August picks of the month

Two very neat places we stumbled upon this month are definitely worth a mention and are my picks of the month if you are down in our neck of the woods (Queen St. E.).  The first pick opened recently quite near our home just east of Woodbine and really tugged at my inner child heart strings.  One night Brett came home from running an errand and mentioned he had somewhere to take me the next day as a treat and so the next afternoon with baby in her Bjorn we went for our walk and wandered up Queen, I had actually forgotten we had a destination in mind until Brett suddenly piped up.  There is was in all of it's glory, a tiny storefront dedicated to a childhood favourite - milk and cookies. MooMilkBar is what I would define as genius!  Now the only downfall I see for this fun after school gathering is that there are no seats so it is for sure a snack on the go or snack to bring home kinda place but regardless their cookies were great!

Number two on my list is a place we came across when mattress shopping - not a fun experience so it was nice to stop in for a tasty treat to make up for the confusion which ensued while laying on beds.  Tori's Bakeshop was just the right spot.  This eco-friendly, all-natural organic bakery is gorgeous and their treats are awesome too!  If you are looking for a relaxing yet inspiring place to work, read or meet a friend check this place out.  I like everything about this bakery from the chocolate cupcake I had (which was so good!) to the decor. My fav about this spot - the mason jars, you'll just have to check it out to see what I mean!

And then there was food - a dedication of sorts part two

As mentioned in my previous post (which you can read here) my summer has been quite busy thus far and we have just wrapped up a garden party in celebration of my daughter Kyla's non-traditional baby dedication. I had a lot of fun planning this one and decided to go with a loose sea theme as the name Kyla means beautiful water and her nickname Kai means sea. I wanted to focus on easy to grab food items and add a whimsical touch to my food selection since it was a party in celebration of our baby girl.

Some of my favorites from the party:
1. Easy and inexpensive tissue paper pom poms. Super easy to make!

2. My awesome cupcake stand find - thank you Port Perry Home Hardware for an item which didn't look much like a cupcake stand but with a little love and spray paint fit the bill quite nicely I think.

3. Popcorn station - such a fun and easy idea. I thought this would be the biggest hit with the kids but the adults were chomping away too. So fun!















4. Mason jar vases - have I ever mentioned that I own 200 mason jars? We used them at one of my husbands video installations and now that I have them on hand I am always trying to think of creative ways to make use out of these gems. I picked up the flowers from my favourite florist (Jong Young flower market) for under $10, added some ribbon and voila easy and cheap decor! Seriously, get yourself some mason jars they are good for so many things.


5. Meringues -
I was so pumped when a local bakery we pop by from time to time started making tiny meringues. This was one of my favourite desserts when I was a kid. They were very inexpensive and were made in coral as per my request. You will be seeing many a meringue at future parties planned by moi, I just love them. Thanks Bobbette & Belle!




 6.  The paper goods - the invitations, programs and thank you cards turned out great! I used the program 'Pages' on our Mac as I had a clear idea of what I wanted them to look like.  We have a great printing company we use who rounded the corners on the programs and printed for an awesome price!  I added an oversized popcicle stick to each program so they could double as fans for the hot summer day that it was.





7. Kai's outfit - I found the dress at the gap and loved its lacey/vintage feel. I made her headband and finished it off with a small gem from one of my grandmother's necklaces.

Her sweet bangle is from my Aunt Janette all the way from Scotland and her necklace was given to Kyla from her Dad and I in celebration of her special day. I found a wonderful shop on Etsy (Coastal Sea Glass) where simple pieces of sea glass are transformed into beautiful jewelry and so we had a custom piece created for Kai. It couldn't be more fitting for our little girl as the aquamarine colour is her birthstone not to mention it's beachy beginning which is well suited for a little girl whose name means water. My husband and I also love the symbolism in this simple piece of glass as it has been molded and changed to become something more unique and beautiful.

I was so excited when the necklace arrived in the mail and to my surprise the package included a similar necklace for me so Kai and I would have a matching set. How special! A big thank you to Laurie, be sure to visit her site, her creations are so beautiful!

