How to Actually Enjoy the Holidays

This year, I'm a bit surprised to realize that I'm really well organized for the holidays already. Somehow, once I finished teaching for the season, I just launched into Christmas planning & got the basics done quickly. I want to have a fun, maybe even a bit relaxing, holiday season this year, rather than worrying if that online order is going to arrive in time, or spending hours in line at various attractions around the city.

Got the holiday card factory up & running early this year

When I was reading Minimalist Mom's post about "going zen" for the holidays, she had a lot of good ideas. I realized that I've been doing a few things to have myself a merrier little Christmas too. So I thought I'd share with you what I've done so far to achieve my actually enjoyable holiday season:

Minimize the gifts. I don't have a long shopping list, since we've already cut back on who we exchange gifts with over the years. One year, we decided that we weren't going to buy gifts to most of the extended family & friends anymore, we'd donate the equivalent amount of money to charity instead. Basically I only buy for children: four nieces & nephews, plus our two kids. I try to keep the gifts for our own kids fairly simple--though I admit in past years I've usually gone over budget a bit. Using the old rhyme helps keep me focused: "Something they want, something they need, something to wear, & something to read".

Another way we minimize the influx of stuff is talking with my family about what to give the kids. I talk with my sisters about what my kids would like or need & they give me ideas for their children, so our gifts to them are less likely to end up just taking up space somewhere. The grandparents tend to give money, which we spend on things like museum & gallery memberships. It's great to be able to go to places like Science World whenever we want & stay for a short time if the kids aren't up for longer, rather than wanting to make it "worth it" if we've paid for tickets just that day.

Quality over Quantity. I admit I'm no minimalist--my house is full of stuff & I visit dollar stores way more than I'd like to admit. However, I really try to restrain myself at Christmas. Part of me wants to buy one of everything in the store & decorate the tree in a different theme each year, or cover our outdoor trees in giant baubles, or wrap the entire house in lights. I'm also reeeeeeally tempted to get myself one of those fake white trees--I've just always secretly loved them. But I know if I buy the tempting cheap stuff, it'll break or just look awful by next year, so it isn't worth it.

Our Christmas Countdown felt board/hanging

DIY is a lot of work, but so worth it. I know not everybody is into making stuff, but if you are--make your own gifts &/or holiday decorations. This also ties in with quality over quantity. I've seen SO MANY DIY tutorials on YouTube that produce an end product that is unique, but no better quality than crap from the dollar store. The awesome thing about making your own decorations, is that you can make them heirloom quality. You can make them washable, durable, or at least recyclable.

I try to make one big project per year that can be used in future years too. I've made a wreath that holds holiday cards, a massive felt board (wall hanging, really) Christmas countdown calendar (which could also double as a Christmas tree if we were travelling, I figure), plus upcycling some ceramic Value Village knick-knacks into a Christmas village.

This year, my project is a sort of companion piece to the countdown hanging. I'm going to make a string of holiday bunting that the numbers will clip to, with pockets in each that will hold a note & maybe a treat for each day of December before Christmas. Which leads me into my next tactic...

Plan, plan, plan. As soon as November rolls around, I start collecting a list of holiday themed things to do as a family. Some of those will be events or festivals, like the ones in my post "12 Holiday Events to Bike to in Vancouver", but many will be simple things we do at home, like baking cookies, or watching a classic holiday movie. For some of the events that only happen on one day or during one week, I put them into my Google Calendar so we don't miss out, but I don't plan what we're going to do down to the minute.

This year I created a set of "cards" with activities from my above list on each that I'll keep hidden away somewhere. I'll decide which activity we'll do the following day & put it into the pocket in the countdown bunting for the kids to open the next morning. So the kids will have a bit of structure & know what they're going to do a little ahead of time, but there will be flexibility in case of bad weather, illness, or if something even more fun comes up.

There you have it. I'd love to hear about what your November/December looks like. What are you celebrating this winter? How's your holiday prep going? Are you getting overwhelmed yet, or have you got your zen on? ;)

If you're looking for more ideas on keeping Christmas simple & green, check out my list of "Ten Ways to Have a Greener Christmas" from last year.

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5 Tips for Buying Used Family Biking Gear

Sometimes you can score great deals used: like our bakfiets!

Living in Vancouver is expensive, particularly for families of young children. So it's not surprising that I get lots of questions on buying used biking gear at the ABCs of Family Biking workshops.

Buying used can be a great way to save money, to try something out without committing much money, & to get higher end gear than you could afford to buy new. We've bought family biking gear used & saved (literally) thousands of dollars.

