More like May showers, considering how drizzly and gross it was out today. But despite the terrible weather, I had a great day!
My amazing, gorgeous friend, Monica is getting married in June and I get to be one of her bridesmaids! In addition to taking a super fun trip to Vegas for her Bachelorette party in a month, I also got to help throw her Bridal Shower which was today. I’m pretty happy with how everything turned out. We basically stole everything from Pinterest, but that’s ok because it’s so damn pretty!
Considering it was pouring rain outside and traffic was insane because of the Goodlife run, I think we managed to pull it off and I think everyone had a good time hiding from the weather.
Monica’s sister, Dana made a whole bunch of delicious food, Gillian, Michelle and I pieced together the decor, drinks and treats and our extraordinarily talented friend, Sara made the Drake-themed “Hot Lime Bling” Cupcakes.
All around, it was a fun day to celebrate two people who are pretty awesome.
Ugly: SO MUCH RAIN. Grossy gross weather.
Awesome: SO MANY CUPCAKES. One lady said they were the best cupcakes she’s ever had.
Bridal Shower Decor
Sweet table!
Hot “Lime” Bling Drake Cupcakes
Lemon Bling Cupcakes
Desserts!
Delicious eats
Deviled Eggs – My favourite
I love these gold Balloons from Balloons on Bloor
This was the naughty punch
Beyoncés Lemonade!
Monica and her My My
Happy Bride to Be
Candy Treats!
The Bride and bridesmaids
The Mother of the Bride and her bebe
Family ladies
Happy guests
Pretty ladies
More happy people with candy
Monica and her soon to be Mother in Law
So much candy
These two won the celebrity couple game in 26 seconds.
These two came in second place!
Good times
More good times
Several good times
Chris appears with Flowers!
Cuties
Looks like love to me.
Jungle Bride
Monica and My My
My My is wearing a photo of Monica around her neck.
Hey guys, guess what? This is my 100th Blog Post. No biggie. Just a life goal and landmark but you know, whatevs!!! (That’s what the title was about…not drinking 100 beer shots in 100 minutes…)
Being that this is my 100th Blog Post celebration day, I get to do whatever I want. Which means posting MORE CHRISTMAS PICTURES! Even though no one wants to see them anymore!
I promise, these are the last ones. It seems that everyone is now over it (Jamie wants to take down the tree tonight!) But I need to hang on for one more week. One more sparkly, happy, festive week and then it’s back to normal home decor colours and scents that are not “peppermint” or “gingerbread”. In all honesty, it won’t be so bad – I got lots of new non-Christmas Home decorations with my gift cards, so I get to play after the Christmas stuff comes down!
The first bunch of photos is from my annual “ladies only-ish” Christmas party where some lady troopers braved their way through the snow storm to come over and eat massive amounts of food, watch movies and exchange gifts. I look forward to this party every single year and this year it snuck it’s way in right before I got sick – very lucky.
The second bunch is from my Christmas in Kingston with my family! My parents got a new kitty named Inky, who is the best. She’s very cuddly and added even more excitement to the holiday. Even though I was a bit wobbly, I had a great time and it was nice to be home where my mommy could take care of me 🙂 So spoiled.
We had a fantastic Christmas dinner with my Grandparents and Uncle, his lady friend, Nancy and our family friend (and my old doctor), Roz! We also celebrated my Mom’s birthday and I spent New Year’s Eve with my parents. All in all, a TON of awesome family time which is a rare treat.
UGLY: Christmas is over, and I’m the only one hanging on to the holly for dear life. Also, I have to get up early tomorrow!
AWESOME: It’s been a really long time since I’ve spent so much time with the folks. It felt like University when you went home for a month! Also, new Inky and old Penny – I love visiting Kitties without having to actually take care of them 🙂
Kate presents the Hard Eggnog in a bottle
Celeste is excited for the eggnog shots
There they are!
Jasmine watched Home Alone with the food
Eggnog shots! Photos by Monica!
cheeeeaaws!
YUM?
Uuuuuhhh
No, not yum.
Lovely Oranges
What, were you expecting fois gras?
Gift Exchange!
