The Friday Five: Things on My Mind

1.Read. Do you have a favourite day of the week? Perhaps you should consider Thursday as the best day.

2. Bake. I made these cookies for my colleagues this week. People devoured them very quickly. It’s definitely a repeat recipe.

3. Fashion. I’m on the hunt for a pair of patent leather oxford heels. I’m considering something like these or these.

4. Travel. People seemed to really like the post I wrote earlier this week about Detroit. Thanks. If you’re curious about this city, read the post for a small glimpse into what I observed.

5. Charity. Thanks to the support of family and friends, I was able to raise $402.26 for the Canadian Cancer Society this year. Hooray! Anytime is a great time to donate, so if you’d like to, please donate here. October is #WhiteCabanaWearsPink month and Daniela and I posted a few of our favourite pink things: pink gifts for you, pink for kids, pouffy pink fashion, and little pink houses.

Have a great weekend, everyone!

Personal: Something Fun to Do with Kids

As many of you know, I have a background in education, and I have taught kids of all ages all sorts of things in my life. These days, I teach young adults, so I don’t have many opportunities to interact with young kids. I love watching young kids learn new things, and I also love to challenge them! I had the opportunity to observe my sweet (super sweet) nephews and niece trying new things when I was in North Carolina a few weeks ago, and I caught some of this learning on time-lapse video. Once I showed them the first fast video, they all wanted to be video-taped, so I now have a collection of videos that make me smile. Here are three of my favourites. I just love the kids’ facial expressions as they work through their activities.

First up is Duke. He was building a whale from a Japanese mini-lego-type kit I brought him.

Next, we have Holt who is a little inventor and needed help crafting a plastic helmet for his hedgehog who was taking skydiving flights down the stairs all morning.

Finally, we have Gigi who was writing a thank you letter. She’s putting so much thought into carefully spelling out words.

Time-lapse video is an easy and fun way to capture kids’ learning as well as their very cute facial expressions!

Oh, I almost forgot…Happy Halloween!

Design: Easy Last-Minute Halloween Decor

I think the one of the easiest ways to add a little spooky flavour into your decor is by adding bats to your walls. Wall bats are an especially easy decor option if you’re on the last-minute decor train (like me…I don’t even have a pumpkin this year!). This is an inexpensive decor strategy as you can DIY bats from black construction paper using this Martha Stewart template. It’s also not as messy as pumpkin carving. And the bats – paper or plastic – are easy to store and re-use in future years. Finally, these bats are suitable Halloween decor for inside or outside the home.

If you’re not so into bats, perhaps these skeleton flamingos are your thing. I still think they’re the best bit of outdoor Halloween decor I’ve seen this season.