4fullerfun

We have steps!!

2012-01-30T15:42:00.000+11:00

Well if we thought getting a retaining wall level was hard, that was nothing on getting everything level and backfilled adequately for putting steps into our retaining/garden wall!

But we did it!

Took us all of Sunday to get the wall from where it was last week finished to this point and 2 steps put in - and doesn't it look fantastic! We still need to add some more soil to backfill behind the wall (its 2/3 filled at the moment - not bad considering there was no fill behind any of it last weekend), and we're now contemplating putting a narrow garden bed across the edge of the wall from the steps over to the fence to tie it all in nicely, but there are steps and thats almost that entire wall finished.

The completed wall and the steps - we're now looking at putting a narrow garden bed from the steps over to the fence - maybe 30-40cm wide - just to tie it all in.

Now we just need to pave from the top of the steps to the concrete path that leads up to the back door. Eventually the concrete path will go, but thats likely 2-3 years away as part of the new deck/veranda project (current budget has it being able to start in early 2015 once we've paid the garage loan off).

And for a first, we spent the entire weekend in the garden with the kids. Usually we have family over to entertain them, or Damo's parents take them for a 1/2 day (which they all love), but this weekend they were with us - either playing on the swing set, helping us dig and move dirt (not sure how helpful that actually was, but they had fun!) or riding their bikes or scooters in the garage (backing both cars out gives them a massive space to play in - and undercover too!).

Liam helping 'test' the first level of steps

The pavers on the steps are gorgeous natural stone - Travertine - pavers. We picked up factory seconds for a brilliant price, but you wouldn't really know that they were seconds. They're supposed to have more holes and/or more colour variation, but we quite like what we've got - there was one paver that had a lot of holes, so we just turned it over and the other side was fine.

I have to say its so nice seeing the plan come together - including the colours we chose for the retaining wall and pavers. At one stage we were contemplating having the cream retaining wall as well, but I'm so glad we didn't - it would have been too much with the cream colorbond garage and fence - the grey really brings out the blue highlights in the fence and adds a nice contrast to the garden. I was worried the pavers might be too white even though they're from the beige range (not the 'white' range), but they're working so well!

Close up of the Travertine pavers

Next step: Starting on the lower level! It will need 1-2 trailer loads of road base before we can start the retaining wall, and then 1-2 loads of paving sand and us praying for good weather! We had a dry weekend and then a downpour early this morning and woke up to a lake instead of a lower area - queue going through the front of the garage because the back was 15cm under water! So can't wait to get that area done!

The "Great Wall"

2012-01-20T11:14:00.002+11:00

Given my last post was a little lacking in photos, I thought I'd do a quick update on where we got up to as of last week.

My shoulder is much better (thank goodness!) and it didn't stop me from going to the gym for the aerobic classes (Sh'Bam and Zumba) this week - just no weights - so I'm still feeling good at having been able to keep my exercise regime up.

Without further ado, here is what our backyard currently looks like:

The first section that was built 2 weeks ago

Close up of the wall and the existing hedge (now complete with dripper watering system and mulched)

The new hedging plants that we put in after removing the vegie patch that was in the corner, plus a close up of the corner that was very tricky to get level!

Start of the longest section of the wall - total of 12m in length. Also shows the existing plants - climbing Star Jasmine at the back, Port Wine Magnolia to the left (one at each end), and various Camellia's along the middle. We're also planning to put some ground cover plants in that will eventually flow slightly over the top of the wall (hence not spending a fortune on bricks that required a capping block)

The length of the wall heading back towards the house (just ignore the rubble!). The wall will be finished this weekend, including steps up from the lower area here to the concrete path you can just see in the middle/top right of the picture. We have some gorgeous natural stone pavers that we'll use for the courtyard area at the back of the garage, and then the path from the bottom to this middle area, and then the middle area up to the path at the top.

Close up of the corner - this one looks neater, but was very hard to get level! That whole section used to be a curved garden bed - not any more!

Eventual plan is to extend the veranda at the back into a big deck that comes down to the corner of the house (where the lower pergola is at the moment). That will be a massive 7m x 7m deck and we'll eventually have it covered, but not enclosed (at this point anyway). Steps from the deck will replace the concrete path that the paved path will now go up to, so the timber stairs will join up with the paving we're doing now (good thing is we can lift them out of the way while work is going on - something we couldn't do with a concrete path!).

Middle area where the swing set and clothes line is will be turfed, as will the area in front of the proposed deck where the trampoline and cubby house are.

Clothes line has to shift approx 1.5m to the right to be in the centre of the garden, not on the edge of the lower area.

There will also be a 40cm garden at the edge of the lower paved courtyard area at the back of the garage and the middle turfed area. My plan is to put herbs and some citris trees in there, as well as possibly my little blueberry bush which is currently doing really well in a pot, but might like a garden bed instead. We'll see! The long pots that currently have my strawberries and other herbs (you can see them in the background of the photo that has the longest section of the wall above - they're cream) will be moved down to the courtyard area and have drippers running into them from the 40cm wide garden bed. BBQ and a new timber outdoor table (with our existing large umbrella) will be put down in that area for now as well.

Plan is to have the wall and clothes line finished this weekend, and then the lower courtyard area to be started over the next few weekends, with the turfing done before winter, and the entire area finished before Christmas this year (minus the deck of course - thats likely to start mid 2015 when the kids are both in school and we're not paying the huge daycare fees). So watch this space! Lots happening around our place. :)

Who else is landscaping? I know Amy has been doing some stuff around their place with plans to do more - share your links with me - I love seeing what others are up to and getting new ideas for our place. :) We have a front and side garden to still do, so plenty of room for inspiration!

Injured but happy

2012-01-16T17:10:00.000+11:00

Well we got a lot more progress done on the retaining wall over the weekend - so need to take some photos! If you look at the piccy from my post last weekend (see here) we have now completed the right side and then back along behind, so the wall is now a big U shape. We now need to finish the end off by putting in steps up to the top level of the garden, and then paving the steps and surrounds. If the weather stays nice we should be able to start on the bottom area in the next week or so which would be fantastic! Can't turf the middle area (which is the area in the piccy from last week) until we've done the bottom area so we know where the wall will end up.

That said, I've managed to pull a muscle in my right upper arm, on the outside just below the top of my shoulder. Can't lift my arm above shoulder height and can't lift the kids at the moment, but thankfully its getting better. Did mean I couldn't go to the gym today, but ah well. The retaining wall is looking awesome!

Progress!

2012-01-09T09:52:00.000+11:00

Oh.My.God! What a weekend!! Oh so busy, but thankfully oh so productive as well. Made some solid progress around the house and garden, so feeling very good about that! Still a long way to go, but at least we've started!

Aside from the usual loads of washing, cleaning and general weekend chores, we also managed to set up the guest room (read on for all the dramas that surrounded that!), install a drip irrigation system in the backyard, plant some new plants and get a good start on the new retaining wall for the backyard as well.

Damo's parents took the kids for the day on Saturday (I think they're missing not having seen them for the week over Christmas). That meant Damo and I were free to head down to Bunnings and pick up all the bits and pieces for the drip irrigation system we wanted to install in the backyard. We then headed out to the Harvey Norman Warehouse to pick up our new fold out sofa. We should have known we were in for trouble when the two big guys who work in the warehouse all the time struggled to get it to our car/trailer, and then tell us that they call this model of sofa "one bloody heavy sofa" and then put it in the trailer which drops it by a few inches and raises up the tail of the car!

So on the way home, we organised for Damo's brother to come and give us a hand moving it, cause there was no way I was going to be able to lift one end of it on my own! When we got it home, we managed to get it into the house, but then found it was too long to get into the hall (right angle). And given it was too heavy to lift above shoulder height to get it through the windows in the spare room (or even Ashleigh's room across the hall), we had a problem on our hands!

So we compromised - we swapped the study (near the front entrace of the house) for the 'spare room' which was down the end of the house. We'd thought about setting it up that way when we first moved in, but there were pros and cons for both setups and my sister had been living with us and Ashleigh still in the nursery so all of the bedrooms ended up down one end of the house with the study near the loungeroom.

So we started moving the study into the empty spare room, only to find that the big bookshelf that has all of my books on it wouldn't fit down the hallway either - it was too long to get the angle as well. And even though it was lighter, it was actually too big to fit through the window either - even at an angle, on its side, etc. SO! It got moved into the loungeroom where our DVD cabinets were, the DVD cabinets got moved to the opposite side of the loungeroom.

We then went to move the sofa into the room, only to find that we couldn't get the right angle again! So we called on a neighbour to come and help and ended up lifting it through the window (which was near the front steps, so thankfully not above shoulder height.

So the sofa is now in the room - never to be moved again if we have any say in it!

Oh and the TV that we'd already wall mounted in the other room had to be moved as well. Did manage to pick up a 4x2 cubed bookshelf (same style as the one we put in the kids playroom - just half the size - see here). Its on it side under the TV (so only 2 tall, but 4 wide) and looks great!

So that was the inside dramas for the weekend!

Outside, we did manage to get the drip irrigation system installed on Saturday as well - works a treat - so wishing we'd got that done ages ago, but we didn't have the garden ready.

We also started on the retaining wall for the upper area of the backyard started (lower level needs more road base given its been so wet that the stuff we already put in has sunk into the clay). This meant reducing some of the garden bed where our vegie patch was, and planting some new hedging plants to finish that area off - we have chosen Pittosporum Silver Sheen, and I have to say, the plants that we put in at the start of the year have not only more than doubled in size, they contrast nicely with the fence, highlights and the new retaining wall.

That wall was the hardest part for the upper garden, but also one of the smaller sides. The long side, which will be done next, should be easier as the previous owner had paved that area and we have removed the pavers, but not the compacted road base under it - so there is already a solid, level base there waiting to be built on. :)

The rest of the yard leaves much to be desired at the moment, but this is just the start. The area you can see in the picture abve will all be removed, levelled, new top soil and then turfed - hopefully before winter, but we'll see how we go. Oh and the clothes line will be moved to centre of the picture rather than to the right - its only just off where the drop for the lower area of the garden is, so can't stay where it is.

So all in all, a massive, but very productive weekend. :) Bring on this weekend so we can get some more retaining wall done!

What did you get up to this weekend?

Here's to 2011

2012-01-05T14:13:00.000+11:00

What a year it was and didn't it go by in a flash?! Looking back, my little family went through a lot of changes and developments in 2011. Here's a few:

Settled on our house and moved in
Painted the entire house (given the previous owners had a strange colour scheme going on) in under 3 weeks (with help from my parents)
Moved the kids to a new daycare centre
Damo changed jobs, and then moved into a better role with his new employers
Installed solar on our roof (got our first electricity bill after it being turned on just before Christmas - very nice to see that account in credit!)
Demolished our old garage and built a massive new one
Both Liam & Ashleigh moved into big beds and Ashleigh moved into her big girl room
Nursery was renovated and converted into a guest/TV room - painting finished over the Christmas break and the new fold out sofa arrived and is being delivered this weekend
I went on a mini-holiday with the kids (no Damo!) for a week in Winter and we had a blast! Christmas break was better with Damo there though - don't think I'll do the solo holiday again for a while - hard work without the backup that I'm used to having!!
Put a new pergola on the front of the house - such a huge difference to the heat in the afternoon!
Half landscaped the backyard - rest will hopefully get done soon.
Liam turned 3 and Ashleigh turned 2. Both have come along in leaps and bounds - biggest win for Liam was being completely toilet trained (during the day - still have nappies overnight) before Christmas. Ashleigh is talking in proper sentences, counts as well as Liam and is recognising letters. Both kids have very strong personalities, but both are playing very well with each other most of the time - so relaxing!!

So here's saying farewell to 2011 - it was a great year, but somehow I think 2012 is going to be a better one! Watch this space. :)

Kids say the darndest things....

2011-12-19T14:47:00.000+11:00

This post is more for my memory than anything today. We have entered that lovely stage where both kids are coming up with wonderful stories, using their imagination in every day activities and play, and generally coming up with the funniest one liners. Yup, we have a pair of comedians on our hands!

In the past two weeks we've had the following:

Ashleigh (at 2 years and 4 months)
- We recently found out that she can recognise most of the letters of her name (individually) and have been 'testing' her by asking her what certain letters on our clothing and other items around the house are. We were sitting at the dinner table one night asking her about the letters on Daddy's and my sister's t-shirts, prompting her with "Whats this letter?" and so on, and Ashleigh then pointed to the bib she was wearing and said "Whats this?" We're looking at the plain striped bib wondering if the rest had been flukes when she giggles and says "Bib!" and then cracks up. Made the rest of us laugh at her comedic timing!

Liam (at 3 1/2 years)
- On the weekend I was sitting on my recliner with legs stretched out, when Liam climbed up next to me and sat half on my leg and half on the arm rest and proceeded to stretch his legs out (Liam being all of 1m tall, and me being 173cm, my legs are a mite longer than his). We then had the following conversation:
Liam: You have long legs Mummy
Me: Well compared to yours I do. What about your legs?
Liam: No, they're still missing some.
Me: *laughs*

- Again on the weekend, this time sitting with Daddy eating chips out of a bowl. Daddy tried to pick up the bowl to get some chips for himself, when Liam said "You can't have them Daddy. I need to eat them to grow big and strong!". Someones obviously been harping on about him eating his food. ;) But it wasn't just once, every time Daddy tried to take the bowl, he got the same comment. Should we perhaps tell Liam that it only works with fruit & vegies and not potato chips?!

I'm seriously hanging out for Christmas when I get to spent 10 days with the kids. I fear that I miss some amazing moments having them in daycare full time, but at the same time know that we wouldn't be able to survive financially without both of us working. Catch 22 isn't it? I'm just glad for the moments that we do have and cherish the holidays!!

Hope everyone else has a great break and gets to enjoy the family time. xxx

Christmas Shopping

2011-12-16T11:25:00.001+11:00

Ok, show of hands please - who leaves their Christmas Shopping until the last minute? Anyone?

Thankfully, I don't! As of yesterday, I am offically finished - with most of ours being done through the Christmas Layby in the July toy sales this year - perfect!

Did manage to score some bargains as well - like a swingset for the kids for $99 down from $250 just because it was last years model and they had 3 left of it, but surplus stock of the new model - I actually prefer the old model because it has 2 swings (for 2 kids!! No fights!) instead of 1 swing and a rope ladder. We were also planning on buying a trampoline and happened to find out our neighbour was giving away theirs because their kids don't use it anymore, so score one for free. :)

So while I'm stoked that I'm all done, I was a little shocked to hear that several of my colleagues haven't even started, and always leave it to within 2 days of Christmas to do it all - for their friends, kids, wife and other family members. How do they do it? I spend months thinking of the right presents for each person and then hunting around for the best price/quality that I can - including online shopping if need be. Especially for the kids who already have so many toys, so I've been thinking up ideas that won't add to the enormous collection that we already have.

How do you do your Christmas shopping? Are there months of planning and preparation? Is it an in-and-out as quickly as possible event or do you leave it to the last minute and grab whatever is left?

Themed birthday parties - for adults

2011-12-06T09:20:00.001+11:00

Its funny, I've always automatically set a theme for our kids parties (construction, pink, tea party, teddy bears picnic) but never thought about doing one for ourselves. I know a lot of people do it, and we have gone to themed parties in the past, but not in the last 5 years and we've never organised one ourselves.

Well I'm now inspired!

A good friend turned 40 on the weekend and to celebrate, we had a 70s and 80s theme party. Trying to find an outfit without spending a fortune (especially so close to Christmas and after buying her an awesome birthday present) is hard, but we managed to do it.

As soon as "80s" was mentioned, hubby immediately pulled out his Ghostbusters DVDs and watched them to get into the groove and to get inspiration for his Ghostbusters outfit (helps that he has work overalls in the same colour). I decided I wanted to go 80s fluoro, so set about finding bits and pieces here and there. Good thing is that fluoro colours are back in, so I managed to pick up an oversized fluoro pink top from Supre for the grand total of $12. Add some leg warmers and fishnet gloves I found on eBay for about $2 each and we were set!

I have decided that 80s style doesn't suit me - especially not now (might have when I was a kid!).

We had an awesome night and I would love to go to more dress up parties and start doing them for our birthdays (especially given hubby's 40th is coming up in the next few years), but sadly as I turned to hubby to tell him that, he said "I'm not really into dress up parties". LOL. Ah well.

Now I just have to wait for the video(s) that were taken - I pretty much danced the night away including some impromptu acting out of Bohemian Rhapsody with the birthday girl, her hubby and another mate....

Oh and there was the dance off as well where some of my old 80s dance moves that I learnt when doing dancing as a kid came in handy.....

Not to mention hubby stealing the birthday girls red curly wig (she went as Magenta from Rocky Horror Picture Show and her hubby was Riff Raff) and dancing around....

Ok - these videos could be very bad!

Health & fitness update

2011-11-29T15:30:00.000+11:00

Its now been about 3mths since I joined the gym and kickstarted my quest for the new me, and given its almost the start of December and 4 weeks away from Christmas on the beach, I figure its a good time for an update.

My original goal was to join the gym and get some 'me time' that I just wasn't getting outside of work. I had never intended to "diet" but have found that the more I've been exercising, the more I've wanted to eat healthy food. Consequently the family is eating better - not that we ate badly before, but we've cut out more rice and pasta in favour of more variety of vegies, and are choosing healthier meat options and more fish in our diet. We still have the occasional treats, but I think thats important as well.

And drumroll please.......I'm down a dress size. Woo hoo!

I was a 12-14, mostly 14 last summer, and today I'm wearing a size 12 skirt that I haven't fit into since I had kids, and a new top I bought in Target a few weeks back and was able to get a size 12. I did try the size 14 just because I'm so use to having to, and it hung off me like a sack! I'm still wearing my size 14D bras, but have realised this week that they are waaayyyy too big. Not sure I'm down to my goal of 12C yet, but I don't think I'm far off! Will have to go splurge and check out all the pretty bras I've been eyeing off that don't come in the larger sizes.

I've had to make a pile of all of my size 14 shorts from last summer and put them away. They were way too big and falling off even with belts on, so I'm glad I kept my stash of size 12s. I can almost squeeze into some of my old size 10s, but they're just a little too tight and don't look or feel comfortable, but thats what I was doing with the 12s this time last year, so thats good progress (I've always been a larger top than pants - caused me trouble since I was a teenager especially for things that come in sets like pjs and bra sets)

As for my measurements, from the start of my fitness kick until now they look like this:

- Hips: -5cm
- Waist: -8cm (this one shocked me - I was looking at myself in the mirror thinking I'd had a blow out!)
- Chest: -4cm
- Bust: -3.5cm
- Upper thigh: -3cm (but boy are they toned now! All of that Body Pump has really worked them hard!)
- Lower thigh: -2.5
- Calves: -0.5

My arms haven't changed, but I'd say thats because they were in good shape from lifting the kids and carrying them around prior to starting the gym, but I have noticed that they're more toned all over now, and if anything, the biceps on my left arm (me being right handed) are now bigger and more on par with the right, so I'm not as lop-sided as I was. ;)

But if you look at those stats, thats a total of 32.5cm I've lost off my body to date!!! (remember to count the measurement twice for legs). Thats pretty impressive!!

I'm loving going to the gym still which is the best part - I haven't missed a week yet, and have made it at least 2-3 times per week in my lunch breaks. I have been aiming to get the 4th day in, but something always comes up at work.

So here's hoping Christmas doesn't set me back too far - I'm only taking a 1 1/2 week break from the gym and will get back into it as soon as I'm back at work, so that will be good.

Maybe by next Christmas I'll be back into those size 10 shorts and 12C bras.... but then again, I'm really happy with where I am now so if I was just able to maintain this, I'd be really happy as well. :)

Reveal: bedrooms

2011-11-22T22:36:00.000+11:00

A few months ago I posted about the ideas and inspiration I had for setting up Ashleigh's big-girl room but sadly I never got around to uploading the photo of her finished room!

I had thought to paint her walls a shade of purple or a pinky-purple, but after we bought the doona, we decided it was enough colour for her room for now. We'll let her choose a colour when she gets older. (And if I'm really honest, given the room was only painted the cream at the start of this year, we really couldn't be bothered painting it all again so soon!).

I also realised that we hadn't done a full reveal of Liam's room, or our room after the new curtains were put in (the photo just doesn't show our new bedside lamps, so I've included a piccy of the separately), so without further ado, here are the 3 bedroom reveals:

Ashleigh's "Butterfly" room

Liam's "Construction" room

And yes, I know rockets aren't "construction" but they didn't have any other boy lamps - and besides, Liam doesn't care

Master bedroom with new curtains but minus the new bedsides - see below

New bedside touch lamps - so much nicer than the old ones!

Now to get my act together and get some photos of the new pergola off the camera and uploaded to this blog!

Organising: kids playroom

2011-11-17T15:01:00.000+11:00

Like any parent, I struggle with keeping the kids playroom neat, tidy and presentable. Add to it that I am a bit of a clean freak, and you have trouble! That room is by far the messiest and unorganised room in the house. With two kids under 4, its going to stay that way for a while I think.

But I've had a small win!

I have tried several storage options over the past few years:

Book shelves with a cupboard at the bottom (easy to lock away noisy toys and cycle through toys so there's always something 'new' to play with)
Those open top plastic storage tubs you see everywhere these days (the round ones with the handles). Great for dumping toys in, but big enough that 'favourite' toys get lost and the whole thing gets upended regularly for the kids to either find their toy, or to play with the containers.
Plastic containers with lids and wheels for big items like our lego collection and ball-pit balls (100 of them - they get found in wonderful places when you least expect it).

While they all have their pros and cons, nothing has really taken the room by storm. Also, as the kids get older, they want to change what they're playing with more often, so its become a regular occurence for the cupboard at the bottom of the bookshelf to be unlocked and the kids given free reign on the toys. Given the nice neat way I've stacked them to fit them all in there, that usually means the whole cupboard is emptied on the floor for them to get at one toy. Even if I restrict them to one toy, it will be the one at the bottom and back of the pile.

