Brighter days

We've had a busy couple weeks around here. 2 weeks ago I decided to paint our basement. For those of you that hadn't seen it, it had dark brown panels and a whole built in closet/storage unit on the one wall which was reddish brown. Yuck. Straight out of the 70's. It is brighter now. Maybe I'll post some before and after pics. Unfortunately we didn't change the carpet (yes, the original carpet), and we are even graced with a carpet wall. This particular wall is green, not shag carpet, but gross all the same. The upside of this wall is that it is a built in scratching post for our cat!

Last weekend Cam and I steam cleaned all our carpets. It just feels and looks so much better in here. In the process, we moved our TV downstairs and rearranged our bedroom. 2 wonderful changes.

Our kitchen sink has been clogged since last Thursday. We tried a few ways to fix it, but to no avail so we had to call a plumber on Monday. Well he was here for 2 & 1/2 hours and he couldn't fix it either! To boot, he charged me $300 for his time. Grr. Cam has been fighting that but the company keeps arguing with him about it. And of course, the plumber looked nothing like Mike Delphino from Desperate Housewives! :) He told us that our drain is clogged with grease, and we'll need to call a steamer truck. $$$$$ Thankfully, Cam's brother works for a hydro-vac company, and he is coming to help us out tonight--no charge! Thank the Lord. I hope this works. In the meantime I have been washing my pots and pans in the bathroom sink. My dishwasher does work, but I have to have a bucket handy to empty out my kitchen sink every time the dishwasher drains.

Cam and I have also been attending the Marriage Course. We're really enjoying it. Training for the Death Race is at a standstill it seems. I just keep waiting for it to warm up a bit. My dad and brothers have been out running though, so I think I might just have to buck up and face the cold! It has been -15 to -20 degrees celc. for the past couple weeks, and it keeps snowing. I think March will bring some spring weather. I'm gonna stay hopeful.

My girls are well. Leah will be 10 months next week. She can move around really good. Not proper crawling, but pulling with her arms. She tries to pull herself onto furniture, but she can't quite do it.
Kelsey has been playing games on Treehouse.ca lately, but I get frustrated because she can't use the mouse properly and she calls me every minute for help. So this morning we had a little Mouse 101 course. She did very well! She still whips the arrow all over the place in fast motion, but she's finally got the idea of how it works. She played a peek-a -boo game, and she knew how to click on "Play again". I proudly watched her do it about 5 times!