Sometimes I'm so boring

So we've been busy! It's amazing how busy life gets. We're still madly trying to get the basement done - Ben's hanging doors right now and trying to tile the bathroom before the carpet guy comes next week. He's also working very very hard on his theatre system down there. What-ev. I'm excited for the toys to be out of my way! And I'll admit, it will be fun to watch movies down there...maybe we'll have to have a party. But it's still not my #1 priority. Carpet? yes...tv? no.

Besides that I've been busy teaching piano, trying to keep a somewhat clean(ish) house, playing with Hailey, going to doctors appointments and ultrasounds, and cooking without an oven. Yep that's right.

Three weeks ago our oven just shut down. Ben was pretty proud of himself when he discovered that the circuit board was fried. So we ordered a new one - $260 and 2 weeks later we installed it in the oven only to find out it still wouldn't work. Hmmm....so Ben took more of the oven apart and realized that the element had blown up. Literally. So after $50 this time and a very nice delivery service called 'grandma' we installed it and we now have a working oven - finally. But $300?? Seriously, what a rip off! We're so annoyed because the only reason the element blew was because it wasn't even screwed into the oven like it should have been - so totally a manufacturing error, but still not covered by warranty. Anyway, I'm glad I have a somewhat handy husband, it saved us a LOT of money. I couldn't imagine paying labour on TOP of the cost of parts. So we've spent a few weeks trying to come up with yummy meals that don't require the oven...here's a Yummy example, remember This post from a while back? Well here's the Ratatouille. All I can say is Y-U-M-M-Y.

Anyway, that's probably the MOST boring of all boring stories...so on to bigger and better things.
We have been having some really beautiful sunsets around here lately. It's making me LOVE where I live...the end of the 'minus 20 freeze everything on you' stuff has helped too. But really, this is beautiful! And this picture is totally unedited - so those colours are 100% real. Gotta love it.

Hailey turned 16 last week...I kid you not.

I decided to grow a bit of a Belly - and obviously decided NOT to wear maternity shirts yet. I probably should think about that again. This is me at 19 weeks.

Hailey found a new friend in the mirror - we LOVE friends around here.

We finally decided to venture out into the "outside world" as Hailey and I both call it. The poor girl doesn't have snowpants that fit her. It's just something I forgot to buy this year. So, what does she get to wear?? Her snowsuit from last year - let's just say she had some serious diaper wedgie. Poor kid.

She really loved the snow though - enough so that I almost got a smile out of her.

And onto the story of the week. Hailey did NOT have a fun Super Bowl Sunday. We spent the afternoon with Chris and Lauren and everything was going fine - until Hailey decided to take a closer look at the fire in the fireplace. All I can really say is that it was one of the hardest things to see. My poor baby girl placed her hands directly on the burning hot glass of the Fireplace. And the hours of tears that followed were enough to break anyone. I was doing all I could to hold it together - but I honestly think my heart broke into a million pieces as I watched her cry and knew that there was almost nothing I could do. Cold water and Ice just made her more hysterical - but we had to force it on her. It definitely paid off big time. We took her into urgent care, and got her all wrapped up. They said the burns were so much better then they could have been and partly because we made her ice it so quickly. She just got her last little 'glove' off today, and besides a few blisters, her hand looks pretty good. The doctors' pretty sure there'll be no scarring - and are amazed at how well it healed. So we're really grateful things turned out as well as they did.

Anyway, here she is the day of the 'event' - what a little trooper.

And then the next day - wearing her glove...I'll admit, it is pretty cute!

And finally, I had another ultrasound today. Baby was still a little squirmer - but at leat we were able to get the missing shots from last time. I also asked for another guess on gender; and once again the tech guessed girl. But it was a really really iffy guess she said. Not a 100%, or 90% or even 75% sure guess. So I don't know, I'll just assume we're having another girl. Which will be all sorts of fun and crazy! And if it ends up being a boy - which I'm sure it won't (in case you're counting all the way back to 2006, we don't know how to make boys) he'll come home wearing pink - and will eventually make his way into some blue clothes. But I'm 95% sure it's another girl - what else would the baby be??