Recent Things: Advent Calendars, Surgeries and Skirt Obsessions

Why hello sweet peas! I feel like my weekend has started early as Jesse has the day off today and that's exactly what I needed after a long stressful week with him away from home. Lots has happened  this week, so let me share what we've been up to with you!

Recent Fun: On Monday Night our Church had its annual Ladies Gingerbread House Night which my sister, mama and may-as-well-be-sister (Katrina's best friend Lily) came along to. Unfortunately spent most of the night running around doing things (and Jesse was running around serving champagne because he is awesome), my sister made an awesome gingerbread house for us all! 

We have a yearly tradition to make a gingerbread house together so we're also planning to make an "Outback Shack" gingerbread house when Jesse's brother gets here :P 

Recent Advent Calendar Adventures: This week we started our Advent Calendar! Unlike a boring old chocolate Advent Calendar, ours is filled with different activities for each day so here's what we've done so far!

24 Days to Go; Jesse got to choose dessert. We actually didn't put too much effort into this one as we had to be at the church at 6pm for the Gingerbread House Night so we had leftover Healthier Snowball Cookies and Healthier Soft Ginger Cookies from our Thanksgiving Dinner :P 

23 Days to Go; Watch a Charlie Brown Christmas. Jesse was away for work in Canberra so Trixie and I snuggled up on the couch to watch it together.

  

22 Days to Go; This was a bit of a fail as I didn't know at the time of putting the calendar together that Chanel would be having surgery on that day. We left the house at 9 something AM, got home at 4PM, I did a quick 15 minute workout and had a shower before eating dinner early and rushing out the door at 530PM to go get Chanel - then after being caught in ridiculous traffic, we got home at 8PM and I had to rush off to meet Jesse and our friends for dinner (one time where I was so glad I wasn't eating so they didn't have to wait for me!). 

21 Days  to Go; Go for an evening stroll! This we did, albeit a little earlier than expected as a storm was on its way. The original plan was to check out the Christmas lights in the area, however, we went whilst it was still light out so we just sussed out where to go another time (AKA: Not where we walked as we saw a grand total of one tiny reindeer and 2 metres of icicle lights :P) 

20 Days to Go; Tonight once again Jesse got to pick dessert! We're babysitting tonight but Jesse decided we should quickly have dessert before we leave and he's decided that we'll have Banana Splits with Icecream and my favouuuuuuuurite Salted Peanut Caramel Sauce <3 Oh how I love that man :P 

Recent Chanel-ness; You might have noticed that I said Chanel had surgery above. If you don't follow us on Instagram, you mightn't have known that our little lady had dental surgery on Wednesday. I'm going to write a whole post about it as it's something that I now know is so incredibly important (and I never knew before just how important your dog's dental health was!)  but she is doing well and is a very brave little pup. 

Chanel had her dental surgery at Dr Dave's Vets and Pets who I cannot recommend highly enough. The team are incredible and their services are affordable and they take so much care with each and every pet. Chanel had 9 teeth in total extracted (which sounds like a lot, but as she has an underbite and doesn't use her front teeth a lot of them were damaged/decayed - she can still eat and she still has her little underbite with one gap :P) and whilst she was under anaesthetic they also checked her ears and clipped her toenails (both of which she hates having done) so she's all sorted!

Recent Puppy Love; We were a little worried how our spunky Trixie Belle was going to react to a sore, sleepy Nelly but she has been an angel - although, she has been very sooky and sad because Chanel won't give her as much love and attention as normal. When we brought Nelly home on Wednesday night, Trixie immediately checked her out and clearly realised she wasn't well as she snuggled into bed with her and laid quietly (something little miss Sassypants never does!) and she's been sleeping by Nelly's side ever since!

Recent Garden Goodness; I am so tempted to eat this baby cucumber which is sitting pretty on the edge of our veggie patch. We've got both zucchinis and cucumbers forming, our corn has started to flower and beetroots and carrots are growing underneath! I cannot wait to eat the first real veggie from our garden (having only eaten zucchini flowers so far)

Recent Purchases; My BitBelt! I was having so much trouble with my Striiv Touch band coming detached whilst working out, but these BitBelts have totally solved the problem. They were first designed to secure the FitBit (so you don't lose it!), however, they also have different options for a wide variety of fitness bands. I have the BitBelt Jrs for my skinny Striiv Touch band! PS: If you have a Striiv, tell me! 

Recent Obsession: Maxi Skirts and OZSALE! I can't stop won't stop wearing maxiskirts (or errr buying them). These ones are my latest buys from OZSALE which is my other obsession... or should that be addiction. Last week there was an ICE Sale on the site where I got four maxi skirts for $32 and I'm currently waiting on different packages of  homewares/bakeware and the most amazing sounding hot chocolate mixes from Whittards of Chelsea. 

I've bought so many of our Christmas Gifts for loved ones from OZSALE this year as there's so much variety and things are so affordable so I can buy our loved ones even more than I'd be able to in a regular store. For example, this morning there's a sale on homewares and I bought a bunch of different baking pans (6 in total) for $18. The only thing with OZSALE is that you do need to be a member to view the sales, but that's totally worth it when you get to buy awesome things at awesome prices, right? :P 

If you check out the hashtags on Instagram/Twitter #OZSALE or #OZSALELOVES you can see different things people have bought and if you're someone like me and worry about getting something you don't like, don't worry as they have an awesome returns policy. We bought something that wasn't what we expected and OZSALE organised for a return that day (with reply paid postage) and we received a refund within 2 days.

But tell me, how has your week been?

And where is your favourite place to shop online?

At the moment, my favourite places to shop online are iHerb, Cotton On, OZSALE, Book Depository, Catch of The Day (especially for GF food and gifts!) and ICE