Renovation Update

So many people have been keen to know the progress on the extension of our house. You can read snippets here, but thus far we have been pretty tight lipped. Something about making sure that the internet doesn't know we are doing it so that we have less of a chance of getting robbed in the process.

Anyway, we are nearing the end, so I've started trawling through photos that we took (systematically documenting every change seemed like a good idea at the time...) to find the best way to give people a snapshot of what has happened.

So here we go! Starting with a lovely big shot of our enormous back yard and what the house originally looked like. The bit on the right hand side where the roof slopes down was our existing laundry and second toilet, which were on a lower level that then house itself. That was demolished on day one and everything was built out on the same level as the house from there.

The children were easily entertained by the digger and construction that they could see from the back bedroom window. In the above photo, they are in the room on the far left of the house (the set of three windows). These windows got moved early on to the other side of the house because otherwise they would be looking straight out onto our new deck.

And at the end of week one, or maybe two, here is where we are! The back cladding is gone, the stumps are in, the foundations are laid. We can no longer use our back door.

The external wall frames did go up after this pretty quickly, and then the back of the house kind of sat there for what felt like a long time, because the roof trusses were getting made and were taking their sweet time doing it. Our builder was great though, and used the spare time to start re cladding the house at the front.

This is what the front of our house looked like:

With the renovation happening mostly at the back, we had relocated the trampoline (which I'm technically not supposed to use with out proper soft fall and spring protection) out to the front yard. The kids have loved it. Anyway, back to renovation talk.

That plain creamy stuff is actually made of asbestos, which is fine except if you break it off and crumble it up, it can kill you, so it's best to get rid of it. While we were getting the extension done it seemed like a good opportunity to do so. An expensive opportunity, but an opportunity none the less.

After the asbestos was gone (hallelujah!) the builders insulated and wrapped our house up in this attractive blue stuff before cladding it with some lovely weatherboard look-a-like cement fiber stuff. The insulation made the world of difference to the overall temperature of the house, which was super exciting because we don't have air conditioning.

And then, the trusses arrived and we retunred to the back of the house again! 

Just before Christmas the roof was on. It was pretty crazy to think from the first of November to mid December that so much had changed. What you see building before your eyes here is a laundry, toilet and second bathroom (essentially running down the right side of the house towards the yard). A living area with a bay window (straight out in the middle there), which has bi-doors out onto a large deck (left hand side of the house (where there is currently no roof)).

In this shot, you can still see the old "back wall" of our house is still existing in there. The builders had been so considerate of us and my work, and built all of this other stuff with the original house still intact. That wall stayed in until mid January, when the extension part of the house was all wrapped up and secure and it finally came time for it to go. 

We are really stoked with how things are going along so far, and excited to share some more of the renovation journey, though I suspect this is enough for one post. I feel it's important to mention though that this snapshot does not show how cramped things can be inside a house under renovation, and how the loss of easy yard access really impacted all of us, the girls and my work especially. I've spent the last three months essentially taking four children on excursions most days of the week. Some days we leave at 7:30 am or 8:00 and don't get home until 4:30 pm. Which is a really long day.

But, on the plus side, knowing that the house was going to get smaller before it got bigger, meant that I packed up a lot of kids toys in preparation. And I culled a lot on the way, not just toys, but other things as well. It's been really good to have a reason to do a thorougher clean out. I even did my material stash! I don't know that I'm up to holding things and seeing if it sparks joy, but I've definitely enjoyed the purge, and the kids have done really well with the lack of toys.

Seriously, I'm talking one tin of cars, a tub of duplo and a drawer of soft toys. Even their books got put away, and we have been reading about an eighth of their usual library. That's been the hardest part.

Anyway, I'll tell you more about the joys and tears of renovation, next time. Stay tuned!

She's Older Now

I didn't want to make a big deal about this, especially after seeing so many posts on Facebook in that first week of school. "Just like that he's in prep!", "Where did my baby go?",  "Looks so big in this uniform." Blah blah blah.

Sorry. I'm not trying to be negative about people celebrating their kids, but it was all just a bit same same. Did you not know that your child would one day reach an age where schooling would be the next step? I'm not exactly sure how it would take you by surprise.

