Keeping warm on cold nights

Winter is definitely approaching and fast! It got down to 3 degrees last night and the same is predicted again for tonight. It's not even June yet! Anyway, Jonah has been coming into my bed with me in the wee hours of the morning. I assume because he's cold. I've been waking a couple of times a night feeling cold too, but I'm obviously capable of pulling my doona up and turning my electric blanket on! I already have Ruby sleeping in my bed at the moment (shes going through a phase of not wanting to sleep by herself) so being squashed between two starfish children all night makes one very cranky and sore mummy in the morning! I grabbed a couple of pairs of fleecy all in one PJ's for Jonah in the target 40% off sale a few days ago, and some long sleeved singlets. Didn't make a difference! So here is my last ditch effort before I think about putting some kind of heating in his room. A 2.5tog bubbaroo sleeping bag. $85 and he hates it! LOL! All I've heard today is "I don't like that and I'm NOT wearing it!" Wish us luck, we haven't had a heater in his room for the last two winters after we received a $600 power bill - so really don't want to have to go down that route!

Meet my new cleaning lady

I've been lusting after one of these FOREVER. We have a bit of spare cash at the moment after we finally got around to doing our 10/11 tax returns, so I bit the bullet and bought one. She is AMAZING. And much more powerful than I expected! She had the living room looking spotless within minutes, and I didn't have to lift a finger! Kicking myself for not getting one sooner!

Muffin tin Monday (on a Tuesday)

I can't take credit for this idea, I stole it off Mum's blog, and I'm pretty sure she stole it off someone elses! I always have trouble getting the kids to eat enough fruit and veg (as most parents do!) and thought this was a fantastic idea for an after school snack. We have carrot sticks, red and green capsicum, rice crackers, cream cheese dip, bananas, apples, frozen peas and frozen blueberries.

Shopping

Sorry for the lack of updates! I have been very slack! Jonah and I headed off to the licensing centre this morning, 3 regos and a licence renewal - ouch! On our way home we stopped off at Rockingham shops for some morning tea and a bit of a wander. Our old dinosaur computer finally blew up the other day when I overloaded the multi board (although it was just a matter of time anyway, it was so old it didn't even have wifi, and took at least 10 minutes to load one page!), so we went into JB hifi to look at some laptops. Ruby does most of her homework on the computer, and has mathletics tasks to complete each night, which the iPad unfortunately doesn't support. I got a fanastic deal on this sony vaio, though if I'm honest, I really just liked it because it's PINK!

It's nice to finally have a computer that's fast and doesn't make horrible sounds like a dying cat!

Funny Autumn weather.

Woke up this morning to clear blue skies and it was pretty warm! Within minutes big black clouds started rolling in! There goes my few seconds of hope that I could get some washing dry today!! On one side of the house it's bright and sunny, and on the other side it's black and miserable! To the east:

And to the west!:

Just started pouring as I type!

Kids bathroom

Sorry for the lack of updates. Ruby and I have been quite sick, so I haven't achieved much around the home or anywhere else for that matter! The place is currently looking like a war zone (Jonah is still his usual destructive self, and I just don't have the energy to run around cleaning up after him!) and I'm still not feeling 100% so it'll probably take me a few days to get on top of it again. Anyway, this morning I needed to tackle the kids bathroom. If I ever meet the architect of this house, I'd probably punch him in the face. The whole house is badly designed, but the bathrooms in particular are awful. There's just no space, and nowhere to even create space! Ikea doesn't even really have anything that would help. So I did a big cull of the bath toys as most of it had gone moldy anyway. Moved the nappy bucket into the laundry (not that there's any room in there either, another poorly designed space. I would sell my kidneys for a laundry bench) and made the best of the vanity cupboard. Before: (yes, it was filthy! Bathrooms are definitely my least favourite chore, so I generally ignore them until I can't put it off any longer!)

After:

Apologies again for the shockingly blurry photos. As I said earlier on in my blog, I don't actually own a camera! So everything is taken on my phone. If I continue blogging, I might have to treat myself to a real camera I think! So, hot me with your best bathroom storage ideas for small spaces!

More miserable weather and shopping.

With more on and off rain today, I met up with a friend and we headed off to storage heaven - Ikea! I actually only wanted one thing, a potato ricer. But I should know by now that I cant walk into Ikea without spending hundreds of dollars. Though I was pretty restrained today. I only bought the potato ricer, a new doona cover, and two bedside lamps. I saw many many things I wanted to buy though, so I stopped at the newsagent on the way home and bought a lotto ticket for tomorrow nights $70 million jackpot - haha! Hopefully I win! (I can dream, right?!) Sorry the pic is a bit blurry. I couldn't get a decent one. The lamps are quite nice, and were only $15 each.

