Basement Update

Once the crew ripped up the sub-floor that they had exposed, they found that the water had stayed to one half of the basement. They set up a couple of fans and a de-humidifier (which means we now watch TV with the volume really high!) and let them run for a few days to get rid of the moisture. On Saturday, the supervisor came by to see how everything was drying out, check if the water had run any further into the basement, and to get us to choose our flooring.

The damage so far...

A sample of our new flooring!

 It turns out that the water went further than they originally thought, and the whole floor, including the craft/guest room, has to come up (squee!). They're going to start building everything back on the side they tore up this week (including laying the new laminate flooring), move everything to the finished side, then rip up the other half of the basement. So, we should have a "new" basement in a couple of weeks!

Happy Mother's Day!

Another year, another basement...

Wow, this whole trying to keep up a blog and raise a baby at the same time is proving very difficult!

Emily is doing great! She's sleeping her nights (from about 9pm to 5am!), although she hasn't been doing so well with daytime naps any more. Usually she'll only sleep for about 20 - 30 minutes at a time (45 if I'm really lucky!). That means that once she goes down for the night, I'm pretty much sleepwalking and vegging out in front of the TV. We've also been driving David into work each day and hanging out at my parent's place. That wasn't in our initial plans, but it turned out to be the wiser financial decision. We're counting down the weeks until David is off for the summer (only a week and a half left!).

Emily rocking her jeans at 2 months old

We had a super moon on Saturday, May 5th. We completely forgot about it until 11:30 that night, so we didn't get photos of it rising. I did manage to get a few interesting photos on the manual setting of my camera though, by playing around with the settings.

Now I'm sure you're curious as to the meaning of the title. On Monday night, David went down into our closet under the stairs to clean the litter box we have in there, and discovered water on the floor. Praying that it wasn't a sump pump failure again, he went into the utility room to investigate. Fortunately the sump pump was working, however the hot water tank had sprung a leak. There was a considerable amount of water on the floor, but it was no where near as bad as 2 years ago.

Yesterday morning the insurance company was called, the claims manager came by to check out the damage, and then the post-disaster contractor came by with his crew (the same guys from last time). After a day of hard work, we now have a new (and bigger) hot water tank, and half of our carpet has been taken up. Although many people may find this devastating, you have to understand that we regretted our decision to put down carpet. The cats thought the basement was their personal scratching post, and set about destroying the new carpet immediately after the crew finished the job in 2010. So, while it sucks that we are once again living through yet another unplanned renovation, looking on the bright side: we can now (possibly) get the engineered hardwood floor we should have agreed to when the contractor suggested it last time!

The Before...

The Reno: From the stairs to the utility room...

The rest of the basement

So, on the agenda today is to take up the sub-floor to see how far the water went and what the extent of the damage is. We're keeping our fingers crossed that the entire floor has to come up, just to make it worth the cost of our deductible!

I'm taking this fleeting moment for a quick update! Emily is now 1 month old, and these past few weeks have been quite the adventure!

Our first night home was a sleepless night, as Emily's digestive system was still working itself out. Our little girl cried most of the night and no amount of feeding/changing/rocking/bouncing would help. We called our "emergency support team" (my mom & dad, and grandmother), who came out the next day and stayed with us for 2 nights. Emily was experiencing a bad case of gas, and once we figured that out (and how to deal with it), things went a lot smoother.

Now she's been eating like a champ, taking lots of naps during the day, and has been sleeping for 4-5 hour blocks at night! Life has been settling into a new routine and we've been loving every moment of it!

Announcing Emily Rose!

 This morning we welcomed our newest addition, Emily Rose. Born at 10:21 this morning, weighing 7lbs 5oz and measuring 19" long!

Waiting for baby...

So I've been on maternity leave for the past 2 weeks, and yet haven't found the time energy to post even once. Things have been pretty quiet around here; most of my days are spent taking it easy, doing some simple household chores (washing the dishes mostly), and wondering how much longer it will be before Emily decides to make her appearance. We have now passed the due date and still no sings of impending birth.

38 Weeks                                                        40 Weeks

My aunt and uncle came by a couple of weeks ago to drop off my old bedroom set from when I was a kid. It spent a few years stored in their barn, so it needs a bit of work before it will move into the baby's room (paint, minor repairs). That will be one of our projects once mother nature tires of this whole winter thing and starts to move into spring/summer. In the meantime, we re-arranged the room (again) and moved the large bookcase back down to the basement (trying to make room for the furniture I was hoping would be able to go into her room). On the plus side, we've made a nice play/reading area at the back of the downstairs living room!

In an attempt to be productive, I have managed to churn the cutest little baby sweater (although I may be biased). It's worked in Malabrigo lace with the cutest eyelet pattern. It only took 4 days from beginning to end, and we can't wait to see her in it! 

The christening gown has been put on hold for the moment - the pattern, though beautiful, takes a little more thought than I'm able to deal with at this point, but I should have until April or May to get it done... plenty of time! =)

Snow "tumbleweeds"

We saw some interesting snow formations last weekend after a windy night...