Show Us Where You Live – Dining Room!

This week we are showing off our dining rooms over at Kelly's Korner, and I have to admit that seeing everyone else’s rooms so far has made me really jealous.  I wish we had the funds right now to decorate the whole house and complete everything we want to get done!  Here it goes with my dining room!


Yep… our dining room is a bit of a mish mash.  Again, the carpets need SCRUBBED (happening on the 5th October whoop!).  The fireplace does not suit the room at all and is more for a living room so we would like to get rid of it eventually.

Our bookcase holds cookery books, james’ computer books, other reference and on the bottom shelf are all of Ollie’s books.  There are mega bloks, wooden bricks, alphabet and number paint sponges etc!
 
Here is Ollie’s easel and some paintings on the wall, an airer of laundry (not always in here!! I know it makes it look awfully cluttered!) and Ollie’s Thomas chair for reading!
 
In the dining room we have a sofa bed which pulls out so easily.  The painting above it is from Cuba.  My dad brought it back for us.
 
Ollie’s artwork! I have a lot more bits and pieces to put up.  I love having his artwork all around the place!
 
In the corner of the dining room Ollie has a tiny table and chairs set which holds his bead frame and 4 different wooden jigsaws.
 
I love our dining room table.  I can’t wait to get wooden floors down in here to match the table…. get rid of the fireplace and just brighten up the whole room.
Again, I leave this room open to your criticism and any decor ideas would be much appreciated!

Show Us Where You Live – Master Bedroom!

 

I am still here catching up with Kelly’s Korner!  She is hosting a home tours blog hop each week and last week’s was Master Bedrooms!  Here is mine…. though I don’t have anything very exciting to show you!

Welcome to our bedroom!  See?  Nothing exciting about our room at all!  We have not had a chance to decorate since we moved in a year ago.  We put wooden floors down because the carpet was hideous and that is about it!  I do love our furniture… it’s my favourite furniture in the whole house.  The chest of drawers does not look big from this photo but it is huge!  I have one side and James has the other side.

 

This is my lovely wardrobe.  See my wedding dress just hanging there to the side?  I have no idea what to do with it!

 

This is the view of our room from the other end.  I love the full length mirror… even though it is grubby!

 

I won a giveaway a month ago and this is what I chose!  I think it is perfect for our bedroom… I could only really put it on the mirror as our wallpaper is textured and it wouldn’t sit properly… I also couldn’t wait until we decorated because I have no idea when that will be.

 

This is our bed and our chest.  In the chest we keep a spare duvet and pillows for the sofa bed in the off chance that someone stays over.  Around the headboard are little star shaped lights… you can’t make them out very well from the photo.

 

On our dresser we have these little elephants.  James and I each chose one on our holiday to India.  Ollie loves them now and calls them emaments rather than elephants… so cute.

 

Also on our chest of drawers is this painting that I did about 6 years ago.  I’m really proud of it but have not painted very much since.  I plan to put this on the wall alongside a sunset photo we had done a while ago in memory of the baby we lost.  Other things on my chest of drawers are my big black makeup box, pink jewellery box and a couple of random magazines and bits and pieces :)

I’m not entirely sure how to decorate this room when we get around to it… any ideas would be fab!

Show Us Where You Live - Living Rooms

Kelly over at Kelly's Korner started a 'tour of homes' type thing a couple of weeks ago, so I'm 2 weeks behind! I'm playing catch up so that I can join in PROPERLY on Friday.  On Friday we will be touring our dining rooms.  I will be showing you my living room today and tomorrow I will show you my bedroom.... and then I am all caught up!

So here it is.... my living room.  This is what you see as soon as you come through the door.  We recently decorated but are nowhere near finished.  Our carpet is filthy!! Haha! When we moved in the person before us had put cream carpets down... so not practical when you have a tiny kid!  So... were getting the carpets professionally cleaned in a couple of weeks.  We don't have a lot of decor about in this room... we plan to get a lovely mirror or a big fancy clock... I'm not entirely sure!  ALL ideas would be very welcome!

Above the photos it says 'Live Laugh Love'.  I plan to extend this photo wall... I want it covered with all different types of frames eventually... and I have just realised from this photo that the frames are not straight!

This is our bookcase.  I love it.  It's chunky and big and I think it keeps everything looking really tidy!  The black boxes at the bottom are full of magazines, computer leads and chargers etc, paint and crayons and another is full of educational toys like button boards, cotton reels and some playdoh! On the very right hand side there are some coloured blocks and a tub full of trains and cars.

This is our Bi-Orb.  We got it for Christmas last year and I love it.  Unfortunately our fish has no name... so sad... if anyone has any ideas please feel free to share them.

These are paintings that Ollie did and I put them into frames and gave them to James for Father's Day.  Aren't they cute!?

This is where Ollie's train tracks and car garage reside!  We are trying to keep the amount of toys in here to a minimum because he has a ton of toys elsewhere.  It's easier to keep tidy this way.

So there you have it... my living room.  Thank You for joining me on the tour.  There are so many things we need to do to our house... you will see during the rest of the tour that it is FAR from perfect, but it's the first house that James and I have owned together and it's special.

I am so proud of my Ollie...

Today the health visitor came to our house to do Ollie's 2 year check-up!  He did so well, that the health visitor left VERY impressed.  I am so pleased.

