paper wonderland

The Little Papercuts home is finally looking a lot like Christmas. The tree is dressed, the presents are wrapped, our paper chain garland is hung and we've just finished putting up the last of our extremely large paper snowflakes.























We decorate our windows every year (we live in a condo, and overlook the center courtyard, we also face two other buildings on either side), it helps to provide a bit of a screen between ourselves and our neighbours. This year we decided to make our snowflakes extra big...read less cutting for mom:) I am thrilled at the end result! Now I know some of you may think we went a little overboard and yes 'less is more', but hey, it's Christmas! I love the graphic quality of the large snowflakes, and we mixed in some medium and smaller sized ones too.















To make these beauties we followed the templates provided over at Martha Stewart for a six pointed snowflake and the lovely blog of How About Orange for some sweet five point stars. For the large and medium snowflakes we used a roll of MALM craft paper from Ikea ($4.99 a roll). So get out some paper and scissors for the kids and turn your house into a winter wonderland too:)

for the birds

Just wanted to post a little pic of my eldest Papercut's project on the Trumpeter Swan, complete with a diorama and a family of swans made out of plasticine. She received an A++ on it! Good job sweetie!

brace face

As kids the Mr. and I both had braces, so we knew somewhere down the line one, if not all of the kids, would need braces one day. And yesterday was the day. Alison, the biggest mini papercut, got a headgear. She only has to wear it at home and when she's sleeping, and she didn't get any actual braces on her front teeth yet (those are coming), so unless you know she has braces on her back teeth, you'd never suspect she has braces at all.

But apparently kids this age are excited to get braces, even asking for them when they don't need them! The dental hygienist told us that they get a lot of little girls who come in and when they get their elastics changed each month, they colour coordinate with all their friends, all getting pink or blue that month. Boy, how things have changed!

I have to admit, I hated having braces and was thrilled when I had them taken off. Alison seems to be having a really positive experience so far, she even has a schoolmate who's jealous that she was going to get braces yesterday! Hopefully she'll see that the end result will be worth the next few years of a mouth full of metal, because these things are EXPENSIVE and I'll be broke by the end of all of this! On that note, thanks Mom for paying for my braces, I am very grateful you did ;)

dear santa

Vintage Pedal Plane from Restoration Hardware baby & child

How cute is this airplane? I am in love with all of the adorable little retro pedal cars and vintage tricycles available right now. Especially this gorgeous airplane from Restoration Hardware baby & child (which is a tad out of my price range), as well as the sweet pink speedster (fittingly named Driving Ms. Speedster) pictured below from The Land of Nod.






















Driving Ms. Speedster from The Land of Nod

And at $89 it's definitely within reason. I don't know if it's the classic lines, or the old-fashioned feel of these cuties, but whatever it is I'm completely sold!





















Sky King Junior Tricycle from Restoration Hardware baby & child

The older papercuts have added these both to the mini's Christmas List. I guess we'll have to see if Santa thinks she's been naughty or nice:)

tadpoles

The kids started swimming lessons over the summer this year, and I was pleasantly surprised at how quickly they seemed to pick things up, as well as their fearlessness in the water. I was also surprised (read shocked) that my daughter received her Level 1 badge in the first session. My son wasn't quite there yet, but did achieve Salamander status, which we were extremely happy with :)

But in the second session my eldest got her Level 2 badge and the little Salamander was still sitting with a big goose egg. So when we entered into the Fall session, he was determined to get his Level 1 badge, and I'm happy to announce that last Tuesday he succeeded! I now have 2 little swimmers going into Level 2 and Level 4 (the oldest papercut got her Level 3 badge too!). I'm so proud of them both...good job guys!!!

lazy bones

As of today we have only 2 more weeks until the kids are on Christmas holidays, and there is so much to get done! I have to admit, my absence as of late has been due in part to one thing...laziness. Maybe it's the cold weather (we were graced with a beautiful blanket of snow this weekend), maybe it's the excitement of Christmas, maybe it's the thought of all the housework that needs to get done for Christmas ;) Whatever it may be, I am guilty of succumbing to it and donning my lazybones pajamas.























My Christmas tree sits completely naked waiting for me to get all the lights and ornaments out of storage. Our paper snowflakes have yet to adorn our windows and there is a mountain of presents that need to be wrapped. I'm usually super excited about Christmas, and quickly put up all the decorations around the house. I don't know what it is this year. I wouldn't say I'm being a Scrooge or a Grinch, but lazy for sure. It feels kind of nice...relaxed. I'll get it done when it gets done. Maybe it's a little bit lazy and a little bit selfish? Hey with 3 kids, I think I'm entitled to just a pinch of each:) Lazy bones. I'll happily admit to that :)