Just like any time you buy used, there are a few things to consider so you get the best deal. Here are my top tips for buying used bike gear for family cycling:


Finding the gear

Used sporting good stores may have child carriers, though the prices are usually a bit higher there. There are generally lots of seats & trailers for sale on used sites or in online forums. If you are looking for something specific but you can't find it, post 'In Search Of' ads in large Facebook Groups, on sites like Craigslist, or in the Vancouver Family Biking group. You'll often get a hit because another family has been meaning to sell their biking gear, but they just haven't gotten around to listing it yet.

Do your homework online first

Maybe you've found an ad & contacted the seller. Do a little research before you actually decide to buy. Get the brand name & model of the product, Google it to find reviews so you'll have an idea of what issues it might have or what other parents liked & disliked about using it. Find out the maximum weight limit. Check the manufacturer's website to see if you can download the instruction manual & check to see what parts should come with it--mounting brackets & bolts for a child seat, all the parts of the hitch for a trailer. Knowing how much it costs new is important--child seats & trailers vary widely & you don't want to pay near new price for a used item. Find out where it's sold new & if you can buy replacement or extra parts like mounting brackets or hitches so you can transfer the carrier from one bike to another, or stroller add-ons for trailers.

A good example of what not to buy: rusty, needs tons of work

Check for damage

When you actually see the used product you're considering buying, look it over for any signs of cracks in the plastic or metal. Rust or bent frame parts are a bad sign too. Check that straps & buckles are functional; however, these can often be replaced or repaired fairly easily & inexpensively, so it may not be a deal breaker for you. Trailer wheels should spin freely & true (look at the wheel from the tire as it's spinning to see if it wobbles).

This post is mainly aimed at buying child trailers or seats. However, if you're buying a bicycle (or even a cargo bike), but are worried you won't know what to look for when you're inspecting it, Sidesaddle Bikes has a great service for this: Ride Review. You can meet the bike seller at Sidesaddle & have their mechanics inspect it thoroughly to find any issues, as well as tell you how much it would cost to repair or change anything on the bike. It's $25 for the full inspection, which will give you some peace of mind for riding with your family.

Test it out

Try to bring your bike with you to make sure the carrier will actually fit. A test ride will help you assess how well it works. If you can't install it, you can at least hold it in position so you get a sense of if the seat will work--if it's a front seat, does it hit you in the chest? Think about how you'll get on & off the bike & how the seat might impact that--front seats with a bar from stem to seat post will prevent you from stepping through your frame, rear seats mean you can't swing your leg over the back, with trailers that clamp onto the frame, check to see if that works with your disc brakes if you have them, or any cables that may come out of the chainstay (in the bottom of the rear triangle of the frame).

When a good deal isn't a good deal

I recommend spending as much as you can on the best gear you can get so that you'll have a better experience riding. It's tempting to save money on buying a big box store child seat for $20 on Craigslist, but they're not a great quality product (typically more flexy which impacts your balance when riding, & often the way they attach to the bike limits your use of panniers or affects how easily you can get on & off the bike. Having poor quality gear may end up turning you off family cycling, or at the very least mean that you have to replace it & spend more money in the long run.

Someone loves her MET kitty helmet

What not to buy used (Bonus tip #6!)

I don't recommend buying used helmets for kids. I won't get into the helmet debate here (for the record I'm 'pro choice' for adults) but since they're legally required for cycling in BC, you'll probably be buying one for your baby. You're very very unlikely to get into a crash with a child seat or trailer, but probably your baby will still be wearing the same helmet when they are a toddler & start riding their runner bike. If you've bought a used helmet, it can get brittle & become less effective in a crash or a fall. MEC sells decent baby helmets for $19--you don't have to spend a lot!

Hopefully these tips will help you avoid some of the pitfalls of buying used. Buying stuff for your child can be a bit nerve wracking, I know, because OMG you are entirely responsible for the health & well being of a small human being. 

Please let me know if you have any other suggestions for making the process easier. I'd also love to hear your stories of buying used family biking gear in the comments below!

This post is the second in a series of tips for family biking. Check out the first one in the series, all about Route Planning for Family Biking.