I've been looking around for something easy for kids to use, but functional for a playroom. Something that allows mountains of toys to be hidden, but also easily accessed and packed away by the kids rather than me. IKEA have the Expedit shelving solutions with their colourful boxes, but IKEA is a 3hr drive away - would negate the savings I'd make just getting there (plus all the other money I'd spend while there to 'save coming back again').

So imagine my surprise when I found what I was looking for on the weekend - and for cheaper than IKEA (how did that happen?).

And where did we find this bargain?

Bunnings of all places! While looking for storage for the garage.

So after the kids went to bed on Sunday night, their playroom was pulled apart. The bookshelf with the cupboard is now in the study - already packed with my books that were hiding in boxes still.

Their playroom now looks like this:

Not only does it make the room look bigger (its white versus timber, and its only half height, not to the ceiling like the old one was) but there is actually more floor space in the room because we now only have one other tub on the floor (you can see it on the right of the bottom pic - filled with 100 balls).

And the best part? The kids love it!

We didn't tell them we were doing it, they just wandered out at 6.30am on Monday morning and we could hear the "oooooh-ooooooh" from them. By the time we got up, they'd checked the contents of all of the boxes they could reach (top two blue ones are just out of reach so contain art supplies and noisy toys that can't be turned off) but had only pulled out one box each and were playing with a few of the toys. And they've been quite happy to pack up after each play session. The room looks the same today as what it did on the weekend and I've only had to pack up once and show them how to put the boxes back on the shelf.

Now to find another room that needs organising... the spare room is top of my list, but the study and laundry aren't far behind....

Anniversary

2011-11-14T15:41:00.001+11:00

Last Friday was my 5th Wedding Anniversary - just goes to show you how busy we've been that its taken me until now to get in here to post!

We did get a babysitter, and we did go out for dinner and a movie and made sure that we didn't rush and had a nice relaxing time.

But 5 years was cause to reflect. If you'd asked us on our Wedding Day where we thought we'd be in 5 years - it wouldn't have been here! So much for 5 year plans right?!

Here are some stats on what we've gotten up to in the last 5 years:

Renovated 2 houses
Bought 2 houses (not at the same time)
Sold one house
Moved house 4 times
Had 2 kids in 2 different states
Bought 5 cars, sold 3 cars
I had 2 years off work
Lived with my parents for 12mths, had my sister live with us for 12mths after that
Damo's had 6 different jobs
I've had 3 (not bad given 2years off)

Plus all the little bits and pieces that go with all of that!

And while it has been hectic at times, it has been an amazing 5 years. I can't imagine life without Damo and I love the life that we have together. We have the perfect little family and I can't wait to see what the next 5 years brings (hopefully no more selling, buying or moving house, and no plans for any more kids).

(Oh and 5 year anniversary present is traditionally wood - we've decided that building our pergola counts and thats our present to each other - will make a huge difference to the house when its done!)

"My Family" stickers - how far do you take it?

2011-11-01T09:37:00.000+11:00

I have read many blog posts about the "My Family" stickers - it appears that you should either love them or hate them.

Me? I'm indifferent.

I can see the appeal of them - I mean, I'm one proud Mumma and I love showing off my kids to the world and talking about them (if you haven't picked up on that already). But advertising them on a car to strangers and potential stalkers? An episode of Dexter spings to mind where a serial killer did just that - found a car with family stickers on them and waited and then kidnapped the boy. Not that I think that would happen, but that is the downside to having them on your car.

So while I don't have them on my car personally, I don't hate them or turn my nose up at people who do have them. But for those who do have the stickers, how far would you take it?

I've recently seen a car that had the family and then about 15 chickens across the back of the car.....

I've seen cars with a Dad and 2 or 3 kids (better advertising than a singles website perhaps?).

I've also seen the utes driving around with the single guy with a surf board, or the weight lifting guy on the back - again, showing off and advertising or just proud and showing it?

I've had a bit of a laugh at these, but never really thought much about them.

Then I saw one yesterday that I keep thinking about.

I was diving behind a standard Commodore. Saw one teenager in the front with Mum driving and the family stickers on the back.

Then I counted the stickers.

Dad, Mum, one, two, three, four kids! So I'm thinking, how do they fit 4 kids and 2 adults into a 5 seater car? Do they have 2 cars but only have the stickers on this car?

Then I noticed - the child sticker closest to the parents was an angel. And not a baby angel, but a teenager angel.

I've never lost a child, and hope that I never do, but if you did, would you advertise it to the world on the back of your car using family stickers?

I've seen the RIP stickers and dates on the back of cars for family members obviously lost, but is this taking it to a whole new level or just celebrating the memory of the child that is and will always be a part of your family?

The next project

2011-10-25T21:47:00.000+11:00

It seems to be the way with us. We finish one project around the house and straight away launch into the next one.

In this case, while the garage is done, the backyard landscaping is far from it! Sadly the weather has turned bad again and we now have a slushy clay/mud puddle for a back yard, and the rain is predicted to continue for the next week. Yuck.

The rain has highlighted another area that needs work though - our front entry area. It is a small tiled veranda with 4 stairs leading down to the path from the front yard. Sadly, that area doesn't get much protection from the elements, and with the strong winds that came with the rain yesterday, we had run coming in under the front door - even with a weather strip on! We have also discovered that the tiles are very slippery when wet - and given everyone has to come in that way, its quite dangerous. Here's a very bad photo that I have of it:

The pavers even look shiny when its dry weather!

So while we're waiting for the backyard to dry out (again), we've decided to build a covered pergola over the area.

We've already done the 'recon' at Bunnings (I swear we should have shares with them given the amount we've spent there over the years!) and worked out what we need and how much it will cost. Now we just have to hook up the trailer and take a drive down - and hope that we can somehow get the 4.2m length beams home in one piece... thankfully the verandah is only 1.5m wide so we only need small lengths of laserlight for this one.

So watch this space - photos of the work in progress will get posted this weekend.

Crazy hair day

2011-10-24T08:49:00.001+11:00

Anyone with kids in daycare (or school?) will know that this day usually comes around once a year. Sadly for our kids, we usually forget which day it is and don't dress them up - slack parents that we are!

Not this year!

Thankfully our current daycare (different one from last year) has put out a newsletter with all the important dates for the next few weeks - brilliant! Its up on our fridge and means we can't forget these fun days.

Trouble is, how do you do 'crazy' hair on a boy who has a #3 buzz cut all over (because he won't sit still for anything else - I hate it!) and a little girl with gorgeous hair who won't let you put any clips or ties in it for more than 30 seconds.....?

Fun part and answer to the dilemna?! I found my old hair mascaras - anyone remember those from the early 90s? I hoarde things, and yes, still have mine! They're a little dry, but I added a bit of water and hey presto, two kids with funky coloured hair! Here's how they were when I left for daycare this morning:

Cutie Ashleigh - love that she still has those waves/curls!

Orange and blue stripes!! (Note her trying to hide the mascaras in her pocket! She claimed blue and orange and happily gave up the green one for Liam).

Liam with his kind-of mohawk. Very hard with short hair to do anything funky!

Green racing stipes down the back....

Today is also face painting day for the kids, and its supposed to be 28 and sunny, so thats going to be interesting when all the face paint and hair mascara 'melts' into their hats and clothes. Good thing they're all water soluble!

Loves and loathes

2011-10-20T09:24:00.000+11:00

It feels like ages since I've been able to get in here and write, and so much has been happening so I think its time for a loves and loathes post!!

Loves
- The fact that our garage is finished! This is my huge LOVE at the moment. The cars are in there (they look like they're smiling - they really do!), bikes and upright freezer are in there, half of Damo's tools (need to get some cupboards and benches yet) and the home gym is now set up as well.

- Daylight savings. I know some people hate it, but when you're kids get up at 5.30am in the morning with the sun, having the sun come up a little later gives me more sleep and them as well. Plus now when I get home at 5.30 in the afternoon, I can play outside with the kids for a little bit before having to go inside to cook dinner, and even then, I can lock them on the verandah and they can continue to play outside. I don't think the TV has been on in the afternoon for all of this week - much better for the kids!

- My kids playing together. Its taken a while for them to work out the balance (given Liam is older and outweighs Ashleigh by about 7kg - 19kg to 12kg) but they play so wonderfully now. They were playing chasies yesterday afternoon and all I could hear was both of them chatting away and giggling - its lovely to hear!! Previously they'd do it for a few mins and then there'd be tears, they'd go back to playing and then there'd be tears within a few mins again. So nice to be able to cook dinner from start to finish and have that in the background rather than fighting and tears.

- Imaginative play. I have always encouraged my kids to use their imagination and to 'create' while playing. Its really kicked off in the past week. Liam is having imaginary conversations for different toys and interacting with them in role playing scenarios. He's also reading his books and putting on the different voices for the characters from what he can remember us doing (all off the pictures mind you - he's not yet 3 1/2 so not reading yet).

- Letting go! Its taken me years, it really has, but I'm now able to let my kids go to the Grandparents for sleep overs - and I'm actually looking forward to it! We have a Wedding to go to this Saturday, so we've organised for Damo's parents to have the kids for the afternoon and overnight. I can't wait! To be able to sleep without listening out for them, and sleep in as well - bliss!

Loathes
- How long its taking to landscape the backyard. First we had rain, rain and more rain so had a mud puddle of a back yard. Because of the clay underneath its taken sooooo long for it to dry out. Sadly, we now have a rock hard clay layer to get through to finish the shaping of the areas we want to put retaining walls in. We had discussions last night about making the little 'courtyard' area behind the garage (which is 30cm lower than the rest of the yard and going to be our paved entertaining area) a little narrower so we don't have to dig out as much of the rest of the yard. There's about 40cm that we need to shape, and thats one paver wide, so we might just make it narrower to save ourselves the hard work. Would then make that area 2.6m wide instead of 3m - given our next stage of work is to put a massive 8x9m deck off the back of the house, I'm thinking 2.6m wide might just do? The deck is about 3 years away though (have to pay off the garage first).....

- Missing gym sessions. I missed my lunchtime Pump class on Monday and it put me in a bad mood for the rest of the day - both because I was cranky at the job that took much longer than it should have, and because I didn't get my workout. Really makes a huge difference when I get my work out in - I'm more organised and motivated, I'm more patient with the kids (and Damo), and I feel so much better myself because I've done something for me!

Thankfully this list is very pro-LOVES and minimal loathes at this point. Hopefully it continues that way over the next few weeks.

I need to download all of the photos of the garage off the camera and do an update so you can all see the finished product. Watch this space!

Still here

2011-10-13T22:34:00.000+11:00

I am still here - I have just been flat out lately!

I hope to get back in here on the weekend when I hopefully will have some 'free' time to give you an update on how everything is going. Garage should be completed tomorrow (panel lift door is the last thing to go on and thats being done tomorrow), so I will have some new pics to share. :)

Hope you're all doing well and haven't given up on me yet.

On my way to a new me

2011-10-05T15:01:00.000+11:00

I may have been slack in providing updates like I told myself I was going to (to be more accountable to myself was the logic) but I haven't been slack with going to the gym!

3 times a week for the past 8 weeks during my lunch breaks, and I'm feeling fantastic!

I've taken my measurements at the start of my gym membership, 4 weeks in and now 8 weeks in. I thought it was pretty good after the 4 weeks, but now that we're 8 weeks in this is what we're looking at:

Hips: -5 cm
Waist: -3cm (feeling a bit dirty about this one - thought it would be more!)
Chest: -3cm
Bust: -3cm
Thighs: -3cm

Other measurements I wasn't worried about, but my arms have really toned up, my legs and bum are really toned, and my back has much less 'back fat' than was there before.

Hubby has commented on the difference, and my clothes are fitting much better.

I also notice it when I'm doing things around the house, garden and even picking up the kids - I'm so much stronger and I don't get sore from a few hours work in the backyard (which is good given all the landscaping work we have coming up for us).

I haven't been as good with my food as what I should have been, but if I can do what I've done without really changing my diet, now that Spring is here and I'm getting into salads for lunch and more fruit for snacks I can't wait to see what happens between now and Christmas.

Garage update

2011-09-28T10:27:00.000+10:00

Now that the slab has been laid, things are progressing very quickly - which is great! We had originally told ourselves that the garage wouldn't be ready for us until the end of October (expectation management), but now it looks like it will be ready by the end of next week, which is just fantastic!

Slab for the driveway will be poured either late this week or early next week (not Monday given its a public holiday - hence we have our fingers crossed for this week so it has 3 days of curing time over the weekend, meaning we can use it sooner), electrician is booked for Thursday next week to put in power points and hook up all the lights for us (2 external either side at the front, and 6 internal fluro lights). Then it will be good for use - woo hoo!

Here are some piccies of the progress:

Slab poured, levelled and smoothed out! Was brilliant on the weekend for the kids to play on - they had a ball!

Where the driveway will go - there is a bit of a drop from the new slab level for the garage, but its still a big enough area to easily park 2 cars, so the gradient won't be too bad (we hope!). Saves having a drain across the top of the driveway between it and the garage, because the water will just run off.

Garage progress after 1 day (Monday) - taken on Tuesday morning. Work is starting on the driveway.

As at Tuesday afternoon - driveway prepared for slab to be poured later this week. Would have been done earlier but rain is forecast for Wednesday and Thursday, clearing on Friday - hopefully gets done before the weekend so it can set and we can start using the garage soon!

Garage as of Tuesday afternoon - amazing progress! Liam is very impressed with 'his' garage - his bedroom is the one you can see in this picture, so he's been very excited to be able to see all of the heavy machinery in there - plus its safe for him to watch from there, so its been good for us too.

Garage from the backyard. Door and window have to be cut in which will break up the expanse of colourbond. Very impressed that its the same colour as our fence - we thought it was going to be a darker beige and that the fence would then make it look 'dirty'.

Gap between the house and the garage - approx 20cm. Will be closed off with a cut off from the gate from the other side of the garage (given that area is now narrower - gate is leaning against the fence in the previous pic). Triangle area behind the wheelbarrow will then be garden - probably tree ferns given that area will get little to no sun.

Pipe near the garage is for a drain that will run the length of the garage. Pipe in front of the wheelbarrow is the access point where the old storm water pipes (cement) meet the new PVC ones. It will be cut down and under a paver once the area is levelled.

Garage is supposed to have the door and window put in today, and the roller door will be in by the end of the week.

And the most amazing part of all of this is that 1 guy has done all of that work! He turned up on his own on Monday and has worked by himself all week - getting the frame up, cladding the walls, insulation for the roof and then putting the roof on. We were worried that he would be slower than if he had a team (which he probably is) but the speed at which its gone up has amazed us and our neighbours. We have people driving down our street just to see the progress (obviously nothing else exciting going on in the neighbourhood! LOL).

More photos to come before the weekend as things keep going.

What a week!

2011-09-26T09:37:00.000+10:00

I have just had one of those weeks where you blink and you miss it! It has been crazy busy, but also very productive.

We now have a slab laid for our garage and the build starts today - woo hoo!

We also managed to fertilise and mulch our front yard (back yard and side to go) and it looks awesome! Not sure the neighbours appreciated us after we put down dynamic lifter, mulch and then watered it in with Seasol, but ah well - it looks great so thats all that matters to me!

My parents arrived on Friday afternoon and are staying with us for 10 days, so we had a great weekend - it was Dad's birthday as well so it was lovely to be able to celebrate with him.

Managed to get out to DFO on the weekend and bought myself 2 new pairs of shoes for work and one pair of strappy heels to wear to a Wedding in a few weeks - love Dianna Ferrari! The fascinator that I ordered from my friend who runs her own business (see Viktoria Novak Designs) is also ready and I'll be receiving it from her today - can't wait as if the photos are anything to go by, she has done a brilliant job as always and I can't wait to wear it!

In health and fitness news, I have been consistently going to the gym 3 times a week for the past 7 weeks and am feeling great! I still need to resist temptation when it comes to eating, but I'm hoping that with the warmer weather I'll be able to get back into salads and therefore skip the warm lunches/leftovers. I'm feeling much fitter and my clothes are fitting better too, which is great. And I'm noticing that around the house and doing gardening work, I'm not sore at all the next day (whereas Damo is!) and can do more without getting tired. So while I would love to lose the 5-7kg that I have to go, I know that they are the hardest ones to lose and given I'm feeling so much healther and happier, I'm wondering if that is enough providing I keep going to the gym? We'll see.

Are you awesome?

2011-09-16T14:06:00.000+10:00

I've just discovered a new blog courtesy of a work colleague that I have to share.

Pig Tail Pals

Pigtail Pals is dedicated to changing the way we think about girls. Our blog educates parents on media literacy, marketing, sexualization, gender stereotypes, and body image.
Our shop offers inspiring apparel and gifts for children.

Today I was reading their post about "Waking up full of Awesome"

There was a time when you were five years old, and you woke up full of awesome.
You knew you were awesome.
You loved yourself.
You thought you were beautiful, even with missing teeth and messy hair and mismatched socks inside your grubby sneakers.
You loved your body, and the things it could do.
You thought you were strong.
You knew you were smart.
Do you still have it?

The awesome.
Did someone take it from you?

Did you let them?

Did you hand it over, because someone told you weren’t beautiful enough, thin enough, smart enough, good enough?

Why the hell would you listen to them?

Did you consider they might be full of shit?
Wouldn’t that be nuts, to tell my little girl below that in another five or ten years she might hate herself because she doesn’t look like a starving and Photoshopped fashion model?

Or even more bizarre, that she should be sexy over smart, beautiful over bold?

Are you freaking kidding me?
Look at her. She is full of awesome.

You were, once. Maybe you still are. Maybe you are in the process of getting it back.

All I know is that if you aren’t waking up feeling like this about yourself, you are really missing out.

Such a great post - I know I'll be making sure Ashleigh wakes up full of awesome for many years to come, and I hope that I do too!

So do you wake up feeling awesome?

Garage update

2011-09-15T22:36:00.000+10:00

Quick update tonight!

Our garage company have confirmed that the bob cat will be back on Tuesday next week to level the site, they'll then set up the frame ready for the slab and the slab will be poured before the next weekend - woo hoo! Once the slab is cured (around 5-7 days) the garage will be up within a week.

Once the garage is up, we get our electrician in to put the lights and power points in for us (and connect up the remote roller door).

Then its on to landscaping! Pavers and retaining wall blocks are ready for us, but we've asked to hold off on delivery for a few weeks until we have the space to put them - we have no access into the back yard at the moment, and with the site levelling still going on, we don't want 31sqm of pavers and 468 retaining wall blocks in the way.

Watch this space!

Likes and dislikes

2011-09-14T11:28:00.001+10:00

I have so much that I want to blog about today so I'm going to post about my current likes and dislikes for everything that is going on for us at the moment (which is a lot!).

Likes

The fact that I have been able to get to the gym 3 times per week since starting.
I haven't blogged an update for a few weeks, for which I am sorry, but I have been getting comments on my slimmer figure - yay - including my hairdresser who saw me 6 weeks ago and commented that half my bum was gone - always nice to hear. :) My gym sessions comprise of 2x Body Pump and 1x Zumba per week. I would love to do more, but fitting any more in at the moment is just a little hard. I'm grateful that I can get there 3 times per week. :) Haven't checked the scales yet, but my pants are much looser, and my jackets and belt are needing to be done up at least 1 notch tighter, which is awesome.

That I managed to find some new touch lamps to replace the old rusted ones that we picked up second hand years ago. Was hard finding one that we both liked and that the kids couldn't easily knock over (some are so tall and thin its ridiculous!). We found these gorgeous ones (see piccy below) that have a material shade that mutes the light a little more (even the dimmest setting was bright at night with the glass shade), is hopefully safer with little kids around (no glass shade to brake or catch fingers on), and matches in nicely with our curtains (we have block out at the back and crystal sheers at the front with a pencil pleat. This is what we used to have:

Out with the old

In with the new!

That our garage renovations are coming along nicely, and our plan for our backyard is taking shape nicely. There have been a few minor tweaks in our end plan, but all for the better - I'm very grateful for my husband being an ex-building designer so can draw our plans up in AutoCAD and work out how much space we'll really have - so hard otherwise! This is what our current driveway and backyard looks like - very hard to imagine this gorgeous backyard that we have planned:
Warmer weather! I'm loving that Spring is here and Summer is just around the corner. To give Damo a sleep in on Sunday morning, I took the kids over to my sisters apartment that has a pool and we all went swimming (its indoor and mostly heated - was still a little cool but Liam didn't care). Here's Ashleigh in her new swimmers:

Kids who play together nicely. Thankfully my two are reaching the age where they will play together. They still get a bit rough with each other (Ashleigh learning from Liam who's used to rough-housing with Daddy), but when you see the moments where they play nicely and giggle together, it makes it all worthwhile! Here they are pretending to sleep together on my sisters couch:

Getting rid of the ugly slab of cement that used to have the previous owners bird aviary on it - you can even see the lines from where the cages were. So good to see this gone!

Mini make overs that make a huge difference! There is no space in our house for an ironing board or upright vacuum cleaner to be stored. So I decided to make some. We have more than enough linen cupboard space at the moment (size of 2 double door wardrobes - all shelved!) so I removed a couple of shelves to make room for the ironing board, brooms and vacuum cleaner:

Before

After (don't you just love the carpet?!)

Dislikes

After the old slab for our garage was removed, the full extent of the water damage under there was known. The ground was so wet that the bobcat kept getting bogged halfway up its rear wheel, and we were told they'd need at least a week for the ground to dry out before they can level the site for the new slab. Thankfully we had the plumbers coming in this week anyway, so the week that they needed hasn't been wasted.

That additional plumbing problems were found during the course of the works done for the garage. The downpipe near the front door at the opposite end of the house is also blocked and water not going anywhere. Its only that there is another downpipe just around the corner that we haven't noticed because its been blocked for quite a while apparently. So now we have to replace the pipe which means digging up across the front yard. Good thing we're turning that into a circular driveway rather than keeping the grass thats there at the moment, but its extra money which makes our garage finances just a little bit too tight for my liking. I'm now waiting for the next thing to go wrong.

