Monday, July 31, 2017

July 31st Monday Madness Giveaway Linky






Are you enjoying your summer? We have been putting our swim membership to great use - definitely getting our money out of it this year. How would you like to win some prizes? Make sure to enter the great giveaways linked up below. If you are a blogger, feel free to list any open giveaways you have on your blog. Make sure to list the prize, end date and country eligibility (CAN/US/WW) any listed without this information will be deleted.





kids board gamespirates leaguewrite letter to disney charactergiveaway

Friday, July 28, 2017

Tips For Planning Summer Birthday Parties



It can be hard for kids that have a summer birthday. They see all their friends having parties during the year, but often in summer people are away and unable to attend parties.  Over the years I have picked up some tips that I am going to share with you.

Both my kids have summer birthdays. The oldest is July 4th, and the youngest is August 28th.  In terms of invitations, there isn't an issue with the July birthday - they can be handed out at school in June. It does pose a bit of a problem with vacations though, because many people spend that first weekend of July at cottages.  There a few options to combat this:
  1. Host the party in June while school is still in session
  2. Host the party the weekend AFTER the birthday, when people may be back from vacation (although in our experience, many people seem to travel during the first two weeks of July)
  3. Keep it small - only invite 2 or 3 of their closest friends that you know are able to make it.
Things get a bit trickier for the late August birthday. When kids are young, as parents we don't always have contact information for the school mates they want to invite to their party.  Our school does not give out a class list.  When you don't know the kids, it can be difficult to get in touch over the summer.
  1. In mid - June, send a note to school for the friends your child wants to see over the summer. Ask for their contact information.
  2. Send invites a little earlier than normal (approximately 4 weeks before party). Put the RSVP date as 2 weeks before the party. (this gives you time to change party plans if most of the invited kids are not able to attend). 
  3. Try to avoid sending invites at the end of school - it may seem like you are being pro-active; however, so much stuff comes home that it is likely to get lost. If it doesn't get lost right away, it will likely get forgotten about because it is so far away.
  4. Plan a mid-September party. Close enough to their birthday that it still feels natural to celebrate, but allows invites to be given out at school, and most people are more available.
Mr. K's birthday party is in a few weeks. I am in the process of sending out invites now - and will see how things stand around the 15th of the month. If no one is able to come, we will end up rescheduling to September.

In past years we have been lucky - most of the kids have been able to come. Now that they are getting older though and his friends are changing, I am not so confident.

Week 4 Summer Bucket List Update





















Hard to believe that 4 weeks of summer vacation have gone by.  This past week the kids were in camps (pedalheads and level up).  Mr. K and I went for a bike ride on Sunday, and we swam a few times. Other than that, we didn't get anything else crossed off the list.

I have plans for this coming week, so we should be able to cross 2 items off the list.....hopefully.

Tales of Mommyhood 2017 Summer Bucket List
  • strawberry picking - we waited too long, and the crops are not great because of all the rain, so this won't be happening
  • lots of swimming (we will be getting a swim membership again this year)
  • trips to Saunders Farm (we have annual passes)
  • mini golfing
  • go karting
  • biking locally through the area we live
  • biking through one of the local forest trails
  • park omega
  • day trip to Primitive Designs (Mr. K loves transformers)
    • stop at The Big Apple on our way home
  • Carp Custom Creamery for ice cream
  • lunch at The Cheshire Cat
  • picnic at the park 
  • water fight
  • diefenbunker
  • visit Little Ray's Reptile Zoo
  • baking cookies
  • sleepover at grandparents
  • driving range
  • camping (I have this on here, but we don't camp. We MIGHT camp in my moms backyard this summer....we shall see)
  • nerf war
  • movie at the theatre
  • park play
I will be posting updates weekly with what we have done, and adding in anything else that we decided to do as well.

Do you have any plans for summer?

