norelle & co.

I absolutely LOVE trying out new recipes.  It gets too boring eating the same ol' things day after day; that's why in this house, we like to switch things up. There are a few (well, more than a few) recipes that I am dying to try out this summer, especially since my husband will be home, and he'll be able to eat everything after we've freshly made it.  He decided to put a vegetable and herb garden in our backyard, and we cannot wait until everything is ready to enjoy.  Here are some recipes that I know I'll be making in the upcoming weeks and months.

Happy Monday!  I promise you that I haven't given up on my two projects I have on the go; the dresser make-over and the chair make-over.  It has been nice to be outside in this beautiful weather working on these projects.  Now that they are both in the final stages, I have been thinking about the finishing touches.  I've also been thinking about ways to make my life easier, as well as make the furniture look more professional.


For my dresser, I chose to repaint the original hardware.  I tried to figure out the best way to spray paint the knobs so that they wouldn't roll around, or get stuck to the paper/sheets underneath.  Then it came to me.... egg cartons!

Whether you've watched the show or not, we all know if we consider ourselves a Carrie, Charlotte, Samantha or Miranda.  Though Sex and the City has taught us many lessons about being single and fabulous, and married life, and we cannot forget one of the most important lessons the girls have taught us; no matter how busy your life gets, ALWAYS make time for your girlfriends.


I am so extremely lucky to have close girlfriends, whom I consider sisters.  We each live very different lives, and have lived in different cities, but we've always managed to make sure we make time for one another.  For us, the last Sunday of every month we have a girls breakfast, SATC style.

Summer is finally here.  I am so lucky that my husband is a teacher and has the summers off with my daughter and I.  Now that the weather is finally heated up and staying this way, I am longing to do for a picnic down by the bay.  

We had a pretty exciting weekend around this parts.  On Friday, we attended a graduation party for myself, and my two friends, Trevor and Nina, (Norelle even managed to scam two pieces of cake out of us somehow)!  Saturday Norelle had her soccer pictures taken, we played at the park, ran through the sprinkler, I worked on my chair makeover while she napped, and then we had a girls night together, since my husband was out at a concert. Sunday, of course, we celebrated Father's Day!  We invited my parents and my grandparent's over (my in-laws would have been invited too, but they were away on vacation), for breakfast.  I figured I should do something beside's the usual scrambled eggs and bacon, so I prepared a different, but easy special Father's Day breakfast.

We've been lucky to have had some nice weather around here lately.  May seemed to be fairly cold and super rainy, with a few of those hot teaser days in between.  June has been wonderful so far, which excites me, since we've had a dresser waiting to be redone in our garage since the end of winter.  We are lucky to have a fairly big master suite, with an ensuite bathroom and walk-in closet.  I've envisioned having a dresser at the foot of our bed (opposed to the opposite wall where our dressers are on now), but is has proven to be a challenge.


I fell in love with Ikea's Hemnes 8-drawer dresser early on (when the price was higher), and loved its clean line and simplicity.

This past Monday was my graduation from McMaster University, where I received my Bachelor of Arts degree in History.  I really did not know what to expect at the ceremony.  The only thing I knew is that it would be long, and Steve Smith was our honorary degree recipient.  There were a lot of graduands to receive their degree, and the theatre was absolutely packed!! Luckily my husband got into the theatre as soon as the doors opened, and found seats for himself and my parents only 3 rows back from me (since I was in the last row).


Steve Smith is an acclaimed Canadian comedian, who was made especially famous for his character Red Green.  His speech was honest and real, which was great to hear; no sugar coating but still funny.  There were other speeches, including the Valedictorian and President of the University's.  The ceremony started at 2:30 (I had been waiting in a room lined up since 1:00pm... in heels no less), and the ceremony did not end until just after 5:00pm. Wayyyy longer than they expected.  The one thing that got me through the ceremony, was sitting only a few feet infront of Ryan Gosling  the whole time ;).  His mom was graduating with us; he even yelled out, "love you mom! you're the best mom ever!" when she was receiving her degree. He was quite nice "eye candy" if you will, during the long ceremony!  I wasn't able to record Steve Smith's speech to our class, nor could I find it online; so I will leave you with one of my favorite and most inspirational of graduation speeches by Baz Luhrmann.

As explained in my previous post, my daughter just celebrated her 3rd birthday.  Besides the homemade tissue paper pom poms and cupcakes, I also made a bunting banner.  I love how classic they are, and how they can be used for years to come! First, choose your colour scheme, and choose fabrics accordingly.  I chose the cheapest fabrics I could find that matched the colour scheme I was going for at our local fabric store.  You can use ribbon or rope to attach your banner triangles together, but I chose quilt edging (especially since it was buy one meter get one free!).

I cannot believe how time flies.  I remember first finding out I was pregnant, and before we knew it, we had our beautiful, 9lb baby girl in our arms!  Our little girl, Norelle, turned three on May 24th.  We are so lucky to have amazing friends and family in our lives and we look forward to celebrating her birthday with them every year.  I reeeeeally love decorating for her birthdays.  For her first birthday, we just went to our local party supplier and bought the typical pink and purple 1's, with the matching decorations, which was easy enough, but didn't quite do anything for my creative side.  Last year, we had a butterfly theme (I'll blog about those how-to's another time).  This year, we (and by we, I mean me, since my husband would probably just blow up 3 balloons and call that the "decorations") had a red and light blue colour theme.  Our house and backyard were filled with home made tissue paper pom-poms, a homemade bunting banner, and a cupcakes galore!