Liam being an absolute pain this week. He's really turning on the Trying Threes for us at the moment and we're struggling to get anywhere with him - nothing seems to work. With everything else going on, I didn't need the additional stress and worry about how to deal with him. Thankfully Ashleigh is being wonderful, but thats in comparison to Liam as well, so anyone would seem good compared to him at the moment. I did cook his favourite dinner (Spag Bol) last night and he had 3 helpings so thats much better than the last few nights where he's refused dinner, run away, kicked and screamed and thrown food on the floor. So hopefully the worst is now over and he is going to calm back down for me.

Out of the mouthes of babes

2011-09-07T09:36:00.002+10:00

I have been following and joining in with the Seven Cherubs "Cherish your cherubs" project. So far we have had Record and Remember, and this week's task was to "Interview".

At first I thought, "how on earth to you interview a 2 and 3 year old about whether they're happy with life and my parenting?".

Then I realised that it didn't have to be an "Interview" - the whole point of the project is for me to listen to my kids more and follow their cues.

So I listened.

It really is amazing what your kids come out with - kids really do say the darndest things!

Liam

Our little man is usually very hard to pin down, but he hasn't been 100% this week so has been very cuddly so I've been able to have some good chats with him.

He seems very happy with daycare and loves drawing and building. He is hugely into diggers and dump trucks at the moment (probably because we've had a few at our house for the demolition of our old garage) so loves constructing them out of blocks and other bits and pieces. He has a very cheeky personality which came out in our recent photo shoot - everyone takes one look at the photos of him and says "Cheeky!", but even daycare say that he's not a troublemaker which is good.

Obviously we're doing a pretty good job with him and our positive reinforcement is getting through as he has been telling me "You're such a good girl, Mummy" or "You're a really good girl, Mummy" which is lovely to hear. This always follows me doing something that he wants, even if its a simple as giving him some more dinner if he asks, or giving him cuddles when he asks.

He does ask me to sit and watch TV with him of an afternoon which I do find hard because Damo doesn't get home until 6.30pm so its up to me to get dinner ready and get them bathed. In the past week I have switched things around and instead of having them all done and dusted before Daddy gets home, I have cooked easy meals that allow me to walk away from the kitchen and spend even just 10mins watching their shows with them and listening to them comment on their favourite characters and what they are doing (Bananas in Pajamas are Liam's favourite at the moment - we've been taping them of a morning so they have 2 episodes to watch of an afternoon if they're good).

All in all, I feel good with how things are with Liam. He can be difficult at times and we are still struggling with toilet training with him, but we are slowly seeing progress and have finally settled into a good routine with the toilet training and learning to ignore the accidents (very hard to do!) and reinforce the positives.

Ashleigh

It has been a lot harder to get the same 'feeling' from Ashleigh given she's only just 2, but I took my cues from her physical responses rather than her verbal ones, even though she is speaking almost as well as Liam is.

Ashleigh loves to give cuddles and kisses when she's happy, and has started following Liam's lead and saying "Good girl Mummy" when I do something she likes, which is nice but I'm not 100% sure whether she's saying it because she understands it fully or whether its just because Liam's saying it and she's copying.

She has a good pout and frown on her when she doesn't get her way, but is fast learning that it doesn't work, so thankfully we're seeing less and less of it.

Daycare have commented on how beautiful her manners are and how well adjusted and easy going she is, so we're hoping that is testament to our parenting as well. Always nice to hear someone say your child has lovely manners - especially when we work so hard on reinforcing them.

Ashleigh loves shopping and pretty things. If I say I'm going to the shops, or even head towards the door with my handbag on the weekend (when she knows its not me going to work) she grabs her shoes and her toy handbag, races to the door squealing "Shopping!" and then turns to Daddy and Liam, waves and says "Bye bye". I take her with me most of the time, even if its just for grocery shopping - she loves sitting in the trolley and being asked whether we should buy this and that - she says yes to everything so perhaps she not the best sanity check for my indulgence purchases after all. ;)

All in all, things are good for Ashleigh. She has been teething lately, which is always hard for her, but both of the ones causing trouble seem to have come through now so hopefully that gives her a break for a while. Her 2yr molars are next, but given she's teethed late with all her other teeth, I'm hoping they don't come for a few months.

Results?
So if their behaviour and the praise that they're giving back to us is an indication of our parenting, then we're doing a pretty good job. Obviously there are times when our kids don't like what we say or do, but thats part of being a parent and setting the rules and boundaries. Balance is the most important part, and I feel that as long as I can make the time to sit down with them and watch a TV show or sit and play with them every now and then, even if I am really busy, they'll be happy and I'll be happy too.

Next week is Praise - I don't think that ones going to be a problem as we do that all the time!

Family photo shoot

2011-09-02T21:07:00.000+10:00

Since Liam was 8mths old, every year we take the kids to a little photographer who sets up a booth at the chemist Damo's Mum works at. He does really great deals and takes brilliant photos. This years photos are no exception - but this time, instead of it just being the kids, Damo and I jumped in the photo too so we now have a gorgeous family photo to hang on the wall.

The photos weren't meant to be back for another week, so I was delighted to find these waiting for me when we dropped around to the in-laws for dinner tonight:

Liam rocking his new hair do

Our little family

Gorgeous miss Ashleigh in her favourite colour - pink!

And the best thing about this photographer, after we choose our favourite 3 photos, he takes all of them and puts them on a CD in full size for me, so I can check out all the other ones and print off any others that I like.

Can't help but share these ones of my two cherubs - shows off their personalities perfectly:

Cheeky Liam was playing catch with the photographer

Ashleigh playing with some pink beads and not wanting to give them up when we left

Does anyone else do something like this each year? I know we all take photos of our kids, but I love that we have these 'perfect' photos of our kids - looking at the camera, neutral background, all dressed up nicely and hopefully smiling - perfect for enlarging and hanging on the wall in our loungeroom.

Decisions

2011-09-01T09:56:00.000+10:00

Aside from all of our renovations and demolitions there have been a lot of other things going on behind the scenes for us and our friends lately. And its got me thinking about the decisions we make in life.

I'm not going to make this a 'deep and meaningful' post - I don't like getting all philosophical either.

But I can't help but think about how each and every decision we make in life puts us onto a different path. Every decision is a cross road with at least 2 ways to go. So with all of these forks in the road and bridges to cross (metaphorically speaking of course), is it any wonder that people grow apart without realising it? And how amazing is it that people can spend their entire lives together and never move apart - the stars must really have been aligned when they met for each and every decision they made throughout their lives to keep them together.

I have always believed that everything we go through is for a reason, and everything we've done in the past got us to where we are, and that you shouldn't regret the past because it made you who you are. If you could go back and change the past, you wouldn't end up where you are now. Butterfly effect and all that.

I don't believe in God, but I do believe in fate and karma. I also believe that life will continue to put you through the same scenarios, even if a little varied, over and over again until you learn the lesson you're meant to.

So how do you feel about these things? Have you ever stepped back and looked at your life from an outside perspective? Do you believe in fate and karma? Do you believe that every decision you make takes you on a different path or is there more to it than that?

Colour dilemna

2011-08-29T22:49:00.000+10:00

Oh the joys of renovating.

We think we have a plan, and have decided on our colour scheme for the pavers and retaining walls in the backyard, and then when we go out to a few places and realise that we really don't know what we want!

We have decided on our pavers. Gorgeous natural stone - Travertine - in the beige range (as opposed to the whites). Ours won't be under a pergola at this point, but will be in a 3m x 9m courtyard behind the new garage and adjacent to the house, 30cm lower than the rest of the backyard. Eventually we will extend the roof of the garage to cover the area, but its not in our budget just yet. So picture something like this:

They are usually quite expensive, being natural stone and all, but when we balked at the price they showed us the 'factory seconds' in that range. Slightly more colour variation between tiles, and some of the edges are rougher, but as they pointed out, you just use those pavers for the ones that need cutting or edges. Bonus is that its about 30% cheaper. And then they have a 20% off sale starting on the 9th Sept and running until the 11th Sept, so that brings the price of the natural stone down to the same as the clay or cement pavers - so why wouldn't we?!

The trouble that we are now having is deciding what colour retaining wall to put around the garden.

The garden will be split into 3 levels, but with only 30-40cm between each level.

The courtyard is the bottom area, and the retaining wall would span the entire length of that area. If you look at this image, where the pavers have been lifted already on the left is where the sunken courtyard will be, running straight over towards the garage door and then back perpendicular to where Damo is on the excavator (the new garage will be wider than the existing one:

The middle area is the area to the right of the clothes line - see here:

It will be a lovely 12m x 6m turfed area. The existing retaining wall around the garden bed is a mess of rocks, cement, pebblecrete (don't ask!) and pavers. All of that will go and the new brick retaining wall will go in.

Then the upper area is what you see here:

We're not doing anything in the top area as yet. Eventually it will be a large veranda or similar - but thats about 3-5 yrs away.

So my dilemna? If we have beige pavers, creamy orange bricks on the house, cream fence and cream garage, and the large expanse of grass, what colour retaining wall should we do?

Beige? Or Charcoal/Onyx?

Beige:
PROS: its light, will reflect the sun, would blend in with the rest of the colour scheme rather than standing out.
CONS: it will be bright, there will be a lot of cream and therefore bright in the backyard, the areas in the shade that will never see the sun (in the courtyard area shaded by the garage and the house) are likely to discolour and with natural stone pavers, we're very restricted with what we can treat it with

Charcoal/Onyx:
PROS: won't show dirt or discolouration as much, will give a contrast in the garden, will blend in with the mulch layer that we'll put in the garden beds
CONS: contrast may be too great, it may make the courtyard area look smaller and more closed in, but then its only 3 blocks (or 30-40cm) high, so its not like its a massive wall.

I know we'll have to decide this on our own, but if it were you, what colour scheme would you be looking at if you had our house, fence and garage colours and had chosen the same pavers as us? This is what the retaining wall will look like:

These are the colour options we're tossing up between (there are two other colours, but one looks dirty and the other is quite red, which I don't like for the area):

Nougat

Charcoal

Any thoughts or suggestions for us?

Culling

2011-08-25T19:59:00.000+10:00

I'm known in my family for being a hoarder. Its just who I am.

For some reason everything has sentimental value. I still have a suitcase full of birthday cards that I've been collecting since I was little - Mum kept cards from when I was born and my 1st birthday, so yup, I still have all of those!

Same goes for all of my children's clothes, toys and belongings.

I know they've outgrown them, are never going to use them again, and will probably never look at them with the same awe and love that I do.

This week however, I have been in a culling mood! If you've been following my blog you would know that we are about to demolish our existing garage and put a new one up, so that has meant that all of the boxes in the garage have had to move out. Some of them were only half full so I have consolidated quite a few boxes in the 'move' process. I have also manage to find all of the baby items that I was hiding away.

Not so easy to ignore them now when they're out in the open and I'm tripping over them most days.

So I have finally advertised all of our unwanted, outgrown and unneeded baby items in our local classifieds. I've already managed to get rid of our baby bjorn, jolly jumper, play gym, play pen, and a few misc items, and this evening a lovely couple who are expecting their first just took our port-a-cot and nursery glider chair.

And in my mad tidy up of the house before they arrived (2 kids on a hyper rampage are not conducive to a tidy house) I managed to clean out Liam's wardrobe. I went to put a pair of shoes in his wardrobe and noticed that I still had several small t-shirts hanging up in there. So out they went. And then I looked and found more shirts and jumpers that while they 'might' just fit, really he's got enough clothes to keep him going so I figured I might as well put all the tighter/smaller ones aside.

Then that got me thinking about his shorts and track suit pants - would you believe that I found a pair of size 0 shorts in his drawer? He's now in size 3s! So even though with undies rather than a nappy he might have fit into some of the size 1s and 2s, there are enough 3s and 4s in his drawer so the smaller sizes are now gone as well!

So now I have a lovely big pile of clothes to give away to friends who have a little 1yo boy. I know they'll be happy to have some new clothes for him, and I'll be happy to have the space for the new clothes!

(And yes, in my search for small clothes, I managed to find the stash of larger sizes that I bought at the end of summer sales this year, so they're now in the washing pile ready to be washed and labelled and to take up the space in the wardrobe and drawers that I just made. Viscious cycle).

Now I just need to do Ashleigh's!

So my question to you all - how often do you go through your kids clothes and cull the items that no longer fit? Are there any items that you hold on to, and if so, what and why?

Garage Renovation Part 1

2011-08-21T22:24:00.003+10:00

What a weekend! Its amazing what 9hrs and an excavator/digger can do to a backyard!

As I've mentioned before, in order for us to put our new garage in, we have to move the underground power that currently connects to the garage and then across the roof of it to the house - can't demolish the garage while the power is still connected to it!

Unfortunately we are only of the only houses in our suburb that has underground power due to the placement of the nearest power pole (over 2 neighbours yards behind us, and regulations say you can't span across someone else's yard, so we get to run underground).

In order to move the power, we need to dig a trench from the existing cable across to the house. Usually this has to be a minimum of 600mm deep, but given we need to dig out for the new garage at least 300mm, that means we have to dig a trench of at least 950mm to ensure that the cable is still deep enough after the new garage has gone in.

So anyway, here are some photos of what we got up to this weekend.

Before - lovely old pavers, cement edging to the grassed area that used to be a swimming pool about 20 years ago.

Pavers ripped up and the excavator in and starting work.

The lovely chunk of cement the digger unearthed about 300mm down.

More pavers lifted. Damo having fun on the excavator.

Trentch starting to take shape.

Boys hard at work - good mate James on cement demolition duty - hard going with the sledgehammer and crow bar. We tried the hammer drill and it barely made an impact, so had to switch back to the hard yakka.

Damo having to be very careful digging around the storm water pipe that our plumber kindly warned us likely ran down that wall of the house.

Oh and to top it off, the cement was full of with reinforced steel mesh ("REO" Damo tells me is the correct 'site' terminology). Thankfully Damo has almost every power tool you could think of (Yay for years of renovating in the past) so James got to it with the grinder (Damo also used it to cut the old pool filtration pipes and a soft drink bottle to make a funnel for topping up the diesel in the digger, but thats another story! Overkill much?)

See the lovely pile of pavers along the garage behind James? I lifted and moved all of those! Then I advertised them for free in our local classifieds and had no less than 3 calls in under 5 hours and had them picked up today - one less thing to take to the tip!

We sent the kids over to Damo's parents for the day - which they all loved. Kids were ecstatic to come home to find a 'digger' in their backyard and of course wanted to have a go.

Liam surveying the trench that is almost as deep as he is tall. He spent most of today laying on top of the dirt piles and playing in the mess that is now our backyard. He did manage to fall into the trench and yup, it came up to his chin. Thankfully its wide enough that he wasn't hurt or stuck in any way.

And this is what our backyard looks like today. See the lovely storm water drain at the bottom of the picture? There was a broken piece of pipe laying right next to it which Damo lifted with the excavator - he thought he'd ripped the pipe out! Thank goodness he was 200mm off and didn't get the real one! Oh and theck out the kids trucks playing in the dirt - they've had a ball!

And beside the garage where all those pavers were piled up. Now to just get rid of some roof tiles and old tilt garage doors... (we are keeping a stack of roof tiles for ourself because they match the house ones - always good to have a stack of spares!).

Part 2 starts tomorrow - Electricians and our electrical company are coming in to move the metre box off the garage to the house, hook up our solar feed (YAY!) and lay the conduit in our new trench for the new underground power. Next weekend we'll be backfilling the trench, taking roof tiles off the garage, removing the window (for our mates to take) and anything else anyone wants, ready for the cutover of the underground power on the 31st and for demolition to start on the 1st.

So watch this space! Our wait is finally over.

Happy Birthday Ashleigh

2011-08-16T10:40:00.002+10:00

I know I keep saying it, but I am in denial about my baby turning 2.

Today is her birthday, and it feels like only yesterday that I was in labour and right about now (10.30am) was struggling with extremely low blood pressure to the point where I was setting off alarms, and having my poor little girl set off alarms during every contraction as well. We found out during the actual birth that the cord was wrapped around her neck twice - thank goodness for our fast acting Obs. Her birth could have had a very different outcome if it weren't for him and the fast acting midwives who obviously had figured out what was going on but just weren't telling me.

These past 2 years have been amazing. I always thought that after having one child, the 2nd one wouldn't quite amaze me as much because I would have my expectations already set by the first - boy was I wrong!

Ashleigh continues to outperform Liam in so many facets at the same age. Her speech is much more advanced. Her behaviour is much more relaxed (although she is stubborn). Liam used to get into so much trouble for not wanting to eat dinner (the 'dinner or bed' rule was brought out before he was 2 - that just means a 5 min time out in his room until he decided to eat and not throw food all over the house) and yet I think Ashleigh has only had that enforced once. She is such a good eater!

Daycare comments on how advanced she is - they thought she was the eldest in her room at the start of this year when she was actually the youngest (and thats an 18mth old behaving like a 2yo at the time). She also gets compliments on her beautiful manners - never fails to say "Thank you Mummy" when I give her something.

She has a cheeky personality and loves to entertain. She has perfect comedic timing without knowing it - but beams when everyone laughs at what she obviously meant to be something funny.

Like all kids, she thrives on compliments and loves being told she's a clever girl.

She is my little helper around the house too. I can't get dinner ready without her wanting to be up on the bench helping me - either by putting all of the cut vegies in the saucepan, or by putting the whole ones in front of me ready for cutting - I have had to learn to be very careful when she's around because little fingers will appear out of nowhere and my knives are really sharp! Thankfully she's also learning to keep her fingers away - she's just so keen to help! Same goes with the washing. She can't quite reach the top of the washing machine, but if I have piles of sorted clothes on the floor, she has to come out and help me by picking them up and handing them to me.

If the kids are at the opposite end of the house and I call out to them, Liam yells back "What?" which I hate and am trying to get him out of. Ashleigh on the other hand will come running saying "I coming" the whole time as she gets closer.

I think she's learnt that if she does the things we're trying to teach Liam to do, and are drumming into him, she doesn't get in trouble and gets praise for doing it when we're still working on Liam. One of the perks of having only 14mths between them I guess?

For her birthday she has been given a plethora of 'girl' stuff. I was feeling guilty that she's really only had trucks, cars and a few stuffed toys to play with up until now, but everyone has come through! She now has a dolls pram, a hair dressing kit (complete with battery operated hair dryer - go figure!), dress up outfits, my little pony DVDs, and some Disney Princess story books. From us this morning she then got a baby doll, my old dolls cradle that my dad built for me as a little girl, clothes, some Tinkerbell DVDs, a my little pony baby and some books and stickers.

The look on her face when she unwrapped the baby doll was priceless - excitement, awe and happiness was perfect (all for a $10 KMart doll - can't ask for better than that!). She straight away put the 'baby' in the cot and started rocking her singing "Rock-a-bye Baby" - any guesses as to what we sing to her every night before bed?! After breakfast was done and as I was heading out the door to work, both kids were sitting on the couch while Daddy put the new Tinkerbell DVD on - Ashleigh cuddling her new baby.

Damo reported to me that 'baby' did end up going to daycare today (which I said was fine - they're allowed to take show and tell and I figured she wasn't going to leave baby behind otherwise). Apparently if Ashleigh gets excited about something else, Baby has a tendency to get dumped on the floor and left, but again, thats the perks of her being a $10 Kmart doll - no way was I spending a fortune on a doll that is going to get knocked around for a few years - she can upgrade later!

So now I'm at work, feeling guilty that I can't be at home with my baby, but also knowing that she's in good hands and with her second family who want to celebrate her birthday too. I sent a cake to daycare so they can have a party there. Plus we have the family coming over for dinner tonight - spag bol - one of Ashleigh's favourite.

So while I'm in denial that my baby is turning 2, I can't help but be a little excited that she's turning out very much like me at the moment - can be a girly girl, but also likes to rough and tumble. Hopefully she'll let me start doing her hair properly soon instead of getting me to put clips in and then ripping them straight out. Loving that she's into shoes and dresses already too - too cute!

Happy Birthday baby girl - I love you so much and can't wait to see what the next 12 months brings us. xxx

Ashleigh talking on the phone to her Nan, all dressed up for her party

(she chose the shoes and I had to find an outfit to match - its starting already!)

120 Biscuits for less than $5

2011-08-11T15:29:00.001+10:00

I've been trawling the web lately looking for bargains and budget saving tips (given our current big expenditures on renovations, anything is of help!) and I kept coming across references to 120 biscuits for under $5.

With a little searching, I found the recipe - so credit goes to the Stay at Home Mum for the following recipe which I am dying to try this weekend. I was actually pleasantly surprised to see the sugar to flour ratio is 1:5 - so many of my recipes have much more sugar in it, so I'm liking this one already!

Ingredients:

500g butter or margarine
1 tin condensed milk
1 cup sugar
5 cups self-raising flour

Cream sugar and butter. Add condensed milk and flour. Roll into teaspoon sized balls and press down with a fork. Place on greased trays and bake in moderate oven until golden brown (approximately 10-15 minutes). For a less ‘floury’ biscuit – substitute half a cup of flour for 1/2 cup of custard powder.

Some suggested variations:

1.Chocolate chips

2.Cornflakes and sultanas
3.Hundreds and Thousands
4.Malted Milk
5.Milo and coconut
6.Peanut Butter
7.Jam drops
8.Chocolate (add cocoa)
9.Chocolate with Dried Ginger
10.Dried Apricot with ginger and rolled in coconut.
11.White Chocolate and Macadamia
12.Sultana and Orange Zest

Another bonus? The raw mixture can be frozen! Simply roll a portion into a large ‘sausage’ shape and wrap in baking paper. Seal the ends, write the flavour on the outside and pop in your freezer. When you want fresh biscuits, just take out of the freezer, unwrap, cut into ‘coins’ and place still frozen into a pre-heated oven.

There is also a subsitute recipe for the Sweetened Condensed Milk for those who don't like using it:

2 eggs

1 cup brown sugar

1 tsp. vanilla

2 tbsp. flour

1/2 tsp. baking powder

1/4 tsp. salt

Mix all ingredients and use as a substitute for sweetened condensed milk in recipes for pies, bars and desserts.

