• family - homes

    What Makes a House a Home? – On The Move Series

    October 22, 2013 - By 

    I’ve been wrestling with this question a lot here lately. What makes a house a home? We have been in our London home for 14 years now.    We adopted our girls and started a family, launched careers, paused careers, watched, helped, travelled, threw dozens of birthday parties and created moments to remember. We got sick, then got better. We made friends, lost friends, saw loved ones pass away. We planned, we sang, we cooked, we celebrated and we grieved. We grew together. Now, we have grown to the point where we need to move. We have outgrown out neighbourhood…

  • family

    Five Reasons Your Blogger Outreach Program Is a Fail

    October 18, 2013 - By 

    Blogger Outreach is one of the biggest parts of my marketing business. Call it influencer outreach or paid media. In fact, blogger outreach can significantly elevate your game and your message on line and in real life too. An authentic ambassador for your brand tells a story well and is sought out for their opinion. They are impactful and trustworthy and they have an audience. This collage is a sample of a few of the clients I have worked with in the past year. I have been blogging here and writing on line for almost 5 years now. Thrifty Mommas…

  • family

    Disney’s The Little Mermaid Diamond Edition Review

    October 16, 2013 - By 

    The Little Mermaid is one of our family favourites. Last year, Payton played the role of Flounder during March Break. It was a world class adorable OKTC (Original Kids Theatre Company) production. Favourites and Classics If my girls were asked to name a favourite princess of all the Disney princesses, well, Ariel of The Little Mermaid would be top three. It is our most watched Disney Princess story and has held that position for years. The musical pieces here are outstanding and the plot appeals in so many ways – love and independence and the quest to find your own…

  • Food - Health - parenting

    World Food Day #MeaningfulMeals Twitter Party RSVP

    October 13, 2013 - By 

    How many nights a week do you sit down together as a family to share dinner? 1? 2? 3? Between swimming lessons and my daughter’s acting rehearsals, my workouts, horseback riding, work and whew – martial arts too – it’s getting harder for our family to carve out dinner time together.  My kids lead busy lives and we do too. We used to be so good at this sitting down together as a family when the kids were tiny, as babies, toddlers and preschoolers, we managed 4-5 nights a week. I was a stay at home mom and my husband…

  • family

    Marvel Superheroes and Disney Princesses #Kindermom

    October 12, 2013 - By 

    I have a new obsession. These Marvel superhero toys inside specially marked packages of KinderCanada toys. I can’t stop playing with them. My kids, especially the self confessed tomboy kid, hung them all over the minivan, so I find myself playing when we are parked and playing when we are at home and flipping the toy’s heads off so they can do battle. That’s the power of Kindertoys _ somehow they make you feel like a kid again.  I am a KinderMom again this year which means friends, family and neighbours will all reap the rewards once again as we…

  • infertility - parenting

    #Thanksgiving – Missing Pieces #ohip4ivf #onpoli

    October 11, 2013 - By 

    Holidays are never so difficult as when you are missing something, or someone. This year will be our first year without my Mom at Thanksgiving. These were the photos we took last year when we were all together. Whole. Hindsight is 20/20 and I now know this was probably our happiest holiday ever. We were happy, chasing children up and down the halls of a retirement home where we all met for dinner. The kids were magnificently loud and messy and full of life. Work was good, life was good, rarely perfect, but also full. Mom was happy, loved, in…

  • family

    Five Lessons Learned from #BlissdomCa 2013

    October 7, 2013 - By 

    Snapshots of my Blissdom experience 2013 Blissdom last year in 2012 Three years ago I attended my first ever Blissdom Canada conference. It was a leap of faith. I was a newbie. I had newbie nerves. I’d been writing for years at that point in mainstream media and had a lot of bylines that accumulated over the years. I had a small blog. It was a growing blog, but still something wasn’t quite yet clicking. Jennifer Reynolds from Canadian Family threw down a challenge during a writing and publishing workshop. Write about finding your bliss. I knew I’d do it,…

  • FASD - Health - parenting - special needs

    The Good News/ Bad News Week and #Giveaways

    September 27, 2013 - By 

    Shutterstock images This was an oddball week. A dog’s breakfast really. My kitchen is done. Stay tuned for the reveal. It looks great. So Yay! I had a stager come and look at our house to see what needs to be done. Boo. Not suprisingly she loved the new kitchen. Yay. And hated everything else. Boo. Just kidding. She didn’t really say that. I mean she’d not have many clients if she did, right? So painting and decluttering has become my life. Yay! I mean Boo! I had a pile of giveaways launched and a pile more coming next week.…