Meet Anastasia

I came here to share a nursery organization post, but then I realized I hadn't introduced our newest member of the family yet. 

Just before leaving the hospital

Our sweet girl joined us on December 26, almost two weeks early (just like her sister!). She was 6 pounds, 9 ounces. We delivered at the new Jim Pattison Children's hospital, and it is such an improvement from the setup in the old maternity and postpartum wards. 

The first couple weeks of Ana's life were very busy and honestly felt like two months. Things calmed down around week three and I felt like I was able to really start to get to know her and properly rest and take in the postpartum period. 

At my in-laws the day after she was born

This girl is extremely smiley and has hit every milestone early so far. She looks almost identical to her older sister, which makes it feel like we've always known her, and we constantly get their names mixed up.

Anastasia at three months

Pre-Advent Declutter Challenge

My friend Brandi came up with a great way to help declutter our lives in advance of the Advent season, so that we can truly relax, enjoy, and prepare to welcome Christ once again. It’s way too easy to let the time leading up to Christmas become over-full with advance Christmas celebrations, shopping, preparing our homes, seeing all the people, and doing all the fun/cute/Pinterest activities (no, just me?). While enjoying the season in all of these ways is definitely not a bad thing, when they take over the season and take away from the focus of preparing for Christ’s birth and truly entering into Advent, it can be.

One way that Brandi decided she could more easily enjoy Advent was by preparing her home for it. She decided to start up a decluttering challenge in the days remaining before Advent and she invited her friends on Instagram to join along. She made her profile temporarily public while this challenge is going on so feel free to check out her stories @branadyga to learn a bit more about the challenge.

At first, I wasn’t going to join in. She started at the end of last week, and this week is my final week at work before baby. I figured I would be too busy to focus on any decluttering. But as I watched her stories and she emphasized how this isn’t some big, deep decluttering project, but more of a “some is good” project, I decided to join in.

The beauty of this challenge is that you can really join in whenever and make it as big (or as small) as you want. You devote as much time as you think you can to it, and there are no specific time or volume rules. It’s really about coming together for a little bit of accountability and fun seeing other people’s before and afters.

I started on November 23 with my side of the bedroom. After that, I came up with a list of things that I could do with my remaining days (minus this past Sunday), which I’ve shared below. I made sure everything fit with my schedule, and only planned to do something on the days where I wasn’t busy in the evening. I plan to share my progress on Instagram, so make sure you are following me @sweetspontaneity. 

One item on my list, my office, is an on-going process that I am approaching with a different mindset than I usually approach decluttering. Usually, I’m a dive in and get it done kind of person. I don’t leave the room and instead use a basket to collect anything that doesn’t belong there. After I am done the space, I then go take the items to their proper places. With my office, however, I was getting nowhere. I’ve had the space very tidy and quite organized (for some standards, very organized!) but it would continually get in bad shape again. The problem is, it’s kind of the place where I put things that I have not assigned a specific home to yet.  I have found that I would start sorting, make piles, have someone coming over, and shove everything back into the room and close the door. Only to start again a week or so later. A couple weeks ago, I made the decision to start with one item at a time and to put that item in it’s proper place before moving on. This often means that I am walking all over the house, back and forth, while decluttering. No, this isn’t efficient, but it’s helping me to make progress!

Do you have any decluttering projects that you would like to get to before Advent begins?

Five Experience Christmas Gift Ideas for Toddlers

There has been a bit of a surge in interest in the last few years about experience gifts versus physical gifts. With the popularization of minimalism, sustainability, and intentional living, experience gifts seem like a no-brainer. As a parent, I completely see the merits of limiting the “stuff” and avoiding overwhelm – not only for your children, but also for you as the parent keeping it all in order! I have been brainstorming what we could gift to Isabelle this year and came up with these ideas.

Weekly Activities/Clubs

If your child is involved in a regular, scheduled activity, or if there is something you were thinking of signing them up for, this makes a great gift! Dance, swimming, gymnastics, hockey, music – the possibilities are endless. As for what they can actually open on Christmas morning, you could purchase something they need for the class or activity. A bodysuit and tights for dance, a swimsuit for swimming lessons, skates for hockey, etc. Or, you could give them a small toy that emulates the activity, which you could use to help explain the activity if it is new to them or they are very young.

Visit to Local Attractions

You likely have a museum, children’s centre, or special local attraction available to you – why not get your child a pass to that? They will have fun spending time with you, and it would likely be educational, too.

Road Trip

This might not be for all children or families, especially if time in the car is more stressful than fun. But if you like short trips, consider a road trip to somewhere new or somewhere you have been before but could explore a little more.

Family Vacation

While a road trip could definitely be seen as a family vacation, this category is meant to be more of a larger vacation. Some families like to forgo presents to take a trip together instead. I am a huge fan of this idea, if your budget can accommodate it.

A Visit to the Bookstore or Library

Instead of purchasing your child books to open on Christmas Day, let them know that you will spend an afternoon together choosing a few books for them to enjoy. This can be at a bookstore or a library, but the key component is spending time together looking through all of the options and making the selection together.

I came up with plenty more ideas for older children, but it was a little bit harder to think of things that made sense for toddlers. What else would you add to the list?