Basement complete

As posted a few months ago, we did some work in our basement to make it more usable for our family. We made the main room into a playroom/computer/scrapbooking area. We did what we needed to do to make it usable but once Jocelyn arrived the 'decorating' kinda stopped.

However, we now have it all finished, at least for now. It is amazing how an offer to have guests for a week will make you finish off something! (They actually ended up going somewhere else because of Jocelyn being sick!) So, here are a few shots of our finished basement!

The playroom has been the greatest thing about the basement. The kids are spending more and more time there, especially if they are together or an adult is down there with them. They both love anything to do with painting, colouring, writing or creating. I love to display their work and this is what I came up with to do so. I found cheap frames at the local thrift stores and put their paintings in them. For the 3-D type of stuff, I bought this cable system at IKEA and it also works great for hanging their paintings to dry.

Another added bonus about the basement is that we now have a spare bedroom! No more sleeping on the floor in the computer room! It still needs a little more decorating help but that will have to wait until another time.

And finally, Kevin has somewhere to put all his books (there is still one more large bookshelf in our bedroom). Someday we'll get around to buying/making some nice bookshelves that all match and are not falling apart but for now, this will do.

Kendra is 5!

In between Jocelyn's hospital visits, Kendra had a birthday! She turned 5 years old on Wednesday and was very excited about the whole thing! We had a family celebration on Sunday and for that one she requested a princess cake. I started it but half way through went to the hospital so my mom finished it. A joint effort that turned out pretty good I think!! (Except for the poor barbie doll that lost her feet because she was too tall for the cake!)
On Friday, Kendra then had her party with her friends. As most of the kids she plays with are boys, she figured a princess party might not work as well so we went with a dinosaur theme! A big hit!

They all had fun painting the dinosaur scene I drew for them.

Finally it was time for some outside time, some dinosaur games and just running around like 5 year olds like to do!!

Home sweet home

We are now home again from the hospital and Jocelyn is doing much better. We spent 3 nights there and came home on late Wednesday afternoon. Jocelyn received excellent care there but it sure is nice to be back in our own beds and to see that she is so much better than she was a few days ago. She still has a pretty good cough but her breathing is not nearly as laboured or "wet" sounding. She is getting back to being the happy healthy baby that we knew before!!! Here are a few photos from our hospital adventure.

One of the many nurses doing an assessment on Jocelyn.


Every few hours she received some medication through a nebulizer. She really didn't like this very much until one nurse said that she could have it with her soother in her mouth. This made life much better!

Sometimes she looked a little sad. . .

. . . but usually had a smile to follow!

Hospital stay

Right now this blog entry is coming to you via the computer in Jocelyn's hospital room. As per this time of year, kids with colds are pretty common and our 2 older kids each got one last week. (gotta be fair and make sure they each get the same!). So it was no surprise that Jocelyn began to get snotty and have some coughing too. However, with a 3 month old, this can quickly turn into something a little more serious. On Saturday her breathing began to get raspy and laboured and we decided to get her checked out. As all the clinics were already closed, I took her into emergency to get looked at. We were admitted over night and then released on Sunday afternoon because she was looking better. The little trickster had us fooled ! Monday morning she woke up much worse with lots of wheezing, raspy breathing and yucky, flemmy coughing, to the point where she was kinda scaring me. So, back to the hospital we went. They admitted her again and are watching her quite closely.

We are receiving great care here and we will for sure be here for another night yet. She is getting better but still has a lot of gunk in her lungs. Her official diagnosis is RSV and bronchiolitis. So far she has been a real trooper and has remained her happy little self. (I am managing to stay fairly stable too!) It has been a HUGE blessing that my mom was here to visit as she is able to be at home to care for the other two kids. That is a big stressor off of me!

I don't have my camera here with me or I would post a picture of her in her little 'cage crib' in the hospital! I will update this if anything else changes. Thanks for your thoughts and prayers!

The thumb

We seem to have another thumb-sucking child. It is ironic that in the past 3 weeks, I have finally been able to get the oldest child to stop sucking her thumb, only to have the youngest one start! However, I will not complain if it means that she will be as good a sleeper as her older sister was. We'll just have to break out the Barbie band-aides again when she is almost 5 to get her to quit!

Early Spring

Spring seems to have arrived a little early around here this year. It has been a very mild winter with lots of sunshine! But, we heard that the rain is coming so we figured we better take advantage of the nice weather while it was around. Saturday afternoon we headed down to the Mission bridge for a walk along the river. It was a gorgeous afternoon of "exploring", as the kids like to call it. It is so fun to see their excitement at finding a cool looking stick, seeing a flock of geese fly overhead or running along a path just because it is fun!