Reno update

2011-08-08T15:55:00.000+10:00

Wow! Have things been hectic around our household lately! I haven't had any time to get in here and post - sorry to those that do check in for a read!

Today I wanted to quickly blog about our impending garage renovations - yes, they're finally happening!

I've finally managed to get the dates for our electrical company to come and:
1. disconnect our meter box to allow our electricans to move it; and
2. run new underground power cables and change the point of attachment (POA) to our house.

Its only taken 6 weeks for me to get both of these date - but now we have them!

Meterbox is getting done on the 22nd August, and the POA move is being done on the 31st August (I'm stoked with that one - thought we were going to get a September date the way it was going!). Our electricians will run the conduit for the POA move on the 22nd to save us paying 2 call out fees for them, which means given we're doing the trenching ourselves (to save money - they charge a fortune!), we have to have the new trench run, with 1m x 1m pits at each end, dug and ready before the 21st.

Given its Ashleigh's birthday party next Sunday 14th and we want access to the backyard for her party, that means we have had to book the digger/excavator in for the 20th. Fingers crossed for good weather please!!

So this weekend we started clearing out the garage - anything that wouldn't survive under the house for 6 weeks got moved into the house (spare room now full of boxes) and the rest of the stuff (mainly Damo's garage junk, power tools and home gym) will be moved under the house and put on pallets (its not too bad - they're not directly on the ground) this coming weekend.

We're calling in all favours the weekend of the 20th - everyone who has been helped by us over the past few months is getting called in to return the favour! We have to rip up pavers, double check out measurements for where the new garage will go (underground power has to be behind it), and then helping guide Damo in digging a 1m deep trench for the new power.

Normally underground power only has to be 60cm deep, but because the garage is 30cm lower than ground level and we're pushing it further back into the yard and having a same-level courtyard behind the garage (tiering the backyard), we need to drop that depth down to 1m to make sure that we're covered.

Tomorrow afternoon I have our plumber coming over to see what he can do about:
1. quoting us for connecting the new garage downpipes to the storm water drains
2. putting a tap into the back yard (currently there isn't one - how silly!)
3. telling us where all of the existing storm water pipes are in the backyard (if he can) so Damo doesn't accidently dig one up. Given we have to trench right up to the side of the house, Damo isn't sure whether the storm water from the downpipe near that area goes under the house, or around the side and right into the area where we're digging. Ah fun!

We've also spoken to the garage company, confirmed colours, and advised them that we're good for demolition anytime starting 1st Sept. They're getting back to me with dates once they've lined up their contractors, and then once demolition starts, in 3-5wks (depending on contractors and weather) we'll have a new 10.5m x 7m garage - woot!

Damo has drawn up all the plans (benefit of marrying an ex-building designer) so when I get my hands on a copy, I'll post so you can see the difference between what we have now, and what we will have. :) We've also started planning our backyard - given its going to be ripped up, if we have any spare money left at the end I would love to put in proper retaining walls rather than the cement and rock rubbish that is there now (and its not even nice - more cement than rock - yuck!).

So watch this space - we're getting so close!

Week 1 update

2011-08-03T20:42:00.004+10:00

So its been a week since I joined the gym and started doing classes on my lunch break, and I have to say that I'm loving it! Last week I managed to make it to 2 classes, and this week I've been to 2 already and am planning on going again tomorrow - I think I'm addicted already!

Results are looking good so far though. I haven't weighed myself since I first did last week, but I did check my measurements this morning and in one week I've already lost 1cm on my chest, waist, hips, and upper thighs. Awesome! My pants that I regularly wear to work are hanging on my hips - I'm going to have to start wearing a belt with them if this keeps up (which I hope it does).

Love that I'm seeing results already - bring on a new sexy slimmer me for summer! Oh and healthier and fitter would be awesome too. ;)

Watch this space!

Time flies...

2011-07-29T13:56:00.001+10:00

Its an indication of how busy I've been this week that I haven't managed to get on here and post - talk about crazy!

On the plus side, we now have Ashleigh's new room set up, and she has been sleeping perfectly in her new 'big girl' bed. She's so tiny in it (especially seeing as its a King Single) but she loves it and thankfully is easily able to climb in and out.

We decided not to paint the walls at this point, it has new paint in there anyway, just in a cream colour rather than a pink or purple which I would have loved. For now she doesn't care. She has her butterfly wall stickers up and her butterfly wall light, and all of her toys and the new bright purple doona - she's in heaven and I didn't have to wait for paint to dry - bonus!

I haven't managed to take photos yet - whenever I remember, Ashleigh is sleeping so I have to wait and then forget later on. So I promise I'll take some this weekend and show you.

And I can't remember if I've mentioned it already, but we have received the approval for our new garage - YAY! Now I just have to organise the moving of our underground power which currently runs to the side of the garage, across the roof of the garage and to the house. In order to demolish the garage without losing power to our house for the time it takes to demolish the garage, excavate, lay the new slab and build the new garage (approx 4-6 wks in good weather), we need to move the power. Fun!

And because that involves the electricity company (not just a standard electrician), I have to wait until they have a booking available to send their cabling team out to do that for us.

I'm hopeful that I'll have a new garage by Christmas. Fingers crossed and wish me luck!

Love a bargain

2011-07-21T10:29:00.006+10:00

I have been hunting King Single sheet sets to match Ashleigh's new doona set (see here), and not only have I been struggling to find the colours that I wanted, its been so hard to find anything in King Single thats reasonably priced (and by "reasonable" I mean under $50 a set - I don't want rubbish quality but don't want to spend a fortune on kids linen either).

Target had an awesome range earlier this year when I bought sheets for Liam, but they've completely changed that range now and now just have very boring, plain colours - I should have grabbed the colours I wanted for Ashleigh at the time, but silly me figured that I'd have time to get them later, and didn't want to get colours and then change my mind.

So I've been hunting around online looking for the colours I want.

To match her doona, I really wanted an aqua blue, an apple green and either a pink or purple to pick up those highlights. Funnily enough, the pink and purple have proved the hardest to find!

I did find a gorgeous dark purple set but it was $89 for the set - sorry, no thanks!

Then I found the "Rainbow Linen" store on eBay. 240tt King Single Sheet set (not just the fitted sheet and pillow case - top sheet too!) for $34.60 a set. Add $20 for registered post for 3 sets to the ACT and I'm still well under the $50 per set that I thought it was going to cost. And I got to choose from these glorious colours:

The image with the names written on isn't as good as the other one colour wise - I think they had a flash on the camera as the colours appear 'whiter' than what they are, but you get the idea.

Colours I have chosen: AQUA, APPLE and LILAC.

Hopefully they go well with the doona cover:

Plan for this weekend is to get some samle pots of paint and test it out on the walls and then put the doona next to them to see what is going to work best. Still looking at the pinky purples, which should go with pretty much anything - I don't want to make the mistake of designing the whole room around a doona and having her not like it in a few years. That said, the room will need repainting in 10-15yrs anyway, so she can change the colour when she's a teenager if she likes.

I have to say, designing a little girls room is so much more fun than a little boys room. I loved doing Liam's room, but it was so straight forward - he likes cars, trucks and trains. I found the doona set in Target, he got sheets to match, blue walls - done. Ashleigh's room, while its pretty much the same components, has been more fun. Perhaps because I'm doing it all at once, whereas Liam's doona was purchased last year and his bed, sheets and wall painting wasn't done until we moved into the new house this year? Either way, I'm having fun and loving it!

The case of the missing letterbox

2011-07-19T08:49:00.001+10:00

I don't think I posted about this, but last school holidays our letterbox was vandalised every night over a period of a week. The last night that it happened, we raced out and saw the guys driving away - little white hatch back with 3 guys in it. ACT number plates and no P plates.

At first we thought that they might have been visiting someone in our street, but we found out that no, they weren't. Then we thought that they might have had a grudge against the previous owner given we'd just moved in, but then we chatted with neighbours and found out that this little white hatchback had been vandalising other letterboxes in the neighbourhood as well.

The time that we saw them, they saw us watching them and didn't come back again.

Until last night that is.

Damo had taken steps to brick in the letterbox and use liquid nails to make doubly sure that it was secure in place - everything short of concrete was used.

We will eventually get a new letterbox, but with the garage and driveway being demolished and rebuilt in the next 2mths, we planned on getting a new letterbox when that was done.

This morning I went out to find bricks all over the yard and the road, and the letterbox completely gone.

I don't get it - what do they get out of taking someone else's letterbox?

So anyway, we're now having to get a new letterbox ahead of time, and thinking of putting up a webcam to monitor it and see if we can't catch them. Will see what we can do anyway.

Great start to the morning anyway! Grrrrr...

My baby girl is growing up too fast

2011-07-18T09:45:00.003+10:00

The title says it all. She's growing up too fast for my liking. She will be 2 in less than a month.

She's also outgrowing her junior bed too fast. We recently spent a week at my parents and she slept in a big bed and did wonderfully, so this weekend we went on a shopping spree for her.

We ordered her new bed and mattress, and I splurged and bought her a gorgeous doona cover - the Butterfly Wonder from Jiggle & Giggle:

I couldn't resist! The plan is to do her room in purples with a hint of pink, so this is perfect. The other side of the doona is exactly the same - just without the ruffles, so I can easily have it ruffle-down while she's younger in case she pulls at it or what not. Will see how she goes anyway.

My plan is to get some plain sheets for summer and pick up the pink, aqua blue and apple green colours in the doona. She already has some patterned flanellete sheets for winter, which are in pinks with hearts and the other set is purple with butterflies, so should at least semi-match in.

Her bed is the same as Liam's, but without the drawers underneath so won't be as high up for now. This is Liam's bed:

We did toss up getting another style for Ashleigh, but we want something that will last until they leave home (and beyond?) so thought it was best to 1. get them the same so there's no arguments or fights and 2. get something that wasn't too 'little girl' so she doesn't grow out of it. Her room has a bigger wardrobe, so we skipped the drawers, which also means that the bed will be lower, so she'll be able to get in easily at her age. Liam got his big bed when he was 2 1/2, and she just can't quite get into his on her own yet. Oh and yes, Liam's is a King Single and we got the same size for Ashleigh as well. If she's as tall as me, a normal single would have her feet off the bottom by the time she reaches highschool.

Her wall colour I'm still debating. I want to go with a pinky-purple colour, but it can't be too dark. My favourite colour at the moment is Taubmans Princess Grace (which is actually more purple than this screen dump - so either the website is playing tricks or my computer is displaying it funnily - both possible):

But I think it might be a little dark - so possibly in the half shade?

The other option is Dulux Recuperate in half strength, but it doesn't appear as 'warm' as the Princess Grace shade does.

Worst case scenario - I get a sample pot of each and give it a try.

We also have the butterfly and name wall stickers to move into her new room when it ready:

Given they're in pinks and purples, I'm hoping they'll look good on the purple wall as well (that was the reason I chose her name in hot pink rather than a purple).

I also 'splurged' and bought the kids some fancy night lights - the ones like IKEA have for kids rooms? Liam got a blue rocket and Ashleigh got a pink butterfly. Total cost of $5 each from KMart - couldn't resist and they love them! Haven't got photos yet, but I'll get some and share. Who would have thought something so small could bring so much joy?!

I'm so excited and can't wait to get this all started! We have to wait at least a week though - my parents are currently staying with us, and the spare bed is in the room that will be Ashleigh's. Her current room will become the guest room, but we need to remove the wardrobe (which is directly to the right in the above photo of her room) to make room for the queen size bed. I'm still working out what to do in the future with this room. I think it will either have a tilt-away bed or a fold out sofa and a wall mounted TV so it becomes either the kids playroom/TV room, or put a desk in there and make it the kids study. I think TV room is more likely, and I'm sure Daddy will go in there and play playstation when he doesn't want to watch what I'm watching on TV in the loungeroom (Damo wants a TV for our bedroom, but I'm holding out - I don't like the idea, and we really don't have anywhere to put it at the moment).

There are so many more things that I want to do with our house, but given we just put solar panels up, and have paid the deposit on the new garage, which is going to mean moving of the underground power to our house (and therefore digging up our backyard for the new line), as well as the rest of the garage works, we're trying to keep a lid on our renovation budget. Its killing me because after 3 years I finally have a house that I can 'play' with, but I'm trying to be good, and doing Ashleigh's room is something small that will help curb my craving for destruction and renovation. I just have a massive list of everything else that we want to do to the house!

I promise to share photos as the work unfolds over the next few weeks. Also, we should have news on our garage application shortly - the objection period closes tomorrow, and so far there are no objections and we've actually met more of our neighbours because of the application, so that can only be a good thing.

How did everyone else's weekend go? Get up to anything exciting?

Time to get fit

2011-07-14T16:03:00.005+10:00

I decided a little while ago that I would blog about my desire to lose the last of my baby weight, and to get fit, but after the initial post that I hoped would make me accountable, I didn't post again and really haven't done anything about losing weight apart from think about my goals and the occasional session on the Wii Fit.

So here we go again!

I have found a nice balance with work:life now, and while I've been maintaining my weight and still indulging in the occasional creamy risotto/carbonara or cheese, I haven't managed to lose weight even by cutting those items out of my diet. The opposite happens in fact - I go without for a few weeks and end up binging on them because I crave them, which means that instead of losing weight, I actually put on a few kgs which I then have to work to lose, which brings me back to square one.

Time for a new tactic.

Queue Fernwood. They have just moved the gym in the suburb that I work in - its now located at the bottom of the building I work in. They have opening specials, and their current promo across Canberra is 12mths membership with no joining fee, so that works out at $22/week.

I took the first step and popped in today to see if they have classes on at lunch times. We have a home gym and free weights at home, and I can walk around the block rather than walking on a treadmill, and I can't run due to a leg injury I sustained several years ago, so I really need (and want!) to do classes to increase my cardio. Plus I'm more motivated if I can work with other people rather than trying to motivate myself.
I picked up a timetable and brought it back to work, and not only do they have fun classes every lunch time starting at 12.30pm and running for an hour, but several other ladies that I work with are now keen to do it with me, so I'll have some motivation and hopefully won't pike out.

So I've cleared it with hubby (the financial side of things) and I'm going to join up tomorrow and start classes Tuesday next week.

I also managed to pick up a 10 trip YogaPass through a LivingSocial deal earlier this week, which gives me 10 introductory Yoga classes at any of the 10 affiliated classes across Canberra. They worked out at $4.90/session (rather than the RRP $15-20/session).

So my timetable will look like this:

Monday: Yoga 7.15-8.30pm
Tuesday: Warrior Fusion (Fernwood) 12.30-1.30pm
Thursday: Zumba (Fernwood) 12.30-1.30pm
Friday: Body Balance (Fernwood) 12.30-1.30pm
Sat/Sun: might do the occasional Zumba or Warrior Fusion class depending on whether we have other family activities on or not

*Warrior Fusion is a martial arts, kick boxing style class incorporated in to Dance - similar to the LesMils Body Combat classes
*Body Balance is a combination of Yoga, Pilates and Tai Chi - so not really cardio but I think would be the perfect end to the working week

I will see how I go with those - they have Body Pump on Monday and Wednesday lunch times, but that might be a bit much to start with - will see how I go. At least if I get the 3 sessions in during lunch of a week time I can feel comfortable that I'm doing something rather than just sitting on my butt and complaining about the excess weight I'm carrying.

Which leads me to my goals!

My goal is to have done the following by Christmas:

1. Dropped from my current weight of 76.5kg down to under 70kg (68kg would give me a BMI of 22 - I'm 173cm tall - current BMI is 25.5)

2. Drop 2 cup sizes and one bra size (currently 14DD and having shoulder and back pain - I was a 12C before falling pregnant with Liam so that would be nice to get back to). Having big boobs makes me look bigger than I am, especially when I have to get some bigger tops to accomodate the bust which then hang making my belly look bigger. Not very flattering.

3. Drop 1 dress size and get back into my size 12 tops and size 10 skirts and pants. I'm currently size 14 top, size 16 jacket/jumper and size 12 pants/jeans. I have so many nice clothes and swim wear from before I fell pregnant that I'd love to get back into - including some never worn clothes that I bought on sale after falling pregnant thinking I'd get back into them one day - that was over 3 1/2 years ago!

4. Increase my fitness levels so I can go for bike rides and walks with the kids in summer without getting out of breath - I'm not too bad at the moment because I have been walking, but the kids are getting faster and I'd like to be able to keep up with them

5. Increase my happiness levels. While I'm not overly unhappy with my weight (I was 78.5kg after having Ashleigh so have managed to get down a little), I'm not happy either. And having suffered PND and knowing that its still hovering there sometimes, exercise is going to help with my emotional well being.

So now that I've written this up I'm going to publish this post before I lose my nerve. I am going to try and post an update once a week and see how I go. I will take my measurements this weekend and track those as well as weight. I've done enough exercise and training in the past to know that I often put on weight in muscle before the scales move even though I'm losing centremetres.

Watch this space and help keep me accountable!

Coming home

2011-07-05T21:45:00.002+10:00

I know I'm on holiday, and I know I said I was taking a bloggy break, but I needed to write this post, so here you go!

Our holiday this week is up at my parents place just north of Coffs Harbour.

For those who have been following my story for a while, you will know that when the GFC hit in early 2009 I couldn't get work after having Liam, so we ended up losing our house in Canberra and made the decision to move to my parents place where we would have Ashleigh and then settle down ourselves and 'sea change'. As it turned out, we didn't get our 'happily every after'. I had PND and didn't cope with being so isolated, unable to work in the industry and job that I love, and generally having two kids under 14mths and being so restricted in what I could do.

I still recall memories from back then being so dark - like it was a very stormy day, and yet I know that it was a lovely sunny time - my brain is just hazy and remembering how I felt emotionally.

So coming back for a holiday has been a huge step.

Its been almost 18mths since we were here, and I have made great progress in regards to my PND and although I still have moments where I feel it creeping back, my life is much more in my control.

Walking back into the house where it all went down, especially given I didn't deal with the PND here, has been a good experience.

The weather has been gorgeous. We've taken the kids to the beach every day. We've gone for walks along the back of the local golf course and checked out all the ducks and kangaroos that make it their home. The kids have been so well behaved for me, which helps as well.

For the first day we were here, I couldn't believe how light and happy I felt. I couldn't stop smiling. I felt like a huge weight had been lifted from my shoulders.

Would it have been different if the weather was different, or if the kids weren't behaving? I don't know. All I know is that this is what I needed.

The only shame of it is that my hubby couldn't get the time off work, so he had to stay at home, so he's only hearing about the change I'm feeling, not experiencing it for himself.

I've also been able to talk to my Mum about what I went through while I was here (with the PND). She said that although I never spoke about it, they did wonder but didn't want to ask. I had to admit that even if they had asked, I would have denied it at the time. It wasn't until we moved that I really admitted what I'd been going through and started working on making changes for the better.

So all in all, a very good home coming. Glad I made the time to do it.

Holiday time!

2011-07-01T08:30:00.000+10:00

The bags are half packed, the list is sitting waiting for me to start ticking off items as I put them in the car tonight, and first thing tomorrow morning.....

the kids and I are on holidays for a week!

Sadly Damo can't get the time off work, but I keep telling him he's actually getting the better holiday - no kids for a week, so no dirty nappies, whinging, or unsettled nights - sleep ins every morning given he doesn't start work until 9.30am. But on the flip side, no kids to cuddle with, no wife to cook him dinner every night. We're going to miss him like crazy and I know he's going to miss us.

So forgive me if there's no updates on my blog for a week - we'll be sitting on the beach in Woolgoolga, about 20mins north of Coffs Harbour where I grew up. Can't wait!

This is one of the amazing photos I took of the beach near Mum & Dad's this time 2 years ago after big storms had come through and exposed a ship wreck on the beach. Don't you love the gorgeous twilight sky? I'm still considering getting this one enlarged and put up on our wall.

See you all in a week!

Construction Birthday Party

2011-06-29T13:24:00.003+10:00

I know, I know. I'm over a week overdue for this one. In my defence, there were over 500 photos to sort through from Liam's birthday and party.

We organised a construction theme party for Liam's 3rd birthday. He is mad about anything construction, and loves to help when we're building things around the house - he helped convert his cot to a junior bed when he was 20mths old - using an allen key to undo and tighten screws as needed (I had to loosen them first or tighten them at the end, but he knew how to do the rest!).

Needless to say, he was thrilled with the party. We had 10 kids and 2 babies, and 18 adults, so I was grateful for the sunny day so everyone could be outside for the most part.

I must admit I had a lot of fun organising his special day - we had hard hats, construction signs both outside and inside the house, inflatable hammers, a construction zone, pass the parcel, street sign lollypops, construction chocolates, toolbox lollybags, personalised placecards for the table and construction coloured decorations.

Part of the fun was dressing Ashleigh up - boys are so 'easy' when it comes to dressing up - pants and shirt. Ashleigh is so much fun! We get to choose tops, pinafores or dresses, stockings, shoes or sandals, hair accessories (not that I could keep them in) and do her hair nicely. Here they are all dressed up:

The house did look awesome. Damo and I thankfully did it the night before when the kids were asleep - took us about 2hrs to do the whole lot, including cutting out the street signs from the A3 sheets I'd printed them on. Liam snuck out that morning like he normally does, but froze at the door to the hallway and then came racing into our room to tell me all about the balloons, already very excited about the party.

The dining room all decorated - complete with construction signs on the walls

Street sign lolly pops

The construction chocolates

Toolbox lolly bags for the kids to take home

When each child arrived they were given a construction hard hat with their name on it, an inflatable hammer and sent outside to 'construct'.

"Building" outside with their blow up hammers and the rest of Liam's tool collection

Foreman Liam ready to work!

Good thing we had more than one truck, bike, etc!

After everyone arrived, the kids were invited up to the "Construction Zone" where they decorated some cardboard boxes I'd turned into cars, and then they all raced around the backyard showing them off. The Dad's had some interesting alternative ideas for the cars (see photos below).

