Our house.....

....is a very, very, very  fine house.

Well.... kinda sorta. The previous tenants it seems did not care for the house and maintenance was not a concern to them. So what should be a very, very, very fine house is somewhat missing  some love and care... Enter the W.A.lkabout Crew!!! We, or at least definitely, I LOVE this house and all its quirks and faults.  But enough of that, time for piccys :D Get your cuppa, since it turned out longer than i thought...

Let's start at the start - always a good place



The Garden Bed beside the driveway


When we moved in, ALL the gardens and yard were very overgrown, so much, that you couldn't see the rock wall, and you definitely couldn't see the little steps leading into the garden bed!! (near the carport post)
at the back of the carport - perhaps you can just see a shiny reflection? - is our pizza oven!! LOL, we have not used it for pizza yet...but it works well as an incinerator for burning the mountains of cardboard we had (and still have :/ )

I seem to have misplaced some of my purpose taken photos of the house, so I'll have to substitute with just the regular ones, but hey that's "keeping it real", which seems to be a favourite catch phrase in the blogging world :D

this is a little, very empty garden by the front door.

*sigh* after a VERY bad/sad/overwhelmingly frustrating day for me (not today), Samuel tried to help by 'fixing' the reticulation... as you can see he didn't succeed, and managed to soak Sophie in the process :/ His heart was in the right place though <3

To the right of this photo is some more of the front garden, again when we moved in it was a jungle!! and Samuel and Jamie managed to get it looking nice again.

apparently the very first tenant, put in a heap of roses.... well we have found 4 separate bushes that have survived, so we'll see if we can keep it that way. At the end of the garden there, you can see our neighbours driveway. The children introduced themselves when we first moved in, and it  turns out that he is the pastor for the local Christian church nearby, BUT in his "former life" he was an Irish Street fighter!! His wife is a retired teacher, but together they run a "private school" through their church using the ACE curriculum I'm a little weirded out by the ''school" philosophy to misbehaviour, but I'll spare you the details since this post is about my house:)
Here is another shot of the same garden, different angle.

My bedroom is behind/beside me here. So back on to the front door and in we go...

and yes that photo frame is STILL empty, even though i got it for my 29th or possibly even 28th birthday! on the right wall there, is our beloved snow globe/stubby cooler collection that we are still slowly adding too. Though I'm hoping it is only in this temporary location until we decide on something permanent to house them in (I'd like those shelves back for the little girls) Above them are our 3 clocks, with QLD time, WA time and NZ time.

To the left is the lounge..hmmm, now do i show you the messy one with the children sprawled about watching the "box" or do i go with the tidier version....

Tidier version it is, since i fortunately noticed an inappropriate view of my daughter's underpants :/

Yes, we decided tohave our Christmas decorations up, and even the tree after my post about it (oh, and some more empty photo frames) because the children have their own feelings about the whole Christmas thing, some very valid thoughts i hadn't considered and asked me to put it up. but some more on that another post. Through the doorway  is my GINORMOUS bedroom, I really wanted to put our school stuff in there, but alas, Jamie wasn't keen on the idea. Up the step, we have our library, which, since our books seem to be breeding, needs to be expanded. Hmmm, this reminds me they still need more sorting after our move.



Not a great picture, but you get it...right?
The Christmas tree is now in front of this window

So next up is my, as you can see, very messy bedroom. Taken from the ensuite door - or should i call it the main bathroom, since it is bigger than the 'main' LOL. Beside it is the WIR which is literally, a walk-in robe.... it even has a desk in there!!

well at least my bed is half made :)
Beside the treadmill are about 5 moving boxes with
 various and random School supplies and manipulative's

Don't you love my parquetry floor?? I do for now, but judging from the coldness from Spring and even now in Summer it is going to be FREEZING in Winter!! Brrrr, i almost put our 2nd quilt back on last night, it got down to 13 degrees i think..in SUMMER!! Through the glass door takes you to a little patio, remember the one i told you about with the pond Samuel found?? Lovely :D He has grand plans for this area.

