Decorating.......

We've been busy! After adding our dormer last year we had a spare room downstairs that used to be the children's nursery. We were deciding what to do with it, have it as a guest room but it's not often (very rarely) that we have guests, bring my craft room indoors, never realistically an option as my room in the garden is perfect for my needs, it's just outside! Lastly Mark came up with a second reception room, a 'family room' where we could have a sofa bed for guests and the toys in as the conservatory where the toys were currently stored was either too hot or too cold to play in. Perfect!
We thought we may as well paint the utility room too and change the worktop which had been cut too short. This is what the rooms looked like to begin with.....(well, not quite, we'd already removed the cot and small bed and the furniture is now in Courtney's room, the big boxes are the sofa bed and we'd emptied the Utility room but pre-decoration)

 

 

We started planning the décor, the family room, I had already decided was going to be Disney themed! Inspired by the cross stitch I'm going to do and using the bits that we had in the old upstairs bathroom. It was deciding whether to stick with traditional Mickey, Minnie colours...black, red, yellow and white....or something different! Mark chose the colour of the Utility and shocked me by going for a plum shade!
Back to the family room, more discussion were had and Mark came up with an excellent idea, red and white stripy wallpaper on a feature wall, we were thinking bold stripes horizontally but finding broad stripes proved impossible, finding any sort of red and white striped wallpaper was a challenge! In the end I found just one on Ebay and had to take a risk and order it hoping it was truly red and white (one we'd found in Homebase turned out to be a cream shade.) When it arrived there was relief, it was just right! I am having a bit of a grey neutral colour phase at the moment so decided to look for a grey coloured paint with a subtle hint of blue, just as a contrast to the red. I then set up a 'mood board' photo! (you also get a sneaky of the bedding I chose! The big grey block is part of the sofa bed)

You can also see on this photo that one wall has been lined, that's as much as the decorator did before he started messing us around! At least he'd stripped the room too but we were then at a bit of a loss what to do, find someone else or do it ourselves......plan B won! Mark set to and lined the rest of the walls with a little help from his Dad. Then I set to and painted the walls. We did have a decorator in to hang the stripy paper! Mark then fitted the carpet. It's starting to take shape......

As I was painting the family room, Mark and his Dad were painting the Utility room, get your sunglasses ready.......

 

How many people does it take to build a sofa bed? Too cute!

Once that was built all the furniture needed building too, we chose the Ikea Stuva range. I couldn't decide what I wanted for my birthday this year and in the end decided that I wanted a proper place to store my cross stitch things, they were all over the house, some in the craft room, some in the loft cupboards and some in the living room, I wanted it all together so I got a Stuva unit just for my stash! When I started organising it I was surprised how perfectly it all fitted in!

There are also 3 drawers below, one has nik-naks, one current projects and one is deep enough to store my crop basket. :D
Next job was to sort all the toys and move them out of the conservatory. We've put more into their bedrooms now too but all the rest went nicely into the big toy chest and games/crafty bits went into the tall boy. This is what the family room looks like now.......

(I have printed off an A4 image of the cross stitch and stuck it up, just to show where it's going to go)

 and if you come and stay at our house, here is your bed!

 

The Utility room is also now finished, I found a new ironing board cover that had the pink in it.

 

 

I then chose accessories around the other colours in the cover, I couldn't believe there was even matching pegs, lol!

 

 

So here is what the utility room looks like now, complete with new worktop!

 

a close up of the plaque above the door.......

Too cute to Spook!

Catch a Star

The Blunderbus Company were visiting Morecambe again and after their fabulous performance of 'Plop' last year we couldn't wait to book tickets again! The imagination and magic of the actors is captivating, even for adults! So, this year's performance was called 'Catch a Star' and like last year it didn't disappoint, a lovely story about a little boy who as the title would suggest wanted to catch a star. It was wonderful and enchanting.

Jolly Phonics

The Jolly Phonics are an amazing concept of learning. Learning the sound of a letter first then blending the sounds to make the word. We were introduced to the Jolly Phonics when Charlie started school. Now it's Courtney's turn to learn them. With her slight development delay we weren't sure how it would go but she has mastered them wonderfully, we are very proud of her. Whilst sitting at the car wash yesterday she picked up a magazine and started telling me the letter sounds, she got every single one of the ones she has learnt so far correctly (s.a.t.p.i.n.) We sat there for a while looking for the letters on several pages, her concentration was excellent!

Gretna

It's very rare that Mark and I spend together just the 2 of us, that's just the way we like it. We love Charlie and Courtney being with us. We decided though we needed to start our 'proper' Christmas shopping, we buy bits throughout the year but because Mark is busy with work leading up to Christmas we usually do the main of the present shopping in October/November. Anyway when he suggested we go up to Gretna shopping village I jumped at the chance, I really like the shops up there. He then suggested we had a night away, a brilliant idea! I sorted childcare and he found us a lovely B&B and off we went, calling in at a farm shop in Penrith on the way (2 pressies crossed off the list there :D ) We were planning on going shopping to the village the Friday evening, we'd wrongly assumed that it would be open until 8ish but it did in fact close at 6pm! Never mind, we had all day Saturday and instead enjoyed a nice meal out and chatted. Wow, the concept of eating out child free and actually being able to talk, amazing, LOL!
So next morning after breakfast we had a mooch at the shopping village and crossed a few more gifts off our list. We had a wander to Gretna Green after, around the gift shops there and bought a couple more gifts. I also bought a thimble and pin badge with my family crest on, my maiden name is Watson, a good ol' Scottish surname! It was only early afternoon by this point and we had finished what we wanted to do so decided to pop into Carlisle on the way home. There was a craft fair on in the town centre which was nice to see, we only bought a couple more pressies there but by this time we were both tired and ready for home. We'd missed Charlie and Courtney and it was lovely to see them again but on the same score I really enjoyed having some time with Mark, just us.

Ben Bear

Year 2's teddy, Ben Bear, has come home to visit! We have to write in his book about his adventures at our house. Unfortunately we don't have an after school activity on a Tuesday so we took various photos of him playing with Charlie's toys. Charlie then wanted him to meet our cats, Gizzy and Calico! He took quite a shine to them and spent some time grooming and playing with them!

The 40th's!!

So my academic year are all turning 40! My good friend Deborah is the first. I went to college with her, there are 4 of us who regularly meet up and when it is our Birthday's we go out for a meal. Today is her actual birthday but last night we went to the Spaghetti House to celebrate! Happy Birthday Deborah!