The construction zone - each child was given a "car" to decorate and then take home - huge hit!

Caution! Construction in progress!

Testing out their 'cars' in the back yard

And this is what happens when you leave the Dads in charge - cars get hung up and used as pinatas!

AND they also turn the cubby on its side and encourage kids to climb on it!

Next it was food time - everyone got to sit at the table with a placecard with their name on it. There was heaps of food (I over catered as usual) but with all the Dad's standing around helping, they made short work of the left overs.

While everyone was sitting down, we presented Liam with his construction cake - chocolate slab cake, with the side cut off so it was square, the 'extra' chocolate cake crumbed on top with some milk arrowroot biscuits crushed for 'sand' and some construction toys all washed up.

Birthday boy very happy with his cake

Playing with the digger on the cake (noises and all!)

Still playing with the digger and his cake

We then had a pass-the-parcel game lined up before present opening. Gave all of the kids a chance to unwrap a little present - Ashleigh was especially pleased. Poor thing had to watch Liam open presents 2 days in a row.

Liam and Ashleigh with Damo's parents (Pa and Gammy)

Waiting their turn at pass the parcel

Little Miss Ashleigh very happy at being able to unwrap a present

Had to share this one - Ashleigh is just getting too grown up for my liking!

Once all that was done, we took the kids outside for another run around and to play with a few of the new presents. The battery operated bubble blower was a huge success. Queue lots of screaming and jumping kids popping bubbles and chasing them all over the place. Great way to wear off the sugar high that they were on after all of the party food.

Birthday boy screaming and having a ball with all of his friends

Now to start planning for Miss Ashleigh's 2nd birthday in less than 2 months.....

Solar panels are up!

2011-06-26T23:09:00.000+10:00

It must be a miracle - have the planets and/or stars aligned or something? Because we have our solar panels installed, before the end of June. Yay!

For a while I didn't think we were going to make it. And it has taken them the entire weekend to get it done, and even then they're not sure if we'll get the full amount of STCs/RECs given everything has to be submitted and signed off for the installation by the end of the month (so Thursday this week). But it is impressive to have it all hooked up! Now to watch my bank account empty out tomorrow when I pay the balance owing...

Here is what our house now looks like:

Left side - 10 panels

Northern point of the house - shows both left and right sides

Right side - 10 panels

And I can't help but show this one - how amazing is the sky?

With the cold weather and slight winds, we have had the most amazing cloud trails across the sky today. The kids were super excited because there were so many planes flying high overhead - more than usual - all the airlines playing catch up perhaps?

Anyway, we're so excited that its all up on our roof. Now to wait and make sure that our STCs/RECs get submitted in time, and to then wait for our electricity company to come and do the final hook up to the grid - which is expected to take about 4-6wks. Ah well, at least they're up!

Anyone else getting/got solar? How is/did your install go?

New pages

2011-06-21T12:08:00.001+10:00

I have started to expand my blog a little, adding some new pages and content. I'm still fiddling with the design of the page and am yet to come up with a nice title image (have a few ideas floating aroud in my head, just need the time to play with them in Photoshop).

I hope you will take the time to look through these new pages. There is a section About Me, some photos that I'd like to share (more to be added over time), why I started this blog, and a section that was very hard to write:

PND and Me. Not something I've been very open about or willing to talk about. I've mentioned it before and commented on other people's blogs, but never actually written about my expeirence as a whole. I'd like that to change.

So please take a look and get to know me a little better. I love reading about all of you.

And I promise, photos and details of Liam's party are coming - I still need to get the photos off the camera and sort through the 100s that were kindly taken for me while I was busy organising.

Birthday boy

2011-06-17T10:06:00.001+10:00

I cannot believe how fast the last 3 years have gone - I can still remember his birth like it was last week, and yet here we are at Liam's 3rd birthday!

And didn't we have fun this morning opening presents and chasing Liam around the house with the camera. Little man has had a ball and is completely in love with all of his presents. I have photos of the unwrapping on my real camera, but managed to snap these on my phone so I could share them now rather than having to wait until tonight to download them off the camera.

The 'big present' is a cabinet with chalkboard that folds down into a train table - complete with 78pc train set. First thing both kids did was race over and pick up the chalk I had thoughtfully left out and start drawing. I can see us getting chalk dust all over the house (already found chalky finger marks on the kitchen bench) but I think thats much better than crayon in the carpet or texta on the walls.

He also got a small box of sticker books and a book that has 6 stories in the "Hairy Maclary from Donaldson's Dairy" series - Damo sadly has never heard of those books, so Liam surprised him by saying "Hairy Maclary!" as soon as he unwrapped it - he then had to flick through the pages until he found the 'big dog'. I'm going to love reading that one to him of a night - it was one of my faves growing up!

His favourite by far is the rocket - he's been obsessed with rockets and spaceships lately - possibly because of Toy Story and the book Damo reads him every night about going to the moon (can't remember the title of the book right now) - Liam has always loved the moon and it was a sure fire way to settle him of an evening if he got really worked up - take him outside to find the moon and he'd sit for ages watching it, so this was perfect.

I hope Damo was able to get Liam out the door without him trying to take it to daycare. I did say that he could take it so long as he left all of the characters/figures behind so they didn't get lost. They do allow show and tell at Daycare so if it makes him happy then I was OK with that - will have to wait and see whether it did go or not!

Anyway, this is just a preview of all the fun to come. I'm planning on writing up a bigger post with more photos after the family dinner tonight, and then there will be more photos of the party on Sunday! I know, I know, birthday overload, but I figure if he's going to get older, he's going to get spoilt and do it in style.

I'm in denial

2011-06-16T10:22:00.002+10:00

My baby boy turns 3 tomorrow.

I'm in complete denial. It can't be 3 years already can it? I can still remember his birth as clearly as if it was last week.

That said, I have organised myself for the birthday and the party on Sunday. Presents have been bought, party favours are in the cupboard waiting to be put together, theme has been set, guests invited and RSVPs chased.

I did also put his big present together. It was flat packed and has now been built ready to be moved inside (currently hiding in the garage where he can't see it).

But yes, this morning I realised that I need to make a cake tonight, wrap presents, write on a card for him and move the big present inside.

Realistically I could have wrapped the presents weeks ago - I've had them that long! But having them hiding up in my wardrobe means I can ignore the fact that he's getting older.

He is very excited about his birthday tomorrow and has been telling everyone that he's turning 3 - holding up 3 fingers to emphasise his point.

We have a birthday dinner planned with family tomorrow night. Its tradition in my family that the birthday boy/girl gets to choose what everyone has for dinner. His choice? Rissoles!!

I promise I will do a post tomorrow for him to show you all the wonderful things he gets for his birthday and his excitement around it all.

For those who have children - how did you cope with them growing up so fast?

Grocery shopping - online?

2011-06-15T20:09:00.001+10:00

So many people I know have either tried online shopping or use it regularly, but I have never tried it myself.

Lately its been getting harder and harder to get out to do a grocery shop. Usually I would help Damo put the kids to bed and then duck out, but given how full on everything has been lately and how cold it is outside, I'm exhausted by the time the kids go to bed and have procrastinated 3 days in a row now. We have Liam's 3rd Birthday this Friday and his party on Sunday, as well as a House Warming for friends on Saturday, so I did need to stock up on party food and so on.

So I've just submitted an order with Woolies online shopping. Already I'm worried about whether I'll be home in time - I've picked a window that I'm normally home for in the afternoon, and did ask the driver to leave the items on the back verandah if I'm not home, but the fine print does say that I need to be home for the delivery. So now I'm worried that I might get held up at work or picking the kids up from daycare (which can take from 5-15mins to do) and not make it home in time. Ah well - we'll just see how we go!

Does anyone else us online grocery shopping, and if so, how do you find it?

Snow!

2011-06-12T22:18:00.001+10:00

Today we decided to make the most of our long weekend and take a day trip up to the snow. First time that the kids and I have ever seen more than a scattering of snow on the ground, and I'm thankful that we had our snow gloves, jackets and a spare change of clothes for all of us.

Definitely going to be something that we do more often so I'm now on the hunt for some snow pants for all of us, snow boots (rather than sneakers for the kids and gumboots for Damo and I) and a new jacket for me (seeing as I was wearing Damo's old one today).

Here are some photos of the fun we got up to. :)

Liam not so sure about the cold

Daddy getting Ashleigh with the snowball she helped him make

Liam making snowballs

"Can I eat it?"

Liam crawling around in the snow - getting nice and wet and cold!

Mummy and Ashleigh

Waving at Daddy

Our car looking very at home in the snow - love our AWD!

Liam copping a snow ball to the back - oops!

Laim looking very wet and cold

How is everyone else's long weekend going? I'm so glad we have one more day to relax at home. :)

Fan-tastic

2011-06-10T15:18:00.003+10:00

Winter in Canberra is cold.

Not that I really need to tell anyone that - pretty much everyone knows that it gets really cold here.

Given the safety factors around having portable heaters in bathrooms - especially with kids in baths who like to spash - we felt it necessary to buy and install Tastic's in our bathroom.

We finally got them installed this week, and they not only look great but work a treat! No more heaters in the bathroom so much safer for when the kids have a bath as well (loving that side of it!).

Tastic in the ensuite

Lovely big Tastic in the main bathroom

For anyone interested in getting one, Bunnings has a great range for good prices. Another hint - look for the "ECO" tastics. They have flaps that close down over the fan when its not in use so cold air doesn't come through there into the bathroom. The one in our ensuite is an Eco-Tastic and its brilliant - you really do notice the difference. Was recommended to us when we had a Heat and Energy audit of our house done.

House to ourselves

2011-06-06T22:20:00.000+10:00

For the first time in over 2 years it is just the 4 of us in the house!

Yes, thats right. My sister moved out on the weekend!

She moved in with us when we moved back to Canberra in March last year, and then moved with us when we bought this house. And before we moved back to Canberra we had been living with my parents - which was from when Liam was 10 months old. Ashleigh was born when we were living with my parents, so she has never lived with just us.

The kids are a little confused but thankfully not upset.

I have to say it is so nice to have the house to ourselves!

What did everyone else do on the weekend?

Going solar

2011-06-01T15:36:00.001+10:00

We have been umm-ing and ahh-ing about whether to get solar panels installed for the past few months, hesitating only because we've already put a deposit on a new garage and with a new mortgage and me on contract, we didn't want to stretch ourselves too far.

Last week Damo decided we needed to look into it more because of the great return on investment (ROI) and the fact that the scheme was sure to dry up soon - so better to get in now rather than miss out all together.

So I've been doing my research, asking friends who have had installations done and getting quotes from no less than 9 different companies in the past week. And my goodness prices vary! We're looking at a 5KW system and have had quotes from $15K right up to $28K.

Then I came in to work this morning to hear about how the ACT has, as of midnight last night, scrapped the solar scheme for small installations (i.e. less than 30KW). This means no new installs are being approved due to the ACT cap of 15MW being reached.

The good news? We signed a contract last night and handed over our deposit, so we just scrape in!

I have done the mad run around today to make sure that we can still get it done, and have had it confirmed that we can.

I've now submitted our personal loan application to my Credit Union for the remaining balance of the cost, but have already spoken to them on the phone and its looking good.

So come start-mid July, we will have 20 solar panels installed on our roof, and we then just have to wait for ACTEWAGL (ACT Electricity Provider) to connect our feed up to the grid properly (usually 4-6wk wait - we're expecting that to blow out to 8wks given the mad rush to get installs done in the last few weeks). Nice!

Can't wait to be generating our own electricity (fed back to the grid of course) - should be enough earnt to wipe our electricity, gas and possibly water bills for the next 25 years - at 18-25% ROI, definitely worth the outlay and panic now!

Has anyone else got solar? I know NSW has stopped their small installations already, but QLD and VIC are still going as far as I'm aware?

Wonderful weekend

2011-05-23T12:17:00.001+10:00

You know you've had a good weekend when:

1. All the washing gets done, tried and put away
2. All of the household chores are done
3. The family had loads of quality time, including outdoor time because the weather was so lovely
4. There were successes with toilet training for Liam
5. There were minimum tantrums from both kids and generally happy faces and lots of laughter all weekend, including when we had a play date with 4 other kids - no fights or arguments at all!

Seriously, although these are just the highlights of our weekend, its probably the best weekend we've had in a while - and I would put that down to how well behaved the kids were. We didn't do anything different to what we normally do, but they were just in the right frame of mind for a fantastic family weekend.

Could be the weather. Could be that they're just getting older. Could be that our consistency and persistence is paying off.

Either way, I'm not complaining! Maybe we'll be able to take them to the snow this winter after all...

Did everyone else have a good weekend?

House / Renovation update

2011-05-17T09:43:00.003+10:00

So its been a while since I've posted an update on the house and where we're up to, so I thought today would be a good time to give some updates. I am still very slack and don't have photos of these updates as yet, but I promise I will soon.

We have started work in the garden and now have:

a hedge along the back fence where no garden was before (albiet a very small hedge at the moment, but it will get there!)
a 1.5x2m vegie patch with some winter vegies planted (garlic, baby spinach, carrots, lettue and beetroot)
the herbs and strawberries are going really well even with the early frost
the roses have all been pruned back, with the ones in the backyard ready for transplating to the front yard to make room for the kids play area
bulbs that were clustered have been separated and replanted
weeds and grass that had grown into the garden beds in the front yard have been removed
big ugly trees in the front yard that even my Dad couldn't identify have been removed opening up the entry way to the house dramatically!

Our new curtain rods and block out curtains have been installed in all 5 bedrooms. We ended up going for the Evo curtain system (see here). We went for a brushed chrome finish to match in with the rest of the trim in our house. They look fantastic and I love that they have the pelmate built in. We're going for the same look we had in our old house - so block out curtain closest to the window and sheer as the feature on the outside/room side. I've just placed the order for the sheers for the room, as well as the whole system for the playroom and a block out roller blind for the kitchen window. I hate having to split it up like that, but its much better for us to wait until we've got the money saved rather than max out the credit cards or similar. Then we just have the 5.5m loungeroom window to go - saving it for last given the size and therefore cost of the window.

The best, and sadly most expensive, part of our renovations is the new garage that we've just out a deposit on. This is also going to be very time consuming as it will take at least 12wks for the building approval. Then we have to move the meter box off the garage before we demolish it. Plus we have to speak to the Energy company because our power comes to the house via the garage, so we need to work out options to minimise the time that our house is without electricity. Then we have demolition of the existing garage, slab and driveway, followed by excavation of the side in preparation for the new garage. One of the reasons we have to knock down the existing garage is due to plumbing problems that have washed out soil from underneath the slab for the garage making it very unstable and therefore unusable for anything as heavy as our cars. Then we get a new slab for the garage, new driveway, and finally, the new 10.5 x 7m garage with 2.7m high walls (rather than 2.4m standard), fully insulated roof and 5m wide remote control garage door (B&D Panelmasta with the "Caprice" finish) - can't wait!!

So in the mean time, I'm stuck with a laundry that is barely functional in regards to its layout and use of space (seriously, I have things on angles so we have access to all of the whitegoods - not a good use of space!), a 'hole' in the wall between the laundry and the linen cupboards, a pile of ceiling fans yet to be installed, tastics for the bathroom and ensuite yet to be installed (think they might have to get done soon given how cold it is already!). But thats all part of the fun - having been home owners who went back to renting, it is fantastic to have our own place again and have a list of things that we can work on over the next few years - idle hands and all that.

Promise to take some photos when the curtains are all done, and load some photos of the garden soon.

Hope you all had a good weekend!

Girls night in

2011-05-15T22:50:00.001+10:00

Last night my friends and I had such a fantastic girls night in that I can't help but share.

We had a "Foot Fantasty" Body Shop party!

I've done a lot of party plan parties in my time - Tupperware, Lorraine Lea Linen, Undercover Wear, and several other clothing parties. But while I love the Body Shop products and use some as part of my daily cleansing/moisturising regime, I have never had a party.

I thought that they would increase prices, and essentially be the same as what you get in store anyway, so given I have access to a Body Shop store never saw the point in having a party.

Let me tell you I was wrong!

The prices are the same as what you get in store, but the service is so much better! We actually got to sample all of the foot products, including sitting on the couch with our feet in buckets of warm water - which you definitely couldn't do in store. Sitting in your own home chatting about the products and sampling them at your own pace is a much nicer way to shop than either browsing on your own, or being hassled by sales people in store (nothing against the store people).

Plus the offers and perks given to the Hostess aren't to be sneezed at either!

So anyway, not only did I have no trouble getting 3 party dates from my party, my friends are I are now planning on doing a Body Shop party on a regular basis so we can have a pamper session as part of our girls night in.

Now to wait for all my lovely products to arrive next week....

Happy Mother's Day

2011-05-08T21:32:00.002+10:00

To anyone who has a child, or has an angel baby watching over them - Happy Mother's Day!

What a weekend

2011-05-02T14:34:00.002+10:00

Talk about full on!

We had swimming lessons, birthday parties, Damo sold his car, went car hunting for a new one, I attended a Body Shop pamper party and booked one for myself, and we had our date afternnon/evening.

But it was a fabulous weekend, and the kids had a blast and were very well behaved considering all of the sugar they consumed.

Our day afternoon/evening was awesome - we keep telling ourselves that we need to have a 'date night' at least once a month but it seems to happen about once every 6 months at the moment. We went to Dendy Premium (much like Hoyts Gold Class) and watched Thor - which was awesome! Amazing special effects, very well acted, good story line, and just enough eye candy to keep both of us interested. Best part? Being able to sit through a movie, being waited on, and having no kids or phone calls to interrupt us! Plus we still got home in time to put the kids to bed and they were so excited to see us!

And yes, Damo finally sold his car - '73 Statesman De Ville. He's only been trying to sell it for 6 months. We did some more car hunting and took a few cars for a test drive, which was fun, but I still had to hand over the keys to my car this morning so he could get to work. I caught a lift with my sister who drives right past where I work - but I love how he sells his car and I'm the one who ends up car-less!

Good news is he's just managed to negotiate a good deal on a new car for himself. He's managed to pick up a '00 Statesman for the same price that he sold his for - not bad! Gotta be happy with that. He's got to wait for the bank cheque from the sale of his car to clear, so that means no new car for him until this weekend - can I survive the week without a car?!

How was everyone else's weekends? Did you get up to anything exciting or just sit back and relax?

Date night

2011-04-29T10:19:00.002+10:00

So I've finally done it - I've booked tickets to Dendy Premium using the vouchers that we were given for Christmas!

Only taken me 5 months to get around to it!

So this Sunday, we're off to see Thor in 2D in the lovely recliners that Dendy Premium (much like Hoyts Gold Class I'm told) have to offer.

No kids. No phones on. Grandparents and Aunty will be watching the kids. Bliss!!

Happy Easter

2011-04-23T22:13:00.000+10:00

Wishing everyone a very happy, safe and relaxing Easter break.

For those travelling, please remember to take care and schedule lots of breaks.

For those staying at home, have a great time too!

Hope to have some fantastic photos of what we're getting up to this weekend - lots of fun outdoors while the weather is still warm with our family and friends.

Today I'm thankful for...

2011-04-12T21:36:00.001+10:00

Ducted gas heating!

I am so glad that we decided to have it installed when we bought our house.

Anyone who knows Canberra knows that it gets quite cold in winter. Usually heaters get turned on around Anzac Day. This year everyone I know has them turned on early - its freezing! Ours is set to 16 degrees and was running from 2am this morning and has been running tonight already - madness!!

So yes, very thankful for ducted gas heating!

Making babies

2011-04-05T09:31:00.003+10:00

I'm sure this is the one topic that parents dread having to talk to their kids about. Given my kids are not quite 3 and 2, I figured we wouldn't be having this conversation for quite a while!

So imagine our surprise when Liam was getting ready for bed last night and he turned to Damo and say "Daddy, I make a baby".

Took us a few seconds to realise that he was holding his toy screwdriver, and he'd been watching Robots (the disney movie) that day where the parents 'make' the baby by building it from spare parts with a screwdriver and hammer.

Phew!!

Now I'm wondering if we're going to have to unexplain the robots version of making babies in a few years time... very cute for now though. :)

Sleep over

2011-04-01T09:39:00.002+11:00

Liam is having his first sleep over at Damo's parents place tonight.

This will be the first time he has ever had a night away from both Mummy and Daddy (I had time away from him when I was in Hospital with Ashleigh and when we first moved back down to Canberra), and I'm nervous, sad and excited all at the same time.

We went away last weekend and while both kids did really well, Liam did not want to go to sleep in a strange bed (even with his own pillow, linen and comforter). We did get him off to sleep, but it was a hard process and we essentially had to stay with him until he fell asleep and then try and sneak out.

So we thought that given we want to have more weekends away as a family, it might be time to let him have a few sleep overs:
1. to get him used to sleeping in a different bed/house; and
2. to get him used to being put to bed by someone else

I'm not sure how he'll go. He is very routine based and doesn't like it when his carers at daycare change - he takes a few days to adjust to changes.

I am half expecting that we will get a phone call to come and pick him up, but then the other part of me tells myself to relax and that I just might be surprised at how well he does given how much he loves his Grandparents and how much they are going to spoil him.

Fingers crossed!

Special moments

2011-03-30T12:59:00.002+11:00

Being a Mum is the hardest jobs I have ever had, and likely will ever have, to do in my life.

That said, it is also the most rewarding.

Like when I went to pick Liam up from daycare and he was showing me the painting he did that day. They had done 'free' painting (i.e. were just told to paint, not given a topic or direction) and while so many of the other kids drew dogs, or just did swirls on the page, Liam's painting had a distinctive oval on the page and a few other dots and lines.

His title for the works?

"Mummy".

And he was so proud of it and had a huge smile on his face while he looked at me for approval for his masterpiece.

Melted my heart and brought tears to me eyes. Moments like these make all of the difficult and trying moments seem insignificant.

Daycare presents

2011-03-24T22:10:00.003+11:00

Most of the time I love the presents that the kids bring home from daycare - truly delightful. But this week Ashleigh brought home a throat infection.