Jazzy’s excited for her prezzy!
Popcorn maker for Celeste!
The only evidence of Monicas attendance!
Booze for Sara!
Jasmine receives the traditional Ardenes gift pack
complete with furry mittens…
and a furry hat.
Kate unwraps a delightful cat-themed bag!
Cat towel!
Cat-lendar!
In the end, the Cats kit was legally stolen by Jazzy, so Kate ended up with the awesome Holiday Survival Kit!
This is exactly what the Holidays require!
Bye Party Girls!
Christmas Morning in Kingston!
Stockings on the “fire”!
My new Garden Friend!
Uncle Kenny looks dashing.
My special devilled eggs. As usual.
Nutcracker collection.
Pretty table settings!
Centrepiece that snows and plays music!
Mr. and Mrs. Snowpersons.
Festive Penguin butter knife.
The whole gang for Christmas dinner!
Le turkey.
Grandma mashes something!
Dad carves the bird.
I love this lady.
I love this lady too.
My mom makes the BEST gravy.
My tastebuds actually can not wait another year for this.
Christmas Cracker King and Queen.
Roz and My grandma and My grandma’s painting and book!
too cute.
Me and Uncle Kenny.
Dad’s new musical Christmas Tie.
Me and my daddy.
INKY!
And here’s a special Christmas gift from me to you on this grand occasion!
It’s that time of year again! The time of year I walk aimlessly around the city looking at all the twinkly lights and anticipating decorating my own little blank canvas of a home. Last year, I purchased a bunch of Holiday decor because it was our first Christmas in this apartment and I wanted to take advantage of the little bit of extra space we have now. This year, I tried to re-use as much as possible and the only new things I bought were the plants for the porch and the new candle holder from Kitchen Stuff Plus (it was on sale…).
Jamie and I followed through with our annual tradition of decorating the tree while watching Sunday Night Football and I tried to make Christmas Sugar Cookies! The cookies were a success in general, but I absolutely failed on the icing front. I accidentally made the icing too thick so it was giving me a super hard time due to my tendency toward culinary ineptitude. I finally got my icing contraption to work and spent 15 minutes icing the trees. By the time that was done, I was losing patience on the snowflakes and by the time we got to the gingerbread men, I could barely motivate myself to make more than a face blob on each one. Regardless of their ugliness, they were still delicious so I count it as a flavour win, presentation fail.
UGLY: The horror-movie gingerbread monsters.
AWESOME: It’s Christmas!!! (obviously). Being in this house with twinkly lights and festive candles makes me excited about walking through my door every day. I’m pretty sure I turn on my tree lights with the same enthusiasm one would exude when meeting their puppy at the door upon returning home.
Decorating the tree while wathcing football
Christmas Cookie Decorating – first 15 minutes
next ten minutes…
ten minutes after that…
trying to finish in 5 minutes or less…
30 seconds tops.
Christmas Cheeeer!
The hutch gets the most decor of the whole house.
That candle holder was on sale at Kitchen Stuff Plus…
festive pillows!
Mr. and Mrs. Salty Claus
Pretty tree skirt from Picton
Gold star
My mom made this (I think)
legless Santa
Bowl of cheer.
Christmas in the bathroom.
Misteltoe for kissing!
I put bows everywhuuur
This is Jamie’s least favourite Christmas item.
Hohoho bird.
Candy Cane Canine
It’s a secret treasure Christmas House!
The Treasure!
Our most recent ornament – a gift from Ashley all the way from Tanzania!
Last Weekend, Jamie and I celebrated our 8th Anniversary! It’s hard to believe it’s been so long. When people ask me how old we were when we met, I think about it in my head and then immediately discredit my memory, because clearly it’s not possible that we were THAT young when we met. But it’s true, it just surprises me every time. We met while we were both going to school for Film Production at York University in Toronto. Even though we had known OF each other since the first year of the program, we only really started talking in 3rd year. Which means that I was 19. This baffles me because I remember our relationship starting while we were mature, responsible adults, but that’s impossible if I was 19.
