A diary of our family's house building project in the Blue Mountains, NSW, Australia. Also my ponderings on family life, living with Asperger's Syndrome, running an ebay business & a place to share my photography.

Friday 1 January 2010

Christmas 2009

Well it's the new year & I haven't even done a Christmas post yet! Better get on with it!

We had a very busy month leading up to Christmas.

Kim worked his butt off getting part of our deck built so we could eat outside. Our decking is recycled ironbark, so it had to de-nailed, ran through the thicknesser & then nail holes pre-drilled, it is just too hard to nail through. All this over 3 of our hottest days this year, high 30s every day. Then the change came as he was finishing & the fog rolled in.




He looks completely pissed off here but he was actually just really, really tired!


He made a new table top for my 10+ year old outdoor table out of ironbark floorboards :









It was smoking with the heat of drilling an umbrella hole.








& whipping up a dolly's change table for Ivy xmas present.



Not to mention spending several evening in a row helping me & Brody put this together:


Finn's present that we picked up at a garage sale, only all the bits were mixed with 100s of others in a huge box full of Lego. Amazingly, we completed it with no missing bits. Then we pulled it apart for him to build (with help!).

We baked several times & made Christmas cookies & white Christmas in our lovely BIG kitchen ( :



I've had Ivy's vintage apron put away since she was a baby, I was delighted to pull it out & put it to use this year!



















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Christmas Eve, decorating cookies with Auntie Renie, she dunked her whole face into the bowl of 100s & 1000s, I think she knew Renie wouldn't get cross at her ( :




We got dressed up & went to the kindy Christmas party.






We bought a big Christmas tree



and decorated it










my lovely decoration from my photography forum friend Trish in the US ( :
















Uncle Pete & Auntie Renie arrived on Christmas Eve afternoon, Renie 5 months pregnant with a little cousin for Finn & Ivy ( :



We hung out together


Hung up the stockings




and Ivy decided that she needed to call Santa to make sure he didn't forget them & knew the way to our new house! It was one of the cutest things I'd ever seen ( :










We put cookies out for Santa.



Finn was out of control with excitement by this stage hence the lack of photos of him, he evades the camera & doesn't sit still for 10 seconds. Not to mention the effect all the special food has on him, he becomes totally crazy!


Christmas Morning:


presents galore!!




Transformers for Finn (a new obsession)


a new 2 wheel bike for Ivy!







a big collection of Imaginext for Finn, he loves this stuff!!






A 4V lithium ion drill for Finn. What, too young for real tools?? He doesn't think so (& for $10 at a garage sale who cares).


Ivy with her dolly change table in her new princess dress.


emptying stockings with Chelsea



testing the drill in the house studs. He looks bored but he was over the moon, he doesn't show emotion readily!




We had crepes with blueberries, mango, yogurt & maple syrup, & of course champagne & orange juice for breakfast.







At lunch I asked Ivy to set the table, just to keep her busy & she loves to help. She put a big row of spoons one side of the table & forks on the other!



The kids were losing the plot by lunch time so this was the best photo I got, oh well, we all have the lovely memories. All in all it was a lovely Christmas period, my most relaxed in many, many years. The afternoon was spent just hanging about, chatting & relaxing. The kids played with their toys, & with Pete & Renie of course, they love them so much ( :
We gave Pete & Renie a port-a-cot & baby clothes for Christmas!
Brody wasn't with us this year, he went to Peat's Ridge music festival with Mario.
Chelsea was only here for a short time in the morning & then had the rest of her day with Daniel's family. So it was very quiet for us but really nice.

We have a very busy January ahead of us! We have some hefty bills to catch up on so we're selling all sorts of things on ebay, Kim has a couple of weeks work lined up, as well as a couple of weeks work in Sydney in February. We are then hoping to take a week's holiday. We haven't been away anywhere for SO, SO long & we get very itchy feet! We have a cheap holiday rental lined up at The Entrance, very close to the beach, so that will be novel! Finn & Ivy have spent next to no time at the beach, ever! We're not sure if much will happen on the house over the next month but that's OK, we're comfortable & happy.

I'm spending a lot of spare time on my photography & will soon be starting a new blog that will be purely for displaying my photos that are not house & family related. I have a couple of photo shoots lined up as freebies for friends but I'm planning on setting up my business website by the middle of the year & hoping to steer away from ebay & more in photography toward the latter half of this year, something that I'm very excited about ( :

Happy New Year everyone!!
2009 was a lot better than 2008, I'm sure 2010 will be even better again!!

PS please don't be shy to leave a comment, I always love hearing from my readers ( :







3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Everything looks absolutely amazing you are doing such a fantastic job with the house, I have not popped in for a while so It was really nice to see all the beautiful pictures, new deck, new car, new year!!! Ivy and especially Finn look relaxed and happy, I really hope you get the opportunity to go away and have a bit of a break. Alison

Steph said...

Loved all the pics toni...sounds like you had a wonderful holiday and are ready for a fanastik 2010! Much love to you and yours my friend...

Carolyn said...

What amazing photos.. Pete looks so grown up.. Been so so so so long since I have seen him.. Your kids are super cute, and your house is looking fantastic.
I hope one day I can come and visit you guys ...
carolyn :)
(cousin)

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