Not so nice.

Especially when she thoughtfully gave it to both Liam and myself. Damo has managed to miss out so far, and hopefully it will stay that way! 3 of us on antibiotics at the same time is enough for me - especially when Liam refuses to take his, tells us its yucky, that he's all better and fights us the whole time we try to give it to him. Ashleigh on the other hand happily wanders over, takes her dose and then asks for more.

I'm hoping we'll feel better soon, but have been very grateful to have Damo looking after the kids while I've been so sick as well.

Hope everyone else has been having a healthy week!

Day sleeps

2011-03-19T14:59:00.001+11:00

I have always cherished the time that the kids have their day sleeps - it gives me some 'free' time to quickly dash around and get things done.

Sadly it has been getting harder and harder to get Liam to have a day sleep on the weekend. He still has a 2hr sleep at daycare for them, but I think thats because all of the other kids are sleeping. Even if I lay down with Liam on the weekend, as soon as I sneak away he's back up again and following me down the hallway.

He's also been staying up later and later of a night time (in his room, but just not asleep) and has started getting up at 5.30am in the morning which has been killing us given we're used to him sleeping until at least 6.30am and not coming out until 7am.

So that makes me wonder if its time for him to drop his day sleep?

Will see how he goes today with no day sleep. Anyone else experience this with kids at this age? Liam is 2yrs 9mths.

Long weekend

2011-03-14T22:50:00.004+11:00

I have to say, I love a long weekend! I am especially grateful that we had one this weekend (today being Canberra Day) given all of the unpacking that I wanted/needed to do.

It has been a fun but also very productive weekend. Lots of time outside with the kids (loving having a backyard to be able to do that in), and lots of empty boxes taken to the recycling centre (awesome)!

We now have a study/spare room that you can walk into - it was piled shoulder height with boxes up until now. All of the kitchen boxes are now unpacked, and I managed to find my collection of novels which are now on the bookshelf ready for me to indulge in again soon.

I also took Liam to his swimming lessons, got Ashleigh in the pool, had several catch ups with friends and got all of the washing that needed doing, done. The whole family also got hair cuts (and colour for me).

One of my favourites for this weekend was that I finally got my herb 'garden' set up. I bought the pots ages ago and just haven't managed to get it all together.

I did remember to get the camera out this weekend though - yay me! Even more perfect that some photo moments came out way.

Liam found a skink in the garden and was so very careful with it that it stayed sitting on his palm for about 10 minutes - I'm not sure who was more scared!

I finally got the wall stickers up in Liams room - huge hit!

My new herb 'garden' (also acts as a barrier for the 40cm drop from the top cement area to the bottom - that will eventually go altogether, hence pots as a temporary and reusable option for now)

Pot of strawberries

L-R: Rosemary, Sweet Basil, Oregano

L-R: Blueberry bush (will go in another pot that I haven't set up yet, so is currently minding the spot for the Thyme when I find some), Chives, Lemon Thyme, Parsley

We also bought a couple of Port Wine Magnolia's which will go into the garden where we removed some very old and thorny roses (not great in a garden for kids).

While unpacking some boxes I came across the letter and number fridge magnets that I bought ages ago but haven't been able to get out given Ashleigh was so young. She still wanted to eat them so its definitely a supervised activity, but we had a ball (and I got snapped by Damo rather than it usually being me behind the camera).

Ashleigh showing Daddy the letters she collected in the lid

We also found out that its my Uncle's 60th in a few weeks, so we've decided that we're going to make the trip up to Newcastle to celebrate with him. Now we just have to work out whether we bite the bullet and get an in-car DVD player for the kids before that 5 hour (one way - 10 hours travel over 2 days) trip given the last car trip over an hour was 12mths ago when we moved down here, or whether we keep our fingers crossed and see whether we can make do? Might investigate in car DVD player options this week anyway. :)

Hope you all had a good weekend!!

Toilet Training for boys

2011-03-11T21:49:00.002+11:00

So last Friday we had a chat with Liam's room leader at daycare, and she said that Liam is doing so well at sitting on the toilet when the other kids do, especially at nappy change times, so she thinks he's ready for the shift to pull ups and undies.

We discussed the approach and agreed that we'd start with using Pull Ups in the mornings and for his day sleep, and then undies in the afternoon.

We got the usual tantrums the first day, but thankfully the Pull Ups are "Toy Story 3" themed so he was very happy to wear those. Plus we have a stack of undies that are either Robot or Cars themed - bribery works wonders!

Monday and Tuesday we had 2 accidents at daycare and 1 after we got home, Wednesday only one accident at daycare and one at home, Thursday no accidents at daycare and only one at home and today no accidents at daycare and none at home!

We still need to work on #2s, but he's doing so well after only one week that I'm heartened it won't be too far away.

I have been a little worried that he wasn't showing signs of being ready for toilet training (we have been told by so many parents of boys to wait until he showed signs so we didn't set him back), but it seems like we did the right thing by waiting just that little bit longer.

Bedroom pics

2011-03-08T10:31:00.003+11:00

I have finally gotten around to taking some photos (albiet with my camera phone again, so not great quality) of the kids room and our room so I can share with you!

Given Ashleigh is in what will eventually the study, we have kept the walls the same cream as the rest of the house for now. When she moves into her 'big' room (when my sister moves out) we will paint the walls a light purple/pink colour (still deciding which colour). So in order to set up her room as a 'little girls' room rather than have it plain (and boring!), I've bought some wall stickers and put them up in her room already. Here are the finished pics:

She loves looking up at them at night, and we're getting less tantrums when putting her to bed if we point out the butterflies. She has a night light on (from the baby monitor) so she can see them and it helps calm her down. Plus I love looking at them - just gorgeous!

Liam's room has been fun to do as well! As you might recall I did worry that the blue we chose might have been too dark, but it really works with the dark furniture and his current doona set. I also have some wall stickers for him - his name and a construction sticker set - but I haven't gotten around to putting those up yet - maybe this weekend. Liam is going really well in his 'big boy' King Single bed too - we haven't had to put a side rail on there and not once has he fallen out, so fingers crossed he continues to sleep so well! So here's how Liam's room looks at the moment:

And last but certainly not least, the master bedroom! I am so loving Dulux Puddle in this room! We've had so many positive comments on it, and several friends asking us what the colour is as they want to do something similar in their house. It does look great with all of our doona sets, but here it is with our green and beige one:

I haven't gotten a photo of the rest of the room yet (there is a dressing table to the right of this picture) as its a complete mess of boxes and stuff being sorted, so you'll have to wait until I get a little more organised before you see the rest of the room.
So there you go - some piccies of our painted and set up bedrooms. I'll try and get some nice piccies of the lounge, kids playroom, family room and kitchen next. :)

Biting at daycare

2011-03-04T14:28:00.001+11:00

I am beyond livid today.

This saga has been going on for the past few weeks, but has really ramped up in the last 5 days.

We changed daycare at the start of this year to a centre affiliated with our old one that is closer to our new house. We knew that there would be teething problems - but never expected that to be literal!

Ashleigh has a little boy in her room who has a bit of a crush on her. Unfortunately he is a biter, and she is a very independent child. She doesn't like us to hug her if she's not in the mood for us, and we've taught her to hold out one hand in a 'stop' motion and say "No" if she doesn't want something done to her (makes it easy at home when Liam tries to smother her as well).

Sadly, when she does this at daycare, her arm gets bitten, or if he misses her arm and she tries to get away, her back gets bitten near her right shoulder blade.

We initially only had 1 bite in 3 weeks, and then another bite a week or so after that. We spoke to the centre then, let them know we weren't impressed but obviously we weren't told who the biter was or what was being done - just that it was "being handled" and Ashleigh wasn't the only one being bitten.

Fast forward to last week and as of Monday we were up to 3 bites in 5 weeks and getting annoyed.

Thursday last week I rocked up to find a big bite in the middle of Ashleigh's left forearm. I hadn't been called - I had to see it and ask "What happened?" before they even started to tell me about it. There was an incident report for me to sign, but no copy for me to take home.

I then picked Ashleigh up on Friday and she didn't want to get in the car - arched her back, wriggled and cried when I tried to strap her in. I thought it was just her being difficult like Liam usually is so just strapped her in and drove home. It wasn't until we went to put her in the bath later that night that we noticed the big bite mark on her right shoulder that was so bad it had broken the skin in 5 places and she was scabbing because it had drawn blood. Not only had we not been told about it, there was no incident report and no warning that they had even been in contact with each other.

I can tell you they copped an earful on Monday morning! They agreed that they would call Behavioural Services to come and work with them as the child was getting worse (duh - we could have told them that!).

Monday afternoon I actually met the child and his mother - they were in the room talking about his sleep patterns (or lack thereof) when I walked in to pick Ashleigh up and it was actually the mother who came over and said "You're Ashleigh's Mum - I'm so sorry about [blah] biting her!". So now I know who the child is, and I know who she is.

I feel for her - I really do! She's going through what I went through this time last year - 2 kids under 20mths, back to work full time so kids in daycare full time having not been in before, all the teething troubles of having kids in daycare full time for the first time. I know what its like - but that doesn't excuse a biter.

Monday we didn't get any bites - thankfully! Tuesday I went to pick Ashleigh up, and low and behold - not one but 3 bites up her left arm around the mark that was still there from Thursday last week. Once again, no phone call - I had to see it for myself. This other Mum was there picking her son up at the same time, saw Ashleigh's arm and me asking once again "What the?!" and brought him over said "[Blah], did you do that? You shouldn't do that - it hurts and Ashleigh doesn't like it!". Now while I applaud telling kids that, he's not even 20mths old and doesn't understand reason or delayed punishment, so I didn't really see how saying any of that was going to work - it was really more for my benefit than anything I think.

So this was already beyond a joke! We tried to organise a meeting with the centre manager, but she was off sick so we couldn't get one until today. They agreed that they would keep this boy separated from the room, and he was promptly led off to another room on Wednesday and Thursday when we dropped Ashleigh off (they arrive just before we do most mornings).

So of course, we're thinking its good that they're finally listening and doing something, but still kept our meeting for today.

You can then imagine our shock, horror and fury at discovering another bite on Ashleigh's back last night when going to put her in the bath. And this one would have to be the worst one yet - not only has it broken skin, but there are the scrape marks into the middle of the circle of teeth showing that he had a pretty good grip on her. Again - no phone call, no incident report.

They copped it this morning! Tried telling me that they were separated all day, but as I pointed out, if that was the case, how on earth did she get bitten by him?! I actually have a feeling that his Mum doesn't know that he's being separated (hence why he is still dropped off in Ashleigh's room and led away when she arrives) so they have him back in the room after 4pm when she'll be coming to pick him up so she doesn't realise anythings out of the ordinary. Only way to explain why he's put back in contact with Ashleigh if he's supposedly separated all day! Either that or they're actually not separated and its for our benefit of a morning and if that is the case, we're even more furious (we'll let them explain first before calling judgement on that one).

So we still have the meeting this afternoon with the centre manager. I did see her first thing this morning and she was going to follow up with all of the carers and have an update for me this afternoon.

This is 6 times in less than a week that Ashleigh has been bitten - thats not an accident - thats abuse! The centre have failed their duty of care to her in a way that is now bordering on negligence. She is traumatised, having nightmares and crying inconsolably for over 45mins each time she wakes. She has also started hitting which is not usual for her, so we're attributing that to a reaction to being abused physically as well.

Our question to them is why is he still in the centre at all? If a child is sick, they have to stay home to protect the other kids - how is this any different?!

Hope to have a happier update for you later - I just needed to get this out of my system now.

Hope you've all had a better week than us and have a nice weekend planned!

Little things that make a difference

2011-03-01T14:39:00.000+11:00

I'm sure you've all experienced them - those little things that make such a huge difference in the scheme of things!

For us, settling into a new house has been exciting, but also messy and busy.

I was therefore thrilled when Damo picked Liam and I up after Liam's swimming lesson on Sunday, and discovered that he had a boot full of bits and pieces from Bunnings that I'd mentioned in passing.

Things like a suction shelf for in our shower (to hold my shampoo, etc, and get them up off the floor), a flat pack 2 door wall mount cupboard for in the laundry above the sink (I hate having things under the sink given the kids can get in there - all the 'potentially-nasty' items must be out of reach!), and the best one - a floating shelf for in the kitchen!

One of the downers with buying someone else's house is that things like phone ports are sometimes in strange places - and in our case, on the floor right near the back door, with powerpoints about half a metre away up on the bench.

The result? This mess:

So after we got home, gave the kids lunch and got them off to bed for their afternoon naps, Damo went to work in the garden and I got busy installing my new shelf.

The new look? Very nice - the kids can't reach the phone or the modem, the powerboard needed for the huge transformers that come with the phone and modem is out of reach, and I have more usable bench space!

So the house is slowly being made 'ours'. I have already started turning my eye to the backyard and the changes that I want to make out there (rocks instead of mulch in garden beds may look nice in some cases, but are no so great for toddlers who like to pick them up and throw them on the lawn! Damo is going to kill the kids when he tries to mow the lawn and breaks a blade or shatters a nearby window), but that might have to wait as we are still up to our eyeballs in bills after moving (gotta love all of those 'final' bills from one house and the 'connection' ones from the new!).

And I do apologise for not having more photos up already - taking photos of messy rooms with boxes is not my idea of nice, but I am getting there! Hoping to have some clean rooms to photograph this weekend.

Half of a whole

2011-02-25T15:02:00.000+11:00

I've just been reading Amy's blog and her talking about her upcoming 6th Wedding Anniversary and it has inspired me to dedicate a post to my husband.

There are times, like the past few weeks when we've been busy moving house and everything that comes with it, that I don't give him enough credit for everything that he does and the amazing person that he is.

He is a wonderful husband, my best friend, confidant, shoulder to cry on, voice of reason, chef, cleaner, handyman, babysitter, and the list goes on!

Anything that I do around the house, he does too. We share everything equally, and he is genuinely not threatened by the fact that I earn almost double what he does and have the potential to continue to do so.

We have been married for over 4 years now, and together 8 years. We have moved house 6 times, bought 2 houses, lived with my sisters (still have one living with us) and my parents. We have two beautiful children, and he has never batted an eyelid at the moodswings that pregnancies and living with my sisters (especially the one not living with us now) brought out in me.

He makes me fall more and more in love with him all the time - even when I think that being more in love with him couldn't be possible.

The more that life throws at us, the more I realise how much I do depend on him, and how much he really is the half of my whole.

Home sweet home

2011-02-22T12:48:00.000+11:00

Well we're in!

It took almost all of the weekend, including 2 trips of the removalists' 6T truck and dodging the patchy rain on Saturday, but we are officially moved in to our new home!

It was made more difficult by poor Liam being sick at daycare on Friday, and then at the new house on Saturday night, and we don't yet know whether that was due to him catching a 24hr bug or whether it was just anxiety about the move - its very hard to explain to a 2 1/2 year old the concept of moving house and why Mummy and Daddy aren't around as much as they usually are. How kids cope during divorce/separations I have no idea because this has just been so rough on Liam! Thankfully Ashleigh is just so laid back and relaxed, and at 18mths is quite happy to just go with the flow (she well and truly has second child syndrome).

On the plus side, Liam loves his new bed - is very excited about his new bed. He got very upset when I had to take the sheets and doona cover off on Saturday night after he threw up on them, and then again when we had to take the bed apart on Sunday afternoon to put the new drawers under it. He was so excited when it was all back together (actually started squealing "Yay! My bed is back!") and it is so cute to see him climbing up and sitting in the middle of the bed playing with his toys (I bought him some new construction toys to play with at the new house - sort of a moving house gift to make it easier - Ashleigh also got some new toys to play with - talk about spoilt!). We got him a king single so hopefully it will last, but given he's only 95cm tall at the moment, he looks so tiny! Great thing is that either Mummy or Daddy can now sit on the bed and ready stories, or lay down with him to help him get off to sleep (we don't usually do this but given he's been sick we've been making allowances this weekend). The blue of his walls doesn't look so dark with the timber furniture in there now, but the king single bed does make the room look smaller!

So while we still have a double garage full of furniture and boxes (mostly my sisters furniture given she's still living with us but now only has one room so nowhere to set up all of her stuff - she had 2 rooms at the rental), we have the bedrooms set up, the dining room is on its way, the kitchen is pretty much done (1 box left to find I think) and the kids playroom and the loungeroom are pretty much done too. It was so nice to sit in our new loungeroom and just relax and watch NCIS last night - still got some boxes unpacked, but I can't believe how amazing the feeling of this place being 'ours' is. Its been so hard to have gone from owning our own home, to living with my parents for 12mths, to renting back in Canberra for the past 12mths.

I have found the camera, but I haven't taken any photos of the rooms set up just yet. Our internet isn't on at home just yet (which reminds me, I'd better give them a call as it was supposed to be on last Friday), so I'm sneaking on here at work during my lunch break. I promise there will be photos to come soon!

Hope everyone else had a great weekend.

Frustration and excitement

2011-02-17T22:55:00.001+11:00

Not sure in which order to give this update - its been a crazy week! We have had some great progress with the house renovations and it is looking fantastic. But we're also still locked in 'battle' with the previous owner in regards to the cooktop. So lets break it down.

Progress

I have to give credit to my parents this week! Not only have they managed to finish all of the painting throughout the house while we've been at work this week, they have also managed to help move boxes, prune and clean up the garden, and let in and direct all of the tradies that we've had in and out finishing things up.

Frustration
We are still fighting with the previous owner in regards to the cooktop. We spoke with our Solicitor on Monday and heard back through the previous owners' Solicitor advised that she refuses to pay any more money to us, and refuses to replace the cooktop. Our Solicitor has now spoken with the Real Estate Agency we bought the house through, and he's in agreeance with us (wonders will never cease!) and has said that he has already told her that she has to replace it given it broke before we took ownership, and also because she told us she would replace it and we had it written into the Settlement contract.

So after not hearing anything mor, we have now advised our Solicitor to tell her that she has one week (so until Friday next week) to either purchase a new cooktop (same model and brand) or give us the money to purchase it, or we will be taking her to the small claims court. Our Solicitor was worried that this was an idle threat, but I'm serious!

The amount of things that we've discovered after moving in, and the disgusting state that the house was left in (my Mum kindly scrubbed the shower 3 times today with various different products including Jiff, Exit Mould and bleach and its still not 100% clean - and thats just one example!), and the money that we've had to pay to have the little bits and pieces fixed up (and there's more - there is no 'earth' cabling in any of the lights, so we'll need an electrician to add that when we put the ceiling fans in), the least she can do is follow through with her promise to fix/replace the cooktop - I mean its not like we paid her over half a million dollars for the house - oh wait, yes we did!

I'm also annoyed with the Real Estate that we're renting through. We agreed as part of our end of lease terms and conditions to allow some people come through the house yesterday. We were told that a few people had enquired about the house and would we mind letting them come through - we agreed but advised them that we didn't want too many people coming through as we're about to move house and have stuff out everywhere. Damo then checked their website and found that they'd listed our home as 'Open for Inspection' for the time they'd requested - not impressed! I phoned them and they took the reference off the website, but obviously people had already seen it. Then there was the icing on the cake - we came home yesterday afternoon to find that not only had quite a few people been through the house, the kids toys had been played with, our furniture had been moved around in the dining room (bar stools moved to the opposite side of the room), and our filtration system on the sink is now not only not working, but is leaking to the point where I've had to turn the water to it off. And of course then when I phone up this morning to complain, there's no-one there so I've had to leave a message and haven't heard back from anyone yet. So I ended up calling the owner of this place - we have his number from when we had to be in contact with him at the start of the lease when the ducted RC/AC was being installed - and explained the whole situation to him. He also wasn't aware that we had offered to hand the keys back a day early given our lease ends on a Saturday - our offer was that if the final week of rent was discounted pro-rata, we would happily hand the keys back on the Friday so they could get someone in that weekend rather than having to wait a whole week - that message had never been passed on to the owner. I tell you, this Real Estate is totally incompetent - I'm looking forward to not having to deal with them I can tell you!

And finally...

Excitement

Moving Day is almost here! 2 more sleeps left in this house and then we're officially moved into the new place. I have taken tomorrow off work (its been a crappy week at work too, so I'm taking some 'time out' - thats another story) so will be moving as much of the smaller furniture and boxes as I can, and then Saturday the removalists are coming in to move the bigger or more fragile furniture for us. So exciting! Liam's big-boy bed arrives tomorrow along with our new dining table, so thats extra excitement for my day off tomorrow. Can't wait!

Sorry I don't have any more photo updates for you this time - I will try and have some to upload next week when the internet is connected at the new house, and when I've had some time for things to settle and boxes to get unpacked - looking foward to unpacking them all this time!

Hope everyone else has a relaxing weekend planned - I'll take comfort in the fact that ours will be productive.

P.S.
I have decided that I have THE BEST parents in the world. They were supposed to leave today, but when they saw how stressed I was getting with work and the crap that we're going through with the previous owner, they have not only offered to stay until Sunday, but have been helping clean the new house and Mum has offered to stay at the rental on Saturday and clean each room for us as the furniture is all moved out so that we have less cleaning to do the following weekend prior to ending our lease. Talk about fantastic! Love them both oh so much - seriously, best present anyone could have given us right now, and I love that we have their support. xxx

Weekend update

2011-02-14T14:58:00.000+11:00

So we had a massive list of things to get done over the weekend, and we did manage to get most of the done. Dad and Damo didn't even get started on the ceilings until late Friday afternoon, so even though they got the family/kitchen ceiling done, it had to be re-done on Saturday morning. So much for our plan for the weekend! Dad and I spend all day Saturday doing the ceilings, and even then we didn't get them all done due to interruptions.

