So reality is coming to roost and the questions are starting to form in my mind… how will this whole heart issue play out with Echo? Will it be easy for her to have to go to a cardiologist every year for basically the rest of her life? Is the entire procedure as simple as it was explained? Can I work it out so Ken can be with me while we wait for our Echo to get through surgery? How long do we wait for the surgery to be scheduled?

Thankfully yesterday I was blessed with visits from friends. Kathy came into the city to hang out and take me on a walk around Costcoto peek at the pricing of items we buy often. I picked up two items – a large flat of water for only 5.00 and a big box of Arrowroot cookies for only 10.00 (they are a favourite of EVERY member of our family from the oldest to the youngest, though Echo does do the best job at wearing them).

We also stopped off at one of the malls to get my favourite face soap from The Body Shop. I finally ran out completely. I haven’t found anything that works better on my face than their tea tree oil products.

I now have ALL the things I need for Echo’s birthday tutu dress. I was even able to get my hands on an affordable strand of the marabou, in black of course. I had a 25% off entire purchase coupon at Michaels so I picked up some 12X12 sheets of purple and one of white cardstock until I can price out the 8 1/2 by 11 at Staples. I do use the white for a lot of the boys’ school activities.

Ken on the other hand, stayed home. Jeff was here until after an early supper and gone before Kathy and I returned. Someone had to stay home with the kids and there was a lady coming by to pick up one of my scrapbook related Kijijiitems. Lucky we had someone home as Karyn came over after work to join in on the fun. That had us 3 (Karyn, Kathy and myself) off to Macs for a snack before settling down for some visiting. Again, all this possible due to our move to this new place… a good reminder of how good things are compared to the old place.

I am still brainstorming what to stitch for the lovely family that assisted us on Wednesday… it needs to be something special. In the meantime I have moved onto the characters on the stocking. I am hoping to get one done tonight… if I can focus on that and not the tutu dress, it is a toss up!

The boys spent most of yesterday working on math and then moving onto pictures of things that happened on our adventurous two days… one drew a picture of playing at the den Otter’s and the other the waiting room at the hospital. I tried to explain to them about the surgery their baby sister is going to have to have… that she has to go in and have a sleep while they fix something in her heart and that Mommy would go with her. I think I have some more explaining to do but they did seem to understand that there was something important we had to do for Echo.

Today was a pretty quiet day… until Ken ran up the stairs while on the phone and broke one of his toes (or at least mangled it horribly)… he is still able to walk and it is not his driving foot but I am told it hurts BADLY (I won’t repeat the words HE used)… most of the day was actually spent with Ken working as he had to make up for Wednesday and Thursday. 

I spent my time catching up on dishes, laundry and cleaning… our bedroom is still not done BUT the kitchen is all clean, banana cookies and bread were baked and the floor swept and mopped. 

Ken did take the twins out with him before supper to run some errands… my sunglasses are officially returned… and the boys managed to get us some groceries and Ken some pharmaceutical advice (pain killers). I needed butter… we have soft bananas and needed to bake – cookies AND bread! YUM.

I filled the little pool, mowed the front lawn and some of the back and drug all 5 kids outside today as well. The weed wacker isn’t working yet but the owners sprayed for weeds last weekend so some of the nasty ones to mow were totally fried. It was a nice dry day at least. I even brought Echo out to sit on her blanket in the shade by the fence. (in her bunny themed overalls of course) She is still not overly interested in touching the grass but was quite happy to crawl all over her blanket and watch the other 4 running around.

I decided against putting the kids into swimsuits since we had plans to go out later in the day. So Trinity had a bit of a temper tantrum about not having her swim clothes. She got over it in time.

In fact, while Ken and the twins were gone the rest of us set out to the convenience store for a slurpee (brown) and nickel candies (2 each). Trinity was a bit disobedient on the way home and refused to STOP when I told her to… luckily there is one road to cross (we already had) and then just down the street. Though there ARE driveways. 

Echo was in her peapod baby carrier. And going solo it was impossible to get a good picture. She seemed to enjoy it.

In the evening Kristen and Fydo came over with a new boardgame to try out. We played twice and had a nice visit. We are working on planning some boardgame time on the 30th while the guys have their LAN party. Tonight’s game was Betrayal at House on the Hill. It is partially cooperative, well at least until a certain point.

So with today’s successful van driving and a laundry list of contact numbers the plan tomorrow is to go collect my nephew and bring him here until Wednesday when my mom will pick him up for the remainder of the week. I even found a babysitter so Echo and I can go with. We have a phone Adam gave us since his blackberry was replaced so if we buy minutes we WILL have a phone for emergencies. Lauralee is the sweetheart who has agreed to watch our 4 big kids. She may regret it later…Now to get back to the cross stitching and tv watching – Red Dwarf… I am onto season 6.