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8 Extras For Your Emergency Kit ~ #Earthquake2015

If you live in the Lower Mainland, or on Vancouver Island, or in Washington State, you probably felt the earthquake we had late Wednesday night. Oli & I were sitting on the couch, just finished watching a video when I felt a bit of a vibration. I thought Oliver was jiggling his leg or something, Just as I started to wonder if it was an earthquake, the house started shaking side to side for a few seconds. I wonder this on a regular basis, to be honest, since we live in what used to be a bog, so our house shakes around when large speeding trucks hit the bumps in the road outside, or there's pile driving or demolition for construction of new homes.

I tweeted nearly immediately--though there really wasn't a question in my mind:

Shit, was that an earthquake?

— Lisa Corriveau (@spokesmama) December 30, 2015

Chatting with other people helped me calm the jitters a little bit & I got to sleep a couple of hours later.

Before I went to bed, however, I started thinking about aftershocks & how we have only a one-person earthquake kit, not enough for our family. I looked around online a bit for one & resolved to see if Costco had them in stock in the store the next day. Just before we went to bed, I decided to fill a few containers with water, to give me a little peace of mind if there were to be more severe aftershocks during the night.

Morning arrived & I headed to Three Vets to grab a few things: a spare emergency blanket, some water packets & an MRE block. Then I headed to Costco to see if they had the two-person kits in store, but alas: nada. When I got home, I went back to the website & surprise, surprise, the one I'd been looking at was sold out. I looked at a few other websites, but the companies specializing in emergency supplies had notices up saying that delivery would be delayed to 4-6 weeks as they were overwhelmed with orders. Coscto seemed to have the best prices for what was included, not to mention free shipping. Done.

The basic emergency kits are a good start, but there are a few things I will add to ours when it arrives. Here's my list of add-ons to a regular kit:

1. Information: names & phone numbers for family, friends, doctors; copies of ID; insurance policy number; banking numbers.
2. Extra keys to house, bike locks, vehicles if you have them, safe deposit box, etc.
3. Medications: I'll pack an asthma inhaler & probably some Tylenol for arthritis. It's also useful to add the names & doses of required medications to the info list just in case.
4. A 5-gallon bucket with a lid & garbage bags: this can be used for a toilet & depending on the size of it, also hold the whole kit until needed.
5. Diapers! Can't forget these until Bronte is toilet trained...
6. Our old Beco carrier: if we have to leave our house--which I think likely, given how old it is & the fact that we live on a bog--it'll be a lot easier to walk anywhere if we wear Bronte. 
7. Tiny toys & books: again, if we're headed somewhere else, having a little distraction will help the kids.
8. Spare bicycle tubes, patch kits, & tools: if we have to travel far after a disaster like an earthquake, our bikes will be indispensible. No gas or electricity needed & they can get around downed trees or power lines, many places cars can't go. But the bikes have to be functional, so the right tools & supplies are essential.

That's my top eight add-ons for our emergency kit. It's such a tough thing to pack for, as I've never been through a serious earthquake or other disaster. There are so many different variables that you can't plan for everything. But hey, if this is one of your New Year's resolutions, maybe this list will help you get your kit together.

Do you have an emergency kit ready to go? Have you added any special items to yours?

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Quaxing: What It Is & How To Be Awesome At It

A new term in the biking world popped up on my radar recently: quaxing. Have you heard of it too? It's become a social media phenomenon--just search for the hashtag #quaxing on Instagram, Twitter, Facebook.

In short, quaxing is just shopping by bike, walking or transit. The unusual term was coined after a New Zealand politician made a snide comment, assuming that shopping by bike is unlikely or impossible. For more details & photos, check out Hilary Angus' story on Momentum, How #quaxing Became a Rallying Call for Everyday Cyclists.

I love that shopping by bike has become a 'thing' & how has a name. It's something I've been doing for ages, more than a decade before I ever got a cargo bike & it's really not all that hard to do. So in case you're new at quaxing, I thought I'd share some tips with you that I've learned in my 15+ years of shopping by bike:

1. Rack it! You really don't need a whole lot of special gear to shop for a few things by bike. However, a rear rack is a good idea & not expensive. It'll increase your capacity by a lot.
2. Bungees for the win! Keep a bungee cord or two on your rear rack, that you can use to strap down large items like 15-roll toilet paper packages or bags of kitty litter.
3. Bags in back. It is possible to hang one or two shopping bags off your handlebars, but unless you're only going a couple blocks on a very quiet street, it'll really affect your steering, so I wouldn't advise it. Tying the bags to your rear rack is a more stable option.
4. N+1 bags. Always have an extra reusable shopping bag with you, ideally one that has handles long enough for you to slip on your shoulders like a backpack in a pinch. If you end up buying more than you intended to, you can still get your stuff home.
5. Grab a box. A bungee can also be used to secure a cardboard box to your rear rack if needed. The sturdy fruit boxes that have holes through them in several places are perfect for this & will hold bulky items like milk jugs or bags of potatoes. Most stores have extra boxes in a bin or will give them to you if asked.
6. Skip the bags. If you do have panniers or baskets, bring them into the store with you & pack your purchases directly into them at the till. Heavy items on the bottom, lighter on the top & take care to keep items with corners away from your fruit to avoid bruising.
7. Kid control. If you're shopping with young children in tow, plan how you'll keep them from running amok while you load up your bike. If you've got a cargo bike or a child trailer, you're golden! Just load them in first. It's still doable to shop with kids on a regular bike, however. At the grocery store, I always use a shopping cart, even if I only need one or two items, because I can keep the kids in there while I load up the bike so they don't run into the parking lot. Bringing a lightweight carrier can work in stores where you wouldn't have shopping carts, so you can keep a baby or toddler on you until you're ready to strap them into their seat. Sometimes I ask my four-year-old to help me load up or unlock the bike to keep him occupied or just get him to hold onto the bike frame.
8. Get the word out. Wear your helmet into the store or mention that you're shopping by bike. We need to make sure that business owners realize how many of their customers arrive by bicycle so they'll add racks when needed & support cycling infrastructure improvements around their stores.

Hope these tips are useful for you. Have you got any to add--write them in the comments below--I'd love to hear from you!

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Get Outside! (Even in Winter with the Kids)

Four of us bundled up for a cargobike ride

Besides the fact that kids need a few hours of exercise a day & the easiest way for mine to get that is at the park, we also bike everywhere. Year round, rain or shine, we're on the bike going where we need to go. So when I saw a few posts floating around Facebook about how to bundle kids up for the recent cold weather here in Vancouver, I thought I might have something useful to share with you.

Here's a roundup of tips for getting the kids outside & keeping them warm. One caveat, before we get going: these tips are based on my experience here in Vancouver, where the temperature only very rarely gets past the single digits below zero,  & we only get a week or two with actual snow stuck to the ground, so if you live somewhere colder, they may not apply.

Baby It's Cold Outside!

During Linnaeus' second winter, I wrote Winter Baby Tips, with some ideas to keep your tot toasty when they're strapped into the stroller or baby carrier, including a review of our favourite item of baby clothing for winter: the MEC Ursus bunting.

Honey, I layered the kids

Now that I've got a preschooler & a toddler, my focus is more on clothes for the chilly visits to the park or bike rides. Rain or shine, it's all about the layers. On cold but dry days, that looks like winter coats, maybe an extra fleece underneath, hats or hoods, long underwear or leggings under pants, mittens, thick socks & boots. For cold & wet days, we go with fleece layers over clothes, gumboots with double socks, water resistant mittens, then one-piece rain suits over everything. We have both Tuffo Muddy Buddies (I get ours here) & MEC Newt Suits.

I particularly love MEC's fleece hoodies for little kids--the hoods are snug & close fitting, so they work under a muddy buddy hood or a bike helmet & are difficult for toddlers to pull off.

Forgetting anyone?

You're probably all focussed on keeping your kids warm at the park, but like me one day last week, forgot about yourself. I should have worn warmer footwear than the leather riding boots I had on, & maybe an extra pair of leggings. My toes were numb by the time I got home from the park at dusk, even after the mostly uphill bike ride home. Oops!

Bringing along a hot drink in one of these awesome spill-proof Contigo mugs (full review here) is good too--it'll stay hot for the entire time you're there & keep you warm from the inside out. Also: they just squeeze into a bike bottle cage, if you're riding.

That's a wrap

Lastly, I'll leave you with a little motivation to get out there for walks or rides in the holidays: I♥Biking: Riding in Winter.


Have you got any tips to share for keeping kids warm outside in winter? What about those of you who are in cooler climes than the balmy Wet Coast of Canada?

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Tips for Living Small with a Baby or Two

Stokke makes a great new chair/bouncer seat combo for small spaces

Though we live in a house, we only have the upper floor to ourselves--not quite 1100 square feet. It's more space than many of our friends but still less than half the North American average family home size. Oli & I both have some pack rat tendencies & adding two children to the mix... well, I feel like I've learned a few things over the last three-ish years about living small, so I wrote an article all about it for One Smiley Monkey.

Read the full post, Tips for Living Small with a Baby or Two here on One Smiley Monkey.

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