Bluenose Mommy

This March break is certainly stacking up to be significantly different from those in the past. Plans are changing by the hour and we are doing our best to not panic, keep breathing, and go with the flow as much as we can. Yesterday when I made the final decision to cancel our trip to Ottawa, I started to plan a staycation that would limit our social interaction with groups. So here is my current plan on how I am going to spend March Break with my kids. We s tocked up on dollar store craft kits. I am pretty sure we bought every craft kit that they had that was age appropriate for a 4 and 6 year old. I am going to finally sign up for Disney + and start getting them ready for what I hope to be their big March break trip next year. We are going to create and follow a routine as much as we can. My kids do best when there is a routine and they can predict what is coming next. Daily Routine Wake Up: Breakfast, Dressed, down time.  Structured Activity: Pic

If you follow me on Instagram you may have noticed acts of kindness popping up for the past month randomly in my stories. I was looking for a way to celebrate turning 36 this year and I had read of a couple people who chose to do as many random acts of kindness as they were turning, cue the beginning of 36 RAOK. I started to make my list of ideas and my son was super curious about what I was doing and became eager to help me with as many as he could. I also realized it wasn't realistic with my families schedule to expect to complete them all in one day, so I scheduled out what acts I would accomplish each week, with the goal of having them all done on February 17th, exactly one month after my birthday. At the time of this post, I still have 3 left and just over a week to complete them. So, what were my 36 RAOK? 1. Donate new socks and craft kits to Daycare 2. Leave money on a toy at the Dollarstore 3. Deliver storm chips to neighbors 4. Leave treats for hubby in the

It's love month, and that means it's the commercialized month of Valentines day. Que the chocolate, flowers, cards, and plastic trinkets for kids. I totally get sucked into all things Valentines and enjoy trying to make the day special, without getting sucked into a money pit. Here are five ways that I celebrate love month with my kids: 1. Door Hearts On February 1st I start adding hearts to their bedroom door saying one thing that I love about them. By the time February 14th rolls around, they have 14 hearts on their door. In the past they have all been from my or my husband, but this year, I think I'm going to get them to write some to each other. 2. Valentines for Veterans These had to be sent out by February 1st, so it might be too late for that program, but there are lots of other places where I am sure handmade cards made by kids would be greatly appreciated. I am thinking nursing homes, hospitals, seniors apartments, etc. If you want to be a littl

For as many summers as I can remember, I would always bring up the idea of travelling over Christmas vacation. I love Christmas, I love the excitement leading up to Christmas, but I rarely enjoy the time between Christmas and New Years. It always seems that everything happens before the 25th and then nothing….crickets. Finally, this year we pulled the trigger and booked a trip. Quebec Here we come! We left Christmas Day around 3pm, we wanted to make sure we still visited our families. We decided to only go as far as Moncton, assuming we would all be exhausted from the day, and that was a good decision, we did end up having a 5am wake up call Christmas Morning. We stayed at the Holiday Inn Express on Mapleton Road. We specifically booked this hotel for the pool, but ended up being way too tired to even check it out. We were however, extremely grateful and impressed by the lady working the breakfast in the morning. It was a great breakfast and she paid special attention to o

Do you make lists for the Summer? Are the lists for things you want to do with the kids? with your spouse? with your family? Are they lists of tasks that you just really want to accomplish around the house while the weather is nice? Those are great lists! I have those lists too, but I also have another list, which I consider to be just as important as all the others. This is a list of things that I personally want to do just for me. You can call it self care or keeping my self a priority or whatever "label" you want to give it. All I know is that there are things that I want to do, some small, some larger, that aren't going to get done if I only make the other lists. I am also someone that isn't going to wait until retirement, or the kids are older, or this or that before I allow myself to make time for me. Yes it takes more planning and yes you need a supportive spouse or creative ways to make it happen, but you can have your own list. What is somethin

I'm a planner by nature, but not much gets planned like my Summers do. Hence the Summer Planner binder that we have. I start with monthly calendars and put in all the camps, sports, appointments, lessons and trips that are already paid for and/or booked.  Then I search and search Facebook events and Pinterest lists for ideas to fill in the remaining days and create our own list.    At the beginning of each week we sit down with our weekly planner, check out the weather forecast, consult our monthly planner, and fill in all the fun things we are going to do. The weekly planner gets posted on the fridge or somewhere prominent that everyone can see.  You can access our Monthly Planner here You can access our Weekly Planner here! And here is our master list for all things Fun to do this summer in and around HRM! Do you like a planned summer or a go with the flow summer?