• home safety
    parenting - Technology

    Netgear Arlo 4 HD Camera Set and Keeping Your Home Safe #ad #BBYConnectedHome

    November 16, 2015 - By 

      What’s more important than safety this time of year? Or any time of year for that matter? Knowing your home, or home office, is safe whether your loved ones are indoors, or out with you, can often be the difference between worry and peace of mind. That’s why this Best Buy exclusive Netgear Arlo 4 HD Camera Set is a must have for your connected home. I am a gadget girl at heart and anything that makes my life easier, with the help of great technology, makes me happy. This year I discovered a small gadget that synched with…

  • toffee_espresso_cookie_bars
    family - Food

    10 Delicious Sweet Treat Christmas Cookie Bar Recipe Ideas

    November 16, 2015 - By 

    It’s now well into November and honestly it’s starting to look a bit more like winter around here. There’s something about this time of year that makes me want to bake. This year I have a gorgeous new Breville Scraper Mixer Pro which is clearly going to be my new Christmas toy and present just for me!! Also it is already inspiring this Mom to generate some creative cookies and recipes in the kitchen. Baking is so much more fun with the right tools! Don’t you agree? Christmas Cookie Bars Post may contain affiliate links as a service to readers. I…

  • gifts for tweens
    family - parenting

    PERFECT Teen or Tween Gifts – Fashion Angels Charm Mashup and Work In Progress Natural Facial Care – #TMMGG2015

    November 15, 2015 - By 

    Fashion Angels Charm Mashup is a toy I would have gone nuts for as a tween or teen girl. I loved to craft and make things just like my girls do. So, I figured this would be a lot of fun but I was surprised it made me feel like a kid again too. Usually bead kits drive me a bit batty as a parent because the beads can wind up tracked all over the house, but we have learned a few tricks from the kid’s crafting experiments here over the years and I quickly just made sure ALL the…

  • world_vision_twitter_party
    Giveaways

    RSVP Now and Join us Wednesday, Nov. 18 at 8 p.m. EST for World Vision Canada Gift Catalogue Twitter Party #MeaningfulGifts

    November 13, 2015 - By 

    Are you starting to feel the spirit of the season yet? I don’t know about the rest of you but as much as I love summer (it’s my favourite season) there’s something absolutely lovely about cuddling by a fireplace staying indoors and watching a good TV show, or curling up with your children while flipping through the latest holiday gift catalogue that arrived at your home. We have been doing a lot of that lately here as the temperatures dip. I am happy to say we’ve already chosen a few gifts from the World Vision Canada gift catalogue so that we can…

  • holiday_flights
    active family travel - family - Travel

    Save Money with Cheap Flights at Christmas #Travel

    November 13, 2015 - By 

    Guest Post: Pick the right day to fly Busy airports, crazy-high fares, winter weather delays — are you sure you want to do this? The busiest (and most expensive) travel days of the year are around the holidays. Armed with our fare calendar chart (see below), you’ll save a lot of stress and small stocking of cash by picking the right days to fly. Rise and shine Don’t want to miss the carving of the turkey or the unwrapping of presents? Book the earliest flight you can. Sure, you’ve got to wake up early, but those first flights out are the least…

  • chrono_bomb
    family

    Chrono Bomb Game is the Perfect Present for Your Spy In Training #TMMGG2015

    November 12, 2015 - By 

    I spied the Chrono Bomb game this past summer at a toy show in New York City and it screamed Ainsley’s name to me as I walked by, so I struck up a conversation with the person representing Patch Products and told her all about this girl of mine. Back when Ainsley was about 8 and we were living in our old house, she would grab string, or yarn from the closet and string it all over her room creating an elaborate web of lasers so that she had to limbo and contort her body just to get into the…

  • Gingerbread latte
    family - Food

    Festive Gingerbread Chai Latte

    November 11, 2015 - By 

    If you know me at all, then you are aware of my love for chai latte. Chai tea latte is my favourite beverage on the planet. I can drink it all year round but it’s my favourite thing to order from Starbucks when I travel. There’s something very comforting and smooth about a chai tea latte. This season I love experimenting with the flavours that are Fall and Winter standbys. This time of year gingerbread is a smooth partner in so many holiday recipes. Gingerbread cookies and treats are synonymous with Christmas. Gingerbread is to Christmas what pumpkin is to…

  • family - parenting

    Home Organization – Keep Your School Days Smooth

    November 9, 2015 - By 

    Home organization is the most important thing you can do to help your days go more smoothly if you have kids, especially when those kids are in school. Between rushing the kids off to school trying to get homework finished and getting the kiddos into bed on time, home organization makes a huge job a little less chaotic. Home Organization Steps to Make it All Easier Having kids is chaotic enough, so anything we as parents can do to make the environment a little less chaotic is a good thing. Theh key to making things run more smoothly is home…

  • world_vision_twitter_party
    family

    Save The Date for a World Vision Canada and Linked Moms #MeaningfulGifts Twitter Party November 18, at 8 p.m. EST. Prizes to Be Announced.

    November 9, 2015 - By 

    It’s no secret how much World Vision Canada means to me. I travelled many miles with several World Vision workers in 2014. I told many of those stories over the past year. We climbed a mountain by car, on roads that were not remotely stable, while goats looked on perched in trees. We tried not to look down for fear our legs would fail us at the end of the journey. The destination one day led us so far up a mountain just outside Bucaramanga that it seemed like we were standing on the top of the world, when suddenly a school revealed…

  • adoption
    adoption and tweens - family - Parenting - parenting

    Adoption, Awareness and Advocacy – Why Are We Still Here? #adoption

    November 7, 2015 - By 

    This past week someone googled ” I hate adoption awareness month” and they arrived here on this blog which had me shaking my head at google. So I wanted to set the record straight. Here’s the truth. I don’t hate National Adoption Awareness Month. Quite the opposite actually. But I have gone on record many times over saying awareness is not enough. And I stand by that. I am an adoptive parent. Our family was built via adoption and it is a wonderful means of forming a family. I celebrate that all year round. I celebrate adoption awareness activities and fundraisers…