Dramatic Winter Look

I had so much fun creating this dramatic winter look! Lets hang out and talk makeup products and application. 

Luke Lately

Its holiday time and just like you make everything in life more awesome, you made Christmas more awesome Luke!

Whenever you see Santa or something Christmassy you say HoHo.

You love doing yoga.

You love doing somersaults and you did one by yourself a few weeks ago week.

You are talking more and more everyday, trying to say everything that dad and I say.

You are very smart and we are so proud of you.

Your voice gets extra sweet when you say bubba.

Your affectionate, you will randomly come up and give me a hug. That is the best feeling in the world.

You like hockey and you yell GOAL whenever you see hockey sticks, a game on tv or anything hockey related.

One of your favourite words is 'more'.

You do this funny monkey walk that makes everyone laugh.

You love tangerines, sometimes you can eat four at a time.

Your dad is your hero, when I go in your room in the morning the first thing you say is 'dada'.

You make the everyday tasks, extraordinary.

You know how to take a selfie and you say 'cheese' while you hold the phone to face you.

Your awesome and happy and I hope you know how much you are loved and how great your worth is. You are special, created with a purpose by your Heavenly Father and your dad and I are here to help you live out that purpose.

I am excited to see what tomorrows adventure holds.

Love,
your mom

I Believe

My sister is a dance teacher and works with children that are at the age where they begin to question if Santa is real and over the past month she began to get the questions, “Is Santa real?” and “Do you believe in Santa?” My sister then asked me how I would respond to these questions and I told her.

I believe in the magic of Christmas and Santa Claus. I believe in encouraging my children to let their imagination run free. I believe in excitement over something you can only see in your mind and I believe in the pure anticipation of Christmas eve and sparkling joy of Christmas morning. All of these things can only come from a belief in something you can not see.

There is a fabulous quote from one of my favourite Christmas Movies, ‘The Santa Clause’; “Seeing isn't believing, believing is seeing”. Believing in something good that I am unable to see has only ever kept the Christmas magic and my general faith in good, alive and I believe that is at the root of my inner child. 

As I get older and experience disappointment and the everyday challenges of life, I have become at times a little less willing to trust and be hopeful. At Christmas time I am reminded of the strong ability that I once had to believe in something I had never seen with unfaltering excitement. We do live in a world that can be scary and at times when people are asking where is the good, I want to respond hopefully that there is good in our world, even if we can't see it. When we believe in the magic of Christmas, the good in our world and let our minds be joyful over something we can't see, we become that joy and beacons of hope ourselves, we become the actuality of what we hope for and therefore bring hope to those around us. 

Now that our family has young children, Christmas has become about the magic again. Parents, grandparents aunts and uncles are excited to once again experience Christmas through a child’s perspective and we are taken back to our own childhood memories.  We revisit our favourite movies, traditions and memories and work on creating unique memories for the little ones in our lives. Children are happy to believe in something they can not see and that is inspiring to me. I will always come to Christmas like a child, believing in something I can not see and having faith that the magic of Christmas is real. I believe that if we have faith in the good we will be filled hope, which will breed positivity, something our world can never have enough of. 

I believe in the magic of Christmas and Santa Claus, do you?

Come As You Are With What You Have - Little Drummer Boy

We borrowed a board book from the Library with the lyrics for Little Drummer Boy that has beautiful illustrations and I have been singing the song to Luke every morning before I pull him out of bed. You know when you know the words to something, you sing them and they don't really register because you have said them or heard them so many times before, today they registered while I sang.

I am always trying to wrap my head around The Christmas Story of Jesus birth but there is so much to comprehend. God has been breaking it down for me in little pieces this year. The more I seek to learn about The Christmas Story, the more I begin to understand the many facets of this amazing event. The Little Drummer Boy song is where I learned a little lesson today.  

