Treats and things

Hello everyone!

First things first, to the kind person who left such a lovely comment on this post this morning – thank you! The blog has been calling me for a while now and your comment was all I needed to motivate me to reignite Treats and Things for another year 🙂 It always cheers and surprises me when people say they follow my blog, so thanks to my fans for sticking around!

Where to start? 2013 was an incredible and busy year for us. I’m not sure how 2014 will top it, but here’s to trying! Our little boy (who is 10 months old today) is bringing us so much joy. Babies very quickly teach you a lot, and probably the first thing I learnt when I became a parent was, that despite how much you think you know, you really don’t know much about parenting until you are one! I’ve also learnt that having a constantly tidy house isn’t always realistic (or important for that matter), that sleep and sleep-ins are so precious and I wish I had never taken them for granted (and my baby is a good sleeper, so hat’s off to those who don’t have good sleepers!), that no matter how much you enjoy cooking, it doesn’t mean that baby will enjoy your cooking (my cooking repertoire now contains 101 purees!), but most importantly my little man has helped me to see joy in things that we probably all take for granted, like flowers, birds, leaves blowing in the wind, photographs, music, kisses and cuddles, sounds…. these things fascinate him and make him so happy, and they’ve helped me stop and appreciate them also.

Amid trying to stop and smell the roses, and be a parent, we’ve also undertaken renovations on our home. With just a few things left to cross off on our ‘house do-up’ list, we are now starting to see the light at the end of the tunnel. Probably the most major things we have done in regards to the house are remove a wall downstairs to open up our kitchen and living area, and completely gut and put in a new family bathroom. We are loving the new spaces, particularly the bathroom and having a proper bath and shower. Bath time is now a family event in our household! Hubby and I have also learnt how to paint and have painted the bathroom, living area and kitchen a fresh white and we are slowly working through the rest of the interior. The exterior painting starts next week – I am super excited about this as I think it will dramatically change the look of our house! Of course I will keep you updated on the house progress with photographs. A ‘Before’ and ‘After’ of our bathroom are probably a good place to start:

Before

After

So here’s to the new year (yes, I know we’re already 3 months in), stay tuned for new recipes, garden, craft and house inspiration, as well as updates on our family and adventures 🙂