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Getting Festive with PC President's Choice

The holidays and holiday decorating has changed since having kids. It use to be a lot of sparkle and metallics, crystal and fine China.

But with 3 kids under 7 its hard enough to decorate without them breaking, misplacing, playing or redecorating with them.

I don't try and completely change the whole decor in our home as its mostly red based. So we decided to add some festiveness in our kitchen and headed over to Loblaws/Superstore to see what they had.

The selection of Christmas decor options was great, while my husband grabbed a pre-made meal, the girls and I picked out some fun stuff to add to our kitchen for the holidays.

We picked up some bowls and mugs, napkins, napkin holders and a table cloth for the round kitchen table. All pieces under $5. A great whimsical addition to our already established red decorations.

How do you incorporate Christmas for your kids?

~Cheers!

Mommy Monday: The Good Girl Prostitute.

"Sometimes it is not enough to do our best, we must do what is required-" 
Winston Churchill

Tonight as I was laying in bed with my daughter she had a revelation that she won't be using my phone for the next week because she and her sister got in trouble for 2 separate things. They get to use my phone to play the uploaded games, lately it's Subway Surfer they play and have been excited to have won a new character.

But as she was sitting there, I said the most annoying thing I think I have ever uttered. "Well why don't you do something really good in the morning and you can get to play on the phone again?"

And a plethora of thoughts started running through my head about parenting as of late. I hate parenting in the years 2000. Really I do. I hate hearing that my kid will moved ahead if they do put effort or don`t in school. That if I scold them to hard I am deemed to psycho mom. If my expectations are too high then I am causing undue pressure.

But as I said why not do something good to get to use the phone again, I felt like I just cheapened my daughters adulthood by tenfold. Now I am horrifically guilty of using the reward system as a bargaining chip to my favor. Do this for candy, do that for a new Lalaloopsy, do this for this and for that. Never did it phase me until the other day I turned to my elder daughters and said to them, we are a family and that means we are a team. If we work together we get more done. So why do I need to be bargaining to have them to do something. At school they get stamps and stickers for good behaviour, they get presents or snacks for doing something I want them to do.

But when is too much, too much? Why am I telling my daughter to do something that she might not have automatically done, it feels like a version of little kid prostitution. "Hi honey, do something mommy wants but you might not want to and I will reward you for doing so." Why reward? Why ask for good behaviour? This feels like a disaster waiting to happen. I am setting up my daughters to think they need to do stuff to get stuff in return. This is not the daughters I want to raise. I don't want them to think that they should do things for their boyfriends, their husbands, their bosses, their friends or anyone else to get stuff they want.

I think the mentality of things are only given to those who complete tasks or wants of other cheapens our society as a whole, it definitely cheapens our children's core value system. They need not be the prostitutes of our generation.

My girls are feisty and bossy. I don't pigeon whole the word. They can be bossy and they know it. I said to them the other day, "you are very good at being bossy, that's great, now it's time to also practice being a good team player." I want them to hold their own and not be wallflowers. I want them to command the room like their mother did, I want them to be independent and smart, I want them to be in control of their decisions and not to fall to peer pressure. I don't see how the reward system will yield the girls I want to raise.

I don't want to prostitute my girls core values and personal self beliefs into you are only as good as the reward you get from your behaviour. They are good people, because it is who they are, it's their value system they are protecting, fostering... they don't need anyone to pander to, they don't need a rich boyfriend to feel self value, they don't need to be constantly rewarded for being a good person. Because people who do will never do good for others that won't be able to reward them back.

So reward system is partially being removed from our house... because I want to raise just plain old Good girls!

~Cheers!

*this to me applies to girls and to boys equally*

New York, New York!

It's not often the husband and I get a chance to get away on a romantic adventure. Since launching our business we haven't gone on vacation as a family at all.

But last week a business meeting came up for my other business (Niki & Lola) and it was an opportunity I wasn't going to miss out on, my husband and I decided to take our only other vacation since having kids since our trip to Los Angeles.

Every minute of our day was scheduled, but in a way to spend some much needed time together and keep our trip affordable, we packed my baby "Holly", the lovely moniker for my very beautiful Buick Enclave that till last month was still under 10,000KMs. We set our sails for midtown Manhattan and left rise and shine early on Thursday morning. We took a nice route that took us through Upstate Western New York, through Pennsylvania, followed by New Jersey and then to NYC. Toll change in hand, Google map printed for visuals, GPS set. It was an exciting adventure.



Chicken Melt - Europa Cafe
Husband had never been to NYC before, it was thrilling to take him to my favorite place in the whole world. I was horribly nervous he was going to hate every moment of it. He sometimes describes Agoraphobia behaviour when discussing his reasons for not leaving the house in Toronto, how am I am taking him to the busiest place on earth.
We arrived later than planned, our mammoth Holly didn't fit in the Valet at the Hotel... so we went on a hunt through NYC to find parking. My last trip to the city that never sleeps I remember being able to find parking on the west side of Central Park. And we did, a nice underground run by the some really awesome parking attendants at 71st and Broadway.  We parked and Subway'd from 72nd to 42nd. We loved being in Midtown NYC, Time Square was under heavy construction and so the traffic wasn't as bad as it could have been. But we got hungry but the first evening in, we stopped and ate at Europa Café and had some pretty great sandwiches and some lemonade, ohhh and a pretty awesome red velvet cupcake that could make you blush.

By Friday morning we were in the full swing of meetings, scrounging around town looking for a Starbucks inside of the Trump tower and beyond. Ohhh the joys of Starbucks and the comfort that a Peppermint Mocha Latte presents when you are doing something that is completely out of your comfort zone. We chatted with the people over at Henri Bendel, followed by meetings with a PR firm, W magazine and Vanity Fair and all in between the many meetings we had seen Rockefeller Center (who knew the ice rink was open as of October), most of 5th Avenue, the Condé Nast offices, the Fairchild Building and we were getting hungry fast. What's a good Toronto foodie to do when in NYC, but of course a Food truck with the word LOBSTER written across it. At $16 a Lobster roll, the most priciest Lobster roll I've ever had was worth every penny in taste and flavour.


We got back to our hotel room to do some catch up, check in on the kids, make sure they weren't driving my mother crazy and off to Indochine a restaurant that was recommend to me by a very great Twitter friend. We had early reservations (not terribly early Toronto) at 7pm and we sat down with a fairly older crowd. But the food was fantastic and I was happy we went. The wait staff equally as good. I recommend the ribs, really really good.

After walking around Cooper's Union and seeing Greenwich Village, we grabbed a cab to take us back up town to get our car out of parking. Remember to know having your car parked in NYC will cost you anywhere from $40-$70 a day. Took the car down West Side Highway and headed down to Pier 17. I had to take my husband here, this little nook of perfection at the tip of Manhattan is my personal favorite, the cobblestone roads, the buildings of great wealth. We headed back to the hotel for what seemed like a very much needed sleep. Woke in the morning in search for a gas station, which we are now currently informed is much cheaper across the George Washington and to always be pumped in New Jersey, who also has a law about all stations are full service as consumers aren't permitted to pump their own gas. After getting gas in midtown we headed through the most stunning drive of the Upper West Side (I have never been before this trip). Headed for New Jersey to visit a girl friend. It was so very worth it ... all of it.
 

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