There are so many more things I could say about this day as it was so perfect! Here are a few more photos in slideshow format (sorry mobile users) for your viewing pleasure also check out my Project Nursery page where there are lots more photos of the big day.

With 7 months until her first birthday I guess it won't be too long before another party is in the works - good thing I love party planning!

A Dedication of Sorts - part one

Well as always I have failed to keep pace with my blog entries but I do have a bit of an excuse and that is because it is summer. As you all know, summers are busy with vacationing, spending time with family, BBQ's and my favourite, garden parties.  Speaking of which we just had a very special party for our daughter Kyla.

Taking a bit of a non-traditional route we had Kyla dedicated in my mum's backyard surrounded by family and friends.  It was a very special day and we were so thrilled to be celebrating our love for Kai while showing our gratitude for this tiny life that we have been blessed with. When planning our ceremony we did a lot of research on the Internet for non-traditional baby ceremonies and we couldn't find too much but what we did find helped us out a great deal so I thought I'd add ours to the mix for those out there who might be searching as well.  Here is a copy of our full service.


My husband is a PhD student studying theological aesthetics - what is that you might ask, well it is better to ask him but in a quick sentence it is the relationship between beauty, art & God.  Even though he is a theological student we don't always fit into a certain box when it comes to our faith. So we decided rather then go the traditional route of baby baptism, christening or dedication (all part of the Christian faith) to
combine our beliefs and create a one-of the-kind
ceremony more personalized for Kyla.  We set out to celebrate love and new life!  


Although it was a daunting task to write out the ceremony ourselves it was a fabulous exercise for my husband and I to really think through our
hopes and dreams for Kai as well as our promises to her as her parents.

We centered the ceremony around the word Shalom which in Hebrew is a word for peace; as our friend/officiant Jeff quoted at the ceremony, “Shalom means universal flourishing, wholeness and delight... Shalom, in other words, is the way things ought to be.” With this in mind we focused on six values - wholeness, love, peace, justice, creativity and restoration.  Our hope is Kyla would come to realize and experience these values in her own life and live them out as she grows.

Including Kyla's Godparents was really important to us as she is blessed to have wonderful Godparents who love her very much.  Kai's Godfather, Bill is Hindu and chanted three prayers for Kyla during the ceremony.  They were beautiful both in meaning and as they were chanted.  Kyla's Godmother, Christine, read to her from the famous Dr. Seuss book "Oh the Places You'll Go".  It was the perfect combination of spiritual and whimsy which is exactly why we chose them for their special role in Kai's life.






With readings and a very special song for Kai written by my husband which you can read here  the ceremony was beautiful and perfect for our little girl, who was also very well behaved.  We could not have asked for a better day and are so grateful to those who were able to share in it with us.

My next post - which will come soon, I promise is devoted to the fun stuff - the party!  Stay tuned!

Oh so tiny...

For those of you who know me you might know I have a small obsession with miniature items.  One of my favourite place as a kid was the miniature village quite close to my house - what an awesome idea, a whole village made really small - brilliant.  Each year for Christmas my husband and I exchange ornaments and one year I found him a miniature Egg McMuffin and hash brown (a guilty pleasure of his is McDonald's breakfast). I was so pumped about this miniature dish and love pulling it out each year and putting it on the tree, probably even more then my hubby does.


Anyway, the main reason for me writing about miniatures is because I came across this amazing blog post about miniature food sculptures by artist Shay Aaron who also blends two things I love - miniature items and jewelry - Fabulous! 



I just had to share it - check it out!

Incredible Miniature Food Sculptures

PS:  Hubby, if you are reading this - super great gift idea for moi!

Living room decor - baby vs. mommy

I promised myself I wouldn't be 'that kind of mom'. I told my husband to restrain me if he noticed even a glimmer of me being pulled over to the dark side (or what I thought was the dark side). You know the mom - the one whose whole house has been taken over by primary colors and large plastic thingamabobs. Swings, bouncers, exersaucers... the list goes on. For practical reasons I did an exhaustive amount of research on space-saving baby items for our city apartment. We got a nice, neutral swing which folded up and called it a day.