Our electrician did rock up on time (thank goodness) to install the oven and cooktop, only to find that the new cooktop left by the previous owner for us wasn't actually the cooktop - it was just the glass top! Given she told us one of the elements broke before we moved in and that she had bought the new unit but just not had it installed, you can imagine my delight at finding there was nothing to install! We did get the oven installed - it fit perfectly and looks awesome - Yay! And given our Soliticitors is closed on the weekend, the Real Estate agency who sold us the place got a nice phone call from me, and he did call me back after calling the previous owner and tells me that she said that no, she told us it was just the glass top (bullsh!t) and that we'd have to organise for the element to be fixed. So now I have to chase around with our electrician again (who left because he couldn't wait for the phone call back without charging us for his time) to come and look at the element, and if it can't be fixed, then the Real Estate says that she will have to pay for the new unit. So much stuffing around!

Then we discovered that the lovely 'cavern' under our garage and driveway was actually caused by the two drainpipes on the garage just running into that area and not actually being piped anywhere else - so now we have to organise a plumber to come and fix it for us and connect it up to the stormwater drain, which will probably involve ripping up at least part of the driveway - so not impressed about that one! Means that with all the rain still forecast for Canberra (which is unheard of at this time of year - usually we're on tight water restrictions and having trouble sleeping by this time of year!) not only will I not have a garage to put the car in, but I might not have a driveway either!

And then there was the drama with the fridge. Turns out my lovely hubby (ex-building designer who should know better mind you!) only measured the top of the fridge cavity and therefore we went and bought a new fridge based on that measurement. Turns out that the fridge didn't fit because it was 3cm narrower at the bottom than it was at the top. If I even find the person who built/renovated this house I can tell you they'll hear about it from me! So we worked out that by lifting the fridge up about 120mm there would then only be 1cm left to 'find' to fit it in. Luckily we had a huge gap at the top so could lift it that high. Then the boys start talking about taking the plasterboard off the wall (because its 1cm thick), but then that ruins the nice edge that our plasterer had already fixed up and we'd painted nicely. I then pointed out that there was a 1.2cm thick panel on the left side of the fridge that could be taken off and cut so that it still supported the cupboards, but would also allow the fridge to fit. I tell you, lucky I was there to help organise them! LOL. So the fridge now fits - awesome! And the cut panel doesn't look too bad either - bonus is the kids now have more area to stick their artwork on the fridge. :)

So out of our "To-Do" list for the weekend, this is what we managed to get done:

Paint ceilings throughout the house
Paint Liam's room - 2 coats
Paint rest of house - top coat (we got the Lounge and Dining done, in addition to Liam's room and the master which was already done)
Put new skirting board on floor against new wall in Ashleigh's and Liam's rooms
Carpet layer to come in and 'fix' the carpet against the new walls given we just cut it down the middle of where the gap was - and he fixed up the dodgy carpet job done in other rooms in the house and finished the edges near doors properly for us
Electrician installed new oven
Kitchen cupboards to be cleaned and white contact to be put in drawers and on shelves that are particularly dirty - also managed to move some of our pantry contents that I won't be using this week over - looks great and the pantry is actually wider than our current one, so thats even better. :)
Door stops to be installed in Liam's and Ashleigh's room
Damo and mates to work on straightening up the back pergola - at the moment its on such a lean away from the house due to the lower pergola attached to the upper one, that the upper one is pulling away from the house and is currently not only letting water through (so no longer a waterproof pergola) but is barely attached to the house bracket - less than 1cm overlap! They did such a fantastic job, and now have put heaps of bolts and screws into both the posts and the brackets, so hopefully it won't be moving again anytime soon! Did involve readjusting the railing (pool fencing style), but you wouldn't know it. Loving that they got this done! One less thing to worry about with the kids playing on the back verandah.

What we still need to do from that list:

Paint skirting boards and architraves
Electrician to install new cooktop
Liam's big boy bed and our new dining suite to be delivered - we postponed this until next weekend
Install new door handles on front and back door (locksmith got confused and took our handles off and replaced them with a deadbolt instead of adding the deadlock to the door, so now we have no handles so can't open or close the door from outside without the key)
Install door stops in the toilet and bathroom (currently there is nothing so the handles hit the wall)
Replace all of the powerpoints with either doubles or quads - postponed - we want to wait until the walls are painted before putting on new powerpoints - much easier when painting if you don't have to mask them up.
Replace some single light switches that are sticking

So this week is trying to get those points done, as well as:

Electrician coming in tomorrow to install an RCD switch (safety switch) on the meter box so the ducted heating can be installed. We wanted it in anyway for safety reasons, but the heating company actually require it before they'll do the install.
Heating company install ducted gas heating on Wednesday and put a new vent in Ashleigh's room for the ducted cooling (her room currently doesn't have one)
Aerial company installing a TV aerial and connection point on Wednesday (can't believe they didn't have one before! Crazy!).
Carpet cleaners coming in tomorrow to clean the carpets - they really are disgusting!
Moving as much stuff over as we can to hopefully save time for the removalists on Saturday, and therefore save money for us!

I have also decided that I'm going to take Friday off so I can load up the car and trailer as many times as possible and get organised and packed for the move on Saturday morning.

Big week ahead - but oh so very exciting! We've been letting the kids run around the new house when we can (wet paint means we can't let them in those rooms - their instinct is to touch the walls straight away!), and especially letting them play on the back verandah and in the backyard. Its not 100% child safe yet, but they love playing there anyway and are starting to get that this is ours and that they are going to be able to play here more often - not quite sure Liam understands that we're moving here yet, and I know Ashleigh is too young to understand that. She is 18mths in 2 days - my baby, my last, will be 18mths!!! Holding off on her immunisations for a week or so though - don't want to deal with that while we're moving!

So anyway, here are some photos of what we got up to - these are only from Sat as I forgot the camera again, and I haven't downloaded the camera photos from Sunday yet. Enjoy!

State of the old oven - after cleaning!

Corroded fan in the old oven

Old oven - bye bye!!!

State of the current cooktop

New oven waiting to be installed (don't have pics of it installed yet - sorry!)

Liam's room after the first coat - love it!

Boys working out what to do with the fridge

The 'step' they knocked up to lift the fridge up

The panel on the left of the fridge that will be removed and cut out

What happens when you remove the support for the cupboard above the fridge? It starts to fall down!

Newly cut panel being put back in

New panel includes a small back, but kicks out at the top so that the cupboard above the fridge still has support. Here is Damo sanding the edges now that the lovely laminate wrap edge has been cut off.

More photos to come when I get my act together and download them off my camera - that might be a few days as its my Mum's birthday tomorrow and we're hoping to take a car and trailer load of boxes over to the house tonight and check out what got done today.

Moving countdown: 5 more sleeps!

"Are you sitting down...?"

2011-02-11T11:38:00.003+11:00

I hate conversations that start like this!

Sadly I've had too many of them over the last week in regards to Settlement, issues with the previous owner, issues with the house and so on.

Icing on the cake was it coming from Damo after putting his car in for a service this week.

Not only did they need to keep his car for 3 days (hopefully he gets it back this afternoon), but in order for it to be 'road worthy' and for them to be able to release it back to him, its going to cost us $2099! Thats brakes, calipers, and a whole new ignition and filter system for the gas (his car is dual fuel thankfully!).

We knew that it was going to cost us about $5K to get it back up and running smoothly (its a '73 Statemsman Deville thats been converted to dual fuel), but just weren't expecting it right now when we're trying to fix broken bits and pieces on the house, and pay for removalists, carpet cleaners, etc.

House Update

The latest on the house - there is a cavern underneath the cement floor of the garage and driveway right near the right column support. We're not sure how big the cavern is, but its at least 40cm cubed, and could possible extend further across to the left. Thank goodness I hadn't tried driving my car in yet otherwise it would have collapsed under the weight and likely brought the whole garage down on top of the car. We know that there's no major pipes running under the garage (thank goodness!), and we're hoping that due to their being a drain pipe on the right hand side of the garage that its drain is just cracked or has a hole in it and has just been gradually flushing the dirt out from under the garage in that spot. Its supposed to rain this weekend which isn't going to help, as we wanted to be able to get the hose and test each down pipe to see where its coming from.

In good news, the previous owners agreed to release the full $500 kept back from Settlement to cover the electrical costs of having the cooktop installed (the glass ceramic one that she bought but never installed given she broke the old one) and to have our new oven installed (Damo just picked it up, so its now at the house). The electrician is coming out tomorrow to install them, so that will then be the kitchen done for now!

All of the walls in the house except the hall and Liam's room now have at least one coat of paint on them, and Damo and Dad are doing the ceilings today. Tomorrow is doing the top coats and me starting on the skirting boards and architraves to give them a new lease of life.

The locks are all changed so we can start moving stuff over too - can't wait to start filling up the wardrobe and moving furniture in (not too much though as we have the carpets being cleaned on Tuesday morning).

This weekend's "To Do" list (including today given Damo's off work and over there):

Paint ceilings throughout the house
Paint Liam's room - 2 coats
Paint rest of house - top coat (except Master bedroom which is already done)
Put new skirting board on floor against new wall in Ashleigh's and Liam's rooms
Paint skirting boards and architraves
Carpet layer to come in and 'fix' the carpet against the new walls given we just cut it down the middle of where the gap was
Electrician to install cooktop and new oven
Kitchen cupboards to be cleaned and white contact to be put in drawers and on shelves that are particularly dirty
Liam's big boy bed and our new dining suite to be delivered
Install new door handles on front and back door (locksmith got confused and took our handles off and replaced them with a deadbolt instead of adding the deadlock to the door, so now we have no handles so can't open or close the door from outside without the key)
Door stops to be installed in Liam's and Ashleigh's room, toilet and bathroom (currently there is nothing so the handles hit the wall)
Replace all of the powerpoints with either doubles or quads
Replace some single light switches that are sticking
Damo and mates to work on straightening up the back pergola - at the moment its on such a lean away from the house due to the lower pergola attached to the upper one, that the upper one is pulling away from the house and is currently not only letting water through (so no longer a waterproof pergola) but is barely attached to the house bracket - less than 1cm overlap!

Thats quite a list!

Thank goodness quite a few of those items are quick/easy ones, or have tradies coming in to do them, but its still going to be a full on weekend.

More photos of befores and afters to come over the weekend.

Renovation update - now with photos!

2011-02-09T11:23:00.002+11:00

Would you believe that I keep forgetting to take my good camera over to the house? It takes amazing photos, but instead I've had to 'make do' with the camera on my phone (thank goodness I got a new phone in Jan that actually has a working camera!).

So here are the photos of our progress on the weekend - no photos of this week's progress yet.

Master Bedroom

Walls patched, sanded, washed down and ready to be turned from purple to Dulux Puddle.

Before

During (what a difference!)

After the first coat

I don't have photos of the room after the top coat is done, but it looks even better! Promise to take over my proper camera this weekend.

And I love love love my "Puddle" walls - and they set off the darker beige colour of the tiles in the ensuite. Can't wait to get my furniture in there and proper window dressings (which will be new white sheers - still tossing up whether we need block out curtains with the roller shutters...)

Kitchen

As I mentioned in my earlier posts, we are putting in a brand new oven (on order, arrives this Thursday) and hoping to put in a new gas stove and rangehood. Due to limited budget and a few hidden costs that have come to light, we've decided to just install the ceramic (glass) cooktop that the previous owner bought but never installed. Its not what we want in the long term, but will do for now and is easy to just install, rather than having to extend the gas line, cut out the granite bench to make a larger hole for the gas cooktop, and so on.

So what I have done so far is just update/replace all of the cupboard handles. I'm not a gold person - I prefer silver or white gold in jewellery, and therefore we wanted to 'update' the kitchen and make it more usable. Tiny little gold knobs are so hard to use - especially when on very wide drawers if you want to just open with one hand (which I have to do a lot, either due to a child in one arm, or a dirty hand, etc). I still need to work out how to patch the holes on the drawers where I couldn't reuse the existing holes (which I managed to do on all the cupboards), but I'm not overly worried at this stage, just so happy to have a kitchen that looks more like 'mine'.

Here is what I've managed to get done so far (still need to raid Bunnings for more handles - I bought them out and still didn't have enough).

Drawers Before

Drawers After

(all 3 are now done - but I forgot to take a photo!)

Pantry Before

Pantry After

Cupboards Before

(small selection - there are 21 cupboard handles in total so I don't want to upload pictures of all of them - you get the idea anyway)

Cupboards After

Lounge Room

This room isn't finished yet, but we're getting there! The horrid blue suede effect wall at the end of the lounge has been sanded, undercoated and below are the piccies of the first coat of colour going on. The other walls were a pink colour, and they are now cream along with the rest. The sliding doors are staying as they are for now, but I eventually want to replace them with new doors that are painted either white (like the skirting and architraves, and the rest of the doors in the house) or the same colour as the wall so they don't stand out so much. Thats a little way off though, so I'll decide later what I want to do.

Oh and I love my new ceiling fan! Its so quiet and stable, funny thing is though because its near the ducted evap cooling vent, if the cooling is on, it turns the fan - the picture below was taken while the fan was off but the ducted cooling was on so therefore blowing on it and causing it to turn. And yes, we do need ceiling fans because the ducted cooling isn't zoned so the kids rooms cool down quickly of an afternoon but the lounge is still hot because its west facing, so hence wanting ceiling fans so we can still keep cool out there but turn the cooling off. Plus ceiling fans are cheaper to run than evap cooling.

My fantastic new fan - see the blue wall in the background

Walls Before

(archway cut out and ready for the plasterer to square off - turned out the part on the right was 3cm wider at the bottom than at the top, hence the packing out that we had to do to try and even it up!)

Damo painting the walls - the left has been done, the right hasn't

The colour difference on my dodgy camera phone. The left is the new colour - Dulux Crewelwork Half, the right is the old pink colour - and yes, it really is that pink! Makes the cream Crewelwork Half look white!

I think thats enough photos for now - but the Entry, Spare Room, Ashleigh's room and my sister's room (for now) are all the same colour as the loungeroom. Liam's room will get painted the Dulux Breezy Half (light blue) this weekend, and the family room and hall will get painted too, plus the top coat for all of those walls.

We've already gone through most of a 15L tin of the Crewelwork Half, and I'm going to have to get another 15L tin of it to cover the rest of the house given we haven't even done all of the first coats yet! Expensive, but worth getting it done now.

Oh and then there's the ceilings that are being done on Friday, and the skirting boards and architraves that I'll probably end up doing on the weekend too.

I'm going to be so over painting once all of this is done, but I am grateful that all up we'll have spent about $800 in paint and materials and not had to pay for a painter on top of that.

Watch this space! Another big weekend ahead!

Progress update

2011-02-06T22:44:00.000+11:00

Well today was a busy and tiring day - I haven't had a chance to upload all of the photos but here is a summary of what has been done to the house so far:

Rebuild the wall between the kids bedrooms (plasterer comes in tomorrow to prep it for painting for us and put the new cornice in)
New door handle/lock for the front screen door installed - and the strike plate fixed up so the door actually closed and locked!
New door stop for the spare room (rest of the rooms to go)
All of the walls in the house except the family/meals, kitchen and hall sanded and prepped for painting
Master bedroom walls painted in Dulux Puddle - 2 coats complete (looks awesome!)
First coat of paint done in the: spare bedroom, Ashleigh's room, Kylie's room, entry area, lounge room and kids play room. Still have the family/meals, kitchen and Liam's room to go.
Ceilings prepped ready for painting - all still need painting though!
New ceiling fan (and light) installed in the loungeroom. Took the electrician 2hrs to do as new support beams needed to be added to the ceiling, involving him taking tiles off, climbing into the roof and moving 30cm (I kid you not!) of blown in insulation - and me watching the clouds rolling in and hoping that it wasn't going to rain.
Replaced all of the door and drawer handles in the kitchen (well, 4 more to go when Bunnings get more stock in - I bought them out of the ones I wanted!) - anyone who wants some little gold knob ones, give me a yell - I have about 30 that I'm going to dump shortly!

Tomorrow:

We have the plasterer coming in to finish off the archway, patch 2 holes in the loungeroom ceiling where the old lights were, and finish off the new wall between the kids rooms.
We have the first of 3 heating/cooling companies coming out to quote us on getting ducted gas heating put in where the old ducted oil heating was.
I have to call our Solicitor and tell her that our electrician quoted over $800 to fix the oven, fix the rangehood, and install the new cooktop (previous owners are paying for that - we're just not going to tell them that we're using that towards installing our own new ones - fixing the fan on the oven is $475 on its own - cheaper to install a new oven and then at least I know its new and clean!). Also have to tell her that the previous owners didn't come back on Saturday to 1. fix the tile they broke (son is a tiler), 2. drop off the rest of the keys or 3. pick up their trailer, wheelbarrow and the rest of their furniture. I'm not paying the tip fees to get it dropped off!
Damo needs to call a television/aerial company and see about getting a TV antenna installed - turns out they only had Foxtel and we don't do pay TV, so need to have an antenna put in so we can get free-to-air TV (silly isn't it?! Never thought to check for that before we bought - I'm so used to houses just having them!)
More sanding and painting to be done

Promise to try and have photos uploaded tomorrow! Its amazing what a coat of paint does to the place - especially having most of the rooms the same colour instead of a rainbow of colours - some in the same room!

Building walls

2011-02-04T22:47:00.000+11:00

Literally! Here is the photo evidence that Dad and Damo have been hard at work (I think?) over the past 2 days.

The hole in the wall between Liam's (pink - far side) and Ashleigh's (yellow - near side) rooms

Architrave and plasterboard removed

Frame in place

First piece of plasterboard goes up

Damo working hard

Two separate rooms!!

Sound insulation goes in

Almost done...

And ready for the plasterer!

I'm so excited that it is actually happening - can't wait for the plasterer to come in on Monday, get this taped up, plastered and the cornice in so we can then paint it next weekend. This room will be Dulux Crewelwork Half. Liam's room on the otherside will be Dulux Breezy Half. I still have to pick the ceiling paint tomorrow, but it will be slightly off white (fan blades are actually slightly creamy rather than white), and I have to take a sample of the skirting board that we removed to try and colour match so I don't have to repaint all of the skirting boards in the rooms.

And most of the archway between the kids playroom (originally the dining room) and the loungeroom has been removed. Damo has one or two little bits to do to finish it off and even it out (one side was very crooked - out by about 3cm from bottom to top), and then its over to the plasterer to finish off properly and edge on Monday.

View of the archway from the loungeroom - can't wait for those lights to go tomorrow as well!!

The archway removed and squared off.

I would have loved to have taken it right up to the ceiling, but its a load bearing wall, so we were lucky to be able to take it back as far as we did without doing any major support works. The beam that you can see running through is the support beam, so we were safe to take it back that far. Makes such a huge difference to those areas - they look so much bigger, and hopefully Damo won't crack his head on the lower edge of the archway like he'd already done several times not looking where he was walking.

Hope to have some more photos uploaded tomorrow, but if not, Sunday we should have some 'real' progress. :)

Have a great weekend everyone!

Day 1 of renovations

2011-02-04T15:58:00.000+11:00

Well we've given up on chasing the keys - just booked a locksmith for Tuesday to come and replace them all for us - our Solicitor thinks that there's another set of keys floating around, so all the more reason to get the locks changed!

The wall is up between the kids bedrooms, and 2/3 of the suede effect walls have been sanded back. We managed to get our new fridge over there and plugged in, so we at least have cold drinks (and ice blocks!) on hand. I've been feeling guilty coming to work, but managed to leave at 3pm yesterday afternoon and will leave work shortly to head home too.

In the kitchen

We have decided to replace the oven, cooktop and range hood rather than stuffing around fixing something that is so old! Damo has told me that seeing as I do most of the cooking, I can choose what I want and shop around for the best price - so thats been me today!

I have the measurements of our current 'cut outs' for those items, and am trying to match as best I can so we don't have to do any modifications to the kitchen. It looks like we won't get a gas cooktop (which is why we'll get a new one - I really don't like the glass cooktops, so if anyone wants a brand new one that hasn't been used, there's one sitting on our bench waiting to be installed that we're now not going to use and will probably sell off).

My current choices are as follows:

Oven - Westinghouse Double Oven

Westinghouse Double Oven

The oven we're removing is the same size height as this - but just has the grill at the bottom. We really don't grill that often, but we do often just have one tray that needs cooking - like fish, or a caserole or something. This way, we can just use the smaller oven, which heats up quicker, and is therefore more energy efficient. Also means that I'll have more oven space when I do have lots of people over (like Birthdays, Christmas, etc), and can have different things at different temperatures cooking. Brilliant! Even better? Bing Lee are having a sale this weekend and have this oven in stock. Perfect!

Gas Cooktop - Westinghouse

Westinghouse Gas Cooktop

I'm thinking this will be what we get, but I need to double check measurements. The cut out in our bench is 890 long, and this stove only requires a minimum cutout of 830, and is only 894 long - so thats only a tiny overlap! I do love the 5 burner setup, as this is what we had at our last place. Also, the standard 4 burners on the right aren't too wide, so they only require a 480 deep cutout, and our bench is only 600 deep so we can't have more than 500 cut out otherwise the granite won't be strong enough and will likely snap. Some more research tonight may be needed, but this is looking like a good contender at the moment (especially seeing as Bing Lee have it on sale and in stock as well - can't complain about that!).

Rangehood - Westinghouse or Electrolux

Westinghouse 900 Retractable

Electrolux 900 Retractable

Not sure about this one yet. They're both:

Approx the same price (Electrolux slightly more expensive)
Ductable (the old one is ducted so thats already in place)
Have washable filters
Have 3 speeds
Have 2 LED lights

As you can see in the pics, the Westinghouse has two long filters,whereas the Electrolux has 4 smaller ones. The Asko one we had in our last house had 4 smaller filters and it was actually a pain to remove, wash and put back in. Also, the join in the middle used to rattle when the fan was on, even though the fan was quiet, so not so great! Hence my leaning towards the Westinghouse.

And then...

Damo says to me that if we're going to have to get the Granite company to come out and cut the bench to allow the gas cooktop to go in, did I want to look at replacing the sink (which I hate!) at the same time given it will require changes to the granite cutout as well. So now I'm going to be looking at a new double sink with drain area (has to be top mounted - Damo won't let me get an undermounted sink again due to the price).

