Awareness stage, play centre and reorganising

F had been going through a particularly clingy stage at the moment. He is teething, he has a horrible cough and cold and he's 10 months - classic age for going through this. The once easy to put down to sleep baby is no more. He now cries so much if you don't cuddle him. This is fine as I quite like the cuddles. Having two much older children (7 and 10) you realise how quick the time goes and how previous these early years are. So this is a normal day time nap these days... But I love it!

A couple of weeks ago a friend and I took our boys to a new play centre which had just opened near us. F quite liked the ball pit but most of the time he preferred to sit on my lap and watch the other children. We're of there again tomorrow... Making the most of it while he's free to get in.

Least week my kettle decided to give up so I managed to convince my hubby to by me a funky purple kettle to go with my funky personality! :-)   

And then my microwave went too... So look what I got! :-) :-) :-) 

We had a bit of a shift around at home the other day. I'm getting constantly frustrated with our rubbish use of space! Our house is NOT tiny! We have two double bedrooms, a tiny box bedroom, a nice cosy lounge, a large kitchen/diner and utility AND a large conservatory... So as you can see... Not tiny. But we have too much clutter and not enough storage for what we actually need. We had a whole area in the conservatory for the PC but it's barely used except when we need to print something or transfer photos because everyone had tablets/smartphones. Do I got DH to build me some shelving for my endless pikes of books and positioned the pc neatly underneath. This means we can now fit quite a lot in a space which was just empty before. I still have lots of space on the shelves so I will make sure dh gets up in the loft to get my book box down asap! Either that or I will need to trawl the charity shops for new books to fill the spaces! :-) 

 This freed up some space in the conservatory and we've now moved the table out there to make a separate eating area rather than eating in the kitchen. I'd quite lie to get a small 2 person kitchen table for homework/breakfast (we all tend to eat breakfast at different times) and for messy play/art and crafts.

Snow, dishwashers and helping Daddy!

I've not written for a while mainly because I've not got round to getting my photos on my tablet. Now they are here so i'll update what we've been doing.

N having a rare half an hour building a snowman on her own! This girl NEVER does anything on her own so this was amazing to watch. She said she really enjoyed herself and wondered why she doesn't do things along more often. Not that she's done anything alone again since then.. but it was nice while it lasted.

We all had great fun in the snow... F included! I think he was a bit bewildered by it all!

G took the big two for a ride on their sledges to the village green to go sledging.

Oh... And F's found a new game! Let's Getty IN the dish washer to pull the baskets in and out! Therefore meaning daddy had to fit a safety gate...

F helping daddy fixing the telephone wire to the skirting board. I didn't manage to get a photo but every time daddy used his hammer F banged his little wooden hammer on the floor too.

Redundancy and lazy days...

So, my dh was made redundant before Christmas. He's now been of work a month and we're all still a bit up in the air. Due to a big lack of communication, his insurance or JSA had kicked in yet. He got very little in terms of a redundancy pay and so the money won't last much longer. He has two meetings at the job centre next week on Wednesday and Thursday so hopefully something will get sorted after that. In the mean time, we're a bit in limbo and I know he for one is starting to feel the pressure. I think once payments start he will settle down a bit emotionally and begin to start looking for a new job... But I can tell he's on edge right now.

Today, however, had been a bit of a lazy day. Dh took some garden rubbish down to the dump but apart from that we've not done a great deal. I did transform my kitchen table from this

To this:

And the other day I organised my craft area (and promised photos to follow)...

This may look a bit untidy but each cat food box is labelled with what is inside it... So I guess you could call it " organised chaos". :-) 

That is just about the extent of anything I've achieved today. Of course, I did the normal everyday things of washing up, cooking, washing up, loading the washing machine, unloading the washing machine and hanging clothes on the airer, putting clean clothes away, cooking again, washing up again... Blah blah blah...

There was great excitement in our house this morning. This is what we woke up to...

C decided to get dressed really quickly and go out to play for a while before school. We finally got out the door and plodded our way through the snow to school. F loved being in the sling... Up high so he could see all around him. He's never seen snow before so this was all new and exiting. I have to say, I did feel quite smug with myself strolling easily carrying F in the sling, when there were other parents struggling with their pushchairs and prams.

We got home after dropping the  big two off and I suddenly became very domesticated! I tidied and vacuumed the whole house. Then I made some flap jacks

... tried to be adventurous and put them into cup cake cases to make it a little different. Added a drizzle of chocolate to make them even better. Delicious even if I do say so myself!

Made some bread sticks for F

... which actually turned out tasting like a bread roll. Next time I think I need to do them thinner so they go crispy.

Then I made an apple crumble with a tiny bit of plum which I'm very proud to say used up all our " going" fruit. Trying to not waste food and use left over's.

Unfortunately I never had chance to take a photo of it after it was cooked... Didn't last long enough!!

The de-clutter begins...

So, I decided that we HAVE to de-clutter in order to get our lives back on track.

N (daughter aged 10), has been struggling recently with quite bad anxiety. Started in August last year, turned severe by October and gradually improved over time. She's still struggling now but had greatly improved over the past couple of months.

I felt that our home life is not helping. We are a family of five living in a small three bedroomed house and we have far too many belongings for the space we have. So, 2013 is the year of change.

G (husband) was made redundant before Christmas, therefore we have more than household change to deal with. But right now we address all tripping over each other and it's driving us all mad.

So today...I began to blitz my utility/craft area. It's a tiny space that houses the washing machine. It has two shelves over head which have box upon box of craft supplies. These were all over the place with everything dumped on top of everything else. So I packed G off with the two big children (N - 10 and C - son aged 7) to the skate park down the road with their scooters, put F (Son aged 9 months) down for his nap and got to work. Photos to follow.

Each day I intend to do a small bit towards decluttering so we can finally live in a bit of peace and harmony rather than the chaotic environment we survive in at the moment.

Your welcome to join me in my quest for a less clutter. I would love to hear about anything you are doing to simplify. Join me in this journey to live a more simplistic life.

Change to my blog...

I generally have two blogs on the go. This one and My Quest To Be a SAHM. The other one I trend to write in more however, I have decided I would rather keep that one private for us as a family and continue this one to be a bit more public instead. Therefore, this blog may become more than an occasional moan about the state of the house and become more about our normal day to day life. Sometimes in words, sometimes just pictures...

Blitzing, rotas and being in control...

I can feel my blood boiling. I'm ready to explode. Why do my family feel it is OK to leave their shoes on the lounge rug? Shoes shouldn't even BE in the lounge! Never mind on the rug!! A beer bottle left tucked down beside the arm chair. A pile of drawings spread across the sofa. Crumbs. Spills. Muddy footprints.

I spent nearly 2 hours this morning blitzing the kitchen. I was in "Perfectionist" mode and couldn't bare to just quickly tidy it up - it had to be all or nothing. So it was all today (when normally it is nothing). I removed all the papers from the kitchen worktop, scrubbed the hob, cleaned the sink, vacuumed the floor, cleared the table (which is always covered in papers, drawings, craft bits and bobs, baby bibs etc), cleaned it, wiped down the chairs...phew! It's all done and clean.

Now I have to write up a rota so my family help me to keep it that way.

I sometimes feel that I am rather controlling with my perfectionism. I can't bear to feel like I'm losing control. I can't bear the mess made by others - even my dear dear family. But when I begin to feel like I'm losing control I start to feel stressed...and that is not a good place to be. I have been there before and I have never felt so low...I don't intend to feel like that this time...I will make my lists and rotas and keep control...somehow...hopefully.