13 things a "young mama" learned in 2013

As the year comes to a close, I usually like to reflect upon the years experiences, lessons and losses that I have gone through so that I can use them to better equip myself for the new approaching year. 2013 has been such a world-wind experience, with a lot of good (starting this blog, creating my Purple Heart business, getting married in Jamaica) but also a lot of not so good aka Life Lessons.

I was so intrigued by Tyler Perry's "44 things I learned at age 44" that he posted on his Facebook account (you can find that post here) for his birthday, that I decided I wanted to incorporate the same sort of thing into my new years post.

Below you will find the 13 life lessons I have learned this year and hopefully some of you will find similarity within my experiences and have a giggle or shout too after reading.

Make sure to leave me your comments below of your similar lessons or experiences because as always, I'd love to hear them!

Enjoy!

1. Having too many ideas/plans at one time can really distract you from that one idea or plan thats worth your time and effort! Focus on one thing and put your ALL into it.
2. There is no such thing as having to many pacifiers around the house - I can have 5 but by the end of the day, can only find ONE.
3. It is DEFINITELY possible to plan a destination wedding in 9 months. Did that. check mark. DONE.
4. Going to Wal-mart with a cart even though you came only for one thing is NEVER a good idea, hence why you can never find any hand baskets but thousands of carts... don't get tricked!
5. Tasting one or two spoonful's of your baby's dinner can sometimes lead to you wanting to finish it (or actually finishing it for them)... what can I say, I make my son's meal tastier than mine! (don't act like you haven't done this before mommies!)
6. Getting ready before feeding mello is definitely a foolish idea. ALWAYS feed child first then get ready if you want to look decent before leaving the house.
7. Painting my nails before putting mello to bed is just plain STUPID.
8. If there is ever a way to get tickets to a Beyonce concert... TAKE THEM. Amazing performer!
9.  God NEVER makes mistakes. No matter how hard it is to understand why it happened.. it was needed to make you who your are or will be.
10. Friendships are beautiful when they last but don't be distraught when they come to an end. Sometimes you have to let go of good to make room for great. And remember, Friends come and go, but family is forever.
11. Do not over-think things. Usually your first thought is great and can be doable if you try. Don't confuse yourself with "perfecting" things. Trust your creativity and just do it!
12. Marriage is WORK. There are days that you will feel like the luckiest woman in the world and other days you will think you were cursed. To succeed at it, you both must put in effort and be patient within the hard times. Good will always come again.
13. Wish it. Dream it. Do it. <--- my year's quote

Happy New Years to all of you and may you all have new perspectives, dreams and goals for the new year! All the best my loves!

Merry Christmas from my family to yours!!

This holiday is definitely a special one for us. It will be our first christmas being married! It is so crazy to think back to last year around this time when we were Newly engaged and in the "planning stages" of our 2013 Destination Wedding nuptials! Time really has flown! Now we are married, and settled into our little family and life, which we are so thankful for! 

This holiday, may you cherish all the little gifts that are around you, including love & family. 

Merry Christmas from us to you!

xoxo

My "hot" Leopard print find!

Here are one of those amazing finds I encountered last Saturday at Town Shoes while doing some last minute christmas shopping!

Loving my new KateandMel leopard print ankle boots! Paired with a few of my accessories from my shop coming this January:

What do you guys think? 

I love sharing new items I find, while growing my new clothing collection. Mama's can be HOT too! 

Happy Monday!

P.s: 2 MORE DAYS TILL CHRISTMAS!!!

QUEEN BEE.

Here are some serious CANDID photos from the Beyonce Concert Last night.

 ***THESE WERE TAKEN WITH MY IPHONE 4S CAMERA AND ARE NOT THE BEST SINCE I WAS DOING MY BOOTY DANCE & TRYING TO CAPTURE THE SHOW AS WELL! SORRY!***

Finally found our seats! Main stage is right below us!

Opening Act: Luke James, coming 2014 in Canada! 

OMG BEY'S COMING OUT!!!!!!

SHES HERE!

 

QUEEN BEE!

Lover her smile

GO LADIES! (I was working it out right along with them here)

                      

2nd Stage lit up, ready for Bey to transport there. (middle of crowd)

There she goes!

This part was cool, getting confetti bombed.

Concert Selfie of course!

My concert Souvenir! 

Look who was so happy to see mama in the morning! <3

Fin. (the End)

This weekend Wrap-Up/ Blogger Challenge 2014!

Happy Monday beauties!

I am a bit under the weather since yesterday but I have an amazing night ahead (BEYONCE CONCERT!!!!!!!!!!!) so I got to get a grip on this cold from now so I can do my "booty dance" tonight!
As I did last week Monday, here is a small wrap-up of our past weekend! It was definitely a busy one but well enjoyed!


Friday night was a "stay in with pizza & Netflix" type of night, where we just enjoyed the warmth of staying indoors!

We LOVE Dominoes!

Saturday was a crazy day! We we're planning to do some Christmas shopping in the morning but the weather was not very understanding so we decided to skip the malls. In the afternoon we had a Christmas party to attend at my cousin's house and although I didn't get to take any of my own pictures there, I did manage to snap selfie before I left :)

SELFIE!

Sunday afternoon we had a 1st birthday to attend, which I also helped with doing the candy buffet and signs for a friend. Here is the table right before the party started:

Circus Theme

He was so happy with his BIG lolly!

His 1ST ever face-painting! He wanted spider man!

