New Year, New Kitchen, and a Forgotten Blog!

Whoops, a bad start to the year getting to *March* before updating my blog! I always mean to get round to it, but it just hasn't happened yet. Figured it was time I took a few minutes to post something here before the year is half gone. :-)

Here are a few photos from a forest walk back in January - seems ages ago now!

After many months (or even a couple of years) of thinking about the need to replace the kitchen, we finally planned it all out and got with Ikea to sort out the layout and then order the kitchen, and plan the installation! :-D Everything arrived at the end of January, and work started the next week. We were without a kitchen for about 12 days, but it was totally worth it. The guy who Ikea jobbed out the work to did an excellent job and made sure everything was exactly how I wanted it to be. I couldn't have been happier! 

This was after all the boxes arrived: 

And this was the old kitchen, which was badly designed - half depth shelves in all the wall cupboards, and corners that were deep and impossible to access. As well as starting to fall apart with age.

And then a new kitchen when it was almost finished, but not yet 100%:

And here was the finished kitchen, with cupboard handles put on, and I'd just done the blue wallpaper around the window! :-) But before I made the curtains.

This shows the kitchen better, but was before the wallpaper:

We're amazed at how bright the room is with the new cupboards. It's the dark side of the house, but we didn't get a kitchen to bright up the area. Yet it has done just that, and is soooo nice! :-)

The biggest bonus is actually having a place for everything, and being able to *get* to everything - nothing is buried away! Ikea certainly are the best at helping you organise things, and when you have a large family like us, being organised is essential for survival! ;-)

Oh yes, and found the photo with the curtains up. 

So, that's my kitchen! :-) When you spend as much time as I do in there (often say I live in the kitchen!), then it's such a blessing to have a happy and cheerful room! 

Oh, and I can't forget the wonderful utility closet that Peter made for me in January! I'd realised that the space next to the stairs had a lot more potential than being just a place to dump things. (It used to have the sewing desk in here before it got moved to the sewing workstation upstairs in the autumn.) Anyway, I had the idea of a shelved walk-in closet, as not having a utility room of any sort in our house, there's so much non-food stuff that just ended up cluttering kitchen worktops and everywhere else. So my wonderful husband took on board my idea and make it a reality! I am surprised at just how much capacity it has! 

So, I guess that's the bulk of what's been happening this year! And now that everything is back to normal, then just lots of everyday life. Studying for me - I can't believe I'm in the final few months of my course. It's just flown by, which I guess means I'm really enjoying it! :-) And then homeschooling the children - that always makes for busy days! Especially when the two preschoolers like to be included in everything! ;-) 

Fergus stole my chair and my book today - think he wanted to teach their history lesson! ;-)

Fergus is now 16 months - they grow up SO fast!

He's recently discovered "Thomas the Tank Engine" and is crazy about it! He loves to dig out all the books Elijah has collected over the years, and play with the toy trains. He is always saying "choo choo" and that means he wants the box of trains out to play with! :-)

Fergus and Elijah have the closest bond you could imagine! They absolutely love each other! :-) "Elijah" is the first thing Fergus says when he wakes up every morning, and he goes up and hugs his big brother many times a day! And plenty 

Last week we had some homeschool friends over for lunch, and the girls always have such a fun time doing creative things together! :-) This time Abigail had bought a big canvas for them to do a joint painting. The weather turned out bright and sunny and they had so much fun out there.

You can tell they are dreaming of warm days - painting a beach scene! :-D 

Some flowers that Deborah picked out for me last week. She goes to Lidl each week and helps her daddy with the shopping, and loves to bring home flowers for her mama. :-)

So, that's my update for now. We'll see how long it takes for me to get round to a second post for the year!