The tree goes up!

After our big day with Milla's party yesterday we woke to a rainy day here and had some rather tired kids so what a great excuse to stay inside in our PJ's and put up the Christmas decorations!









Not long before the big guy in the red suit visits now!!

Harris' Reading Glasses

Harris has decided he needs glasses for reading.... Mr Potato Head's glasses!!

A decade old!

10! Years! Old!!
Ummmm excuse me, but where did that time go?!?







This Birthday business is pretty good... a little 'party' at Avoca with Grandma and cousins last weekend was a great excuse for some cupcakes, then more cake and presents on friday night at our place, more birthday fun at Tanya's house on Saturday then it continues with birthday lunch with Grandpa and Barbara next weekend - Yay!!

Happy 10th Miss Fliss!!! xxx

Up, Up, Up and for sale on iTunes!!

Woohoo - how very cool is this? Up, Up, Up, Songs for Felicity Vol 1 has officially gone on sale via iTunes WORLDWIDE!


Yup, anyone in the whole world can grab a copy of the compilation album put together by the very awesome and generous Nadia Ackerman with a wonderful selection of artists from all over the globe by heading to iTunes and searching Up, Up, Up, Songs for Felicity. For just a simple AU$16.99 and a few clicks of your mouse you can have a beautiful collection of songs and will also be supporting Felicity's Son-Rise Program as all money raised from the sale of this CD will be donated to Felicity!!


We have grabbed our copy and I bet it's just a few short day before Felicity is humming along to the songs - Yay!!

The Tree Decal

Hooray! We are in our new house, unpacked and LOVING it!!! It was a action packed weekend moving but with babysitting help (thanks Grandma xx) & two very strong and helpful movers we had it all done much faster than we thought.
It might seem a little crazy but as we were childless for the night and we hadn't yet put together the kids beds etc (and with a bit of general 'new house' excitement) I decided, at about 7pm on the day we moved in, I would 'play' with the huge tree decal I had bought for Milla's room.

Before: Blank wall in Milla's room



After:


This was such a fun project, a BIG project but a fun one!

The decal came in about 57,000 pieces... alright maybe not that many but there were allot! The trunk was in two sections, each branch was one piece, then there was the smaller branches, each animal was separate, each acorn, and every individual leaf - I didn't mind because it gave me a bit of 'creative license' to make it however I wanted.

The process:


The tree trunk and beginning to place the branches


branches all done


All the birdies, nest, squirrel and acorns in place - at this point it was about 10pm and the day of moving house had hit me so I packed up for the night and went to bed.


Up bright and early the next day (after a lovely breakfast out with my gorgeous hubby) I started placing the leaves on the tree - Biggest one's first.


about 2hrs later all leaves were in place and the tree was complete! Yay! I then quickly set up Milla's bed and toys ready for her to come home at lunch time to her new bedroom.... she LOVES it and says goodnight to all the decal animals at night!

The new house!

Welcome to the Costin's new house!


Settlement officially finished today at 3pm and we had keys in our hands at 4pm - Yay! So Harris, Milla and I picked Matt up from work like normal then went to our new place (via Maccas) and had a little floor picnic in our home!



The royal tour started with Milla's room - she wanted to know where her bed was?!?



Next on the agenda was to see the blue bathroom we have been telling her about...


and look a BATH!! Woohoo!


we then made sure each room had a cupboard we could hide in. Check.


and Harris thought he better check the plumbing in the laundry.


Kitchen checks out okay.


but of course no visit to our new place would be complete without a good play/climb/slide on the new cubby house!!





We can't wait to move in on Saturday and start setting up all our furniture and things!!

City2Surf results!

And just like that the 2010 City2Surf is all over. What an absolutely stunning day Sydney put on for it - sun shining, crisp winter air and 80,000 entrants into one of the worlds biggest fun runs!
Carley, Jocelyn and Ian all took on the mighty 14km race as planned and all walked away from the day with a few blisters & sore muscles but most importantly a HUGE smile on their faces.



RESULTS:
Jocelyn - 1hr 16minutes (beating her last years City2Surf by 13 minutes)
Ian - 1hr 37 minutes
Carley - 2hrs 15 minutes

these inspirational runners should be so very, very proud of their efforts - absolutely AWESOME!!!!!!! Enjoy a well earned rest.

We are touched that so many people have donated via sponsorship for the runners and so excited that our total raised so far is $5061 that's past the half way mark of our aim of $10,000 for the Running the Marathon of Autism campaign.... and that's without seeing our latest Direct Deposit donations (they always take a day or so to 'land' in the account) - WOW!!

Next race we are gearing up for now is the Sydney Half Marathon on Sunday, September 19th. Family and work friends if Tanya's: Jocelyn, Sammy and Nicole will be taking this 21km event head on - Go Girls!!

How Monday the hobby horse got her name....

With only 4 weeks until we move house we have decided to do little bits and pieces here and there in preparation so we don't have such a massive job at the last minute.
So over the weekend we filled box after box with anything we won't need to use before the move, we did a bit of cleaning, had some items we sold on ebay picked up and even attacked our garden!
Our furniture is all over the place, boxes are starting to fill our garage and the house is generally just not set up like 'normal'.
This morning Milla was playing in our room while Matt was dressing for work and I was in the shower when she discovered a Hobby Horse I had purchased a few months ago....


This gorgeous handmade horse was (until yesterday) hidden away ready for Christmas but with all the activity of the weekend we forgot to 're-hide' it last night - whoops!
After Matt and I got over the giggles from our hiding fail we named the horse Monday as she was discovered on a Monday morning.


Milla LOVES it and has been galloping around the house all day... I guess sometimes being organised with early Christmas shopping doesn't work! hehehehehe

Big Boy Bed

On Sunday morning Matt went into the kids bedroom like normal to find both Milla and Harris standing at the doorway to greet him... Harris had somehow managed to climb out of his cot!!! After getting over the initial shock, Matt put Harris back in the cot and ask him to show us how he climbed out and sure enough our little Houdini was back out of the cot in a few swift moves!
So a 'Big Boy Bed' was now in order. As we are only a few weeks away from moving we decided that rather than buy a whole other bed and then have to move it, Harrison could use the trundle bed from under Milla's bed for now - also a great way to get him use to a big bed without him rolling off from a height!


We are very proud of our little monkey who went to bed without any drama at all. He and Milla played and talked for a little while, just like normal, then both of them climbed onto their own beds and fell asleep! This is how I found him when i first checked on him


I then moved him and tucked him in properly - he looks so little in the big bed!


We will take Harris bed shopping once we are in the new house

Let the packing begin!

It's official! As of yesterday with the handing over of our deposit cheque our new house was taken off the market!! Yay, yay, yay!!

so 5 weeks of 'settling' gives us plenty of time to pack, clean and then move to our new home in Kings Langley.




All three kiddies will have a bedroom of their own, all with built in wardrobes and Matt & I will have an ensuite.... fancy!!




We have also scored on very big and recently built cubby house that we know will be LOVED!


I'm going to enjoy packing then unpacking each and every box!