 So a 180 degree turn will have you at the 'schoolroom' door. Hmm again, which version should i show you...



come in, come in, we won't bite :)

I'm loving how much built in storage this room has, where Samuel is, there is a desk/TV unit, next to the fire place * love!!* and at the far end you can see - where i am sitting as i type this - Lily's one and only window. I do wonder why another wasn't put in either of the two outside perimeter walls?? Have you noticed something odd about our schoolroom??
HAHA I'm not going to tell you until the end  Nyeh nyeh :-P

Up the step takes you to the kitchen/dining area. As you may have noticed, our big table is in the front room with the lounge, because the fridge would not fit in the fridge space, and we can't really justify buying another fridge, even if we were able to sell this one. Have you priced a fridge lately!!! OH MY GOSH!!!



Ignore, my badly 'installed' phone cabling ;)
But you can adore my shiny new dishwasher,
you can adore the not so shiny one at the sink also if you like :D

Oops, got myself off track there, So because the fridge doesn't fit, it needs to be in the dining area, which in turn means the table doesn't fit. So in the meantime the children and I eat at the little picnic table. I have a 2nd hand one lined up on Gumtree just as soon as they give us our bond back from the Hocking house - yes we are still waiting nearly 9 weeks later -  there have been some disagreements on the condition of the house :/
Through the left doorway is back into the lounge, behind me is to the childrens bedrooms,

Samuel's to the right

His bed is missing because the previous night (12/12/11), we had a huge lightning storm which caused his window to leak again all over his bed,(like the day we moved in) it was so bad this time, that it also came through the front door frame and *sob *sob, all over our library books!

Thankfully they dried well and surprisingly flat. I was on the phone with the insurance company straight away and the books would have been covered by the contents policy, but the excess was $500!, I'm not sure if there were $500  worth of books? $300 maybe? thank goodness it doesn't matter. Lesson learned. No matter how convenient it is, never leave books or anything important for that matter, near the front door! :) I think I also learned, that I don't think the landlord will be very forth coming with compensation to us from any damage caused from the fault of the house :-/

So back to the hall way, opposite Samuel is Kaytie,

a VERY deceiving photo! - normally you cannot see the white rug
for the amount of clothes strewn across the top of it :)
Love our awesome name flags from  the wonderful Melissa

At the end of the hall is Sophie and Claire. For the longest time they were sharing the same single bed, à la Little House on the Prairie,  but recently we were able to gain possession of a RED bunk bed for the very reasonable price of FREE. Claire's favourite colour is red.  The little girls 'moved camp' with the intention of turning it into a 'ladybug' bed with the help of Grandad's black circle stickers from the lightbars . For a while they were still sharing the bottom bunk, but after some midnight hokey pokey from Sophie, Claire has had enough and moved to the top bunk.

An amazing amount of storage in this room also, yet you would not now it from the quantity of clothes and toys that are daily across this floor :/. I believe it would have been the Master bedroom before all the extensions were completed.

I might stop here for a second, and get a cuppa, what do you think??? Meet you back here in 5 mins???

I'm back how about you?? did you have a bikkie too? i didn't :( we don't have any :C

Anyway, at the opposite end of the hallway is Lily's room, oh? you want to see the tiny "main" bathroom??

well if you insist



see the bath tub taps on the wall??? weird huh?
there is no bath tub, in case you hadn't spotted it.
oh and in case you were wondering,
 there is only one toothbrush in the holder
because all the TB's are in the laundry
since these taps need replacing and run constantly unless
tightly turned off, which the children are not capable of

So as i was saying at the opposite end of the hall is Lily's room, Still filled with pandas :D just more...



her view back into the 'schoolroom'



In between Lily's and the other bedrooms are the laundry and toilet, but I'll spare you those photos.

Outside is my favourite part of the house, even though I rarely seem to be out there.