First of all she spoke to him a little bit... asked him about his toys and what he had done today and he responded well... a tiny bit of shyness.  She got out a book and asked him what things were on the pages.... could he recognise the big cat and the small cat in the same picture... she was impressed that he knew some adjectives... he went through each page of the book and knew what/ where everything was!  She said his comprehension is advanced and was impressed by his sentences.

Afterwards she got out some little wooden bricks and asked him to stack them.  He very carefully stacked them and then manoeuvred them about and turned it into a tunnel!  With an even amount of bricks on either side to keep it stable.  The health visitor said that he is very good with his hands.  He then rhymed off what colour each brick was.  Ollie then introduced her to each and every one of his trains!

One of the last things she said to me was that I should be very proud of both myself and Ollie.  She said it was clearly evident that I have put a lot of work into educating him during the day.  She said that he understands, recognises and says more than a lot of the kids the same age that she goes to visit.

He didn't like getting his eyes tested, but they are fine as is his hearing.  He is under the average for both height and weight but not so much as to be concerned by it.  She said we should go ahead with potty training but to go slowly, which I agree with... Ollie has lots of time to learn!

Tonight he went to his potty 3 times between dinnertime and bedtime.

:) He is a little star.

Ollie and Daddy's nightly ritual...

James and Ollie have a new nightly ritual... going outside to see the moon.

For the last few nights the clouds have been covering the moon and Ollie could not see it.... so to explain it James told him the moon was sleeping.  Now he sits on James hip staring at the sky, shouting at the top of his lungs "WAKE UP MOON".  It's so cute.

Poop...

Is taking his nappy off and pooping on the floor a sign that he is ready to try potty training again?

Yesterday when I left Ollie up for his nap, I heard him walking about just 5 minutes later.  I went to check what was wrong and his nappy was lying on the floor and his bed was soaked.

This morning, he took his nappy off and pooped on the floor where he was playing.  I didn't notice until it was too late.  Luckily it was easy to clean up.

The straw that broke the camels back was lunchtime today when I went to prepare lunch, only to hear Ollie shouting "poo poo on a foot"... I dandered out to see the boy with poo squashed all over his foot and leg and I asked him to show me where the poop was to which he replied "mummy cross... naughty step".  He showed me to the stairs.  What I saw before me was every single stair smeared with poop.  I carefully climbed the stairs to find where it started.  There was a little poop with a toy sitting on top of it (I assume to hide it?) and poop foot prints leading away from it.

Our carpet used to be cream coloured.

Luckily we have booked a carpet cleaner to come and steam clean all our carpets for us on 5th October.

I am wondering if this messiness is Ollie showing signs he no longer wants to wear a nappy, and wants to potty train again, and if so, I have 2 weeks until the carpet cleaner comes!

Thoughts please :)

9 years ago, where was I?

I can remember so clearly where I was when I found out what had happened. I was on my way home from school and I was waiting for my bus in the station. All of a sudden I noticed a rush of people over to the tv screens that were there. I glanced over to see what was happening and then I went closer. It was so hard to take in, and everyone was looking at one another not quite believing what they had just seen on the news.

I remember going home and switching to the news channel as soon as I came in. Myself, my mum and my brothers sat the entire rest of the day flicking news channels trying to get a grasp on what had happened. Nobody said very much.

I can't believe it happened 9 years ago. Even though we are over here in Ireland, I was terrified.

Today I can't stop thinking about those who lost loved ones and everyone affected by what happened. I can't stop thinking about those who lost their lives trying to help others.

Muffin Tin Monday: Transport!

 

So we are back to Tot School this week!  I’m so excited to be starting it again with Ollie.  Our first theme which we will be carrying on for a fortnight is TRANSPORT… I have never done Muffin Tin Monday and am so excited about my first one!  Here goes:

To coincide with our first theme – Transport – we have a muffin wheel (homemade courgette muffin), orange and raisin cars, a pear airplane, a bagel wheel and a car courgette fritter.

 

 

He was so surprised when I brought it to him.  He started playing with the fritter and then as he ate it he said ‘no more wheels’ etc.  He was also impressed by the airplane pear!

Join in over at Muffin Tin Mom

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Super PMM!

Wow... My 'PROUD MUMMY MOMENT' today is that Ollie knows his colours!! Woohoo! It was my plan to start teaching him when we restart Tot School on Monday. I have never really sat down and taught him the colours, but he has picked them up. He even knows that my computer is black! This morning I asked him what one colour one of his bricks was and he got it right, so I asked the next one and the next one, and he kept getting them right! I am so shocked to have woken this morning and Ollie know all of his colours. It is so exciting! I think he might be ready for more structured Tot School learning this year!

toddler toys

Super PMM!

Wow... My 'PROUD MUMMY MOMENT' today is that Ollie knows his colours!! Woohoo! It was my plan to start teaching him when we restart Tot School on Monday. I have never really sat down and taught him the colours, but he has picked them up. He even knows that my computer is black! This morning I asked him what one colour one of his bricks was and he got it right, so I asked the next one and the next one, and he kept getting them right! I am so shocked to have woken this morning and Ollie know all of his colours. It is so exciting! I think he might be ready for more structured Tot School learning this year!

toddler toys