Homeowners FTW!

As most of you already know (Via FB,Instagram etc), this is the reason I've been a bit quiet - We've just bought a house!
It's been a very, very stressful week or so, getting everything teed up and all the conditions ticked off, but we made it. It went unconditional yesterday and we're soooo excited!

The house is on a gorgeous, tree-filled, cul-de-sac and is very close to Aesop's school. He'll be able to walk to and from school each day! He also has some cool school mates living just around the corner.
It has four bedrooms, which was really important to us. Got to have a sewing room, of course!
The yard is fully fenced, giving the kids room to ride their bikes etc. Our current rental has a shared driveway, so there hasn't been much room for them to play. (Also so, so looking forward to not having to lug groceries and kids up from the road in the pouring rain anymore!)
The bones of the house are good and solid, and it's a fairly blank canvas. Not many of the features are too distinctively once era or another, which is pretty lucky. (Obviously the dream would be to have amazing wooden floors, and a pastel coloured 50's kitchen.. but that might need to be the next house!) Once we find a bit of spare dosh, we'll be able to start painting and doing bits and pieces to it.
I CAN'T WAIT.

But for now, I have a TONNE of stuff to get rid of and a whole house to pack in the next 4 weeks.
Good golly, wish me luck!

(Pictures are from the real estate website, obviously. Consider them 'before' shots!)

Check The List: #17 Go Camping.

Last weekend, we headed back over to our fave camping spot - Ohiwa Holiday Park.
We headed over after Abraham finished work on the Friday and my parents met us there, in their campervan. It was shaping up to be a lovely weekend already, and even the stress of putting the tent up for the second time ever (without the instructions that somehow disappeared..) didn't put a damper on things.

The nights were verrrrry testing of my happy-holiday mood, but the days were most lovely. The picture above, quite accurately, shows what my kids all did instead of sleep each night. One would think that running around all day in the fresh sea air would have them out like lights.. but, no. Mollie was even worse!

The days and evenings were filled with beach, bbq and beer. As all good holidays should be.
The boys quickly found a few mates (both ones they knew from home and some newbies) and we often didn't see them for hours at a time (this is less neglectful than it sounds, I promise.) it was quite delightful.

We managed to get out and do some crabbing, which is my personal favourite Ohiwa activity. There's something so enjoyable about the squelching mud and the thrill of the chase (and the dares to see who is brave enough to big up the big 'uns!). And then watching all of the crabs disappear back into the mud at the end. Mollie slept through the entire thing, but it was very cool to see Otto getting braver and braver.

That's not to say that Mollie didn't work on mastering more of her own tricks that weekend, though. Mol has finally taken a real liking to food - LOTS of it. We are doing baby led weaning, so the lass is eating much of what we eat. While we were packing up our campsite on the last morning, Mollie managed to get into a whole loaf of bread. We were, admittedly, so zonked (and needing two sets of hands to take down the tent..) that we let her go for it. It's so nice to see her really getting amongst it. (Fear not, she didn't actually eat a whole loaf of bread, just half a piece.. and soggied the rest of it. Hah)

So, another sucessful tick off the list. And another camping trip under our belt.
I must say that I hope camping gets easier as the kids get older... surely?
(I'll let you know next Summer.. we've already booked in for Christmas!)