Shopping In The U.S. of 'A

Oh my goodness we had an awesome day! Parker and I left the house at 7:30 and picked up Grammy and then we drove to Watertown, New York to do some serious shopping. Last week I sent a quick e-mail to my mom saying that I really wanted to go to Tar-Jay and her reply was "I'm game!" 

We arrived at 9:30 a.m. and we shopped at target until noon. Honestly, talk about my new favourite store. I have absolutely fallen. in love.!!! Target carries everything imaginable from clothing, to office supplies, home decor and groceries. Rumour has it that Target will be opening in Kingston, Ontario in April 2013 and all I can say is Rob, we might have a problem. This is coming from a gal who didn't really embrace colour for the past couple of years - i.e. all of our furniture is dark - but I've quickly learned that it's nice to have pops of colour and patterns throughout out your decor. It's kind of strange how it makes you feel when you see some lime green, bright blue and orange hues ~ almost makes you smile and say "Hello colour, I didn't know you existed!! '

We had an amazing shopping trip and I should have told the VERY nice man at "duty" (who let us pass without paying a cent) that we shopped until the little man dropped! We got fuel at 3:00 pm and Parker was fast asleep in his carseat by 3:01 p.m. I can't wait to organize and display all of our goodies from today's shopping spree (and a spree it really was because I honestly don't shop EVERY day but when I go on a spree, it does seem like there really is a use for everything, even though I didn't know I needed things lol). Here are a couple of cute pictures of Parker during our day in the U.S. of 'A. 

Parker "playing" the in arcade. 

We all need our caffine fix!

Train Table + 1 Year Old = Disaster

We bought the boys a train table (from kijiji = great price!!) for Christmas. We thought it was the perfect gift for Alex and one that Parker would "grown into".

As expected, Alex loves playing with the train table. 

We know Parker loves any toy that has wheels but what we didn't realize was that he would have more fun throwing the train tracks on the floor. Easy solution -  we got a bin to store the track pieces when they're not in use.

This past weekend, Parker showed us how much fun it was to play in the storage bin and as you probably guessed, he continued to throw the track pieces onto the ground while screaming (in a really high pitch) with glee.  

So we've decided that our train table needs to be revamped to be suitable for a one year which will also mean that Alex won't have to keep rebuilding the track. We are also hoping to score a couple more buildings this weekend so we will keep you updated! 

Desk Update - Meet Micke

What a whirlwind the last few days have been for this household! Rob has decided to get on board with  decorating and organizing our main living space and I think he's actually starting to enjoy it. You'll never guess what he doing right this minute... I will wait to reveal once he says I can!

This past weekend, Rob and Alex made a trip to the hardware store and picked up some supplies for our mini projects which include:

• hanging frames and photos behind the couch 
• hanging photos above the new desk 
• refinishing my beloved yellow garage sale chair
• putting up a rod and curtains in our bedroom (we've lived here for a year so we both agreed it was time)
• adding a backing to our entertainment system to hide the wires from all of the devices

This is a start to a list of projects that we hope to accomplish before Parker's birthday party. Depending on how projects progress and how well Rob and I work together on these (ha) there may be more mini projects in our future. 

Last week I posted a picture of my work station that I slapped some paint on (you can find all of the amazing details here). In the end, we decided that $100 for a new desk which would provide a larger work space and more drawer storage was definitely worth the trip to Ikea. 

So my desk went from this:

 To this:

Meet Micke - and I love him, or her? Not sure that it matters but so far I don't have any complaints. Hey, we actually put this desk together in about thirty minutes and I don't recall any harsh words being exchanged between Rob and I. 

I have yet to take a great photo of Micke because we are still deciding what type of artwork to put above the desk, hence the pieces of paper tapped on the wall. So, once this area is a little more put together I will take a proper photo. 

New Found Love ~ #IKEA

I.love.shopping. That's no surprise. However, recently I have fallen in love with Ikea! I will admit, in the past I wasn't always a fan but the colourful decor items the stores now carry have stolen my heart. And of course, Parker loved racing sideways down the aisles in the shopping carts and Alex had a blast in the ball pit. After a few hours of shopping and our bellies full of swedish meatballs we were ready to go home. Now today we will have many projects to complete:
(1) add artwork behind the sofa
(2) add some shelves above the desk
(3) put up the new shower curtains
(4) do something about our lack of privacy in our master bathroom

I'm sure there's more to add to this list but let's not get in over our heads - we do have an almost one year old who does't seem to care for napping!

Happy Sunday!

On the Road Again 

Pit Stop @ McDonald's

Love have DVD Players in the Car - Watching "Bolt"

Parker Playing @ Ikea

Ikea. We Came. We Saw. We Conquered. We're Going Home. 

Date Night

Our last date night was in August - I know ridiculous! My mom and dad offered to watch Parker for a few hours last Thursday night so we could get out and just relax. Ha ha yes, I said relax, but it's kind of hard to relax when a lot of the time I was thinking about Parker and what he was up to. He loves his grammy and poppa so I knew there would be no problems - in fact, I tried to say goodbye to him several times but he was too occupied playing house with his grandparents.

We travelled to the big city of Napanee (it probably took us about five minutes <insert smiley face>) and had dinner at the one and only restaurant in town, Shoeless Joes.

Of all things to order, I got chicken wings and fries ~ it was the blue cheese dipping sauce that I just couldn't resist! Can you see how excited I was??!! Rob's steak looked really good too. I should have asked for a bite!

Dinner took less than an hour and we thought we'd kind of seem REALLY lame if we went back to Parker so soon so naturally, we went shopping ~ to Walmart! Ha ha.

We picked up some essentials and two things for Parker - like I said he was on our minds the whole time!

Play Date!!

Some times, scratch that, as often enough, you just have to let the housework go and PLAY!! Parker and I spent some quality time playing in his room this afternoon. 

Ugly Dolls = Monsters!

Part of our shopping trip last weekend included getting some monster-like decorations for Parker's birthday party. We went to "It's Your Party" and boy, are we ever glad that we did! They have a number of different catalogs that you can order from and we found some Ugly Doll decorations that matched our monster theme.

I must say, I love a good deal but... we are splurging a little bit for this party (it is after all my baby's FIRST birthday party) and surprisingly, Rob is the one that just HAD TO HAVE the party hats. However, we did buy some of the basic supplies from The Dollar Store so that helps even out the budget. Here's what we ordered and the cost breakdown:

The Piece de Resistance!
$15.00 (however totally worth it to see Parker's reaction)
* We also ordered four additional helium balloons attached to a weight.
Total Cost: $25.00





 





Monster Tattoos for the Goody Bags
$2.55 for 12 (we ordered two sets)
Total Cost: $5.10












Monster Party Hats
$7.00 for 6 hats (we ordered 3 sets)
Total Cost: $21.00

  
Monster Napkins
$5.00 (we ordered 2 sets)
Total Cost: $10.00

Colourful plates from The Dollar Store
$1.00 for 12 - bought 6 sets
Total Cost: $6.00

Carter's Mommy's Little Monster onesie
Sale Price: $4.99

Cups and googly eyes from The Dollar Store
Cups: 24 cups for $3.00
Googly Eyes: $2.00
Total Cost: $5.00








So far we've spent about $77.00 on the decorations and a birthday shirt. Like I mentioned before, I could have made cute monster party hats for about $5.00 but Rob REALLY wanted (for some unknown reason to me) the Ugly Doll ones so I blame him for the extra $15.00 expense! LOL Maybe he doesn't remember that Parker will not keep a hat on him for longer than 2 seconds.... hmmm should be interesting!!