Posts filed under ‘At Home’
Home Improvement
For the last two weeks lovable handymen Robert and Leon worked on our house, fixing and servicing our wooden windows and doors, …
… fixing our balcony, …
… making our patio furniture look like new …
… and a lot more.
I added a little improvement to the front myself by training our bougainvilla over our bedroom window.
We are very happy with our new look. What do you think?
Flower Power for Nena!
Happy Birthday, dear Nena!!
Our deck produced it’s very first flower EVER especially for you:
We love and miss you! Have a great day!
Finally
Books play an important role in our family as we all love to read and be read to. Funny that the only thing that after over two years in our house still didn’t have a place was our books.
Originally we’d dreamed of putting in high built-in shelves all around the little room upstairs, but now we decided to just put up our old IKEA shelves!
Too bad only that once this decision was made we couldn’t find the pins that hold the shelves up.
Luckily I have incredibly supportive and efficient parents that took care of this problem RIGHT away and a week later we not only received two little parcels, but also finally had our “library”.
Now we only need a nice rug to cover the spots and maybe a picture or two and we have a wonderful new place to read, chill and play in.
Little Flirt
Today we unfortunately had to have a plumber team dig up half our back yard to replace and clean pipes and a gully.
Unlike her parents Lilly was thrilled about this and convinced this was all happening for her amusement.
At one point Angie and Meli watched how three of the workers were joking with our little girl who had her nose pressed to the window.
Green, Green, Green … And Gerald-ine!
That’s terrible rhyming I admit. But so what!
As you probably remember we recently had our scullery steps taken down. A few months before that we took our shrivelled up Hydrangas out of the flower bed in front of our deck. Also there’s always been a bare area of ground around our car port.
So this week we had lawn put onto those three places thus making our little yard a wee bit bigger and prettier.
This section is still a bit patchy (long story …), but will soon overgrow.
This is the former flowerbed where we’ll probably put up an inviting bench at some stage.
And this is the car port section.
Another change here at home – and one that has made a far greater difference in our lives – is that Selina doesn’t work for us anymore.
That is also a LONG story (and one that I don’t feel like telling as I’m just so glad that that book’s closed!). To summon things up – after another week (!) of unexcused absense (this time she was not in jail, but just sulking), we had reason to dismiss her which we did.
Fortunately we quickly found a lovely lady to take her place and who is now brightening our days with her friendly and kind nature. Erik took to her immediately and even has his bottle with her, reads with her and lets her brush his teeth already.
Well, as our time with Selina proved, we can’t tell yet how things will work out with Geraldine. Nevertheless while things were bumpy with Selina from the beginning, it’s looking much rosier now. Plus we’ll just think positive.
This said we hereby introduce Geraldine (busy checking Erik’s sandpit for button spiders).
Finally a little snapshot from today when Erik – the Fireman Sam Fan – came to Mama saying “Look, Mama, gotta helmet like Fire Sam!” 
Slowly But Surely
Bit by bit our garden is changing, Asunda is now busy taking down the stairs to the scullery which we never use and that only take up space in our little slope-y yard.
It is particularly nice that the area in front of Lilly’s room is now opening up a bit allowing some view of the garden and the Table Mountain Range (pics don’t show latter).
Here a reminder of what it used to look like:
Erik Of The Jungle
Finally! Today was the big day and Jungle Mania put up Erik’s (and Lilly’s of course) jungle gym.
Here’s the documentary in pictures:
Great excitement!
Finally – when Daddy came home the jungle gym was ready for the little monkey quality test:
And here it is! Isn’t it a beauty?
Erik bravely tested Lilly’s baby swing. Test result: Excellent!
Only downside – Erik will have to wait until tomorrow to climb it because the varnish still has to dry.
Thanks so much to our sponsors Nena&Nobbi, Steve&Dolores, Bim and Pia!!
And thanks to Jungle Mania for the great work!
Changes
Today all the parts and materials for our Jungle Gym were delivered. It’s very exciting!
In order to make the surrounding area safe and also to make our garden more attractive, we have hired Asunda again (http://kohlrabie.wordpress.com/2010/01/24/busy-saturdays/) to take out all the ugly brick flowerbed edgings and to clear all the yuccas out of the corner.
This morning Angie, Meli and the kids took a trip to the nursery. Now the poor fern that doesn’t like the sun has been moved from its pot FAAAR into the corner under the vine.
These guys will takes its place soon …
… and a bougainvilla moved into the pot and onto our balcony. We admit it’s still a bit small, but considering the size of the pot we have high hopes for masses of flowering bougainvilla streaming down the side of our house … some day.
Maybe watching our yuccas will help – they are growing like weeds.
Miscellaneous
Hard to believe that this was how last Saturday started – the day that we had such fun in the pool.
Fog is so nice, isn’t it?
Today Lilly suddenly figured out how to turn from her back to her tummy! The funny thing about this is that once she is on her tummy she doesn’t like it, but somehow can’t remember how to turn back onto her back which she’s been able to do for weeks.
Somehow she can’t help turning on her tummy though, it just seems to happen to her, and then she complains bitterly!
We must post a video soon.
Besides that we are excited that next Monday we will have a Jungle Gym installed in our yard. It will look something like this …
… and Erik can’t wait for his own “Spielplatz” in “Mommy’s garden”.
And on to something completely different again - since Christmas one of Erik’s favorite cuddly toys is his “Piglet”. The other day Piglet even had to come shopping with us.
When we got home Piglet was gone!
So Mama went back to the shop, searched everywhere, asked everyone and even left her number only to eventually find Piglet safe and sound on the floor of the car.
Here’s Erik cuddling with Piglet in Lilly’s carry cot.
The wall looks so ugly because we have just taken out part of our window bench to make room for Anja’s crate/bed.