Anyway. All that said, it feels wrong to not recognize in some way that Sophie too, has joined the ranks of school aged children. And I've had enough people ask me "how's she going?" not to let you know.

She's doing fine. School is hard. It's a change. It's exciting. It's lonely. It's fun. It's long. There is lots of sitting. It makes her tired. She's excited to go. She's made friends. Can't remember their names. Can't remember the teacher's names. She knows she loves Library day. And running. And that morning tea is not long enough.

All in all, she's doing fine and we couldn't be prouder. Nice one Sophie. May you always be as confident and thoughtful as you are now, and realize that every challenge is able to be overcome.

Tiger's Birthday

Is it going too far when you are celebrating birthdays for soft toys? I'm not sure, but I confess, it's been done.

Three years ago, Sophie's birthday present was to go and see The Tiger Who Came to Tea as a show based on the book which she loved. That same year, only about six weeks later, I made my very first stuffed toy (animal variety) the Tiger, which she loved and promptly called "Tiger".

Three years on, Tiger looks like he needs some major surgery to continue on with his life, and has in fact, already undergone some major surgery to keep him in his alive state. But Sophie continues to love him and assures me that he makes the best pillow and is just the right size to cuddle.

There has been requests to either fix him or to get a new tiger made, which I'll be honest, was a little horrifying to me. Replace Tiger? What is she thinking!? But she's got a point, even with the patching, I'm not sure he will last much longer.

Sophie often asks me how old Tiger is, and this year remembered that his birthday is in February. So we celebrated. We even had a cake, which Sophie choose after pouring over the Women's Weekly Birthday Cake Cookbook for an hour or so.

It sounds crazy, but it was fun. I doubt we would do it for almost any other toy, but Tiger is special and we were all happy to celebrate with him.

Wildlife

While our house has been undergoing some major changes in the recent months, we have had to spend a few nights over at my parents house for various reasons. One night, while eating dinner on my parents patio, I noticed a small mouse creep out of the garden and under a table. It quickly darted back, and I thought that was the end of it. We were, obviously, making loud noise, had the lights on etc, so we assumed it would wait until we were absent before appearing again.

But come out again it did. And it stayed out. It crept all over the patio for about three or four minutes before I decided I would catch that mouse.

It was so little that I just took a plastic cup that the girls had had some chalk in, and put it over the top. There was a little scuffle, but nothing undignified on my end (much to Steve's surprise). The mouse was caught.

Since I had caught it, I didn't want to let it go again. My parents would not be happy to know it was still in their yard. But neither did I want to instigate it's swift demise.

Since we had our stick insect with us, I figured that enclosure was as good as any for the mouse, and I promptly put it inside. We gave it a box to hide in and some food and it lived in there for half a week. Then I talked to a friend of mine who said that mice can actually eat insects, and I was suddenly afraid for Mary (our most recently surviving stick insect), and I relocated the mouse to my parents old fish tank.

After some discussion, we named the mouse Emily, though Sophie, who was strongly supporting the name Emma was convinced we were just saying her full name (Emma Leigh), rather than Emily. Tricky Tricky.

Emily lived with us in her fish tank for another two weeks until I cleaned it out one morning and accidentally put the cardboard house we had made for her too close to the drinking thing. She did some amazing climbing and escaped without us even realizing. Goodbye Emily.

The girls were pretty devastated when they found out, and wanted to conduct search parties. When we had convinced them she had probably gone outside (hopefully), they asked when we could get our next pet.

I'm a bit sad that these are the only photos we have of Emily, and that she was with us for such a short time. But I'm also glad that we didn't have to commit to looking after another pet, and doing arduous things like actually take her to the vet and find out if she (or he) had any diseases that could kill us. Whew.

Reading in 2019

Though we are only a month in, 2019 has seen some solid reading efforts already, and not just by me. I'm assuming that as the school/kindy term really kicks in this week, my reading time will decrease, but even so, I love that we are off to a good start.

Here's what I've read thus far:

Shadow in the North by Philip Pullman

Rebel of the Sands by Alwyn Hamilton

Book of Dust by Philip Pullman
Medusa's Butterfly by Simon Rae

The Reluctant Assassin: W.A.R.P. by Eion Colfer
The Hangman's Revoloution by Eion Colfer
Secret Star by Emma Carroll

Now, to the big news: we, as a family, have also read The Hobbit, by J.R.R. Tolkin.