Oh I'll show you inside the shed, now that Jamie has been home for more than 2 days :) It's not quite so bare.

Jamie built himself (and Samuel)

the work bench in the middle one day,

while Samuel put his birthday workbench together.

Outside the shed is our flat lawn (and my wonderful full size clothesline!!)



oh, you can't even see my clothesline :(, it's off to the left near the shed.

now turning to the right...


and from the other side of the raised section....

and now looking back towards the house...

and last but not least, the section of the yard  (behind the shed) we have not dared to venture into often, since it is an overwhelmingly big job....


The Chook Yard <3 can't wait for when we do fix it though <3




you can't even SEE the proper chook yard at this point!!

we are inside the fence now, do you see it yet?? nope, not on the right there.

Here it is, tucked in the corner, hiding behind the overgrowth...
*sigh, see what i mean about a big job!!
It will be worth it in the end, especially with the cost of eggs!!
I don't enjoy paying $5 a dozen for around minimum 4 dozen a week!!

So that's a tour of our new home ( see I'll call this place home - not Hocking ), I hope you liked it, Come back soon ya hear :)

OX(OX)oxoxoxoxox
B(J)slkcs

Oh yes, did you figure it out?? what's weird about our schoolroom??

There are no ceiling lights!!! I bet you scrolled back up to look right?
there is a small down light over each desk area and that's it?? As i mentioned previously Jamie's workmate grew up in this house before his parents sold it to our current landlord, and he says there were lights as they had a pool table in there. So it is a mystery to us and the owner as to what happened to them. The owners swear there were some in when they bought the place...
This also explains partly why we eat dinner at the little picnic table. but with sunset creeping closer to around 7 :30, my 'excuse' of it being to dark is fading fast and we will probably need to pack up the school table instead....well at least until we get our 'new to us' table ;p

OXO B

Clever Samuel..

or should I say muscle-man Samuel.....

I smile everytime i watch it :D

 

He tried out the 360 degree bike at Scitech the other day at the Scitrekkers (free! woohoo!!) Xmas party, He said it was, and I quote "like riding in 8th gear.... in 8th gear..... in 8th gear on a regular bike. Phew that was REALLY  hard!!!"   Can you hear the staff member encouraging him? Do you see Lily, Kaytie and a friend over on the right side?? He (and I) were very impressed, in fact so were most people watching as he had people congratulating him on his achievement for the rest of the evening   :)  We had a great night and despite the cafe owner downstairs predicting 700 people that night :-o, it was wonderfully managed, with only around 200 max?? I think I've been there with it busier during the day.

Our new house photos are coming I promise.....

If I don't get back here before, Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays to everyone....

 I should be back soon though :D

OX(OX)oxoxoxoxox
B(J)slkcs

oh woe is me.

I have been putting off doing a blog post until i could do a proper house one like i promised. but there have been so many things going on that i've let go by because i'm stubborn and wanted to do the house 1st. And also at the moment, I am still (6 weeks later) trying to get our bond back from the previous real estate. I hope to get it all sorted soon, but in the mean time i have to let things slide :(


I will update again as soon as i can, and hopefully in the new year things will be off to a better start???

OX(OX)oxoxoxoxox
B(J)slkcs





My Dad and the Crew at the beach 2 days ago.



I've had a moving experience.........

.......Literally!!!


I have been out of the blogging world for well over a month and soooooo much has happened in that time!! but the busiest, most time consuming of all those, was that we have moved house!!!....again! you'd think i would have learnt my lesson only 12 months ago!  Those of you on facebook with me will know most of the 'fun' we've been having.  OK, it hasn't been all that bad, but  completely understand why it is high on the list of stressful things to do!..

But anyway, I'll fill you in on the details another time, just a quick update and some quick photos. :D


1st up, in early October, we went to the Perth Royal Show, must admit i was a little disappointed, but it could well of been my own fault, as while i thought I'd planned well,  i was completely unprepared....but i stuck to my budget. but more on that another time.