Promise to have photos of the actual reovation work shortly - just have to find time to upload them (I spend all last night and this morning arguing with Telstra about $1200 in charges that appeared on my mobile phone bill that definitely should not have been there - thankfully all resolved and my bill is back to $49 - one less stress to worry about).

Have a good weekend everyone - I know I'll be busy!

We have the keys! Well most of them....

2011-02-03T09:14:00.002+11:00

We are officially home owners again! And by that I mean mortgage owners.... ;)

I would have liked for it to go more smoothly and we still have a few kinks to iron out - like the fact that we rocked up for our pre-Settlement inspection yesterday morning to find the owner still there packing up stuff and the garage still full of chairs, mattresses, general junk and so on! She then proceeds to walk into the house with us and says "Oh, there's a few things I need to tell you about" and then tells me that:

The new cooktop hasn't been installed yet (just after Exchange she let us know that the glass top had been cracked but that she'd bought a new one and would be having it installed - still hasn't been done so is sitting on the bench next to the broken one)
The rangehood controls have broken so even though it slides out, it doesn't actually work and you can't turn the lights on
The fan in the fan-forced oven doesn't work - on closer inspection, it has completely rusted out (how in Canberra's climate I'm trying to figure out!) so can't be 'fixed' and has to be replaced.

(Might I say, that every single time we've been to the house, she has been there! So not once have we been able to really walk through and criticise it!)

She then verbally offers to reimburse us if we get an electrician to do the work for us, but won't give us a forwarding address (says that she's sorting it out with the Post Office so won't need for us to forward mail to her).

So anyway, I phone our Solicitors and the result is that $500 has been held back from the deposit lodged with the Real Estate Agent (thankfully we organised for this rather than just thinking it wasn't worth it - see below!)

Settlement still went through as we weren't going to be held up just because of some 'minor' electrical work.

So I picked up the keys yesterday afternoon - feeling really excited, relieved that it was over, and anxious to get over to the house and let Damo and Dad in so they could unload the trailerload of plasterboard, sound insulation and timber before the rain got here (we managed with about 30mins to spare - started pouring just as we got back to the rental).

So I raced over to the new house and we started trying to unlock doors to gain access, only to find that we're not only missing keys, but half of the keys don't actually work! Grrrrr.

Finally managed to get access to the backyard through the side door in the garage (no key for the garage doors, and the front door key didn't work). Then the back door key didn't want to work, so I managed to get into the laundry, which is external but has a servery size access into the linen cupboard in the hallway. Damo was just about to climb through that hole when Dad and I managed to jiggle the lock enough that it opened. Good timing (I was worried that the linen cupboard shelf wouldn't hold Damo's 92kg!).

Then we find that indeed, the keys don't open the front door, and the lock on the front door screen is completely busted so you can't lock the front screen at all (not good given it faces the busy road and Liam can easily open doors - especially lever handle ones!).

Further inspection of the house showed that they'd left quite a few windows open as well (glad we closed those before the rain arrived) as they were still packing up when we left the inspection that morning.

We also noticed that out of the two garage doors, one doesn't have an internal handle, and the one that does have the handle doesn't have wire on it to allow it to open any more (one of those old style ones where turning the handle twists the wires and pulls the metal tabs on the side of the door in so the door can open). So we can only access the garage easily if we do some work rearranging those around. Looks like our plan to replace the doors with automatic ones might happen sooner than expected!

So we've contacted our Solicitor, and expect to hear back from them today in regards to the missing keys. We have our electrician coming in on Saturday to start installing some ceiling fans for us (can't wait for that!) so we've agreed to get him to look at the stove for us and give us a quote of how much to install and fix the rangehood and oven, and we'll then let the Solicitor know on Monday next week and they'll organise for that money to be transferred over to us. We're tempted to just buy a whole new range hood and oven and install brand new ones rather than trying to fix old ones - might be just as cheap labour wise! We'll see.

So today I'm at work while Damo, Mum & Dad are over at the house starting to rebuild the wall between what will be the kids bedrooms. I've sent the camera with him and am trusting him to take photos of the befores, during and afters, and I've asked Mum & Dad to make sure that he does, so hopefully they remember!

Oh and we also noticed how bad the ceiling looked without any furniture in the house (like display cabinets reflecting light and casting different shadows) so we've now decided that we really need to paint the ceilings, so I now have to find a good ceiling paint colour, buy the paint and allow time to paint the ceilings before we paint the walls! Given we have chosen white ceiling fans, the paint is going to have to be white rather than cream, so I'm thinking I'll just take one of the fan blades with me and make sure that it won't make them stand out too much, or that they won't make the ceiling look 'dirty'.

I'm planning to head over and help out at the house once I finish work today, so hopefully I'll have the first lot of pictures and updates for you tomorrow. :)

Like & Dislike

2011-02-01T10:57:00.001+11:00

I have so many things going on at the moment, and so much that I want to blog about, so I thought I'd take a leaf from Amy's book and write a post on my current likes and dislikes. :)

Like
- The fact that we get the keys to our new house tomorrow (one more sleep!!)

- That my parents are coming down, possibly for a week and a half, to help us paint the new house and look after the kids while we get ready to move (seriously, best help anyone could give!)

- How my kids are playing with each other more and really interacting. They both go out of their way to make the other one laugh, and both get upset when the other one is in trouble or crying. At daycare yesterday, Liam saw Ashleigh in the hallway and wanted to go and play with her, so they let him go into her room and thats how Damo found them - standing shoulder to shoulder at a table playing quietly together - love it!

- That I've managed to lose 2kg and therefore fit into all of my gorgeous summer skirts and 3/4 pants - perfect in this hot weather at the moment! Now if I really start trying to lose weight, perhaps I'll manage to drop the next 8kg that I really should lose....

- All of our amazingly kind friends who are offering to help paint, clean and/or look after the kids while we move. Seriously, we've had so many lovely offers that we're not going to be able to accept as we don't have enough work for everyone to do. I'm sure there will be plenty of opportunities when we start re-working the backyard for them to help out though. :)

- My job! I have to squeeze this one in here! I do, I love my job - its one of the reasons that I haven't felt too guilty about putting the kids into daycare full time at such a young age (Ashleigh was 6mths and had never been away from me for more than a few hours when she went in 5 days a week). I'm currently on a contract which is up for renewel at the end of March, and already my two managers have submitted a business case for a rate rise for me - and at a higher rate than I was going to ask for myself! No guarantees, but its such a lovely compliment to receive, and it makes me even more motivated to keep up the good and hard work that I do. The other side of it is that I love how flexible work is with our family and moving situation. They don't mind if I come in late, or have to leave early. They know that I'll get my work done, so there's never any question if I have to rush out to pick up a sick child from daycare or take a day off or so on. Seriously perfect for us right now.

Dislike
- How hot it is at the moment, and the fact that our rental has a wall of west facing windows, so our lounge, dining and family rooms cop the full sun until 8.30pm at night when the sun goes down.

- How our landlords refused (and continue to!) zone the air conditioning in our house so in order for us to get the lounge, dining and family rooms down to 25 degrees, it makes the kids rooms closer to 22 degrees, so we're still putting Ashleigh in a sleeping bag even though its not dropping below 20 overnight - crazy!

- That my baby sister is turning 27 tomorrow. Don't get me wrong - I'm super excited that its her birthday and can't wait to see her face when she sees what I've bought her, but the fact that my baby sister is turning 27 makes me feel old! Its worse that my middle sister then reminded me that she's 29 this year - yikes! I was fine turning 30 last year, but I think turning 31 this year is going to be harder than turning 30! Don't ask me why.

Yes! Wednesday it is!

2011-01-31T13:14:00.000+11:00

Its done - its booked in - Settlement is Wednesday! Woo hoo!

And would you believe I've already had the Real Estate Agent phone and say that due to compulsory meetings that morning, we have to move our 9am pre-Settlement inspection to 9.45am - so I'm going to be super late for work. And its my sisters birthday on Wednesday so we have a birthday lunch planned, and then given I have to leave work early to go and pick up the keys - is there any point in coming to work? ;) When I only get paid for the hours I'm here, even a few hours work is better than none - plus I'll need to keep busy.

Bring on Wednesday, bring on the start of the renovations and me flooding this page with photos (remember you all did ask for photos!!).

xxx

This is the week....?

2011-01-30T21:02:00.000+11:00

Well today is Sunday - I've made it through the weekend that we were supposed to take ownership of our new house. I've kept myself busy packing more boxes, cleaning the house (so we only have to do a quick touch-up at the end of lease), and the best part - visiting my friend who has a son Liam's age, and a 2wk old baby daughter. Oh so clucky over baby Imogen!

And now I'm sitting here thinking about this week and how (hopefully!) everything will unfold. Frustrating part is that we had a perfect weather this weekend, and its now forecast to rain on Thursday and Friday when we want to be transporting plasterboard.

But its so exciting to think that we will be getting the keys this week. :)

The waiting game

2011-01-28T10:39:00.000+11:00

I like to think that I'm usually a patient person, but you wouldn't know it from this week!

Today is the day we were supposed to be Settling on our house, but now thats not happening.

We were told that it could be Tuesday next week if the Title Office got the Title updated yesterday. Now that did happen, but we're still waiting!

The updated Title has been sent to our credit union and lenders mortgage insurer, but still no word on Settlement! Now we're thinking that it may be Wednesday next week.

It had better be Wednesday at the latest! Damo managed to switch his 2 days off next week from Monday & Tuesday to Thursday & Friday, and we've moved the electrician and plasterer as well. But we can't move our removalists, so that only gives us 2 weekends rather than 3 to do everything we wanted to do to the house.

My sister (who lives with us) was hoping to move into the new place the week or so before us so 1. she could have some sleep time before the kids move into the 2 rooms next to hers (she's downstairs under the living area of our current rental) and 2. so we had someone living in the house as an added security measure. With our new timing (and yes, I have done an MS Project Schedule for this - can't help myself!) there is no way she can move in before us now, so thats going to stuff up her plans as well.

Ah well, now to just keep waiting until I get the phonecall from our solicitor saying that Settlement is booked in!

Fingers crossed!

Frustration

2011-01-26T22:26:00.000+11:00

What a week (and its only Wednesday).

This week was supposed to be exciting. It was supposed to be near impossible to sleep.

Well the latter is still happening, but for the wrong reasons.

Monday morning we found out that the critical paperwork the seller's solicitor was supposed to have lodged 3 months ago, he supposedly only lodged last week (according to him anyway). Our solicitor found out on Tuesday that he'd actually only lodged it on Monday this week! Now this paperwork has to be lodged with the Land Titles Office, and processing of that paperwork can take up to a week normally, but they have a backlog at the moment, so our estimate was 2 weeks.

I have to give praise to our solicitor - she has really earnt her fee this time! She managed to get a hold of the lodging agent the seller's solicitor used, and between them they have put an expedite on the paperwork processing, but even then, it won't be processed until Thursday morning, and our Lender then needs 2 days to organise payment from the receipt of the updated Title, so therefore we're now looking at Settlement next Tuesday at the earliest.

Major stuff up to our plans.

Not only were my parents coming down to help with the renovations (rebuilding the wall between the kids bedrooms, painting, etc) this weekend, but we had our plasterer lined up for next Monday, Electrician and Security company coming in on Tuesday and a lovely schedule of how we could easily get all of the work done up until we have the removalists booked in on the 19th Feb.

Given we have to be out of the rental by the end of Feb, we can't change the Removalist booking, so therefore we have one less weekend in which to get everything done on the house before we move in.

Stressful? Possibly.

Frustrating? Definitely!

Especially when we have done everything to make sure that we were ready on time. We will find out tomorrow whether the paperwork has actually been processed and whether Tuesday is our Settlement date. Fingers crossed!

Positive thoughts?

I always prefer to end on a positive note if I can. So here's an update on the preparation for the renovations.

I have bought the paint and painting equipment that we need to do the house (minus the enamel paint for the doors and skirtings which need to be colour matched), the fans have arrived, we have the new powerpoints (they only have singles and we want quads and doubles) and really we only need to pick up the plasterboard and timber to rebuild the wall (no point picking up and bringing back here as we don't have the room to store it, plus Bunnings is closer to the new house so easiest to just pick it up on the way to the new house).

I did change the colour for Liam's room at the last minute! I was standing in line at the paint counter at Bunnings and just happened to look at the colour wall. The colour that we had chosen for Liam was Dulux Cuddle and when I saw it next to the other blues again, it took on a purple tinge rather than the nice light blue that I wanted. So I took a look through the other colours and change to Dulux Breezy Half.

I'm now worried that it might be a little dark, as its a stronger colour than Cuddle, but its too late now, and we can always paint over it with a lighter colour later. And besides its a boys room so blue is going to be Ok at any rate.

Now I just have to get through the rest of this week and the weekend (when we were supposed to be in our new home!) and wait until later next week to really start getting my hands dirty and start piecing together the vision I see in my head.

Hope everyone else is having a better week than us!

Paint & Inspiration

2011-01-18T11:40:00.000+11:00

I did some posts last October on the colours and inspiration that I wanted for our new house, and given we're this close, I think its a good time to touch on that topic again.

Here are the old posts for those interested:
http://4fullerfun.blogspot.com/2010/10/paint.html

http://4fullerfun.blogspot.com/2010/10/inspiration.html

I'm still loving my paint choices for most rooms - Ashleigh's is the only one I'm struggling with. I really want a beautiful, not too dark, lilac purple and I seem to keep finding either pink-purples or blue-purples.

So I think we have decided (this week at least - LOL) that we'll leave Ashleigh's room until last. My sister is living with us and will be staying in that room given its the 2nd biggest room in the house (after the master bedroom), so Ashleigh won't move in there for another 12mths or so until my sister moves out, so we can then do sample paints and paint then.

Plus Ashleigh will be old enough to tell us what colour she wants and at least show preference for colours too - I have to say that I've been a little worried that she might not like what I choose for her. Liam loves blue so thats not a problem, green being a close second for him at the moment - either of which I don't mind so thats easy. Ashleigh is only 17mths so hasn't really shown colour preference yet.

We have also decided to leave the guest bedroom, which is currently green, as it doesn't really need painting and we may run out of time given the number of other things that we need to get done before we move in. Plus we can really paint that room at any time. This is what it looks like now:

Bedroom 5 - Guest room/Study

We have also decided on not having a feature wall in the family room - it would just be too dark for the area, and given we have the 4ft fish tank for our turtles that is stained a mid-brown, its going to add enough 'dark' to the corner anyway (tank will be where the TV is in this picture, dining table will be where their couch is)

Family Room (which will be our dining room)

The family room will be sanded back (its suede effect and they've already painted cream over the top of it, so although its not that lovely orange colour anymore, its still textured which doesn't bode well with kids & food/playdough/paint/etc) and painted Dulux Crewelwork (still deciding whether full or half).

Master bedroom, study and eventually the guest room will still be Dulux Puddle. I had a moment after Christmas where I thought that it might be too dark, but then I reminded myself that one of my resolutions this year is to try new things and be a little adventurous - I do tend to always play it a little safe, and really, its only paint and would cost less than $100 for us to buy more and repaint if it is too dark.

The trouble is that Puddle looks quite dark on the computer as compared to the paint chip I have at home - and this house that I'm told has Puddle walls looks great:

And they have very similar colours to us, but our rooms might be smaller. We also have the white doors, ceiling, skirting and architraves, as well as white wardrobe doors (which will eventually be mirrored and open the room up even more), so we'll give it a go and see what happens anyway!

The countdown is on!

2011-01-17T22:30:00.000+11:00

This time in 11 days we will have the keys to our new house!!

To say I'm excited is an understatement. We have these great plans for the place, and a 3mth settlement has taken ages, and yet these last 3 weeks have gone so fast as well.

We have already bought a new fridge for the house, have a new dining suite on order, and have Liam's big-boy bed on order as well (along with the mattress for the bed). We also managed to buy a BBQ and some 1m long (30cm wide and 40cm deep) pots for the garden so I can put my herbs and some basic fruits/vegies (strawberries for the kids on the top of that list!)

This weekend we're planning on hitting bunnings and starting to buy the renovation supplies such as paint, sand paper, nails, liquid nails, plaster board, double and quad power points (house only has singles) and so on.

We're also going to be ordering ceiling fans this week for all of the rooms - so with the living areas and bedrooms thats 8 fans! Good thing is I've found some gogeous Omega brand fans online for about 1/2 their RRP - gotta love that!

I'm still having trouble finding the perfect 'lilac' purple for Ashleigh's room, but there's no rush for that given my sister will be staying in that room for a while, so we can then paint once she moves out before we move Ashleigh in.

We also had friends who have just moved themselves drop off a heap of boxes and packing paper tonight, so thats going to help me really get packing given I've run out of both already! (some of our boxes got too damaged to reuse after 2 moves)

And to really finalise the process, we have a JP lined up to witness our signatures on the final loan doco, and then thats everything done except to sit back and wait for the 28th!

Getting very exciting!!

The kids first week in their new daycare

2011-01-15T21:26:00.003+11:00

I can't remember if I have mentioned that we were changing the kids daycare or not, but due to us moving house in the next few weeks, we made the decision last year to change the kids into a new daycare this year. The new centre is the sister centre for the one they were in, and its much closer to our new home (hence the motivation for the change). Ashleigh also spent 3 weeks in this centre last year when the roof of her room in the old daycare collapsed and wasn't fit for them to be in (see my post from last November - "When 'safe' is no longer safe" - for the full story) so we got a good feel for the centre and quite liked it.

And not only did we change centres, but they've changed rooms (Ashleigh is no longer in the nursery - she's now in the Toddler room and Liam is in Pre-Kindy) and therefore they have also changed the kids that they're in with, and the carers looking after them. I can tell you that I was feeling a little nervous about the whole thing, but had to keep reminding myself that if they'd stayed in their old centre, they would have changed rooms and carers anyway, and given they had 2 weeks off over Christmas, we may still have had some issues putting them back into care anyway. I was expecting that it was going to take us about 8 weeks to settle Liam in, but that Ashleigh would be pretty good after a day or so with her new carers (she adjusts a heck of a lot quicker than Liam does - second child perhaps? Or just Ashleigh being Ashleigh?)

So 23rd December was their last day in the old centre, and they've then had 2 weeks off. We've had loads of fun during that time and also had many play dates with the kids from Liam's old mothers group (7 of us have kept in touch and still meet up which is fantastic).

We did an orientation last week for both of them - just a half day - Ashleigh on Tuesday and Liam on Wednesday. While Ashleigh responded positively, Liam threw the biggest tantrum I have ever seen him throw and would not let go of my hand - even to play in the sandpit (I had to get in with him). He was even pulling on my arm and then slingshotting back towards me and hitting me because I wouldn't do what he wanted when he wanted - which is unheard of! Liam is usually my sensitive little guy. He does have a bit of temper on him (typical redhead), but hasn't really thrown massive tantrums and got to the point where he wasn't listening before. This didn't bode well.

Fast forward to this week.

Monday morning was a nightmare. Damo managed to get the late shift on Monday and Tuesday so could help me drop the kids off, and I'm so glad that he did - I would have been an absolute mess otherwise. Ashleigh cried and screamed when we left her, and then Liam did the same. I phoned up just after lunch and was truthfully told that while Ashleigh had been fine since just after we left, Liam had been sobbing on and off all day. :(

Tuesday wasn't any different with the drop off - we just had to keep walking, get in our cars and drive away. Thankfully, my after lunch phone call had a different story - while Liam wasn't happy after waking from his nap, he had been really good otherwise and had gotten involved in a few activities and was going to his room leader for cuddles when he felt a little sad or overwhelmed.

Wednesday was slightly better - Ashleigh cried until I was out of sight and then stopped almost straight away. Liam didn't want to go and still cried but at least went to his carer and didn't fight her while I left. I was then told that he'd had a pretty good day and had only needed a few cuddles after he woke up.

Thursday was the same as Wednesday for both kids and both for drop off and during the day.

Friday was much much better. Ashleigh just frowned at me and wouldn't say goodbye. Liam didn't need to be picked up and was ok to walk down the hallway beside me. We went into his room and there were no tears. His carer and I were both impressed that he wasn't asking to go with me, and was happy to go to her and barely even said goodbye because he was so distracted with what she was showing him, which was great.

So Friday was fantastic, and pick ups have been good. Liam used to cry as soon as he saw us until he was in our arms. Not once this week has he cried when we picked him up. He's been so excited to see us that we've been greeted with smiles. Ashleigh has cried but not when she saw us - apparently she cries when other parents come to pick up their kids and she gets left behind. Of an afternoon they merge the toddler room with the nursery, and she really doesn't like being in the nursery either, so that accounts for some of the tears.

And the biggest surprise - Liam has been sitting on the toilet for them! He flat out refused at the old centre, and refuses during the day at home (we usually have some luck first thing of a morning, before bath and before bed), so that is awesome progress in the toilet training stakes.

So overall, not a bad week. Given we had no tears on Friday, thats less than one week and they've already started settling in - I'm stoked! As I said, I thought for sure it was going to take a month or so for us to get this stage. :)

The devastation in SE QLD

2011-01-12T11:24:00.001+11:00

I don't really know what to write today, but felt that after seeing all of the news reports and speaking to friends who are, thankfully, safe in the affected areas in South East QLD, that I should at least write something!

I have been left speechless (a rare feat for me for those that know me) at the ongoing devastation that is unfolding in QLD - when will it stop?!

Just when we think the reports can't get any worse, they do!

Stories of mothers and children being washed away, children being washed from their mothers arms, bodies of women and children being found dead - all of them are particularly affecting and upsetting me given I have two very precious children of my own, and I can't help but put myself in their shoes and wonder how I would cope in the same situation.

I know that I'm 1000s of KM away from what is unfolding, but given I have lived in Brisbane many years ago, and given that before we moved from Coffs Harbour back to Canberra, Brisbane was the place that we were going to move to, I'm feeling the shock of what is happening as if I was living up there myself.

I can't help but keep reading news articles, contacting my friends to make sure they're OK, and generally being very thankful that everyone that I do know in the area IS out of harms way, even though they may be cut off.

To all those that are affected, or know someone who is affected, you have my deepest sympathies!