Great neighbours

I started this post as "good neighbours" but changed it to great.  Yup, they are that super.

Background:
We are horrible planners awesome at seizing the moment.  Sunny?  I'll pick up riles from playschool and keep going to Barnet marine park, calling Si to grab sushi on the way. We also don't have a fixed bedtime routine (on purpose, then we don't have anything to throw them off).  Sometime between 7 and 9pm they will get tired, we'll brush teeth and bed.  Riles gets a book.  Vani a feed.  So I guess I'll correct that, we have a short bedtime routine.

Anyways, we struggle to plan ahead.  And our house is a disaster well lived in.  To the extent that it can be embarassing, even to me.

Our neighbours?  They get it.  Knock and we are on a walk.   Guilt-free kid watching.  We eat dinner together regularly, 'cause with four working parents and 3.5 kids, "I bought groceries" is sufficient reason to have friends over, and they are over in under 5 minutes and we equally forgive each others mess.    In my eyes, that's about as good as it gets.   Oh yeah, and all the "nice, intelligent, fun company, etc" parts of friendship as well.

SO here we are last night.  With Nicole's 37 week belly (yahoo, I'll get to steal a baby soon!).  Only thing is that we were wearing identical clothes yesterday.  Hadn't realized until the picture.
Maybe we're spending too much time together...

Finally, loved this moment, I get the best cuddles when I come home from work. 

Walks, Hikes and Dunebuggies

An exiting weekend with a visit to Nanny (we had missed you!).

Vani was pooped on our hike up the cliffs

 rejuvenated

 Really bad family picture

 Back at the ranch, R was spoilt rotten as he finally go to ride the dune buggy.  LOVE

 Jeff getting a refill.  Riles hates noises. 

 Like his outfit?  He somehow squeezed himself into his thomas outfit from when he was a baby that my special friend Erica had given us. As shown in these previous posts:
http://greatwey.blogspot.ca/2010/08/aug-photos-part-1.html
http://greatwey.blogspot.ca/2010/06/best-birthday-video-ever.html

 Crazy that its the same outfit, same kid, yet so different.  And so fast!

A movie of her first day walking the other night
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=63ME2ON8S2A&feature=youtu.be

Finally, Loving Vani's ponytail below.

Walking!

Riles pushed the wagon for ages, cruised furniture, the odd step, turning into two then three.

Vani?  Nothing.  Then today, she started walking.  All the time.  She discovered that she doesn't have to let go of what's in her hands anymore as she did to crawl and is thrilled with the efficiency of it.  Right across the room.

Her cheeks puff with pride:)

...and then there was light!

As mentioned last post, we've had beautiful weather.
So after our hike, it was depressing to come into our dark kitchen (north facing, big trees in the backyard, a wall blocks the front window and also prevents seeing into the living room... you know, typical split entry 1970 home).

And so we decided to take the wall out.  Load bearing and all.  And yes, we did it properly, with temporary walls, support etc. 

Gotta love spur-of-the-moment renos.  

We is quite royal.  As in "me" decided and "he" did the work.  I was in charge of the kids:)

4:00pm Sat:
The view from our kitchen to the living room

6pm Sat:
Oh wow, its already feeling better in here

4pm Sun:
Tada!  WONDERFUL.

*THOUGHTS ON RENOS, aka defending the fact I "Never finish" things**
Si and I are either a great or a horrible pair.  He likes to think things through, have all the details worked out, have a plan.  But he doesn't initiate much as he overthinks things and they become huge.  Me?  Love to start projects!  Not intimidated by big work.  Can do in steps.  BUT steps can be f  a       r  apart.  As in the project I did while on mat leave with Riles is still missing a vent cover.

I don't really apologize, since the vent cover is one thing.  But we got a garage and office out of it that we appreciate daily.  Screw the vent.  (simon, can you please install that darn vent cover?)

We'd been talking of the kitchen for a long time.  Our realtor says not to do it since our house is a tear down.  I take that as "make it functional but don't go crazy granite counters etc" and take tear down to mean sometime in 10 years we will sell and they will built a mcmansion.  We can do all kinds of exciting plans. But chose to do a simple, cheap (<$300) and seriously, life-altering change!  Win-win as far as I'm concerned.  And the drywall will be done someday.  When we do the rest of the kitchen and the other 5 drywall patches.  All at once (we no longer tape/mud drywall and collect these projects for outsourcing since the biggest expense is them showing up).

My only regret?  Not doing this bloody kitchen earlier. Its awesome to see the living room.

BTW, this video had a great tip on how to keep existing drywall so now we just have three strips and the most simple taping jobs ever.  See how they cut through the studs while maintaining the drywall (1:35)?  Super trick.
http://www.thisoldhouse.com/toh/video/0,,20506202,00.html

Finally, GogoPops would kill me if I posted without a pic of the kids:
 


 

Miss you guys!  Hope you are enjoying your travels through Namibia!

... and then a spectacular weekend!

What absolutely divine weather we've been having recently.  over 20' a few days last week, my garden already asking for water.

Heaven



Making the most of it now.  Photo dump from a jam-packed three-day weekend!  Hike at the ranch, then spontaneous reno decision (another post)

 Riles is at the stage where he can't enough of books.  Love love love.

 Vani moving cars from one container to the other.  We call her Little Viv.

 Sheer adoration

 Love how Si is full on in the middle of a throttle sound, while Riles has his legs kicked up!

 This stump = the ranch to me.

 Jeff had an RC car that Riles adored.  He is washing it while Si washed the van.

 So proud.  He slept with the controller, car parked beside his bed.

 Such a happy moment.  Sad that my boy is getting so big (and thankful that he'll still go in the pack for us!).  Realizing we have few family hikes left of this scale, at least until the kids are 5-6.

 

 Our favorite trail