Samuel's birthday is in 2ish weeks and i know how difficult i can be with present suggestion ideas, but this time  i can be upfront and say he would absolutely love...(and wet his pants over!!) Bunning's gift vouchers!! Our new house has a shed...a H.U.G.E. shed and you'll see in the photos, his space is a mite empty :D.


now for our new house, a long story for another time, but basically, we moved to "the Hills"  in Mt Helena to be precise, though it is around 40 mins from our old house and friends, we are closer to the airport, which means not quite so early for Jamie's airport drop offs. plus it is a rural area, so the children have a yard, so they are ecstatic!! so enough of that... some photos below.


last thing i can think of, Jamie has been home and gone again this morning, so he got to spend his last two days moving house and cleaning :/ oh well, he's gone back to work on a public holiday, so double time and a  half, i think he said his penalty rates are, can't be sad about that ;p

OK photo time now...(courtesy of my birthday Prezzie, a Sony Bloggie, Thank you heaps Robyn!! - I love it!!!)  

The Front Door

only part of the backyard :)

Samuel and Jamie's pride and joy......very empty.......for now :D

We had a few little surprises on moving in day...which by the way, i forgot to mention, was Wednesday. so now you know what  i actually should be doing instead of blogging :-O 

First surprise, under a mountain of weeds, Samuel discovered this....and spent the rest of the day working on it....

I think he did a pretty good job of it considering we had no idea it was even there!!, He also figured out how to get the little pump working, so i have the tranquil sounds of trickling water outside my bedroom..... or the strange urge to pee every time i go to my room :D

the other little surprise, also involving water coincidentally, was not so pleasant, lol and also involved Samuel, funnily enough......

this is Samuel's bedroom window,

 and was fixed the very next day...

at least we hope it was, we haven't had any rain since

Well boxes are calling me to unpack them....or children??? i dunno, something is calling me :D
Well hopefully next time i can show you my house...hmmm a bit of  Déjà vu going on  , hopefully i won't repeat history and fob you off for a few more posts like last time :D

OX(OX)oxoxoxoxox
B(J)slkcs

It's been...swell

So as most everyone knows, i had my wisdom teeth out Monday just gone.

Was a minor horror story.
I chose to have them out via a local anaesthetic only, because, 1) the head dentist was unavailable for up to 2 weeks and we'd have to book hospitals etc and 2) i didn't want to fork out $1000 odd dollars for an anaesthetist to come to the surgery.

So we had the appt, and turns out i have a low/high tolerance for the anaesthetic because they needed gallons of it for me to go numb and it also wore off rather quick and needed a few top ups through out the procedure.

Then... she could only get 3 of my teeth out! we had to go back in 3 hrs later for the head dentist- who wasn't supposed to be available?- to yank out the last one. it was mighty stuck! at one point i was convinced my nostrils would come out also!!! The head dentist - Alex - did nothing for the fear factor caused by his profession! he was quite stroppy - he got cranky at the dental assistant because she changed her gloves, because she didn't want to put blood on my face, and even had a go at me, because i was making noises because i could feel stuff!! sheesh!

but out it came (though i think he chipped some enamel? :/) and along with some of my jawbone i have them as 'trophies' hmmmm i wonder what the tooth fairy will give me??

I'm going to throw in a warning here for you....i AM going to put in a photo of my toofy pegs so you can choose not to look if you like.  I will post it as the last one even though it makes sense to put it here :D


I am also - must still be affected my the pain medication! - going to show how swollen i got - it actually got a little worse the next day, but has gone done considerably now :) I go back on Tuesday to have the stitches removed. And i sooooo cannot WAIT!!! they are driving me batty!! they are on the side of my gums, so i can feel them ALL.THE.TIME!!! ugh!

