Thankful Thursday

this week i am thankful for:

-camping with friends who love our kids (and our kids lu-urve!)

-watching my uber-cautious daughter becoming more brave than i was at her age

-s'mores and this girl (even when she wakes up at 4:45 am!!)

-this dad and his small girls

-sunny summer days and sunsuits

-early morning time spent with Isla and in the Word

-love this girl so so much!!

today we also had a goodbye party for my friend Kerry.

she is a lovely co-worker/co-nurse of mine who initially replaced me on my first mat-leave.

she is moving to the states in a few weeks and we are all very sad.

i am so thankful to know her and to have worked with her.

i am also thankful that we were able to bless her with a lovely surprise present.

a little Pandora bracelet with some meaningful charms.

it has been a lovely week indeed.

and i am super thankful to be off to the spa with my girl Becky tomorrow!

woop!

Day 14: style inspiration for the season

I loved last year's smallish style so much :)
I've been working on a few new ones, so without further ado,
here's another edition of "i wish they made that in my size"

smallish style fall

Dress: Striped Dress, H&M, $17.95
Bag: BDG Buckle Tote, Urban Outfitters, $58.00
Scarf: Men's Plaid Flannel Scarf, Old Navy, $18.94
Boots: Distressed Riding Boots, Forever21, $47.80
Socks: SmartWool Women's PhD Snowboard Medium Knee High, SocksAddict, $16.77

original smallish image pulled off of Pinterest

but is from the Australian clothing company:

Country Road

style inspiration

as promised, 

here is another edition of

"hey, i wish they made that in my size!"

{source}

 scarf: what's so bunny?, modcloth, $18.00

 coat: woodsy wonderland, modcoth, $90.00

 hat: sweet dream beanie, roxy, $20.00

back pack: baggu, urban outfitters, $33.00

 jeans: sweetheart skinny, old navy, $39.50

  mittens: columbia, sport chek, $39.99

 boots: merrell, the shoe company, $200.00 (on sale for $169.99) 

i could have gone with ugg's or emu's for the boots, 

but i can't get over the fact that they 

SUCK FOR CANADIAN WINTERS!!!

you need waterproof here people!

ugg's in winter in canada is a pet peeve.

for sure.

Day 12: three blogs i can’t get enough of

woo hoo!  

I am so happy to share with you 3 blogs that i can't get enough of.

#1

the first is definitely Young House Love

John and Sherry and Clara and Burger and all their house renos.

pretty much every time Maryann and i get together we say "hey did you see this or that on Young House Love?"

right now they are in the process of taking out a wall between their kitchen and dining room.

it went from this:

to this:

to this:

i can't wait to see what it will all look like when it is done!

they also tell a really honest tale of what it is like to be full-time bloggers and that a lot of becoming full-time bloggers is luck (lots of time to be sure, but it is kind of lucky as to whether or not you end up with a huge following or not)

#2

the second blog that i check daily is the Anderson Crew

this is a fairly new to me blog.

i forget how i came across it, but i love to read about Emily and her family.

she has 5 kids with one on the way!

she talks openly about life with that many kids and the process of adoption and adding a child that way to her family.

here they all are:

i love this blog so much because of how honest Emily is.

she loves Jesus and her family and has really cool ideas on how to keep so many kids organized and feeling loved and special.

i also like it because i love the idea of a big family.

#3

and the third blog i can't get enough of is Tollipop

Tollipop is Kirsten, she is a Canadian mama living with her husband and 3 daughters in Las Vegas.

of course i have soft spot for her because she is Canadian, but it is more than that.

her posts are great. they read like a well written book and can be absolutely hi-lar-ious!

she writes about the Death Squad, a group of men that she runs with through the desert.

she writes about killing scorpions SCORPIONS! that are a natural little yucky thing to deal with in the desert.

(imagine-i shudder at the thought)

she also has an etsy shop where she sells the most wonderful drawings of little characters.

Isla has Remy Fox and Margaret Bunny up in her room.

here is Kirsten with her girls

Tollipop writes about life:

drawing, baking, running, violin, cello, piano, hamsters, volleyball, family, cousins, royal weddings,

hair fascinators, 

she writes in french, franchment

she is a mother after my own heart.

i love how her girls are creative and real.

i read blogs because they inspire me, they give me ideas on how to craft, write and live.

it expands my world a little beyond my city.

small style #22

here we are with a very fun Halloweenie small style :)

a cutie little chicken!

this was Isla's first Halloween.

she was moonlighting as a bun in the oven last year.

we had a lot of fun doing some trick or treating Meika and Sophie.

here is our little family:

didn't you know that rabbits marry bees and make chicken babies?

well known fact, really.

chicken costume: Old Navy, consigned

leggings: Gap kids

socks: SmartWool

shoes: Mexx, consigned

you can check out all kinds of awesome and cute costumes over at Mama Loves Papa!

i am so in love with this!

oh my gosh.

a couple of summers ago i bought a dollhouse from a garage sale.

it was in pieces (ahem, it is in pieces)

but i had a vision for a lovely dollhouse for my someday, maybe daughter

(or to be perfectly honest, if i didn't have a daughter it could be for me!)

it looks huge, i paid $15 dollars for it.

it currently resides in the basement of some friends (remember, still in pieces)

the lady who sold it to me said she bought it to make for her daughters... uh oh.

but a few weeks ago, Nicole wrote about a big doll house project called the

it actually was started by Emily Henderson, from HGTV's 'Secrets from a Stylist' 

(you can find her blog and the original post here)

essentially it is a dollhouse decorating challenge.

i am in awe

i am enthralled

i am so excited whenever a new post comes along containing any dollhouse related details

i sure wish my dollhouse was able to come out now, but we don't currently really have the space

so i will live vicariously and plan....

 i guess i now have a dream house file and a dream dollhouse file!