Thunderstorms and dancing

Wow, we've had a good 24 hours of heavy rain now! This morning bought localised flooding, thunder and lightening. My back yard is under a good few inches of water. LOVING it! But it's definitely the sort of day you want to stay home in your PJ's, curled up in bed with a good book and listening to the rain on the roof. Alas, we have to be at dancing in an hour! Ruby does ballet and jazz on a Saturday morning. It's her second year of ballet and first year of jazz. She usually loves it but even she doesn't want to leave the house this morning! I should probably go and get dressed. Am currently sitting under the patio on my iPad, watching this glorious rain! I hope it's like this tomorrow when I don't have to go anywhere!

It's raining, it's pouring...

I woke up this morning to my favourite sound in the world - heavy rain on my tin roof. We don't get a whole lot of rain living in Perth, so it's always somewhat of a 'novelty' when it does rain. I love nothing more than a good storm! Bring on Winter!

Thursday funny

This cracked me up. It is SO my cat.

What made you laugh today?

Play rooms and family room

These are the last of the "showing you around my home" posts for today. Tomorrow I'll take you through the kitchen and backyard. We didn't intentionally set out to have two "play rooms". The kids toys just sort of started migrating all over the house! They don't really spend much time in either of them anymore, but we're not quite sure what else to do with them. Our house isn't really all that big, and it's very cluttered. I'm hoping to take some decluttering inspiration away from the blogs I'm currently reading. Unfortunately, we all seem to have a problem with hoarding! Play room #1:

You'll notice our carpet is HIDEOUS. It's cheap and nasty stuff, and stains SO easily. The kids have pretty much trashed it. The next home project when we have a bit of spare cash is to tile the whole house. I seriously cannot wait! Though we can't agree on tile colours either, haha! Play room #2:

Family room. Yes, that's a very bright wall! I love it though. It needs a couple more coats and then it'll darken up a bit:

New furniture of that room is on the list too. That's all for today. I'll take you through the kitchen and backyard tomorrow!

My bedroom...

...is a bit of a man cave unfortunately! Brendan lived here for four years prior to me moving in, and was pretty set in his ways! I buy new linen for our bed every now and then to try and girly it up a bit! The built in desk he made himself from an old broken bed of Ruby's! Please excuse the mess on it! It's not mine, I swear!

As you can see, the walls are still just plaster! We can't agree on what colour to paint it. As you will see as I show you through my home, I'm definitely not a sterile "bland, boring and neutral!" type of girl. I like colour and lots of it! I would go absolutely crazy living in a house with white walls. Not to mention I'd stress about all the kids grubby finger marks!

Our home

So I thought I'd start the day by showing you around our house. I love looking at pics of other peoples houses and getting decorating, organising and storage ideas. I'll start with the kids rooms, as they're my favourite rooms in the whole house. I'll often just go and hang out in them during the day when I need some cheering up. This is Ruby's room. It's surprisingly tidy this morning! Usually I have to nag her multiple times a day to clean it up. We let her choose the colours and do the decorating. I'm not a huge fan of the pink walls, but it's what she wanted and hey, she's the one who has to live in it! I expect it to be outgrown in the near future, then the decorating can begin again! We've also decided to downsize her bed to a single to create more space in here. I think we're going to go with the Hemnes day bed from ikea, and matching dressing table.

It's a bit too busy for my liking. But she loves it. Jonah's room we decorated for him for his second birthday. This used to be Brendans "junk that doesn't have a home" room. Jonah was living in a tiny study, so we decided to build a big 6x6 shed for the junk, and move Jonah in here. It's still not completely finished. I'd like to get an expedit for his room too, and sort out his toy bins. He's outgrown most of the baby toys now.

I'll be back later with some more rooms, feel free to show me around your house today!

Bless

I came inside from getting a mountain of washing off the line, and couldn't find Jonah! He had tucked himself into my bed and fallen asleep! I try to get the kids to bed as early as possible on Wednesdays, so I can sit down in peace and watch my favourite show, Offspring. I really should wake him, as he won't sleep tonight if he sleeps for more than five minutes - but he looks too sweet!

Introductions..

Welcome to my first blog post! It will generally be about my family, and our day to day life! Pretty boring, huh?! These aren't terribly recent photos, but they're all I had saved to the iPad! I actually don't take as many photos as I should.. I actually don't even own a camera! I'm hoping that blogging with inspire me to start taking more. The kids are both growing so fast. If I blink I might miss it! This is Ruby:

Jonah:

And my partner, Brendan, and I.

We pretty much still look more or less the same!