We have been house hunting again, as we want to move from this house, we have found a few and have been looking far and wide. We just looked at one today, and it was the very 1st time i've regretted the truck being so big. this is the first house we have looked at and actually applied for. We are hoping the owner will be open to our proposal... cross your fingers for us :D

Possibly the link for it might work?  our new home in Yanchep??
I have been driving everyone mad i think posting all my favourites on facebook :)

Ok are you ready.....

Me first......

at the moment it looks like i've not cleaned my face properly
 after a messy meal as bruising has come up all
 yellowed around my mouth  :/

Ok eyes shut for the squeamish!!  .....

see the 5th smaller piece??  that's part of my jawbone! a part that they saved at least,
they pulled out a fair few chunks i think!! 

Ok you can open your eyes now!!
Jamie is still home, he goes back to work next friday, We are postponing my birthday lunch until his next R&R, but even that may get post poned again because i'd much rather we were movng instead!! :)
So happy 30th birthday to me for tomorrow. Say. Maybe Jamie will buy me that iPad afterall my suffering and sacrificing..... ;P lol  I will have to come back later and add in the photo of the flowers he bought me!! 30 Gerberas - he may have started something now,as he got me 29 gerberas for last year's birthday :)

Thank you all for your well wishes and thoughts.
Till next time
OXOXoxoxoxoxox
BJslkcs

Well I've been in denial haven't I...

I'll admit now, though it took for me to read it on a friends facebook status for me to believe it...
we've all had the flu...

The children and I  have spent the last week huddled in blankets or sprawled lifeless over the couch or floor, we've lived on barely made peanut butter sandwiches and biscuits.

Sunday night after the Medieval festival, we came home and Lily went down first, Monday morning Samuel and Kaytie were down for the count too.Wednesday It was 6 for 6! WOW I have never in my memory felt so awful....EVER!! to be honest i think i can honestly say until this week i've never had the flu if this is what it's like!!  Tuesday afternoon I reluctantly dragged the children to the corner shop where they sat listlessly in the car while i raced around getting the essentials. it's a good thing i did it then as i could barely move come Wednesday!

Needless to say we have not done a second of schoolwork, we've watched hours of mind numbing TV - did you know ABC 2/3/4 runs ALL day! you could plonk your toddler in front of the box and they can watch endless shows from around 6am until 7:00pm!! crazy!! and there is a huge mess all over the house.

You know i would have much more preferred for me to get sick first, so i would have the energy to tidy up properly before Jamie comes home on Monday.  That's right you read properly. Jamie has been told to cut this shift short, because they don't want him doing long shifts, so he wasn't going to be home for my birthday after all. But he decided to take holidays so he will be home for 18 days instead :)

And since he is going to be home for an extended period, we have decided that now is the best time to sort out my wisdom teeth.... so don't expect any photos of me from my birthday as my appointment is the 13th....
Jamie's the superstitious one not me.....right?

I'm going to head back to my little cave under my blanket on the couch as my panadol is starting to wear off again and it's all getting a little foggy ;)

OX(OX)oxoxoxoxox
B(J)slkcs

Medieval Moments....

So how did you spend your Sunday?

I spent about half of mine driving and the other half walking :)

The children and I along with another HS family, woke our tired sleepy children at around 5am and bundled them into the car for a 3hr drive to Balingup for their annual Medieval Carnivale  It was a good thing I was following, as  "Serena" our GPS, was up to her usual tricks....

But we did eventually get there and a great time was had by all. :)

We did get some head turners though, as the other family we went with were our new homeschool friends with 6 children...and with Jamie being away at work....11 children aged from 2 - 13. Three adults, 2 of which were the Mums....well i can only imagine what thoughts would have gone through passers by ;p

Samuel discovered just how heavy chain mail can be...

We watched the Irish fighting the Irish....

the Irish won by the way ;p

The Royal Parade

The sign seems a bit redundant...

d'uh, we KNOW there were no cars in medieval times!! ;p


You see Samuel over there? I swear he thought he was there alone!
He was #11 in the headcount EVERY TIME     grrrrr!

