...and sick Marn

and sleepless Andrew!

As Violet is getting better, Marn is getting worse.  Last Friday, back at the doctor, we were told that Vi had some fluid in her inner ear and to keep an eye on it.  We did, and didn't notice anything out of ordinary with her.  I guess on Thursday she was pulling on her ear and as a follow-up to the eye thing, which is gone now, the doc noticed fluid in the ear.  Today Marn's mom called and said that Vi freaked out on her and when asked what was wrong, she pointed at her ear and said something like "ear hurts".  I don't know if she said that because Nancy may have asked a leading question, and Vi is at the age where everything is repeated, or attempted to, but we'll have to check it out again.  Her nose is still running and stuffed up a lot, so she's still fighting something, but definitely getting better.

But now Marn has picked up the sickness from Vi.  Red itchy eyes, and now developing a cough that is keeping us both up at night.  I think I managed one solid hour of sleep last night, and not much the night before.  I think tonight I'm going to sleep on the couch.  Seriously.  Marn is taking eye drops now... hopefully the coughing will subside soon as she's not taking meds for that because of the pregnancy.  But we may need to find something, because this can't continue.

Last night was the last night of our co-ed Volleyball league.  It was semi's and finals, and we WON!  First time ever for our team.  Actually, it was the first time we've ever made the finals.  In past years we've choked every time in the semi's or quarters, so it was the long standing joke in the league - we were always good, but always came up short in playoffs.  Our team name is "Straight Down", and when we choke like that we have a "Straight Down Break Down".  Coined by me....  anyway, we beat both teams in 4 games in a best of 5 match, and to be honest, we smoked them both -- should have won in 3 for both matches.  In each game that we lost, we were leading towards the end of the set and kind of collapsed and lost it.  But in the next set, we pulled together and it wasn't even close.  So we won $300, and are going to have a team party/bonfire some time in the summer at someone's house with the winnings.

I still have Friday night men's league playoffs coming up, and we are currently in 2nd place in that league and should do well there as well.  Anything less than finals would be a disappointment.

Slo-pitch is also just around the corner, starting May 11 and looking forward to that again.  With the move, we're now about 3 minutes from the diamond which is nice because it'll make it easier for Marn and Vi to come out to a few more games.  They could even walk it.

As far as the house reno's go, nothing much has happened in the last 2 weeks.  I'm in the process of sanding down the mantel and then it needs to be stained and put in place.  I decided that I need to finish that and the slate surrounding it before starting anything else like the bathroom, for example.  :-)

Sick Vi

Vi has been sick for the last couple days.  Nothing TOO bad (I've seen kids looking/sounding much worse!), but bad enough that we didn't take her to Mom's house yesterday, so I stayed home with her.
Since about 2 weeks ago, she started getting stuffed up with runny nose, but that happens often with her so no big deal, but by Thursday last week she started producing lovely yellow eye goop all day. On Friday, she woke up eyes swollen and red, crusted over (could barely open them) and tons of snot. She was already scheduled for a Doctor appointment on Friday to complete her booster shots, which were postponed from the previous Friday due to the stuffy nose/small cold.  He suspected that it was pink eye and prescribed some eye drop meds.  We didn't start them right away because she seemed to be getting better.

Saturday was much the same - she seemed to be getting better still - without meds, but then Sunday she started getting goopy eyes again and developed a little cough, so we started the drops, but perhaps it was too late to be effective.  Monday morning she woke up multiple times during the night crying, coughing, eyes crusted over, snotty....  uggh.
We thought it best that we didn't go and expose the other kids at Moms to whatever she has.  The doc said that after 2 days of the drops, she won't be contagious, so Wednesday she'll go back to Mom's.

Although she was very cranky all Monday morning, by the end of the day, she was acting normal and happy again.  I was able to get a lot of things done around the house because she had a 3 HOUR nap from 12 noon to 3 pm.  So she must have needed it.  Maybe she was extra tired because she was up a lot through the night.

Tuesday, she didn't wake up with crusted eyes, but she was coughing a lot through the night so I'm sure she'll have a long nap again.  She never does sleep long with Nancy, though.  We think because Sadie wakes her up from playing too loudly then Vi hears that she's up and wants to go and play with her.

Hopefully, she'll get better soon!

