A holiday, New Year and new perspective

Firstly Happy New Year! it has been a while since I posted, as I must admit I was a little over renovating and talking about it. I needed a break from the house, Melbourne, work and the everyday routine.

After having two birthdays in the Christmas week, with parties at our house (my beautiful girl turned six and then two days later I had my birthday), then also Christmas day lunch here, I was a little exhausted and also frustrated with the fact our builder hadn't finished external work in time for all the parties. So this meant trying to ignore the outside mess and entertain around it (not easy with kids).

At least in these two photos you can see we got our L shaped deck done, just haven't yet got the pergola for me to hang my lanterns on and put all the fairy lights around I bought just for Christmas.

Well we have just recently got back from a much needed holiday in Adelaide, visiting family and old friends. Plus we spent lots of time going for walks in the stunning Adelaide Hills or along the beach and plenty of time near or in water. It was relaxing and just what was needed.

Coming back home I found I could now appreciate and enjoy the house again, look at it from the perspective of what we have done in the past year rather then what still needs to be done.

I have also come back online to find that the lovely Deb from Let's go Moerkabout has passed an award over to me:

Liebster is a German word meaning "dearest" and the award is given to bloggers with fewer than 200 followers. The award has a few stipulations:

1. Thank the giver and link back to the blogger who gave it you.

2. Reveal your five blogger picks and let them know by leaving a comment on their blog.

3. Copy and paste the award on your blog.

4. Hope that people you have sent the award to forward it on to their favourite bloggers.

Now its my turn to pass this award on to five bloggers that I love to pop in and visit.

At home with Sam and I
Change of Place
B is Building a House
Ledamae
From Avenue to Boulevard

Thanks also to Deb, I always enjoy reading her blog.

So back to showing plenty of photos and sharing stories of what is happening around my place. I look forward to reading your blogs again too and finding out what you have been up to. Hope 2012 is a happy and good one for you all!

We have a build date!

Yes we have finally had a build date confirmed - Monday 25 October. So in just over a week we are going to be watching builders demolish our one and only bathroom to make it into an en-suite and walk in robe.

I am very excited but at the same time wonder how quickly this will wear off, with Hubby and I having to sleep in the lounge, all of us having to go to friends houses for showers (at least we still have a toilet) and having builders in the house from 7ish in the morning on a almost daily basis for about a month.

After that month the builders will break for Christmas and we can move back into our bedroom to get the rest of the house ready for the rear extension build which will start mid January.

So it is all happening. And in what is fairly normal at this time of year it is really busy in most other parts of our lives too, hence I am getting a bit behind with Blogtoberfest.

We have both been relatively busy at work (it has started to slow down for me though), had regular interstate visitors from our home town of Adelaide (which I do love), catching up with other Melbourne friends, the parties have already started for the many birthdays we have over the next few months and booking in the Christmas ones and last but by no means least the mayhem and fun of two small children........breath!

I sometimes wish that I could collapse among my favorite things like my little boy does when he has had enough.

I know we will get there but I must say I am hanging out for Christmas when we will have a break in Adelaide, doing a house swap with friends. I think we got the better end of the deal as they have a beautiful finished home with a pool! The thought of this keeps me going.