Jamie has been extremely busy lately so we thought the perfect getaway would be one with as little stress as possible. So, we made a simple plan which we could execute fairly close to home to reduce travel time. We found the perfect place in Niagara on the Lake called The Pillar and Post. It’s a very picturesque hotel and spa. It’s got a fantastic restaurant inside the hotel and a dreamy spa underground – it feels like you’re in a very fashionable cave.
When we arrived, the entire hotel was covered in Christmas decorations, all the fireplaces were lit, and it immediately stole my heart. The space is quaint and rustic but also kind of grand in a way. Our room was lovely and we had our own fireplace and every night, we found a new rose on our pillows.
On Saturday, we had a Charles Dickensian breakfast (I can’t explain this – it’s just how I felt about our breakfast), and I went to get a massage in the spa. The spa is all natural browns and beiges and dim lightening and tiny Christmas trees. It was heaven. I’ve also never drank so much free peppermint tea in my life. Jamie met me after my massage so we could go for a dip in the Hot Springs – it was this outdoor hot tub that’s made to look like a natural waterfall in a tropical paradise. It was probably my favourite part of the weekend. It was very private and serene and it was just so relaxing.
That afternoon, we took a trip to Megalomaniac Winery, did some tastings and then went across the street to our old favourites, Tawse Winery. Back on our 5th anniversary, we visited Tawse and I ended up loving the Tawse Riesling so much, we bought a case. This time, we did not get so carried away, but still left with some great wine. We went to dinner at The Cannery restaurant in the hotel that night – It wasn’t the 5 star food I was hoping for, but the atmosphere and service was great and I loved dressing up for a quick trip down the stairs.
Our last day there, we had another great breakfast, did a late check out, threw our bags in the car and went back in to spend another few hours lazing about the Hot Springs and the various pools and indoor hot tubs. This was nice because most people had checked out and left so we practically had the place to ourselves. On the way home, we drove through the largest full Rainbow I’ve ever seen.
UGLY: The Yorkshire pudding. This was my only complaint of the entire weekend. You can’t get a lady excited about Yorkshire pudding and then deliver a sub-par, gravy-skint hockey puck. Everything else was delicious – it will always be a mystery to me why the Yorkshire pudding was so bad.
AWESOME: Christmas festiveness, alone time with Jamie, relaxing, reading books, seeing a rainbow that obviously represents the power of our love.
Yesterday was Thanksgiving dinner with the fam and it was such a gorgeous day out. I don’t remember the last time we had a Thanksgiving dinner where we spent half the day on the porch.
It was the perfect combination of lazy do nothingness, book reading, dinner making and dinner eating. My grandma brought over a book of old family photos and after dinner, we perused through the old photos. I had never seen some of them – of my Great Grandmother, Great Grandfather, lots of really classy looking people who came before my time. I’m going to do a whole other post on how cool my family is, so for now, enjoy the following pictures of Thanksgiving Day and half-eaten festive treats.
Happy Thanksgiving Everybody!!
UGLY: The current diameter of my stomach. AWESOME: Turkey soup, turkey sandwiches and…The Moist Maker.
Hanging on the porch! Like it’s summer!
Taking a break from cooking…
The pretty fall view
2pm wine for the cooks.
Grandpa Noel, Grandma and Nancy enjoying the apps.
Fall stuff all over my house! Fall stuff in the bathroom! Fall stuff on the porch! I want to roll around in ALL THE FALL STUFF.
So, I decorated my house for fall this week. I’ve been looking forward to it forever. However, I did NOT decorate for Halloween yet, guys. Even I have boundaries. Let the harvest have it’s moment. Then we’ll kick it into Halloween mode when it gets chillier.
Speaking of Halloween, I’m GOING TO VEGAS ON HALLOWEEN. With all the crazies! I’m so happy to be with my people! I’ll be sure to document the crap out of it, because there will be much to see, my friends. Maybe I’ll see a bunch of celebrities but I won’t even know because they’ll be in costumes. Speaking of which, costume wise, I think it’s illegal in Nevada to wear a costume that does not begin with word, “sexy”, so I’ve been trying to think of hilarious “sexy” costumes… Sexy Lobster. Sexy pumpkin. Sexy Vacuum. These things make me laugh. I think I’ll just go as the Long Island Medium.