Monday, July 24, 2017

July 24th Monday Madness Giveaway Linky






Are you enjoying your summer? We have been putting our swim membership to great use - definitely getting our money out of it this year. How would you like to win some prizes? Make sure to enter the great giveaways linked up below. If you are a blogger, feel free to list any open giveaways you have on your blog. Make sure to list the prize, end date and country eligibility (CAN/US/WW) any listed without this information will be deleted.





kids board gamespirates leaguewrite letter to disney charactergiveaway

Friday, July 21, 2017

Week 3 Summer Bucket List Update





















Our third week has come to an end. Mr. K was in a half day camp this week at our church.  In addition to that, we went swimming, the kids had a nerf war with another boy on the street;  Mr. K had a couple of tutoring sessions; Mr. J had soccer, went skateboarding and he and I played 2 rounds of mini golf.  Trips to Macs for frosters, backyard play, board games and regular household duties.


Tales of Mommyhood 2017 Summer Bucket List
  • strawberry picking - we waited too long, and the crops are not great because of all the rain, so this won't be happening
  • lots of swimming (we will be getting a swim membership again this year)
  • trips to Saunders Farm (we have annual passes)
  • mini golfing
  • go karting
  • biking locally through the area we live
  • biking through one of the local forest trails
  • park omega
  • day trip to Primitive Designs (Mr. K loves transformers)
    • stop at The Big Apple on our way home
  • Carp Custom Creamery for ice cream
  • lunch at The Cheshire Cat
  • picnic at the park 
  • water fight
  • diefenbunker
  • visit Little Ray's Reptile Zoo
  • baking cookies
  • sleepover at grandparents
  • driving range
  • camping (I have this on here, but we don't camp. We MIGHT camp in my moms backyard this summer....we shall see)
  • nerf war
  • movie at the theatre
  • park play
I will be posting updates weekly with what we have done, and adding in anything else that we decided to do as well.

Do you have any plans for summer?

Thursday, July 20, 2017

Summer Fun At The Pool

This is NOT a sponsored post, but does contain affiliate links. If you make 
a purchase using a link, it is no cost to you.

We enjoyed our pool membership so much last year, that we got one again for this summer. I like to spend as much time as possible outside when the weather is nice. Sometimes it feels too hot to be doing activities though, and relaxing poolside is perfect on those occasions.  You can dip into the pool to cool off.


One of the things I like about swimming with the kids, is that they have no idea that they are being active. To them, it's just a fun activity. To me, it gets them outside in the fresh air and it keeps them physically active (an evening swim seems to help them sleep well also).


They can swim, float, jump, splash and have a ton of outdoor fun.  This particular pool isn't overly busy (it's a hotel fitness center, and membership allows access to both an indoor and outdoor pool). The kids know when it's appropriate to jump in and splash around, and when it's not.

There are lots of lounge chairs around the pool deck, offering a great place to relax when not in the water.  I always throw down a towel to avoid sitting directly on the plastic chair (they get hot and skin sticks to them). It gets annoying when those towels fall down though.

My cousin had some pretty cool Olaf towel clips she purchased in the U.S. I didn't see anything in stores here, but I did manage to find lots online.  I went with Canadian themed ones from a store, but Amazon has a pretty huge selection of towel clips. There are Disney characters, animals and some plain ones.  Regular clothespins would work well, but they aren't as fun :)

We have already spent a lot of time at the pool, and with 6 weeks of summer left, I see many more visits in our future.

What's your favourite way to cool off in summer?

Wednesday, July 19, 2017

Save The Date: #BloggersFete 2017

In August 2015 I co-founded the #BloggersFete event with The Koala Mom, Maple Mouse Mama and a few other bloggers. We will be back this year for the 3rd annual #BloggersFete - and we want you to join us!


Please join the 3 of us, as well as British Columbia Mom and Shannon's View From Here as we celebrate our blogs and our readers. We hope that you will follow along with #BloggersFete 2017. There will be blog giveaways running from August 1-10th, and we will wrap up with a twitter party on the 10th.

To keep up to date on what's happening, sign up for the Tales of Mommyhood newsletter.

