Lots of new posts

Just to let everyone know that I have done 12 new posts in the last few days.

If you read my blog regularly, make sure you keep hitting that “Older Posts” link that the bottom of each screen so you don’t miss anything. Alternatively you can see every post from this month on the “Blog Archive” on the right side of the screen.

Thank you to everyone who reads my blog, and those few who leave comments. I love getting your comments, so keep them coming.

Gardening

We did a little bit of gardening the other day. The boys had a great time digging in the dirt and planting the flowers. In the next few photos we are planting some pansies.

My gorgeous Ethan, ready to plant a blueberry bush.  

Ben and Ethan LOVE blueberries, so we are defiantly looking forward to spring and hopefully some blueberries on our new blueberry bush :))

Ethan Bear and Benny Bear

When the boys were born, they were given a teddy bear each from Aunty Linda. These bears have each boys name and date of birth embroided on their feet. We call them Ethan Bear and Benny Bear

Below is Ethan at about 6weeks old with his Ethan Bear. See the name on one foot and DOB on the other?

Well, Ethan Bear and Benny Bear are very popular at the moment. The boys play with them, sleep with them and they enjoy it when we hold the bear at the back of the neck and ask it questions. We make the bear shake and nod it’s head and ask it silly questions. They think it’s hilarious.

Here is Ethan again, 3yrs later with his Ethan Bear.

 

Benny and Benny Bear

A few more photos I took that night just before bed..

Tracie and Ben with Ben’s “lovely blankie” as he has been calling it lately. Tonight I had the following conversation with Ben..

Mummy: What have you got there Ben? (pointing to his blankie)

Ben: That’s my lovely blankie

Mummy: Wow, that’s nice, where did you get that from?

Ben: Nana

Mummy: Did Nana buy that for you?

Ben: No, Nana MADE it for me!

Below Ben (then Ethan in the next picture) are making their happy faces. If you ask them to do a happy face, this is the expression they pull, every time latley!   Another happy face. When i first saw this picture a few days after it was taken it took me a few seconds to work out who it is. Without cheating and checking who was wearing what coloured skivvy (turtleneck) can you tell who it is?

Lastly, here is another picture of Ethan Bear. One night Ethan asked me what Ethan Bear had around his neck. I told him it was a bow. He asked why (his favourite question this year!!). After a second of quick thinking i replied it was to make him look handsome. Ethan said No, what is it there for? Again, I said to make him look handsome. He said no again two more times and continued to ask me why it was there. I kept giving the same answer about making him look handsome. When he’d asked me about 4 times, I said I didn’t know, and asked Ethan why he thought Ethan Bear had the bow around his neck. His reply was priceless …… “It’s so his head doesn’t fall off!!”

He said it like it was the answer that was in his head the whole time, he said it like he was telling the punch line of a joke! Tracie and I laughed so hard. It was so funny!

How things have changed in our house

As you may or may not know, we have been living in this house for about 18months now. We moved in in October 2009. You can see here when we moved in.

I looked at this old post the other day and realised how many changes we have made to the house in that short time. I thought I would do a post about how things look now. I am sure in 18months time I will look back and see how things have changed again. There is going to be a bunch of before and after pictures. I hope it isn’t too confusing…

 

First, old front entry way.

And Now……Nothing’s changed much. We managed to kill the original plants, and got a bit sick of the boys playing with the bark, so we got rid of the plants for about a year. We have recently replaced the plants….. yesterday in fact!

Old living room. Old again Old again.And the living room now…

Couches and coffee table are the same. New pictures on the wall. TV is different. Toys are also different. HEAPS of clean washing to be folded on the couch is a constant site in our house!  If you look out to the entry way you will see the plantar box being used to store toys. This was last week before we got plants.   Kitchen/Diner in 2009.

Kitchen in 2009 Diner in 2009. A closer shot of the dining room. You can see outside in this picture. A lot has changed out there too… And now, 2011…. Kitchen is very similar. New coffee machine and toaster and small changes like that. A change you will not notice, but one that is significant to us is that we took most of the child safety locks off our draws and cupboards this week. We only have one draw locked (contains knives and scissors) and the cupboard under the sink remains locked too due to cleaning stuff.

 

Back in 2009, facing the other way (back to the doors and table)

And now…. the angle is different, but it shows the same wall as the B&W picture of the boys as babies hasn’t changed. Big changes in this room. New rug, new toy storage unit. Closer look at the storage unit. A closer look at some of the pictures on our walls. From our camping trip in October 2010.  

Our room in 2009. Our room now. The wall colour has been changed. We also changed the fan and removed the carpet. We have yet to finish the flooring upstairs.

The spare room in 2009. The spare room now. – New wall paint, new fan, again, no carpet.

Boys room in 2009. Unfortunatly they didn’t take long to pull that stickon border off the wall and any of the pictures they could reach. It only looked nice for a month or two….

Boys room now…

New wall paint, with only one blue feature wall and the other walls are an off white colour like the rest of the rooms.

Cots are now toddler beds

New animal theme

No carpet

New curtains

New Fan

New rug

Minimal furniture. – Only their two beds and a small book case with a few books. The rest of their toys are downstairs. We have tried to go with the theory that bedroom is for sleeping….. that’s why there is no toys. So far this plan is working.

Ben’s bed

Ethan’s bed.From the door.

 

I didn’t take any “before” pictures of the bathroom that I can find right now, but I do have this one of the roof and light.

We had nothing but trouble trying to paint the bathroom roof as the paint kept flaking off and it was all mouldy. You can also see in this photo the old pale green (awful) wall colour.

And now, similar angle. New light, roof fixed. New walls….. looks HEAPS better :)) We have finished our painting of the 3 upstaris bedrooms, 2.5 bathrooms, small hallway and stairway. We are so happy with the way it has come out.

Here are a few more photos of random stuff we painted and changed.

In the toilet we painted the walls and ceiling, put in new taps, new mirror, towel holder and toilet roll holder. Such simple changes made a HUGE difference. I still think it’s ugly and I HATE the floor tiles, but that is a more expensive job for another time.

  New fans. Each of the 3 upstairs bedrooms got new matching fans. All the light switches and powerpoints (outlets) were changed. The old ones had the old wall colour painted on them, like the people who painted the walls never bothered to remove them when they painted last time! We like the new fresh look.

Finally, like I said we have made a few changes in the back yard too.

I havent taken any photos out there yet as it’s still a bit of a mess…

Last week I hired a high pressure water cleaner. It was great to get the steps clean and all the moss gone..

  I haven’t taken a complete “after” picture yet, but as you can tell in this next picture the cleaner did a great job. You can see how dirty it is on one side of the step, and clean on the other.

I got VERY dirty and wet doing this, but had fun and it was worth it, it looks great now.