So, on top of decorating my house this weekend, Jamie and I also dug up all our herbs and planted them in a big giant wooden bucket to be hauled inside by 7 large men for the winter time (It’s very heavy…). We also went over to Jamie’s family’s house for dinner only to find that Jamie’s mom had broken her OTHER arm and was at the ER with Jamie’s dad. That’s two arms in 1 year. Worst luck of all time. So we tried not to let her delicious meal and lovely decor go to waste and had a lovely, but bittersweet dinner. Get better soon, Nancy!
UGLY: All the arm breaking!
AWESOME: fuzzy sweaters, pumpkins, apple cider, nutmeg. red leaves, the smell of fireplace, pretty sunsets, re-using all my dollar store decorations because I’m thrifty.
Making french toast
Washing the millions of raspberries we picked from our garden!
French toast and raspberries…and hot peppers?
NOM NOM
At Bill’s Garden Centre
Teensy pumpkins
Fall…wheat?
bigger pumpkins!
a lonely cob of corn….?
barrel O’ teensy pumpkins
Nancy’s lovely dinner decor!
Katie setting the mood with candles
Yum yummy salad
Garrett heads the table
Leslie drinking WINE! (and Sprite…)
Jamie helping himself
Quinoa and ground beef stuffed peppers, and BBQ salmon!
Leave it to me to ignore my blog for 6 months only to begin again with a fall-time post. It is my curse and my saviour. When it is fall time, I want to write about it and take pictures. It’s in my blood.
But since I’ve been on a blogging diet of wilted spinach and lemon juice, it would be irresponsible of me to jump back into things with a T-Bone steak and a side of mashed potatoes. So, I’ll start off slow with this dry toast and chicken broth of a post: My jaunt around town on a brisk fall day (yes, I realize fall does not begin until September 22, but in my heart, it begins the first day I need a scarf). Also, I’m now very hungry.
It began at Rebel House, with a delicious brunch with my autumn muse and fellow fall worshiper, Kari and continued to a feminine paradise, Putti in Summerhill (so many sparky things). I stopped by The Harvest Wagon for a couple of artichokes which I plan on consuming later and ended with the purchase of some mums for the front porch and a lovely autumn bouquet for my living room.
Usually, I’d be cuddled on the couch watching football right about now, but Jamie is super busy lately and it’s just not the same without him. So I blog and eat artichokes and read books while it gets gusty outside. Which is a perfect Sunday in my opinion.
UGLY:
The number of boxes I must remove from the closet in order to reach the one full of fall decorating supplies which I will need for next weekend…
AWESOME:
It’s time for fall decorating! I can’t wait! I’m reusing all my Dollar Store purchases from last year, so at least I’m being frugal 🙂
Also artichokes…which makes me think a possible artichoke instructional blog is required…PLOT.
Brunch at Rebel House – The Tavern Breakfast
Kari and her slightly healthier Tavern breakfast
At Putti – land of the sparkly things
Sir Monkey.
At the Havest Wagon – look at those bushels!
Fall flowers are the best flowers…
My autumn bouquet! Hopefully they will last until next week’s decorating spree.
Sorry it’s taken me so long to update! Now that it’s been so long since I wrote anything, I feel like I have so much insignificant/very important information to share! In an effort not overwhelm myself and my memory, below is an account of some things that have occupied my brain since my last post:
– New Year’s Eve happened! Jamie and I were in Kingston and we had a lovely dinner with Brodie and Ashley followed by dancing (specifically dance battling).
– My Mom’s Birthday! Happy Birthday mom!
– I took down all our Christmas decorations and have been having fun thinking about normal house decorating. Wish I could visit Houston – a blogger lady who I’ve been following for years just opened a new store called Biscuit full of awesome junk: www.peppermintbliss.com
I’ve been getting inspired by all her crazy colour combos.