Hole In ONE!

mini golf, mini putt, hole in one, ottawa, summer fun

Mr K is in a half day camp this week. Today, his grandmother was picking him up and taking him to her place to spend some time with him. This gave me the opportunity to have some one-on-one time with Mr. J.  

We didn't know what we were going to do, he wanted to see a movie but then changed his mind. We decided to go mini-putting.  There are a few options close to us, but we chose the one that has two courses - and you can play both sides for the price of one.

We headed to the first hole and I ended up with a hole in one!  As we played the rest of the first course, I ended up maxing out on a few of the holes - and Mr. J had a much better score than I.

When we moved to the 2nd course, Mr. J ended up with a hole in one on the first hole! Lucky him.  I did a little better this time around, but he ended up beating me. He was 3 over par on the 2nd course....I won't tell you what my scores were though.

Hard to believe that we both scored hole in ones.

Monday, July 17, 2017

Monopoly Gamer: Combining Board Game Fun With Nintendo Characters


Hasbro has a new board game soon to be released: Monopoly Gamer!  It's a spin on the traditional Monopoly game to include a few of your favourite Nintendo characters and objects. Princess Peach, Mario, Yoshi and Donkey Kong are the characters to choose from. Special power ups are available to be used depending on what comes up on the rolled dice.



Mr. K and I spent some time playing it on the weekend and it was a fun change.  You move around the board and are able to buy properties; you collect coins (as you pass go and also dropped coins from other players) and another twist is that as you pass go, you battle some of the legendary bosses from the Mario world.

Instead of the traditional paper money you are accustomed to, Monopoly Gamer features coins valued at 1 and 5. You can earn coins by landing on spaces with the coin box, from the dice or passing over coins that other players have dropped.
"The standard MONOPOLY GAMER Edition game will be available this August at mass market retailers for a suggested retail price of $39.99, and is for ages 8 and up. Fans can take their MONOPOLY GAMER experience to the next level with the purchase of MONOPOLY GAMER POWER PACKS (each sold separately), which include one of several Super Mario character tokens like Luigi, Boo, Rosalina, Wario, Diddy Kong and more. The POWER PACKS will be available this August for a suggested retail price of $4.99 each."
Keep your eyes out for this new game - the perfect addition for any Mario fan in your life!

July 17th Monday Madness Giveaway Linky






If you are a blogger, feel free to list any open giveaways you have on your blog. Make sure to list the prize, end date and country eligibility (CAN/US/WW) any listed without this information will be deleted.





kids board gamespirates leaguewrite letter to disney charactergiveaway

Sunday, July 16, 2017

Sleep Away Camp Was A Success!


summer camp, kids away, sleep over camp, summer fun, camp,
waiting to load the bus
A few months ago, my sister in law and I got up insanely early one Saturday morning and registered our kids for sleep away camp. Mr. J and my nephew were registered together, and my niece and a friend registered together.

This particular camp has boys in July, and girls in August.  This last week, Mr. J and my nephew got on a bus Monday morning and headed off for their first ever sleep away camp.  They were so excited and full of smiles all morning while we waited to load the bus.  For a few weeks prior, Mr. J kept telling me how excited he was.  

I was super excited for him, but I was also a little nervous. I never attended an away camp - my parents always wanted me to, but I was too much of a home body and didn't want to be away from my parents.  I didn't really even sleep at friends houses when I was young - I would normally call home around the time we were going to bed because I felt sick. Lucky for me, my dad always came and picked me up.

Mr. J has spent the night at a friends house once (for a birthday party), and also with my nephew once. I was really hoping he would be ok.  I figured that as long as they were both having fun, there was nothing to worry about. If one of them called home, then it was likely they would both need to be picked up.

When Tuesday evening came and I hadn't heard anything, I knew that things were fine.  I was so excited to see him on Friday afternoon.  When they got off the bus, the first words out of his mouth were that he couldn't wait for next summer so he could go back!

Nightly camp fire, swimming in a lake, canoeing, a huge mud pit, soccer, ultimate frisbee, fire building and more! Wake up at 8am and bed at 930pm with the majority of the day spent outside being active.