I'll be honest, it was arduous. Almost excruciatingly painful, but we made it. Sophie and Rachel have been slowly graduating to longer books for some time now; even sometimes chapter books! We have some Roal Dahl books in rotation at the moment (The Magic Finger, Fantastic Mr Fox, Esio Trot, The Giraffe, the Pelly and Me, James and the Giant Peach, The BFG (gosh, I didn't realize there were so many until I started listing them!)), Charlotte's Web by E. B. White, and they also love the Ottoline Books, by Chris Riddle, which are an excellent halfway between longer illustrated picture books and chapter books.

So somewhere along the line, Steve says casually: "Maybe one day we can read you 'The Hobbit'." At which I protest, because, let's face it, it's The Hobbit, and in a word: Terrible. Much to my dismay, Sophie instantly wants to know why I don't like it. But, because I do love reading, I don't want to spoil it for her. I mean, there is a slim chance that somewhere down the line she will read it and maybe think it's passable. I can't take that away from her by telling her the truth straight up can I?

We explain to Sophie that for this reason, I will tell her why I don't like it, only after she herself has read it. Hearing this, Sophie begs us to read it straight away. Without delay. Despite our warnings that it is very long and could be boring. She would not be put off. We had to read it. Immediately.

And so we read it.

Steve and I took turns reading it aloud to the girls, and despite thinking that Steve would do most of the legwork here, I did end up reading a large chunk, because we were on holidays, and the girls think the best way to spend their time is by sitting and reading for hours on end. (Steve and I often come upon then in their room sitting together and leafing through well read books.) They are not wrong, though I do question their choice of book in this case.

Steve had a copy on the shelf, but we also managed to pick up a semi-illustrated version from the library which helped immensely (especially where Rachel was concerned). They loved the characters; elves, dwarves, hobbit and wizard. They thought that Gollum was hilarious for some reason, and spent a lot of the first half asking if the Dragon would show up soon. When Smaug did show up, they were pretty happy about him too, even though he is not a nice dragon.

At the end of it, I did get to tell Sophie why I think it's terrible, and I think she sees my reasoning. That said, she did love listening to the tale, even when the author got a bit waffle-y about things and distracted with scenery, rather than actually telling the story.

If you've never read The Hobbit, I'd advise you to skip it, but I do hope that this post about reading inspires you to pick up a book tonight. 

Hit it with a Hammer

Otherwise titled: Lessons with Dad.

I run a playgroup in our community on a Tuesday morning which includes a music session. Bear with me, I know it sounds totally unrelated to the title, but we will get there, I promise. We had been lugging out a big old school sound system thing every week, when I started to bring along our Bose speaker box instead. This was much easier, but I had to remember to take it home again.

Then we were luckily gifted a very similar speaker box, which worked great for about a month before it decided it wouldn't always work. I took it home wondering if we could fix it, but nothing could be done.

So Steve decided to hit it with a hammer. It was his way of showing the girls what was inside, and since it had no outside screws (the casing clipped on), there was no other way of getting inside.

I wish I had taken a before photo.

But the girls did have a great time smashing at it on the front steps. Again, we talked about correct tool use and safety. And found all sorts of interesting things on the inside.

Here they are pulling it apart with screw drivers now that the outer casing was destroyed. 

And here are all the interesting things that were on the inside! The most exciting bit was the magnets around the speakers themselves, but closely followed by the switch Rachel found on that electronic/computer card-y thing there.

Are you wondering what you could learn if you hit something with a hammer right now? So much fun learning in destroying something. Very cool.

Happy Birthday Sophie

We opted not to have a big party again this year, mostly because of the renovations, but also because they are exhausting. Instead, the girls and I hopped on the train on a Friday afternoon.

And went to visit Dad's work.

Honestly, that would have been the party there, the girls were so excited to be at Dad's work. They almost didn't want to leave. But we did, had some take away dinner and caught a City Cat back across the river to South Bank. 

We stopped in the rain forest for a quick bit of birthday cake.

And then went on to the big wheel.

This was also Sophie's birthday present from us. Every time we go to South Bank she asks about going on, and since she has everything a little girl could need and many of the things a little girl could want, it seemed much more sensible to have this be her present, than more stuff to clutter up the house.