– I cut my hair real short and bleached it all! I’ve been thinking about making a change for a while (I’ve had basically the same hair for the past several years) so this weekend I took the plunge! It’s still a teensy bit yellow (we couldn’t do the toner because my scalp was unhappy with me), so I’m going back next week to make it even whiter! Betty White will be so jealz.
– Dance class! After the break, my super friend, Kate, told me about a dance studio near both of our houses. We tried a ballet class together which didn’t work out so great (the teacher was…unstable), but since then I’ve gone to a contemporary class and a Lyrical class which I love! I’m jumping in with both feet and joining the performance class so I’ll have a recital in April. Personal goal of the year: Try to take it seriously and not make fun of it. It’s really hard, though. There’s lots of “emotion”…
– I went on an amazing Value Village shopping spree. Among other things, I bought a Cristian Dior skirt for $6 and a sweater that has a bedazzled satellite on it…probably the best thing I’ve ever purchased.
Well, I guess that’s it till next time! I’ll try to post more often and with less weirdness…
UGLY:
My mom bought me an electric toothbrush for Christmas which is awesome, but it does not match the stylings of my beautiful peach and blue bathroom.
AWESOME: The DIY Electric Toothbrush cover that I made out of a can of cashews…That’s right, I’m crafty!!! So proud of myself…
Hanging out with Jamie’s family for the Holidays!
New coffee maker! woo!
My Holiday Hapiness gives me the strength of a thousand bulls.
Brodie and Ashley at our New Year’s Dinner!
Yummy food at The Grizzly Grill.
Mushroom Crustini things…
Portabello mushroom in Tomato Sauce
Happy New Year!
Spinach Salad
Appetizer of some sort…
Steak for all!
Caramel Cheesecake delicious.
Brunch on New Years Day!
Me and Uncle Kenny!
Breakfast of the Holidays.
Yes berries.
Grandma and Grandpa Noel having a staring contest.
What a handsome couple!
Mimosa time!
Happy Birthday Mom!
Three Generations of cool ladies.
Grandma, Mom and Me 🙂
Clearly, I was bored with my look.
One day when I was sick, I did this as entertainment.
It reminded me of the nineties.
Before my hair chop!
After the hair chop and bleach!
After a little personal styling…
My lovely bathroom shelf.
Is it weird to post pictures of your toilet on the internet?
My new toothbrush!
Not super ugly, but not very visually appealing.
Starting to craft my toothbrush holder!
I love excuses to use my glue gun!
Recycled cashew can!
So pretty now!
Okay, maybe it’s not a revolution, but it’s an improvement!
Oh hi, scary bathroom twin #1.
Scary bathroom twin #2 is staring at you…
Our new fancy teapot!
Half moldy flowers and new pieces for the bar tray!
Why, hello $6 No Frills flower arrangement!
New martini shaker and decanter for the bar tray!
New home for the Anchor box we bought in Spain. Yay decorating!
So, I arrived in Toronto to spend some excellent quality time with Jamie’s family and had a great few days. We went to the gym (once…), ate leftovers and terrible treats and most importantly, spent time laughing and being silly together. Jamie and I were planning on driving back to Kingston on Saturday to continue Christmasing, after Jamie’s uncle Phil had left. Come Saturday, my poor Mom and Dad called to say they were both very sick with a gross flu that EVERYONE IN THE UNIVERSE HAS. Jamie was also sick with the cursed disease, so we hunkered down to spend some intense lazy, restful flu-cure time inside. I made it my mission to cure him of his ailments (and I was pretty happy to be doing nothing I have to say) and we had a great day of Upstairs, Downstairs (the new one), movies, ham and eggs, leftover turkey, and chocolate chip pancakes and bacon for dinner. It was actually the best. Unfortunately, I woke up today with the exact same symptoms everyone else had before they were launched into flu time city, so although I feel OK now, I worry it’s only a matter of time before the thing takes me down. So this pause in Holiday momentum has caused my brain to think that Christmasing is over, when in fact, it will start again once we get to Kingston on Monday. So I’m considering this weird limbo my Christmas hiatus.