Then Kyla arrived and turned our world upside down. She would sleep in the swing once she was already super sleepy if we were lucky but hated it otherwise. We attempted putting her in her crib for some play time but that would only last for a few minutes before she would fuss. I created a makeshift mobile, finally gave in and purchased a mobile (and returned it the next day) and then really went nuts and bought a bouncer. Now my living room had two baby items which should have been my husband's signal that I was on the edge of full-blown baby blowout in my living room. Just when I thought I was at the end of my rope with no place baby enjoyed other then my or my husbands arms (both wrap and carrier didn't cut it either) all hell broke lose and Kai decided she didn't like napping during the day anymore either. So now my baby was always awake, eventually super cranky and the only place I could calm her down and keep her content that wasn't our arms was her change table. So we would stand, taking shifts watching her on the change pad as she cooed and smiled happy as could be. We tried moving the change pad to the couch so we could sit - tears! Moving it into the crib proved hopeful but we still had to stand over her or she would fuss. My husband suggested stealing the Justin Bieber life size cut out from our local Shoppers Drug Mart. Sadly, in desperation I actually considered this.

No one really warned me about the intense need a mother has to find something which can entertain your baby for, at the very least, the length of time it takes to step in and out of the shower. Naively I always thought these baby products were for babies' development and fun (which they are as well) but I was very quickly learning how helpful these products could be if my child seemed to like one of them, even if only for a little bit.

Then the day came; the day when your role as a parent really gets tested.
The first time your child is sick.
It seriously was the worst day of my life. Screaming, crying, tears and whimpers coming from not only my baby but my husband and me as well. We took temperatures - none, Googled symptoms, called nurses we knew and contemplated the emerg. "Is this normal," we asked, "a growth spurt maybe?" My mom came to stay with us as we endured 2 days of complete discontentment and finally we headed to the walk in, stood in line with many other parents and crying babies and were told after all the three of us had endured that it was simply gas and there was very little we could do.

And with that I became the mom who would put anything in their house to sooth my sad little one. I went online and searched for soothing products which could help a tired mom and dad out. Reading review after review I found it; as my husband calls it - the Rolls Royce of all baby products - the Mamaroo. So with a screaming baby in our hand and my phone in another I began calling around starting with used Mamaroos found on Craigslist (this seemed to help rationalize an impulsive purchase of this space pod look-a-like), but of course I couldn't find one so I began calling stores for the best price. We all jumped in the car and drove a good distance rushing to get to a store that closed at 6:00, or so I thought. When we arrived at 5:30 they had just locked the doors and I almost had a complete breakdown. So there my husband and I stood with crying baby outside the locked doors cursing that we didn't look up the time it closed before making the trek out there. We looked at each other and without saying a word we knew what we had to do. So we both took a door and in complete release of all frustration on all our parts started banging and screaming - "please let us in, open the doors." Tears streaming down my face and babies in a sleep deprived, mental breakdown I hit that door with all my might. People stopped on the street to stare, one women asked if we were okay but I was not going to give up! AND THEY CAME - a shocked sales attendant cautiously opened the door to hear our fumbled plea to please let us in so we could buy the Mamaroo which will hopefully sooth our baby and allow us to all get some much needed sleep. I'd like to think the women saw our desperation and in sympathy let us in but most likely she saw two crazy parents willing to pay a stupid amount of money on a space like looking pod of sorts.

To end this long story of our three days of hell, cross-over to the dark side of baby product purchases and test on parenting sanity. I will close with two photographs. One taken the moment we returned home and set our new Mamaroo up and the next taken just a few minutes ago as I typed this post.

All I have to say is thank you to the makers of this incredible product it was worth every penny - we love you Mamaroo and thankfully I was able to find a nice neutral grey so although my house is slowly filling up with baby products I still have a little colour control in my back pocket!