Holiday Shopping Done Easy, With Groupon Goods

This post is sponsored by Groupon, but as always, all opinions are my own. 

Christmas is less than twenty days away! In fact, I think its something like only 13 days! Thats not many, and if you are anything like me, you still have a bit (or a lot) of Christmas shopping left to do.

And, if you are just like me, you would rather sit at home in your pajamas and surf the internet for holiday gift ideas rather than packing up the kids in all their winter gear, loading them into the car and heading out the the overly crowded malls, in and out of stores, leaving with nothing. Enter Groupon Goods. They have all your gift giving needs for those special people in your life at a fraction of the cost! WIN! No joke, they have hundreds and hundreds of gift ideas, all on sale! Could there be anything better?

I have put together a few ideas of things I wouldn't mind seeing under the tree this year for myself (remember, all these items are available for a low price on Groupon Goods), including some compression socks for workouts and post workout recovery and an oil & vinegar mister (who knew there was such a thing???) 

And, for all those hard to shop for dads in your lives. How about a shower radio? Or one of these stylish leather bracelets. I don't know about you, but I find dad's/husbands the hardest to shop for!

And, of course, for the sweet little girls. What little girl doesn't love helping in the kitchen, so these Melissa and Doug play food sets are the best! And I am a believer in getting kids something to read/learn, so these learning to write books would be perfect for the preschool aged kids!

All these items, plus many many more, are all still available! Get the rest of your holiday shopping done with Groupon Goods. They have something for everyone on your list, including that hard to buy for person and even the dog. 

Christmas Cards '16 with Tiny Prints

**Holiday cards were gifted to us in exchange for this post.** 

Christmas cards are one of my most favourite parts about the holidays. There is something special about getting snail mail that I just love. Admit it, you get excited when mail comes too! 

This year, we chose to do our cards with Tiny Prints again. We have had our cards done by them the past few years and always love how they turn out. And, this year again, they have so many great cards to choose from! You can get foil stamped or glitter, laser cut or rounded; anything you want your card to be. 

We went with the Framed Snowfall copper foil stamped card. I love the simplicity of one photo on the front, and the shimmery foil. I couldn't love it more. I think it matched perfectly with our photo this year! 

To make sending out cards even easier, Tiny Prints has all your stationary needs too, like these address stamps (which I love!) or personalized address labels. They will even go as far as addressing the envelopes for you! 

If you are still looking for your perfect Christmas cards, Tiny Prints has 40% off all cards when you use the code jinglebell plus free shipping on orders of $49, so you still have time to get them before the holidays!

Home Decor with Tiny Prints

The items mentioned in the post below have been gifted to me by Tiny Prints in exchange for this post. 

If you've been following along for any length of time, you will know that we recently moved to a new city, which means we got a new house. While we LOVE the house, there are pieces of it that just weren't our style, so slowly over the past 3 months, we have been changing bits and pieces of it. 

We started out simple and changed up some of the paint (it was an awful brown). We are into more cool tones, so went with a grey. We have also changed out some of the light fixtures, and Mitchell even made some mason jar lights for the kitchen, which I LOVE! Also in the kitchen, we switched out the laminate island countertop for a beautifully stained bamboo butcher block top, which is so pretty! 

New paint and light fixtures.

The rest of the house though, is pretty bare. We have yet to hang up many photos or any other type of decor. So, when Tiny Prints contacted me, I knew that would change!

These pillows are so amazing, They are big, and fluffy, and so soft! They make a great addition to the couches and the master bed. Not only are they pretty, they are super functional. they are perfect for resting your head on to watch TV, or for cuddling up to read a story. 

I love both kinds we got, the Mr and Mrs as well as the monogrammed pillow. They would be perfect for a gift, especially for a wedding. Tiny Prints has these pillows in different colours too. I got the girls each one for Christmas; a magenta one for Palmer and a mustard yellow for Charlie, to match their rooms and I love the way they turned out!

I have always wanted canvas prints for the house and these canvases turned out even better than I expected them to!  Now, I have to decide where I want to hang them! I ended up deciding on the 16x20" canvases and I am so glad I did because they are the perfect size. I think I want to make another gallery wall in the house, and I think these canvases would be the perfect addition to it. 

Tiny Prints has some other really great home decor items that I had my eye on (but held myself back from), like these Christmas Stockings. I love the idea of pretty stockings for our upstairs fireplace, where we will have our pretty tree (vs the also pretty, but child friendly tree downstairs). 

 I think our next steps are the kitchen sink and faucet, the rest of the kitchen countertops, and possibly the flooring (also a terrible brown colour!) But, the house is really starting to become what we want it to, and Tiny Prints has helped us along the way with all our personalized home decor needs. Use the code BESTFINALE by the end of the day to receive 40% off your home decor and gifts from Tiny Prints! 

Currently!

Wow, how did October go by so quickly? I didn't even have a chance to blog. Not once! I swear, the month went by at warp speed! I didn't even have a chance to take many photos this month. I've been slacking on here and on Instagram. I gotta pick up my game! I know how much you all love seeing my little beauties! :)  Anyways, here is a little update on whats been going on!

Palmer started swimming back in September, and girlfriend is a fish. She is the best one in her class and she loves it so much! I'm glad she loves it, because I think swimming lessons are so important. I would hate to have a fight every week! We have swimming tonight before we go trick-or-treating. Palmer is so excited for both!  

She decided early on that she wanted to be a butterfly fairy princess, then we saw a Rainbow Dash costume in Costco, and since she love MLP, she has now decided she is going to be a Rainbow Dash, butterfly fairy princess, full of glitter and sparkles. I'll be vacuuming sparkles for months, I swear. I'll be sure to get some photos of the girls in their costumes later today. I told Palmer though, that she wasn't allowed to put it on today until after swimming, or my house would look like it threw up sparkles, no lie, so she settled for a quick kitty costume for our morning errands today!