God loves me and you just as we are, in such an amazing way that He sent His Son to earth to save us, to teach us, to walk as one of us, understanding the hurt we experience in our sometimes scary world. God didn't have any conditions for sending His Son, He sent Jesus for me, an imperfect sinner.

The Little Drummer Boy wanted to meet Jesus but he didn't feel worthy as all he could bring was himself and a song on his drum. He went anyways, playing his song and it made the baby smile. You and I have been given so many unique gifts from God, gifts that we can use right now to be a blessing to someone. We were created with a purpose. My life mission is to find out what my purpose is and live it out, its a pretty exciting adventure even if its in the smallest of tasks. 

I use to go through phases of my life where I would mess up and then stay away from God because I felt so bad and unworthy to speak to Him and be in His presence. What I learned from The Little Drummer boy is that I can come to God and bring Him just me and whatever I have at this very moment and it will please Him because our Heavenly Father just wants us to be with Him. We are His children, don't you just want to be with your children no matter what?! Its the same with God and us.

This Christmas I invite you to be unafraid of what you have to offer our King, just come and bring what you have and maybe thats just yourself in gratitude of the amazing gift we have been given in Jesus! 

Merry Christmas

Holiday Style Makeup Tutorial by HAL

Get ready with me as I create a dramatic and sparkly look using my new Too Faced Holiday Palette. I always enjoy doing my makeup but I especially have fun with sparkle and drama during the holiday and winter season. I used the Too Faced Holiday Palette to create this look but I would love to hear from you about what your favourite Christmassy makeup products are, please comment below.

Thank you for watching and Merry Christmas!

Christmas Book Advent Week 2

This advent is definitely an adventure and last weekend we had a few fun filled nights that left us going right to bed when we got home. We missed a few books but on Monday we caught up on a few days and I recorded our little book time for fun.

We have opened a few books by Helaine Becker and Werner Zimmerman and these are my favourite so far. I love the ilustrations and their focus on Canadian treasures. "A Porcupine In a Pine Tree" is a take on the classic "12 Days of Christmas" song. Check out Tyler and I trying to sing our way though in this vlog post.

My advent books are a mix of thrifted, books from my childhood and some new books from The Book Keeper. The Book Keeper and I would love you to join in the Christmas story fun by snapping a picture of you and your family reading a Christmas book and tag The Book Keeper on Facebook. They will be running a contest from Friday December 18 to Sunday December 20 and drawing for a $50 gift card from all the people that share their Christmas story moment.

We can't wait to see your Christmas story pictures, check out The Book Keeper on their Facebook to connect and take part in the contest.

Merry Christmas

My Baking List

I love to bake and eat sweets and these are the recipes I have been working on or will be tackling this holiday season. I have been trying to get Luke in the "mix" and have him help me as much as possible, things normally get really messy but we are having fun. I am freezing most of what I am baking and then during the week of Christmas we will pull everything out, make up some mix plates and deliver them to friends and family.

Here is what I am working on:

Peanut Butter Cheesecake Balls

This was my first time making this recipe. I tasted the cream cheese mixture before rolling the balls and decided I wanted my cheesecake a little sweeter so I added 1/2 a cup of brown sugar. Other than that, the recipe was delicious and easy to make.

Shortbread

It was my first time making shortbread as well but I was pretty pleased as to how this recipe turned out. I like my cookies on the soft side so I did not wait for them to turn brown at the edges and they were nice and moist.

Chocolate Chip Cookies

I baked these cookies with Emily and Sara and Emily found this recipe. She is not a cookie person but she loved these and said they really were the best chocolate chip cookies she had ever had.

Sugar Cookies With Royal Icing

I made these cookies last year during our Baking Day, the cookies and icing were delicious so I plan on making them this week. My designs did not turn out as beautiful as the ones in the post but I did my best!

Oreo Truffles

This has become one of my go to sweets recipes because it is so easy and is always a hit at family gatherings. Again, mine do not always look as beautiful but once you take a bite, you don't mind what they look like. Sometimes I coat all of mine with regular chocolate and drizzle with white if I am feeling fancy.

