ON BEING A MOM – PileOfPillows.com GIVEAWAY

To all my mom readers out there, I hope you had a lovely Mother’s Day this weekend. Mine was spent eating good food, cuddling and generally being entertained by these lovely little people:

I was so honoured to be included in the May Canadian Family – and did we ever have fun! The kids had the best time picking out my outfit and the Canadian Family team made us feel so comfortable. Here’s a fun little secret- there are actually 4 children in this picture…

That’s right, we’re expecting (again)! You can see the tiny beginning of my bump here in this photo taken by the lovely Katherine Holland. We are due in November and are very excited. For a few short months I will have 4 children, 4 and under (exhausted just writing that)! We are beyond thrilled and are so excited to bring another little Canning into the world. Also thrilled that Smythe blazers (like this lovely blue one above) are tailored perfectly for pregnant bellies. Room to grow!

With my exciting news out of the way, on to announcing the winner of my PileOfPillows.com giveaway. Thanks to everyone who entered. I wrote down all the entires and put them into a good old fashioned hat and the lucky winner drawn is… Jaimie of Redleafstyling! We’ll be in touch Jaimie to get your pillows shipped to you and thanks again to everyone for entering.

EASTER TIDINGS

Wishing everyone a lovely, joyful Easter season. We are celebrating for a full week at the Canning House- lots more chocolate to be consumed. Very excited for that, as is this little chick:

Sorry for the gratuitous pictures of my daughter Evelyn but she looked so ridiculously sweet today I had to share. A little mommy moment over here. Happy Easter!

LOOKING BACK ON 2012

As a chronic goal setter I must admit that I love the hope that comes with a new calendar year. I don’t know when in history making resolutions became a thing to do- but I am grateful for the reminder that a new habit can be learned, a skill can be sharpened, a course can be charted even if it does take a ball dropping to make me (finally) do it.

Before I ramble on about my resolutions, I’m excited to take a look at all the gifts I was given in 2012. Thanks for being a part of it- here we go, in no particular order:

I was featured at IDS12. In a fun flurry of activity (designed and implemented this small space in less time than it took me to find a chic 5 month maternity dress for the party) we designed this space for National Bank for the feature How Do You Live exhibit.

My daughter got a “big girl” room. It was about time- poor girl had been living in a beige personality-less room for far too long. So much fun to create this for her.

We had baby Leo. And now he looks like this:

We designed this:

And this:

And styled this shot for Toronto Home Mag (shot by Brandon Barre):

And made these for Habitat for Humanity, and spoke for the first time on the Home Show stage:

I Dabbled in my round up of fav products for Dabble Magazine (here I am at the EQ3 opening shot by the lovely Katherine Holland):

And all in all had a lot of fun. Lastly, a great gift I was given in 2012- my beautiful mother, pictured below in this awesome vintage pic which I have learned was her bedroom growing up (I must have inherited her love of drapery, and upholstery- note the matching bench- so awesome) battled breast cancer AGAIN after ten years remission. And with class and grace she won:

Wishing you all a fantastic 2013!