FAMILY AND FRIENDS:
:: Late November we headed down to Melbourne for a wedding (see below) and an early Christmas with my Dad and step Mum and all our family down there, as well as my brother, sister-in-law and niece from Sydney - we had a ball and Alex loved playing with his cousins Ella and Elijah, who we don't get to see nearly often enough, and they are both getting cuter and cuter by the day!
:: While we were in Melbourne, my step brother Glen married his beautiful bride Annette - seriously, could be the best wedding I've ever been to, or tied with my brother's and other step brother's, and my own! Just a beautiful couple who were destined to be together and obviously so in love - it was AWESOME! Delightful venue, fabulous food, very witty MC and just general happiness and good cheer :) Another of my step brothers, Warren, made their cake which was so incredibly impressive (he is a very talented chef).
Here are the beautiful couple…
And the incredible cake Waz made... That is a cherry blossom tree on the top (made of fairy floss), and each layer is separated by 'stained glass' which Waz painstakingly made from isomalt - it was quite a process but the result was amazing.
Glen and Annette are now expecting a baby, so I am very excited for them both (and excited also to be an Aunty again too!)
:: On 21st December my Mum arrived for a visit from Sydney and we found out that she would be moving up to live with us sooner rather than later! So in January my Mum (aka Mim) moved into our house… it has taken so much pressure off us to have her here, especially the last few weeks when I've been working like a maniac. We are all a bit more chillaxed now :)
:: Recently I found out that one of my Sydney besties is going to be a Mum for the first time - so exciting! Congrats to Suz and George - here is the proud new Mum to be:
:: A few weeks back we found out that Alex has been accepted into the school just a few short blocks from us - it is a lovely little school with wonderful facilities and very reasonable fees for a private school, so we're very excited! I still can't quite believe my baby is going to Prep next year!
:: A couple of weeks ago I had a birthday - I am now officially 39 years old - yikes!! Next year is the big one!!
AROUND THE HOUSE:
You can expect to see/ hear more about these ones in posts to come….
:: The toy room got a small makeover - it's not finished yet, but I cleared a lot of toys, we painted the walls and moved out the chocolate coloured lounge that was in there (we needed another space to accommodate visitors with Mim moving in).
:: All the way back in August (when all the family were in town for Alex's Christening) my bro Mick and sista Nadine helped me to finally sort out the wall above the desk… I will post after pics soon, but as a teaser, it used to look like this… a whole lotta boring going on!
:: Mim's room (formerly the guest room) has had a makeover in the form of paint also. Before we moved in, it was a little girl's nursery with a bright pink 'feature' wall. Then we painted one wall mustard (what were we thinking?) and finally with Mim's imminent arrival it got its proper colour, along with the rest of the house - Dulux Half Self Destruct on the walls with Quarter Lexicon White on the trim. A bunch of shelves have gone up, along with a very creative dressing table for her small space, a gallery wall and some curtains. I still need to have the discussion with her about whether she will let me share photos on the blog - thoughts Mum? ;)
:: I recently set about converting Alex's room from a more baby room into a bigger boy's room. I have always preferred neutrals for Alex's room, but I did want to get some bright colours in there this time…. I have recently done a few tweaks and Alex is really enjoying the transformations so far. Here is an old pic I took right after putting those decals up of Alex's 'toddler' room….
You'll have to stay tuned for the afters as it evolves, but I can tell you the woodland creatures are gone, as is the doona cover and that chair (which didn't stay long anyway - we moved an old armchair out to put that one in, and Alex demanded the old one back! We've finally got rid of the armchair too… its taken us about 2 years to convince him! Lol).
:: You might recall a million years ago in this post, I mentioned I was going to move those random cupboards out of the back area of our living space? Well I finally did it…. Stay tuned for that makeover too!
OUT THE BACK:
:: If you've read this blog before, you'll know that last year I got our vege patch looking fab and in great shape, and we had a great yield of all sorts of things… but for the second year running, once the really warm weather hit and we had our customary torrential downpours, a lot of the plants couldn't take it anymore and fell in a heap (much like myself!!)…. And as of a week ago, it looked like this:
We've actually had an incredibly productive week where the vege patch is concerned though, so stay tuned for an update on that really soon.
:: For Alex's Baptism back in August, we removed the outdoor setting from under the pergola and replaced it with a day bed and a coffee table the kids can sit at to do art. We liked it so much that it has stayed and the outdoor setting has now been moved into the garage… I'm yet to share a photo of this revamp, but to recap, here is how it looked just before the Baptism when I cleaned it all up:
CRAFTY GOODNESS:
:: I've been on a roll with book bags and pencil rolls (to which I then add a book and a set of pencils) for the kids in our lives for some time now. I got the bags from EcoShopper and sewed names to the front. For Christmas I ended up making 6 pencil rolls and 6 bags and have even made a few more since - I wish I'd taken photos of the really girly ones I did, but I didn’t - so here is a photo of one I did for Alex's buddy Jack:
:: Alex's besties Jack and Vanessa turned 5 in November and are both avid fans of the matchbox/ hotwheels car! Since Alex is too, I know that having a place to put them all (to avoiding tripping over one every 5 minutes) is a problem, so I set about creating something that would help with storage. I made them these hanging car organisers for their presents, and they loved them! Here they are before they started to load them up!
I have all the fabric cut out to make one for Alex, but in all honesty, they were slow and painful to make and I should have done them all at once - now I'm not sure if I'll ever get around to it!
:: I mentioned recently that I made some things to send over to Michelle from for her kids - they include (of course) bags and pencil rolls, but I also tried my hand at something new! I'll share all that very soon ;)
So there you have it - you're pretty well up to date now. And if you're still reading, thanks for persevering, and your certificate of completion is in the mail!
Bye for now :)
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