I would love to know what your favourite baking recipes are?

Gift Guide Vlog Post (Contest Closed)

I love brainstorming gift ideas for my loved ones and am excited to share some with you in my most recent blog post. Grab a coffee, tea or hot chocolate and lets talk gift giving and shopping in Sarnia Lambton.

I want to help you with your Christmas shopping so I am giving away a $100 gift card to Greg's Auto Detailing, check out the contest details and links to some amazing local businesses below.

Contest Details

Enter to win a $100 gift card to Greg's Auto Detailing. Like the following Facebook pages and share the video from my Facebook page. Contest Closes Sunday December 13 at midnight.

Facebook Pages

The Book Keeper

Joan Armstrong Silpada

Shoes 144 Front

Sticks And Strings

Greg's Auto Detailing

Heather Lapier

Thanks for watching, good luck & have fun!

Christmas Book Advent Week 1

Beginning on December 1st our family started counting down to Christmas Day by opening a Christmas book and reading it together each night. Luke is a little young for this tradition as he only sits still if he is having his evening bottle but I am still enjoying the family time, even if its just Tyler and I reading the book while Luke climbs on us or plays on the floor.

The books over the last few days have reminded me of my childhood and how I use to get so excited during December (lets face it, I still get super excited). Our story time also helped me focus on the more important things that I am grateful for this time of year. Specifically we enjoyed 'The Smallest Gift Of Christmas', a story about a little boy who wants a bigger gift but realizes his family is the best gift of all. 

I love the hustle and bustle of this time of year but it wouldn't feel the same if I didn't have people to shop for, cook for or enjoy all the festive activities with. One of the greatest Christmas gifts is simply enjoying the holidays with my family.

This post is in partnership with The Book Keeper. They will be hosting a fun contest next week and to enter you simply need to share a picture of you and or your family reading a Christmas book and tag their Facebook page. Connect with them on their Facebook page to take part. I can't wait to see the photos of you and your family enjoying story time!

P.S. What is your favourite Christmas book?

Check Myself Before I Wreck Myself

We had planned on going to Sloan's Christmas Tree farm to get our tree this year as we have done for the last 3 years but a long week prior to the weekend made us second guess the day trip and we opted to stay in Sarnia to get our tree. My inner Clark Griswold so badly wanted to push us to the limit and create the "perfect family Christmas tree memories" but I listened to my husband and my gut and we stayed home.

I suggested we go to DeGroots Nurseries because I have heard good things about their trees. When we got to Degroot's, we were happy to see they were hosting the Bluewater Health Winter Wonderland Family Fun Day. There were lots of activities for the kids including a train ride,  music and even a few of Santa's reindeer. We even ended up running into our friends while we were there so Luke got to enjoy the festivities with some of his little buddies.

When it came time to pick a Christmas tree we went for a pre wrapped tree for simplicity sake. When we brought it home and unwrapped it I started to feel a little sad that we didn't go all out for our Christmas tree day. The tree wasn't fluffing out the way I had hoped it would and I was just feeling a little lost. Its so silly that an "imperfect" tree was deflating my Christmas spirit but it was.

Luke went down for a nap and I sat on the couch alone for a minute in quiet and I checked myself hard. "Heather, get it together, Christmas is not about the tree or any other fluff that comes with the holidays, you are lucky to have a tree at all."

I really do my best to keep the birth of Christ at the centre of my Christmas festivities but it can be challenging. I love everything about Christmas but just as fast as all the glitter and gold can get me excited, it can let me down even quicker.

I find when I spend time focusing on the amazing gift of Jesus's birth, I don't get let down by unattainable holiday expectations or the January blues. I want to enjoy all my Christmas traditions like the tree, movies, baking, wrapping and gift giving all the while knowing that these things are second to the true meaning of Christmas.

How do you keep grounded while enjoying all the festivities of the holidays?

xoxo
Audrey