Our New Advent Calendar

I have thought about having an advent calendar for a while now. We have never had one and I thought it would be fun to make one up now. I knew I wanted it to be an activity advent calendar and not a treat advent calendar, but that is all I knew. I thought about many things but couldn't make my mind up. Before I knew it, it was December 1st. I literally made this December 1st! Is it what I wanted? Not exactly...but it will do. Here it is:

I used paper bags to make folded rectangles to hang on the twine. I used my circle punch to make circles (out of red and green paper), attached them to the paper bag with double sided tape and I drew the numbers on with a sharpie. I then draped the folded paper over the twine and used a mini clothes pin to attach them.

I wrote different activities/tasks on each paper. That was kind of hard. Mostly because I work and we are all very tired when we come home and don't want to do too much. The weekend activities were easy. It was the activities during the week that were tricky!

Some of my activities included: take a picture with Santa, decorate your room for Christmas, do a Christmas craft, make a gingerbread house, get a hot chocolate and go see the lights in town, go sledding etc.

I now have a year to think about what I want to do next year..when Adalyn will be a little bit older and understand it a little more...this works for now though!!

Ashley

12 Month Favourites

I am a little late with this but.....My sweet little baby is ONE YEAR OLD! How did this happen!? This was literally the fastest year ever. It has been an amazing journey watching my sweet babe grow and learn!! Here are her other monthly photos:

 And here are her 12 month photos

(These have been the hardest ones to take yet!)

For her birthday I put balloons in her crib and took a few pictures:

I also made her pancakes for breakfast (her favourite), dressed her in her "I AM ONE" Old Navy shirt, had my parents over for Chinese food, opened more presents and had some cake! It was a great day!

 Here are some 12 month stats:

*She was 20.7lbs and 31.8 inches at her one year checkup. She is wearing size 4 shoes and has 8 teeth!
*She loves the climber we bought her, climbing onto the stool Aunt Chrissy got her, climbing onto the couch with her kittie stool and the coffee table. She is a little monkey!
*She can tell you what a dog, cow, cat, fish and owl say if you ask her! She blabbers a lot more now. I wish I knew what she was saying or trying to say. I love to listen to her!
*She is obsessed with puppies!
*She loves to eat and eats all day long. She still has 5 bottles a day, as well as all of her food. We just switched her to homo milk
*She is still sleeping 11 to 12 hours a night. We have been so lucky!
*She waves bye bye, says "bye" and blows kisses. She says "bye bye Daddy" when Daddy leaves the room. Also her kisses have become open mouth with her tongue out. hahah. Nice and wet!
*She has a new obsession with Daddy. Wants Daddy to feed her, play with her and cries when he leaves!

Here are some of our 12 month Favourites:

12 Month Favourites!

 1/2/3/4/5/6/7

1 MumMum Snax - Apple Cinnamon- I bought these thinking they were for babies. They are meant for school aged children but Addy and I love them! Yum!

2 Step 2 Woodland Climber - This was Adalyn's birthday gift from Mommy and Daddy. She loves it.

3 Cook and Grow Kitchen by Little Tykes- This was a gift from Mike's family. She loves it as well!

4 Leap Frog Shapes and Sharing Picnic Basket- She hasn't put this down since she got it at her party.

5 Dog - Matthew Van Fleet- She loves this book from my sister. It has touch and feel dogs and tabs to pull

6 Leap Frog my Puppy Pal Violet- She also loves her pal Violet and gives it kisses

7 Purple cupcake bean bag chair- Addy got this from my Mom and Dad. She loves to read in it!

This by far has been my favourite stage. I love watching her play and talk. I'm sure I will change my mind when she is a bit older and doing a few more things but for now, I am loving every minute of it!!

Ashley

P.S - I won't be doing monthly updates from here on out. I will update every 2 or 3 months now! Hope you have enjoyed following Adalyn's first year!

Adalyn's New White Room

Adalyn's room has been done for a while but I haven't posted about it! I thought I should post before I show you the Christmas version! hahaha. If you don't remember, here is what her nursery looked like before:

 Then I decided to paint it white and here it is now:

Completely different, right?!  I lovelovelove it! My mom and dad actually tried to convince me to keep it white when we wallpapered it last year but I was set on aqua at the time. It is funny how I really wanted white this time!!

I wanted to get some black triangle wall vinyl but it was kind of pricey. I thought of many different options until I decided on this. This wall cost a total of $5 and I love the impact it makes!

It is actually a black gift bag. Well, three. And 1.5 packs of sticky tack. That is all! What do you think?

I moved my book shelves...

We stacked two cubes and I love how it looks!

 Love my build a banner and the cute art from Printable Wisdom

My new fave affordable digital print store.

This shelf needs more colour!!

 

  We left the shelves behind the door. I added the ADALYN letters I made from her party!

Well what do you think? I love it. I love the triangle wall! It is my favourite part of the room. I especially love that is can come off when I want it to! And it was super cheap!!! Don't worry! I won't change her room anymore...until she gets a big girl bed at least! hahahah

Adalyn's Playroom : Christmas Edition

I finished decorating the playroom this weekend! Here is how it turned out:

   I covered the beanbag with a blanket to make it more festive!

I made a cute tree banner from foam trees from the dollarstore. They are sticky so I took the backing half off, stuck it on the ribbon and put the backing back on. Super easy!

Here is our Gallery wall. I hope it is full of Christmas art soon! I re-arranged it and added some clipboards. Most of the frames were horizontal before and I found it very hard to find free art. Most people make them the other way!

Here is our Christmas corner. I have our books on the shelf and some in the box. (And these are only the board books. The paper backs are on her shelves upstairs! I will have to show you her room soon!)

I just bought the deer book this week. It is called "Our Little Deer" and it is the sweetest book!

I added a "Make a Banner" to the other side of the wall and stuck some Christmas trees on there too. I think it looks pretty cute. The only thing that is bugging me is the random pink bin. I'm going back to the dollar store to get another red one before I go crazy!

The other side of the wall is pretty boring. I added some cute deer art on the wall and some garland around the door.

So there it is.

In my head I thought it would be more extravagant and busy, but I am happy with how it turned out. Just the right amount. Although I would secretly like a little tree in there for her and some lights too. Maybe I will be updating the post soon! :)

Hope you all had a great weekend!

Ashley