He came home a little dirty, a little smelly, and full of memories that can't be found at home.

Now I have Mr. K who is super sad; you need to be 8 to go to this camp, and his birthday is at the end of August so he won't be able to go next summer.

Do your kids go to sleep away camp?


Friday, July 14, 2017

Week 2 Summer Bucket List Update





















Our second week of summer is here; Mr. J has gone to summer camp, and gets home this afternoon. My niece stayed over for 2 nights; I took them to see Despicable Me 3, they played outside, pizza for supper, lots of board games and they watched a movie in the fort before bed. The next day they played outside for hours and also many, many rounds of yahtzee and othello, followed by a movie before bed.  Wednesday I took them swimming in the afternoon, and then dropped my niece off.  It was lovely having her over.


I had hoped to get to Saunders farm this week, but that didn't happen. Mr. K is in a morning camp next week - and Mr. J will be home.

Tales of Mommyhood 2017 Summer Bucket List
  • strawberry picking - we waited too long, and the crops are not great because of all the rain, so this won't be happening
  • lots of swimming (we will be getting a swim membership again this year)
  • trips to Saunders Farm (we have annual passes)
  • mini golfing
  • go karting
  • biking locally through the area we live
  • biking through one of the local forest trails
  • park omega
  • day trip to Primitive Designs (Mr. K loves transformers)
    • stop at The Big Apple on our way home
  • Carp Custom Creamery for ice cream
  • lunch at The Cheshire Cat
  • picnic at the park 
  • water fight
  • diefenbunker
  • visit Little Ray's Reptile Zoo
  • baking cookies
  • sleepover at grandparents
  • driving range
  • camping (I have this on here, but we don't camp. We MIGHT camp in my moms backyard this summer....we shall see)
  • movie at the theatre
  • park play
I will be posting updates weekly with what we have done, and adding in anything else that we decided to do as well.

Do you have any plans for summer?

Monday, July 10, 2017

July 10th Monday Madness Giveaway Linky






If you are a blogger, feel free to list any open giveaways you have on your blog. Make sure to list the prize, end date and country eligibility (CAN/US/WW) any listed without this information will be deleted.





kids board gamespirates leaguewrite letter to disney charactergiveaway

Sunday, July 9, 2017

Get Outside With Coleman Canada


Coleman Canada wants you to get outside and make some memories. They have declared July 14th National Get Outside Day, and they want you to join in. Step out of your home and discover the beautiful country that we live in.  There are so many ways that you can participate. Spend the afternoon swimming, hiking or pack a picnic and head to your local park.

Set up a game of lawn darts or croquet in the backyard, and invite the neighbours to play and have a bbq dinner. Grab your water guns and have a water fight with the family and cool off if it's a super hot day.  Not into outdoor activities? Grab a book and sit on your deck or patio while reading - one of my favourite ways to pass the time.

You could pack up the car and head camping for a night or two.  Don't forget to pack the sleeping bags and bug spray if you choose this option. We have the illumi-bug 45 youth sleeping bag for Mr. K. We aren't a camping family, but I think it would be fun for the kids, so we may attempt it this summer.

Mr. J is leaving Monday morning for summer camp, so he will be spending pretty much the whole week outside, not just one day. I will hopefully get swimming with Mr. K if the weather holds up for us. Otherwise, we may take a walk in the rain and puddle jump like we did when he was a toddler.

What is your favourite way to spend time outside?

Friday, July 7, 2017

Thank You To My Children's Teachers #CatholicTeachers

This post is part of they YummyMummyClub.ca and Ontario Catholic Teachers #CatholicTeachers sponsored program. I received compensation as a thank you for my participation. This post reflects my personal opinion about the information provided by the sponsors.

When I think back to my school years, there is one teacher that really stands out in my mind. Her name is Mrs. Revells and she was my fourth grade teacher.  I can't really pinpoint WHY, but I definitely think of her with fond memories. I often walked around with her at recess, and she always had the greatest stories to share.