She loved it.

We all did. 

We had a stop to play in the playground on the way back to the train station and the girls had a go with their first sparklers.

Still a little young maybe, but they did think it was pretty cool.

It was really nice to just have the time as a family celebrating our girl. The next day we took a batch of cupcakes (decorated by the girls) to Rocks Riverside Park and had a play with some friends. 

Again, nice and low key. The long summer days and the cool water were perfect for loads of playing and tired children at the end of it all.

Happy Birthday big girl. I look at you and know you are ready for the next adventure.

Steve's Turn

You might remember that because this wall in the dining room is about to be removed as part of our renovations, I took the opportunity with the girls to add some creative art work on it. Yesterday was Steve's turn. Oh, so much delight! 

I had been to a professional development seminar back in October that talked about how kids need danger and risks, all of which, I'm totally on board with. One of the things that the speaker said though, was that kids need access to tools, and not just play tools, but real tools. Real, sharp, dangerous cutting tools. Power tools. This is a little trickier when you have the age range that I have, so while I'm on board, I struggle a bit about how to implement it in a safe way.

Enter Steve, a wall that won't be there much longer and a few hours spare on the last day of holidays.

 

They got the tools out, talked about what to do and how to do it. There was knocking on the wall and listening for the studs (something I find so hard!) and deciding where to put what. 

Steve had them each drill (with assistance) a practice hole first. They screwed into them and then unscrewed as well, for practice with the screw drivers. 

They used the spirit level too, and then screwed a bit of wood to the wall. The girls thing it's a balancing beam from the ladybug to the butterfly in the sky. Here they are checking to see if it can be pulled off, or if it's on tight. 

After that, Steve got them to use the staple gun (again assisted) to staple on some streamers (ripped strips of paper). He talked to them about how it's similar to the nail gun that the builders have been using for the renovation. So perfect. 

The girls were super proud of their work. 

Thanks Steve for having the patience to go through each step with the girls and giving them this opportunity. Love it. 

Owie Dolls: Christmas Presents 2018

The girls did get handmade presents this year! I can't remember when, but at least two years ago now, I made an expensive spur of the moment purchase of an Owie Doll Kit from Take and Make. You can't get the kits any more, but Owie Dolls are designed by my fav blogger Leir from Ikat Bag, and you can still get the pattern for the dolls from her website.

Anyway, it was so expensive (shipping to Australia makes me cry every time), that I almost couldn't bring myself to actually make it when it came. It was probably some form of denial that I had actually purchased something so expensive, and then paid even more expensive shipping costs. Sigh. So I put it in the cupboard telling myself I'd wait until the girls were older and make them for Christmas then.

Hello 2018. Busiest year we've had yet, just when I thought nothing could top 2017 and the Big Travels we had then. This year, we've been to Bundaberg seven times total, talked to builders, planners and who knows who else to start a renovation on our house, went camping for a long weekend with friends, celebrated 10 years of marriage (with a trip to Cairns!), Steve went to San Francisco for work, Sophie lost five teeth, Rachel got our first pets and I started looking after even more children. I feel a little bit like this doll after all of that.

Christmas rolls around and we are ready for a break. And of course, three weeks before Christmas I decide that this is the year to make the girls their Owie Dolls. Never before have I felt the time pressure of a deadline, even when I made these Bags from Santa two days before Christmas in 2014. Obviously they were much less involved. Owie Dolls were an entirely new level of sewing, even if I did have some soft toy sewing experience up my sleeve.

Finish them I did though, thanks in part to my parents who took the girls for half a day so I could finish all of the extra bits. Whew.

These dolls have short hair, because I couldn't be bothered making long hair, and I also wanted some gender diversity in the dolls we have. Their heads/faces seem a little wonky to me, probably because I can't sew straight even after all these years, but the girls don't mind a bit. They love them. Especially the bandaids, that they can Velcro on and off to their hearts content.

They have leg and arm bandages, an arm sling, head bandage, eye patch, reversible hospital outfits (including modesty pants), and slippers. So far they have been in numerous accidents and needed lots of care and attention and it looks like they will be getting loads more. I'm glad the expensive purchase was worth it in the end.