We went back to Lethbridge for a special little girls 4th birthday party this past weekend. It had been far too long since we saw our besties and it makes me sad that we don't get to see them more. Palmer and Scarlett are seriously the cutest together, and we were so happy we got to go spend her special day with her. Palmer was so excited to go see Scarlett and hasn't stopped talking about it!

photo c/o Tawnya Nicole co.

Sweet Charlie is getting bigger and bigger by the minute. She is walking all over the place, has to keep up with Palmer. Her littler personality is beaming through. She is so smart, and understands so many things, but all we get from her is a grunt and a point, so sometimes it's tricky to figure out what she wants! Usually, you can just toss some goldfish her way, and she's happy!

She is also cutting her 1 year molars, so thats been fun. Ok, so it isn't that terrible, but I'm tired of the all the snot and waking in the night! She's got one cut through on the top, and the other is nearly there, and both whitecaps on the bottom! Poor girly!

Charlie Dawn: ONE YEAR OLD

Our sweet Charlie girl, how are you possibly one year old already? I swear I blinked and now it's your birthday! You have fit perfectly into our family, and I cannot even remember what it was like not being a family of four. 

I've been trying to soak up every last minute of my last baby being a baby. You really aren't a baby anymore. You are a toddler, stumbling all over the place. It makes me so happy to see you growing and learning but in the same breath, sad that the time is going by so quickly and my baby isn't much of a baby. Bittersweet, for sure. 

Charlie is full on walking now, and she keeps up quite well with Palmer. She follows her back and forth from room to room, watching what she is doing. In one sense, I love that she is walking, but on the other hand, she doesn't want to sit with me and cuddle anymore. She is just far too busy for that. 

Charlie is always busy waving, or "talking" and doing something new. She likes to copy everything Palmer does. Palmer has actually taught her many things. She is always trying to teach her new words and sounds, and its so cute to watch. Palmer loves that Charlie pays so much attention to her, and Charlie loves doing anything Palmer is doing!

Sleeping is getting a little better. We started hardcore sleep training last week, meaning, cry it out. There was very little sleep had by anyone but Palmer for a while, but I am hoping its all worth it soon. Sleep is by far, the hardest part about Charlie. She goes down fine, but often wakes around 1am and doesn't like to go back to sleep. It might not be so bad if her bedroom wasn't right across the hallway from ours!

Charlie had a viral bug a couple weeks ago, so I am partly blaming that for her poor sleeping as of late. It really took a toll on everyone, when we all got sick.  Charlie is finally back to acting and eating like her usual self; happy and eating everything in site. Girlfriend is a pro at finding old cheerios in the corners of the kitchen. I'm almost convinced she hides them there for snacking later. 

Charlie has seemed to adjust well to me going back to work. We have had family watching the girls for us this past month, and the girls will be starting at the day home next week. They have gone for practice days, and it seems to be a good fit for everyone, which is a relief because Charlie is still a mama suck. 

We attempted a cake smash a few weeks back, and to my surprise, Charlie wasn't having much to do with it. Maybe it was my bad baking??? At least the photos turned out kinda cute. 

Happy ONE, sweet girl! We love you!!  We can't wait to watch you grow and learn more, and become the sweetest little babe! XO

Summer Vacation

I know, I know. Summer vacation is over, Fall is nearly here, but I just wanted to do a little recap of our family vacation (a month ago!)

We headed out to Ontario for a couple of weeks to do some sightseeing and family visiting. The majority of Mitchell's family lives in Ontario, and we were able to see all of them while we were there. The weather was HOT (like hot, humid, and 40 degrees - thats over 100F!)

We tried to do as many things as we could when we were there. We visited Niagara Falls a couple of times.  Palmer especially loved visiting the Midway on the main street by the Falls. We stopped in there twice and she loved collecting all the tickets from her games and trading them in for prizes!

We managed to hit up a splash pad more than once to keep cool. With it being so hot and humid, it was a definite MUST to keep from melting!

We enjoyed taking in the beautiful scenery of Ontario and having picnics by Lake Erie. The scenery is drastically different than what we are use to here in Alberta; a different kind of beautiful!

We swam many times in Mitchell's aunt's pool. It was so nice and refreshing! And, Palmer learned to swim by herself while we were there! She got so brave as to jump in and even put her head under the water! She was so proud of herself. I had a few proud mama moments too!

Mitch, Charlie, and I, along with his aunt, uncle and cousins went to a Blue Jays game! Also, so fun!

But, I think one of Palmer's most favourite parts was visiting MarineLand. I had reached out to MarineLand prior to our trip and was given passes to the park, which was perfect! MarineLand has many things to offer, and it is great for families with small children.

We started out by seeing a show where the dolphins and seals did tricks, then we made our way to the rides. The line-ups really weren't that bad (we did go in the middle of the week) so Palmer managed to go on almost all the rides for kids her age! She loved it!!

After the rides, we made our way over to the picnic area. It was nice that MarineLand had a nice big area full of picnic tables with umbrellas and shade for people to eat at. After lunch, we made our way to see all the animals. Palmer liked this part the best, especially the Beluga Whales. She and I went over and touched and fed the Belugas and Palmer is still talking about it to this day. 

MarineLand was a full day of fun for Palmer. She got to not only touch and feed the Belugas, but she pet some deer, fed more fish, and see all kinds of aquatic animals. I think MarineLand will be on our list of things to do the next time we are out there too, so Charlie can partake in all the fun too!



We all had a great time out east, and the time went by much too fast. Now that we have settled back into our new normal, I am already looking at where our next vacation may be!

Disclaimer: We were given day passes to MarineLand in exchange for this post.