This is the first time that she's had a real cold.  She's had minor sniffles and runny noses before, but nothing that needed meds.  Not bad for 19 months old, and I'm sure there'll be many more to come now that Mom's looking after a few different kids.

Happy Easter!

Easter was very fun this year because Violet was old enough to kind of understand what was happening. We had an easter egg hunt at Candace's house Sunday morning and she walked around holding her basket and collecting eggs that the other kids let her get - or were told to leave for her (lol). She was happy just to put one egg in the basket, though. This picture was taken Saturday at Marn's Mom's house just before dinner. Violet wore her bunny ears the whole time the next day while collecting eggs which was really cute. little did we know, Mom put on an easter egg hunt at her house as well on Sunday afternoon. We didn't bring our camera for that (because we didn't know!), but wish we had as she was once again..... very cute!

She's starting to look so big now.... :(

Here's our fireplace, almost done -- I need to finish the mantel. (this photo is highly retouched to make it "viewable". crap lighting and crap cell cam). We decided that I would do that to save some money. We bought the wood for it already from the mason, who found it through another mason friend - a big piece of Oak that needs to be cut down, sanded and stained. It's in our backyard right now, waiting to get started!

Other than that, I need to finish up the "trim" underneath the hearth as well as grout all of the slate.  It's going to have the same slate pieces on the face as on the floor surrounding the fireplace.  ... or, because we have tons of the veneer brick left over, I could put that around the bottom - not sure just yet.

Hopefully I'll get to that this week.

Little Peanut

If you haven't guessed, yes that little peanut is set to make an appearance sometime early October!

update in bullet points!

Yep, we haven't posted much about the house reno's, or anything, really.  Too lazy.  Too many changes.
Here's the bullet point update.

* new wood insert fireplace is in and is awesome.
* wood flooring is done minus a few minor touch-ups still needed.
* everyone who's seen it LOVES it (us included!)
* baseboards may get done this weekend (still have to buy them).
* "Indian Summer" slate tile around fireplace and front entrance is done, except sealing and grouting and looks great.
* fake brick has arrived for resurfacing the fireplace and getting delivered today (hopefully) and at that time scheduling the masons to complete it within the next 2 weeks, he thinks.
*we may have to take out the existing brick to get the look we're going for (we want it to come in behind the wood insert instead of placed "around" it).
* hindsight sucks because we wouldn't have had the fireplace installed until the brick resurfacing was done, so I have to find out about taking it out/reinstalling, or whatever needs to be done to get it out of the way for the mason.
* we also would have had the fireplace done before the flooring, but we didn't want to wait any longer.
* we have the cutest daughter.
* MOST of our stuff is unpacked now, and the house is finally in living and presentable condition -- hosting a 40th birthday party for 35 people will do that.
* the main bathroom is next on the list, and then the 3rd bedroom.
* anyone know anyone looking for a walk-in therapeutic tub with jets?  Selling cheap!
* we're keeping the existing kitchen (for the foreseeable future), just paint and minor updates.  Maybe new appliances/hardware some time soon-ish, and possibly a new (cheap) counter/backsplash.
* when the kitchen reno happens (who knows when/if), we're no longer sure about knocking the wall out between it and the dinning room (kind of nice to have it and cooking noise/smells/mess behind closed doors), although I think it would look stunning opened up with an updated kitchen....
* Echo thinks he owns the neighbourhood, and apparently is already famous in the 4 months we've lived here (4 months only?  It feels WAY longer!)  Since the nice weather, we've been pretty good at going for walks, and pretty much everyone we pass, or who is out in the streets or on their property says, "Oh! We heard there was a dane in the neighbourhood!".  I once joked and said, "yeah, we keep him locked up in the basement"... I don't think they got that I was joking. haha.
* SPCA hasn't visited our home yet....
* one lady came running out of her house to meet him.... lol
* apparently he's STILL the biggest dog anyone has ever seen, even at the dog park that we've been going to for the past 4 years. (He's still the most slobbery of any other dog by a LONG SHOT)
* Echo is almost 4 years old (May 9)!
* one of these days we'll get around to posting decent photos of the home reno progress.

That's it for now.  You're all caught up.

Photoshoot with VI!

Not the greatest light but she was looking SOOOOO cute, it had to be done today.
Disclaimer:  Echo is not usually allowed on the carpet, just for a cute photo with Vi.