Now that I am a parent, I feel very fortunate that up to this point, my kids have had some fantastic educators in their Catholic school. I don't think I could have hand picked better teachers if given the chance. They have all been wonderful.  This year, Mr. K's Grade 1 teacher, Mrs. Stewart-Smith (or Mrs. S) has definitely made an incredible impact - not only with Mr. K, but with me as well.

Thursday, July 6, 2017

Week 1 - Summer Bucket List Update





















The kids have been off school for a week, so it is time for our first update. Hubby was off work this week, and we had lots of fun things planned - and then I ended up not feeling great for 3 days - so that threw a kink into our plans.  So far only 2 things are crossed off, hubby and Mr. J went to the driving range earlier in the week. We also went to my aunts for a 4th of July bbq, where we had cake for Mr. J's birthday. The kids got to swim for quite a while and had a lot of fun.

Mr. J is at camp next week, and I hope to get to Saunders Farm with Mr. K, as well as swimming at the Brookstreet.

Tales of Mommyhood 2017 Summer Bucket List
  • strawberry picking
  • lots of swimming (we will be getting a swim membership again this year)
  • trips to Saunders Farm (we have annual passes)
  • mini golfing
  • go karting
  • biking locally through the area we live
  • biking through one of the local forest trails
  • park omega
  • day trip to Primitive Designs (Mr. K loves transformers)
    • stop at The Big Apple on our way home
  • Carp Custom Creamery for ice cream
  • lunch at The Cheshire Cat
  • picnic at the park 
  • water fight
  • diefenbunker
  • visit Little Ray's Reptile Zoo
  • baking cookies
  • sleepover at grandparents
  • driving range
  • camping (I have this on here, but we don't camp. We MIGHT camp in my moms backyard this summer....we shall see)
I will be posting updates weekly with what we have done, and adding in anything else that we decided to do as well.

Do you have any plans for summer?

Tuesday, July 4, 2017

Today, He Is 10

I cannot believe that today is Mr. J's 10th birthday. It hardly feels like any time has passed since he was born.  Those first couple of weeks weren't filled with joy like most families experience upon the birth of a child, they were instead filled with stress and anxiety.  We made it through, and have had so much laughter since those early days.

Mr. J is a funny kid. He has a great sense of humour, and sometimes comes out with the funniest things.

On his 5th birthday, he woke up and came to find me and told me he was a whole hand. Now my dear boy, you are TWO whole hands.

He loves that his birthday falls on July 4th - and hopes to one day spend his birthday celebrating in the U.S.  Today we will be going to my aunts house for a bbq; her son and his family are up visiting from the States and are having a big party to celebrate.

Saturday, July 1, 2017

July 3rd Monday Madness Giveaway Linky






Happy Monday everyone! I hope all my Canadian readers had a great Canada Day - and wish my American readers a Happy 4th of July. We will be celebrating since it is Mr. J's birthday!

If you are a blogger, feel free to list any open giveaways you have on your blog. Make sure to list the prize, end date and country eligibility (CAN/US/WW) any listed without this information will be deleted.





kids board gamespirates leaguewrite letter to disney charactergiveaway

Canada Day Word Search Printable


Today marks Canada's 150th birthday.  July 1st 1867 was when confederation took place. Originally it was only Nova Scotia, New Brunswick and Canada (before confederation, Ontario and Quebec was known as Upper Canada {english} and Lower Canada {French}; upon confederation it was split into two provinces now known as Ontario and Quebec)

Over time more provinces and territories joined to become the Canada we know today.

We will be celebrating our nations birthday at home with friends. We host a bbq every year, some years are bigger than others, but always lots of fun.

We were red and white, have sparklers for the kids, play Frisbee, soccer, football and tag. Sit around chatting and laughing and eating lots of food.

I hope that you are having fun this Canada Day as well - however that may be. If you are looking for some dessert ideas, check out my Canada Day dessert round up.

Feel free to print out this Canada themed word search PDF for the kids to do. It might keep them occupied for a few minutes.