canvas I wanted to do a collage type canvas.  We had this one canvas that I had previously painted... I put lace over the canvas and spray painted it. I loved the result just not the colour... too bright blue and green.. not what I was going for. So I decided it would be a good canvas to cover up!  I pulled out the Mod Podge and Norah helped to cover the canvas. She didn't like getting her hands sticky... this photo is captioned "Mama stick, wash ... PEEEEEESE!"

I used eight 4 by 6 photos that I loved from our photo shoot and Mod Podged them onto the canvas, let it dry and then did a few coats of Mod Podge overtop.  I am SO happy with the result!!!  They were hung on the one wall in the hallway upstairs along with some older Norah paintings that she did when she was super little with her fingers!

This is where they currently hang, I plan on adding Norah's future art work to this wall!! 

Then on the other wall I used some frames my brothers and sister in laws gave me for my birthday to hang the rest of the family photos!

This is a work in progress that will probably never end... I will add photos here when I get some more or switch up older photos.  I just love that my upstairs hall is fille with love and amazing memories!!