Later that night after the party, we had a surprise engagement party to go to of our close friend and here is the happy newly engaged couple in the middle of it all:

Congrats to the happy couple!

And that was our busy weekend!

I also joined the 2014 Blogger challenge, hosted by Gaby of  Another Girly Blog. There is an estimated total of 400+ bloggers world-wide involved and I am SO super excited about joining the roster! Basically the challenge involves being given 2 random topics per month to post about, ranging anywhere from Fashion to Cooking and Reviews.

This is a great way to meet, connect and work with amazing bloggers who you wouldn't normally come across and also to expand our blogging skills and topics! I cannot wait to kick of 2014 with this amazing challenge! 

Be sure to stay tuned on all the great stuff I will have in store for you guys in 2014, including the launch of my Online Store, Purple Heart!

Yuppie!

Nightly Activities: What our son likes to do before bedtime.

Every child has a nightly list of things or activities that they like to do leading up to bed-time. At our house, Romey likes to do a VARIETY of things before he goes to sleep, which many of them HAVE to be done before he can "settle down".  

Most of the time, our nights start off with eating dinner at  5:30pm (we live with my parents so Grandma usually cooks and has dinner ready by this time and we all eat together... lucky me, I know!).

Then we follow with bath time around 7:00pm - which is one of my favourite times with him because I use this time in the tub as a fun learning while we clean time, which we sing songs that he recently learned at daycare or songs I made up to to teach him how to spell his name. We also like to clown around, get the floors wet and be silly! (Clean up time is not as fun, but the splashes and laughs with him are so worth it!) I like to use the "Live Clean Baby" line, including the moisturizing baby bath soap.

After bath time, he usually likes to come back downstairs and play with daddy and his grandparents while I'm cleaning up our "fun" mess.

With daddy playing who knows what on his Android

Now its SNACK TIME! Every child's favourite time:

he loves teddy grams, Can you tell?!?

If we don't have time for snack or he had a later dinner, I usually give him his milk in a sippy cup. Here he is waiting for me to make his milk, all like "Hurry up mommy!"..

After I'm done cleaning up and it's around 8:00pm, I like to bring him up to his room for "quiet play", where we do calming activities like learning to sketch/write in his learning pad book, shown below or, we play educational games like Endless ABC's (HIGHLY recommend this app for fun learning of the ABCs for babies) on my tablet or watch tree house for a bit in mommy's room until I see those "sleepy eyes". Then I know it's time to bring him to his room.

Watching Caillou with mommy

Playing Endless ABCs

 Once I know he's ready for bed, usually anywhere between 8:30-9;00pm, we will go into his room and read. He likes to pick out his favourite books, usually "Where's Spot" or any other pop-up book.

 After a little snuggling and kisses, Its nighty-night time! He doesn't yet fall asleep on his own with crying, so we tend to lay beside him for a few minutes (sometimes hours!) til he falls asleep. I try not to push him to fall asleep on his own, since i was like this as well when i was younger and I learned to do it when i was ready. He will eventually, so until then, i don't mind the extra cuddle time!



What are your favourite night time routines and activities? I'd love to hear!

Our Weekend Wrap-Up!

Hope you all had a fun, relaxing  (yea right, its almost Christmas... who am I kidding) and eventful weekend like we had! I would like to share "few things that our family did this weekend" posts each Monday on the Blog, and will try to have them up every Monday before noon (give or take).

I love to spend as much time as I can with Romey and hubby on weekends since during the week can get so busy, with daycare, work, errands and such during the week. Every Friday night is our mini "family fun night" where we go out to dinner or order-in something yummy and do something that he loves. Here is a break down in pictures of our weekend:

At McDonalds Playplace after eating.

Mommy & Daddy's "late dinner date" at Jack Astors after we put him to sleep at Grandma's.

Playing on his "truck" before we go out on Saturday Morning

At Fantasy Fair (my baby LOVES firetrucks") on a ride

STILL on the firetruck.. had to pry him off!!!

Santa makes an Appearance! "HI SANTA"!!!!

On another ride (my boy loves "driving")

Walking around telling me where he wants to go next. BOSSY!

Sunday morning, ready for church!

Sunday "Night activities" (run down - in next post)

Reading with mommy before bedtime. 

We went Shopping! Children's Place had a sale.. couldn't resist!

Bed-time Snack!

Yummy chocolate-chip teddy grams. <3

That was our weekend! I will go into more detail of our "Night Activities" in the next post, so look out for that tomorrow!

Gift-giving 2013: For your BFF (Her)

Gift giving can be so much fun, especially when we have online sites like Ployvore to visualize items then buy them... all in one place!

This set I made is one for the bff in your life... pretty much everything I would want but would give to her (usually what you like and what your best friend likes are the same things... usually).
If you haven't started shopping yet, or need ideas then just go to this site. It's almost like a Pinterest but for shopping and creating your own vision and fashion examples to share via social media!

Gift-giving 2013: For your BFF (Her) by apurpleheartlifestyle featuring Ethan Allen

Jersey sweatshirt
net-a-porter.com

Juicy Couture gift sets kit
juicycouture.com

Forever 21 toiletry bag
forever21.com

Canvas wall art
grandinroad.com

Maison de Vacances throw pillow
calypsostbarth.com

Ethan Allen throw pillow
ethanallen.com

DAY Birger et Mikkelsen christmas home decor
$115 - amara.com




Happy Shopping!