more IKEA love & Christmas is really over now . . .

Greetings all,
Wow, just as the last of the 10 lucky IKEA Beloved book winners was emailing her details yesterday, a courier rocked up to my door with this IKEA 10kg meatball box of excitement, as a thank you to me.  Little old me!!  All super handy things . . . photo frames, candles, tea lights, thermos, bowls, cannisters, loopy hanger, bag clips, scrubbers, napkins, paper plates . . . even a floor mat.  Trust me IKEA, it was a pleasure to do the store tour in Sydney & present the giveaway.

 I knew where i wanted the floor mat to go, i love stripes & i love this mix of red, navy & natural wood in my son's room, it had to be his!!  I'm someone who can see a room decorated before we even move into a house (we move often) & i am pretty sure in my teens i imagined i'd have a son with a bedroom which looked something like this.

 My son is turning into the mathematician i am, i adore this abacus & it's one of his favourite toys.  We're learning together how to use it properly. 

 I lit some tea lights - they smell like fruits, ahhhh.  The girls disappeared into their rooms with the containers & cannisters for . . . girls' stuff. 

 Of course when i thought 'bowls' my son thought 'robot helmet'. 

 The IKEA goodies were a lovely surprise to my day, a little glum after taking down all the Christmas decorations on the traditional 6th January - just as my mother taught me.  Sigh, packing them away for another 11 months, sob.  The tree will go to the green waste down the road (when the family car is back from what is proving to be an expensive service) & our lounge room just won't smell the same. 

 Just couldn't bare to hide the hearts i collected for the tree, so i looped some of them together & hung them where a Christmas garland once was.  Couldn't resist at least one giant jingle bell which rings out with the breeze.

 As always . . . the worst job is removing the fairy lights.  So complicated no matter how easily my tall husband effortlessly loops them on.  I'm only 5'6" so i always end up tangled in the lights as i unwind them from the tree.  He'd help but watching me doing it is far more entertaining.

So we cuddled up last night without the backdrop of a flashing coloured light show or a woody pine forest smell, just the sweet glow from tea lights & scent of fresh flowers.  
Christmas is a time of year i really like to drag out for as long as possible, it's happiness, sunshine, family, swimming & holidays, visiting our elderly parents & extended families, especially this one just past - my handsome soldier was home.  He's about to move back to Qld for 2 years (of a 3 year posting) . . . i have a big couple of years ahead of me of solo parenting!!  It's technically called 'dual solo' parenting, honestly, it's the parent on the ground who is doing the heavy lifting thanks, anything my husband tries to offer from thousands of kilometres away, really, in the heat of the moment, it's not particularly helpful.  Ha ha, he's going to retire in his early 40s when we have 3 teenage girls in the house.  Anyway, he will 'move back in' with us in January 2013, how sad does that sound??  He has an incredibly busy 2 years all over the place, so it wouldn't matter where we lived, he wouldn't be 'home'.  But 2013 is our year, building our homestead!!  Have lovely weekends everyone, love Posie