open inspection

What a busy weekend!
Thanks to Rachel having our girls for the day we managed to get so much done around the house on Saturday.
Finally got the office all tidied up, painted the peeling window sill in the bathroom, scrubbed the inside of the bath (gratuitous plug for Chux Magic Eraser!), sugar soaped all the walls, doors and cupboards, cleaned windows inside and out, ripped in to the front yard, mowed evrything in sight, cleared everything out from under the pergola, dusted all the timber venetians, scrubbed oven and then swept, dusted, vacuumed, wiped anything else that was left!
The house looks great :)
We managed to sneak in for a Devonshire Tea on one of many jaunts to the hardware store, which was lovely. We also can now use a key to unlock the front door - only cost us $21 and about 12 minutes....what took us so long!?

Today was the moment of truth and we hung out at the park and spied on all the people coming to the open. There were 4 families all up, 2 of them were in and out within moments, one older couple stayed for the whole half hour.

The real estate agent mentioned that the two families said there was 'too much work' to be done, but the older couple were very, very keen. The real estate agent was very impressed with the effort we had put in to tidying the place up which was nice. The first time he saw our place it was a real mess, the office was chock a block full of crap and the outside was feral.....

Lester came to visit today. Ella has always adored him, but today was Charlotte's day for following her 'Gampa' around. Everything that happened she had to run and show or tell Lester. It was very cute, and Lester was chuffed.

Charlotte is going through an hilarious stage now where if either her or Ella hurts herself then she comes and gets us and shows us a slow motion re-enactment of how it happened accompanied by a running commentary 'Ella down cry ow' Very funny stuff. The total winner was last week there was a HUGE huntsman spider on the outside of the kitchen window. Thank goodness Raff was still home!
He sprayed it and of course it ran and dropped and then died.
Charlotte came dashing inside telling me 'Daddy spider down' and then she lay spread-eagled on her back with her legs in the air and her eyes closed. I was wetting myself laughing, she is such a crazy card.

Though, Rachel said they struggled to get a smile out of her on Saturday, she can be so serious. She told us all about her day, and seemed to be quite impressed with Paul. I think it had never occurred to her that her cousins had a Dad, too.

Mum - went in to the bakery today and everyone says "HI!"

thoughtful

Rachel and I caught up for a coffee on Monday morning almost child-free (2 at school, one at kindy, 2 at childcare and one asleep in the pram)
When I left there I had to go straight to pick up Ella from kindy. As we are driving home Ella asks me what I did while she was at kindy, so I told her I went to the gym, hung up some washing and then met Rachel for a coffee. She asked why I met Rachel for a coffee, I explained that we just wanted to catch up for a chat blah blah.
She then comes out with 'Mum, you guys are doing so well keeping an eye on each other while your mum is away on holidays. I'm proud of you'

All together now, awwwwwww, ain't she sweet?

hello helloo...anyone out there?

Very quiet out there in Blog-world.....
I'm sure everyone is just so busy having loads of fun.

Well, our exciting news this week is that we have put our house on the market.
Professionals
It was all kind of spur of the moment. Obviously it is something that we have talked about on and off over the last couple of years, but the opportunity arose so we just did it.
Our first open inspection is next Sunday - I feel like we have a million things to do before then!!

We have been checking out opens and this week I have seen inside about 15 houses. It is quite amazing the variance in what the same amount of money can buy .....
We have a fairly long list of 'things' that are important to us in a home, and today I found the house that had all those things!

Here it is!
The photos make it look far uglier than reality - think it must be their furniture ;)

Here is our 'must have' list!

- Fully fenced
- Low maintenance gardens
- Undercover parking
- Shed to store everyone elses worldy belongings!
- Built in robes to most bedrooms
- 3 bedrooms plus office
- As little carpet as possible
- Gas hot water/cooking
- No ugly cutains - prefer timber blinds
- Nice clean house - I have seen some absolute shockers!
- Decent heating and cooling
- Pleasant looking kitchen with cupboard space and walk in pantry
- Room for the piano
- Walking distance to street or school

So this house had it all plus a rainwater tank and some vegie garden beds and security roller shutters on all windows (that might stop the stupid 5:45am wake-ups!!)
Raff hasn't seen it yet, and it has only just gone on the market this week, so I am thinking we may have to be quick.
We did have a larger budget in mind, but Raff spoke to the bank and due to being self-employed our borrowing capacity is only 80% of purchase price, as opposed to 95% that the majority of people get.

Today I looked at 5 different properties. I cannot believe the state of one house in particular, it is empty and the previous owners didn't even vacuum it. Let alone repair the broken slate, torn flyscreens and filthy toilets. Really disgusting. It had a pool in the back yard that was just trashed. Unbelievable.

Exciting times.....

Hot.

Very hot today.
We were at nanna's early, Rachel had to accompany Paul to his hearing at 9:30, so we met at Nanna's at 9am and she headed off, while Nanna, me and the 6 kids headed over to the playground.

The kids were perfect. Nanna and I just sat in the shade watching the kids play. Bethany and Ryan carried Sophie up, down and around. Sophie loved it of course. My heart was in my throat the whole time, as they look super confident doing it, but I am unsure what Rachel 'allows', so rained on their parade with constant 'Maybe you shouldn't be doing that, guys'

Charlotte was just zooming up the rope ladder and running across the chainbridge and flying down the slippery dip. She is wild.

Nanna is good. I didn't see Grandpa.

We then headed off to Ingle Farm for lunch and ended up just hanging around for a couple of hours. Wore the kids out totally, and me too. It was 35 odd degrees today and I just couldn't be stuffed cooking dinner.........again.

Pool today

It was wonderfully hot today. Mid 30s and just a gorgeous day. We went to the Pool with Mother's Group and it was just perfect. The kids are all of the age now where we can sit on the edge of the pool and watch them without them clinging on to us the whole time.

Charlotte the thrillseeker had an absolute ball. I bought her some arm floaties yesterday, so she found it easy to get around both the small and the medium pool by herself. She is a real fish and was just so happy. Ella is just so wonderful to her sister. I am very lucky.

Jarra was there also, and he and Ella (and Charlotte) just hit it off so well. They just 'fit' together those two, they bring out the best in each other. We will miss him (and Jacki and Arusha!) dearly when they go. They have been a really big part of our life for the last 4+ years. Jarra will be going to swimming lessons with Ella for this term, which Ella is really looking forward to and Jacki is hoping that it will help Jarra settle in, having Ella to guide him.

Our first school holidays are nearly over and it has been great. I have loved being around the girls. Even though we have had something on every day, it has been nice to get away from the monotony of kindy drop offs/pick ups, and the exact same routine from Mondays through to Thursdays.

Ella has turned an amazing corner of late. She has always been really, really opposed to helping tidy up anything. A simple request for some assistance in putting her toys away would result in a meltdown of epic proportions. Late last week, she just started saying 'Sure' when asked. Maybe it was partly to do with the cousins being here so much, maybe she is feeling more relaxed without the kindy runaround, maybe the planets were aligned perfectly this week. Whichever way...I love it!

I really need to go to bed. We are going to visit my nanna tomorrow. Really should try to blog at the end of each day.....

Just quickly threw in a photo of my crazy girls. I managed to scrape Charlotte's wispy old ladies hair into 2 piggy tails that stayed up all day!