During this hiatus of nesting and snuggling in blankets and tea, I also spent some time thinking about the current state of my apartment decor and how pretty it is now with all the Christmas decorations. Come January, I’ll have to put all the Christmas away and go back to real life, which makes me sad and in the market for ways to spruce. I started putting together a design board for my Living room, beginning with the elements I already have and know I won’t be losing any time soon: Brown couch (although less fancy than the one on my board), brown and beige walls, exact rug, exact bookshelves, brown dresser thing and ottoman. After I stuck in the basics, I started adding little accents that I know I either already have or can get for cheap. All of a sudden, I had this cool little design board which I’ve shared with you today, because for unknown reasons, I took absolutely no pictures in the last 4 days. I can’t believe I didn’t even document the chocolate chip pancake dinner. I am ashamed.
Ugly:
Forgetting to take bloggy photos! Throat burn, sniffle nose.
Awesome:
The recent days of extreme laziness have been amazing, despite my getting ill.
Even if I don’t end up realizing my little design board dreams, I had so much fun making it, I’m going to do the same thing for my other rooms!
Going to Kingston tomorrow for continued family time and New Year’s Eve shenanigans (hopefully neither of us will be too ill for shenanigans)!
The title would imply that this blog is about kissing Eggnog in British speak. It is not. I lied.
This week has been pretty crazy work-wise, so I was very excited to let my hair down and host the annual Ladies Christmas Party this weekend. This party has been been an annual occurrence for the last 6 years at least, and it’s always the most festive, fun time with all the girls. Over the years, this party has featured Gingerbread Playboy Mansions complete with “The Girls Next Door” cast printed out and stuck on the plastic lawn, Christmas Tacos, viewings of straight-to-video Holiday Movies starring the Olsen Twins, gifted fart machines and infamous photos of all the attendees pretending to sleep or pass festive gas. Needless to say, it’s always my favourite Christmas event.
This year’s potluck festivities included delicious contributions of KFC, 4 layer dip, yummy strawberry salad, a cheese plate and puff pastries as far as the eye can see! And for the finale, Sara brought homemade cheesecake pops which were decorated all festive-like. We watched Love Actually and spoke in British accents and then watched Little Women and laughed at Claire Danes (sorry Kari!). There was an awesome gift exchange where we all stole and received gifts (which I did a terrible job of documenting…) and all left with fun presents!
This week is my last at work before the Holidays, and I’m hoping it will be less frantic and provide a nice, gradual transition into the break (It won’t, but a girl can dream). After that, it’s a trip home to Kingston to celebrate with Family and some Holiday time with Toronto family too. Maybe I’ll have so much free time, I’ll blog a little more frequently! WON’T THAT BE A CHRISTMAS MIRACLE?!
Ugly:
The “Forever Lazy” I received in the gift exchange. It might be ugly, but it’s philosophy is beautiful.
Awesome:
The cheesecake pops. And seeing all my ladies – Merry Christmas beautiful ladies!
The party starts with Sara!
The Christmas Tree slowly gets full of presents!
Christmas Chocolate Balls!
Christmas Chocolate Balls in a Bird Bowl!
Cheese Board!
Toasting with Eggnog!
Normal, girl next door Eggnog…
Sassy, Candy Cane Eggnog!
Sara and Kari watching a movie about Elves who are also ad executives.
Monica arrives and models her festive wear.
Watching Love Actually!
Me and Monica Christmasing!
Putting on my Christmas Face.
Showing off my Christmas Face.
It’s just not Christmas without a giant bucket of KFC!
Home-Made Cheesecake Pops!! Better than PC brand!
mmmm delicious
Ladies family Christmas portrait! (unfortunately missing the usual Vicky and Claire!)
Caitlin’s hair-do competition – Alex’s entry.
Kari’s hair-do contest entry.
Celeste’s “hair-do” contest entry. WHO WON? YOU DECIDE…
TIME TO WATCH LITTLE WOMEN!
All the girls love this movie JUST as much as I do!
Well, at least Kari does.
How much does Celeste love Claire Danes??
…This much.
The annual “feeding of Claire Danes”. It happens at every Christmas party.
Testing out my “Forever Lazy”! I look like Gollum.
Forever Lazy in style.
Celeste models after children in In touch magazine.