It even blew smoke!!!
Not sure what the brightly coloured roosters behind it are about though??

Eeeeewwww!  I have to wonder how many little
kids had nightmares after meeting this pair??
Are they even in the right time period???

And can you spot the odd one out??

Kaytie really wanted to have her photo with the princesses and missed her first chance. So after the parade she worked up the courage to ask. The redheaded princess at the front said yes and she slipped up there, meanwhile i was trying to get a good shot, and could see someone 'professional' was also trying to get a shot... I sooooo should have got out of the way and let him take it....NOBODY realised she was there, and everyone no doubt wondered what the 'crazy lady' was doing reaching up into their stand, well they all laughed with surprise when a little 6 yo climbed down the steps :D At least she was matching in her purple shirt   ;p
 PS I never realised Medieval princesses had lip piercings. Did you?

Well that's about all the photos i took. But we did soooo much more, i found some great books to add to our ever growing library. I almost, nearly possibly desperately, wanted too, to buy the whole set of Asterix comics for Samuel, but at $20 a pop, even with a promised discount, i thought better of it :)  We learnt some great stuff and would have liked to have gone on the Saturday, especially for the Saturday night, for the "Dragon Burning"
The children had a camel ride each, I am waiting on a video to be emailed through kindly taken by our friends. They also had a turn at 'crossbow shooting' at some wooden soldiers. There were free Celtic face painting - though we avoid face painting after an 'incident' in 2007! (read as a 2nd chicken pox infection!!) There were drumming workshops, Celtic dancing, all sorts of performances through out the day and a few other things we didn't get to do and see. Oh well there is always next year, though we have heard there may be a bigger one, by different people in March!! Maybe we can drag Jamie along if he's home LOL  so as not to cause gossip again ;D

It was an awesome day out and extremely cost effective as children under 12 were free. I bet they regretted that when they saw 11 children wandering up to the gates with only 3 adults between them  LOL. It was very family friendly also, though a few of the knights seemed to forget that with their antics after defeating their opponent :/ I am also thankful it was a winter event as A) it would have been AWFUL for the people wearing full costume- corsets and petticoats included! and B) I think if it had of been Summer, we would have seen a lot more 'busty wenches' and inappropriately dressed fairies :S 

All the children behaved impeccably, considering how much they had to walk, and how many exciting things were available for purchase. Speaking of money (sort of) I was introduced to a neat website via our HS friends. It is called Zefty  It's an online virtual bank, where you, the parent, are the bank manager/teller/atm.
you can set up allowance/pocket money accounts with 'direct debit' weekly amounts or credits into their 'account' or you can 'deposit' into it dependant on their chores done. There is no actual real money whizzing about cyberspace, and the children are unable to make an actual withdrawl without you, but they can print out a cheque if they require real money, which you then cash for them and adjust their balances. I would consider giving my crew pocket money just to use this website lol :) it is also available as an iphone/ipad/itouch app. for when you are out and about....now if i only HAD an iphone/ipad/itouch to use it with..... ;p lol.

We set off for the long drive home after stopping in at the local info. centre for our obligatory purchases... i was disappointed to find they had sold out of stubbie coolers :( and had to settle for a magnet.


"Serena" was not over her mood from that morning...

Huh??

eh??

Well it's a good thing I knew my way home!!!

But we made it home safely, but woke up this morning with the 3 eldest children sick with fevers and nausea :( (they didn't eat anything at the fair, we packed lunches in the camp fridges.) I guess 'time travel' doesn't suit them ;p
Claire and Sophie on the other hand made up for them and destroyed the house faster than i was able to keep up with them :S Then again, maybe they did the normal amount of Tag Team Terror, and i just didn't have the extra 3 pair of hands to help??

and ....
So humbly craving the continuance of your honorable favor towards me, and th'eternal establishment of your happiness, I humbly take leave.

B(J)slkcs
OX(OX)oxoxoxoxox