Merry Christmas

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We are getting ready to spend the next few days with our families, we are so blessed to be able to get together and spend time celebrating with the people we love. Wishing you and yours a Merry Christmas. xx

Gingerbread House

I am pleased to say that after a full weekend of digging and barrowing dirt around, followed by more digging and more dirt/blue metal/sand getting barrowed around, our backyard looked like we had done nothing. So, to finish off the weekend I went out and spent a couple of hours being creative and having fun chatting with other creative ladies and at the end of the evening I had built and decorated a house. Yay!!! It was so good to see some results.....

Decorating for Christmas - Kitchen, hall, the rest....

All of the balloons and green and white streamers were for my birthday, my favourite boys decorated in my favourite colours.

Decorating for Christmas - Family Room

Decorating for Christmas - Lounge Room

Decorating for Christmas - Dining Room

A glimpse of 2009 Christmas Decor at the McCarthy's.

Christmas Lights

Last night along with my Birthday celebrations we finished putting up our Christmas lights. this is the first year we have lit up the outside and we pretty pleased with the end result. There is somethings we think are lacking and hopefully we will improve upon next year but for now we will enjoy them as they are.

We have also finished decorating inside so I will try and get some photos up soon.

Birthdays

Aren't birthdays great (apart from getting older). I got so spoilt today. Both my wonderful boys made me feel so special, loved and appreciated. They made me feel like a Princess, from coffee and gifts in bed this morning to my cooked dinner tonight, I believe I still have a back and neck massage promised tonight as well. Hmmmm.... I am so blessed.

I have lots of great reading to do while we're on holidays. I received Annette Tatum's new book,

and Vicki Archers new book....

and a pressure washer ( I am not yawning I am trying to look excited)...

Fortunately for me it wasn't a pressure washer but a beautiful cloche and pedestal base. Along with a few other things. I am one lucky girl....

It was definitely a great day, thanks to everyone for their kind thoughts and birthday wishes. I feel so blessed!

xx

Busy.. cleaning our mess

We have been keeping very busy, trying to clean up our mess that we made out in the backyard. It is amazing how dusty everything inside your house gets when outside is a big dirt patch. Tomorrow we are hiring the compactor and attempting to level the 65 m2 area that we will be paving. I can only imagine how my muscles will be aching tomorrow night when we sit down to rest and recover. I am really looking forward to the end result but in the meantime here are some progress photos proving that we are working very hard (well my Wonderful Husband is anyway...)

Before we can pave we need to build some retaining walls and fill in the space that was under our rotting deck. We ripped the deck up and filled in the void underneath with rubble and dirt that was moved from elsewhere. Then we (mainly W.H.) built the retaining wall in order to hold all that dirt in and tidy everything up. This was the original pile of blocks (since this photo my W.H. has been back another 3 times to pick up more blocks).

First he measured and then laid everything out and measured again....... After consulting the site manager (me) and getting approval for the plans, he got to work.

In no time (at the end of the day) it looked like this. Yes that is our son working in the background. What better way for a family to hang out than sweating it out in the dirt and rubble.

It may not look like much but we are happy. We have a wall. Yay!!!!! The Star of the show....................... The Audience...................

Stay tuned, coming up next 'How to make steps'....

One year later....

It's been over a year since we exchanged contracts on our home and I thought I would share the 'then' and 'now' photos. The 'then' photos are the photos that were listed on the real estate web site. The 'now' photos I took yesterday. Some things look better some things look worse but I found it interesting to compare. THEN NOW

THEN

NOW

THEN

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THEN

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THEN

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THEN

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THEN

NOW

Hopefully more bits and pieces will be finished during the next year and when I look back '2 years later' the house will look even better.