Trying to settle into our new life

First of all, let me start by saying a big thank you to those of you who commented on my Mum's post on Monday, the messages were heart warming :)  Life is still off kilter for me at the moment, I can't seem to find a rhythm in my days at all.

I knew this move was going to be hard, but dealing with Mum's death has just made it all so much more difficult.

I am missing the kids we had to leave behind so much. We call every couple of days so the younger boys can talk to Dad and I can talk to my older boys but kids, boys in particular it seems, appear to just go mute when handed a phone.  I swear sometimes the conversation can be like pulling teeth.  You would think nothing has happened over the course of the last day or two in their lives.  When we were living under one roof, they would talk non stop when school finished,,,,,now it is as though nothing at all has happened between phone conversations.

The new house, well it is smaller than our old one and I am finding it hard to fit our stuff into it, especially as I am striving for a less cluttered look.  I really need to get back into some Ebay selling to help cull the contents of the house I think.

I am longing to get some pictures up on the walls, but can't decide where/how I want them displayed.  We have limited wall space here and all the pics we had hanging in the old house just aren't going to fit,,,,,,,,although I have considered just filling every space with photo frames lol, kinda like a whole house collage effect???

We have plans for the outside area.  Since the kids are getting older and there is a park just a short walk down the road, I would like to utilise our back yard space predominantly for growing veggies.  We want to build some raised garden beds and plant our fruit trees which we brought with us down along the back fence.  We are envisioning blocking the neighbours off with our trees,,,,,first of all though we have small trees/shrubs which need to be evicted from the yard!  Since we have been here, the weather hasn't been kind.  There has been a considerable amount of rain and we can't get into the back yard to get it mowed.  The dogs, well the greyhound in particular, have been using the yard as a racetrack and as it is so wet, it has turned into an absolute mudpit.  We have discovered that the yard gets very squishy and takes a long, long time to dry out.  The soil here is very dark and I am guessing it is very clay like, going by the way it holds the moisture (I haven't actually gotten my hands dirty yet to see what type of soil we actually do have yet lol)

I do quite like the house though, I like the layout of it and I can envision how I sort of want it to look.  I just seriously need to work on the clutter issue.  I am a bit of a hoarder by nature.  I don't hoard rubbish but I am overly sentimental and find it hard to part with keepsake type of things,,,,,naturally though when there are 6 kids belongings to deal with, that can lead to alot of keepsakes!   Hubby is more the "that might come in handy" type of guy.  This guy has so many darn leads and cables it is just ridiculous!  But I guess I can't talk because I tend to hoard crafty stuff so I try not to nag about his leads too much lol.

So far, on the three weekends we have been here, we have explored the Melbourne Markets (hoping to get back there this weekend to do a little freezer filling with some of the meat that they were selling at very reasonable prices!), the Melbourne Aquarium - the boys enjoyed this, I particularly loved the penguins!, and last weekend we went for a little car ride out to Drouin and the surrounding areas and discovered a wonderful bakery.  We had lunch there and the boys were dying to get a cake but we were so full after lunch that we left cakeless promising them we would stop at another bakery,,,,,,,,,,how typical that the way we came back home again contained no bakeries!!  We promised to go back to Drouin again next weekend just for a cake lol.

I will leave you with a few pics we took at the Aquarium the other week.  When the house is looking a little more presentable I will share some photos lol.

Spot the child

And again.....

We called these little guys the "Three Wise Frogs",,,,would have been better if they turned around lol

The size of this manta ray was just enormous, totally amazing

I apologise, I cannot get this one to turn!!

I could have watched these guys all day, they were just adorable