Halloween

Well it didn't start out so great tonight.  Max had a busy day and by 5:30 he was totally pooped.  We soldiered on though and once we were out in the (freezing!) fresh air, and he saw how easy it was to get candy, his mood changed instantly.

We met up with Max's friend Luca and did a very quick tour of Luca's street - the boys had fun and were very brave walking up to stranger's houses together.  Luca kept saying "it's OK Max!"

 

We left the lights on at our house and put the candy on the porch - we were pleased to see that a good portion was gone by the time we got back.  No idea if that was just one person or 20 though!  

where to start...

Well, what can I say it's been way too long.  It's been a busy 8 months....(OMG! 8 MONTHS since I've blogged, seriously??!!)  We celebrated Max's birthday and then the house renovations began.  Our main floor entrance, living room, dining room and hall were completely gutted back to the barn board of this 102 year old house.  We started with replacing all of the knob and tube wiring, opened up most of the rooms, removed a strangely placed 1/2 bath, ripped up the splintering hardwood and dry walled over the pop corn ceiling.

Let the dust fly!  Wall to the basement, under main staircase was knocked down, drywall came off to get to the wiring and to open up rooms.

Back to the barn board.  Carmon pulled out old newspaper, blue jeans and mice nests from between the walls - good times.

You can see here where the 1/2 bath was on the main floor, not ideal as it was right next to the dining room and teeny tiny.

Carmon ripped up all of the hardwood, underneath was years and years of dirt and dust.  He also pulled up every single nail...back breaking work.

Our little helper, sanding the sub-floor.

Drywall up, rooms are defined, hallway is much brighter and open.

New stair railing, now our basement stairs are open to the main floor.  Painting the railing has yet to be done. 

We REALLY wanted to have a fireplace in the living room.  We had to rethink our furniture layout and made it work.

No going back now!  The hole has been cut thanks to our friends at Hearth and Home Fireplaces.

This is our end result - we absolutely love it.  The mantle is custom concrete and was made by 2 Stone here in Calgary. 

Putting everything back together has been fun, most of the furniture came with us from Toronto but we've also added a few HomeSense finds like the Ikat stool, our hall and dining room light fixtures as well as our huge linen shade from Restoration Hardware.  There is still so much to do, the list is endless actually and a tad daunting when we plan to do most of the work ourselves.  Carmon is such a handyman and an impressive contractor so we are always planning the next phase.  

Still to come for the main floor - new windows, doors, window treatments, baseboard and railing painting.  Don't even get me started on the rest of the place!!  Stay tuned!

...nearly 3!

Just a couple of days away until Max is officially 3 years old. He waited patiently all week for The Party and we had fun getting ready for the festivities. Max decided that he wanted a Rainbow Cake and fortunately, I had come across the 6 layer rainbow cake that has been appearing in blogs and also Martha Stewart. It looks daunting but actually it was a lot of fun to make.



The balloons were a hit - Carmon and I put them out when Max was in bed last night, when he came downstairs this morning and saw them he was so excited. "I LOVE my balloons!!" he squealed.


Take-out nuggets and fries for the kids...a good way to keep kids interested and the food contained!

Birthday weekend

Really? Another year older?! It was my 32nd on Monday. We celebrated by taking a mini vacation in Canmore and signed ourselves up for a Dog sledding trip while we were there. It took Max some time to 'warm up' to the idea. He was not thrilled at all as we stood in the cold for 1/2 an hour getting a bit of a tutorial on how to operate the sleds, commands for the dogs etc...I only half listened, trying to keep him entertained/warm and somewhat enthusiastic about getting in a cold sled and being pulled through the bush.

"This is NOT going to be fun", "I want to go home" oh and, "I want to go play in the sand!" were a few memorable quotes before we got going.

Once the lesson was over, we got bundled in our sled and he was much happier...no squeals of delight or anything like that, but when we finished he said he wanted to go again. We hit the pool in the afternoon, found a good spot for dinner and were all in bed by 7:30!

Halloween Fun

Halloween was so FUN this year!! Max had it all figured out, loved that he could ring stranger's doorbells and get...CANDY!

After each house, Max would say with excitement "...and now we get to go to another house!!"

Thanksgiving Weekend

We had an awesome weekend! Besides buying a house, and a second vehicle (all in one day) we were able to fit in a morning at Heritage Park on Sunday. It was really cool when we arrived, but we warmed up in Gunn's Dairy Barn with a pancake breakfast and then hopped on the steam train for a ride around the village. This is an excellent place to be with kids, especially if you have a train, boat and tractor lovin' little boy!

Impulse Buy?

So we bought a house yesterday! We have been on the hunt since our visit to Calgary in July and it had been pretty underwhelming so far. We were thisclose to cancelling our Saturday bookings with our agent, as we were feeling rather gloomy about the whole house hunting process. Good thing we didn't. This little lady came on the market earlier this week, it is located in an area called Bridgeland in the inner city's NE. It is a great area, lots of redevelopment going on, a few good spots to eat and there is a Starbucks! I know I sound like a total weirdo city person but seriously...would you turn down a Sunday morning pumpkin spice latte if it's a block and a half away?
We walked in and instantly had a good feeling about the place, the layout on the main floor is almost identical to our last house in Toronto, which made it very easy for us to visualize living there. It has a sweet little front porch, nice high ceilings, it is light filled and bright, it has squeaky original hardwood and cozy bedrooms. So we put in an offer immediately and learned a few hours later that somebody else had also put in an offer - we were now in a bidding war. WHAT??! I thought that only happened in Toronto! We improved our offer and waited at a park nearby while the deal went down. I guess they liked that we were able to move in asap and that helped us in the end...So it's ours on November 8! I feel inspired again! Can't wait to start planning some projects and settling in. This is really going to help us feel at home in our new city. So here it is!