Since it has been so long since we posted regularly I can’t possibly cover everything, but I thought I’d share a few highlights.

Justin had his first Christmas and it was a great one. We had Christina’s entire family here and my parent’s as well. It was a full house, but thankfully we had room for everyone. We also had our first good snowfalls this winter in our new house and the girls had lots of fun building snowmen and making snow angels.

Natalie started skating lessons in January for the first time.
She did a great job and by the end she was able to move around the ice very well and get up herself if she fell. She continues to enjoy her Power Hour swimming lessons and feels at home in the water.

We’re really enjoying watching Jasmine develop her own personality. Jasmine’s verbal skills have grown significantly, and she has really started to express herself. She loves to tell us all kinds of stories and especially loves singing and dancing. You never know what is going to come out of her mouth these days. Just the other day when the optometrist asked her how she was, she said, “I have a really great life.” Being a two year-old though she does have her difficult days. In January, she had a particularly bad weekend. On Friday, I wasn’t home for more than a minute — I hadn’t even taken off my shoes yet — before I had to pack her up and wait for a couple of hours in the emergency room to get a bead extracted from her nose. If that wasn’t enough on Sunday she managed to get a motorized, toy hamster stuck in her hair and I spent a good half an hour untangling her hair from its little wheel axles.

At the end of February, we went on vacation to Maui with the whole family and both sets of grandparents. It was a bit of a bumpy start as everyone in our family took turns getting a horrible 24-hour flu just days before we left and Natalie was recovering on her first few days of the trip. It didn’t take long for the sickness to be a distant memory as we spent day after day relaxing on the beach, boogie boarding, and eating gourmet icecream. We didn’t do as much sightseeing this time as our previous trips, but still managed to visit the Maui Ocean Center and Nakelele’s Blowhole, watch the sunset from the summit of Haleakala, attend a Luao, watch the surfers at Ho’okipa, and explore the quaint towns of Makawao and Paiea. While we were in Maui Justin tried his first solid food, some fresh Hawaiian avocado, and he loved it. Christina has been training for the Vancouver Half-Marathon in May, and we still managed to keep up the schedule despite being on vacation. We enjoyed spending some nice time together, even it was running 6 miles at a time! The girls went boogie boarding for the first time and had a blast. Both of them enjoyed riding the waves with us and just hanging out in the water. It looks like we have some future surfer girls in the family. The only big downside of the whole trip was that I lost my wedding band boogie boarding at Polo beach. At least I was having fun at the time.

A few weeks ago, shortly after we got back from vacation, we had a nasty surprise — several inches of water in our furnace room. The water had backed up from the street and flooded the basements of four homes on our street, including ours. Thankfully the damage was relatively limited, but still required tearing out the carpet and some drywall in a couple of rooms and a week of strangers and restoration equipment in the basement. The insurance is covering everything, but it will still be at least a month before it is back to normal. The construction is expected to be only a week, but the paperwork can take a while.

Breaking News… Justin got his first tooth today on his bottom left! Also, he is 15.5 lbs.

Justin is seven months old today. He has grown up a ton since I last posted, but then again it has been almost 5 months. A few of the recent highlights are that he is now eating solid foods (rice cereal, etc.), can sit up unattended, has started crawling, and can even transition from crawling to sitting by himself. Pretty much all of this has happened in the in the past few weeks so we’re very excited. Now that he is mobile it is time to baby proof the new house. We started today by lowering his crib after we discovered him sitting up it after his nap. We also had his Dedication back in February before our vacation. His verse was Jeremiah 29:11, “For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the LORD, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.”

More updates coming soon…

It’s been more than two months since we last posted and a ton has been going on. We hosted Thanksgiving this year at our home and were joined by my parents and my brother’s family. It was great to see everyone and meet our nephew Quinlan for the first time. Unfortunately I was ill on the first day of the visit, so I didn’t get to enjoy too much of the dinner, but there were lots of left overs. We found a great pumpkin patch nearby in Maple Ridge and took the whole gang out there on the Sunday.

Our friend Cristi stayed with us for a few nights while she was here attending a wedding. It was great to have a visit and catch up. Thanks so much Cristi for introducing us to the world of Skype.

A couple of days later Christina’s mom and grandmother came out for a visit. Amy was lucky to have some time off work at the same time too. It was a relaxing few days of visiting, eating, and watching movies.

This was our first Halloween in the new neighbourhood and we took the kids out trick-or-treating. Natalie was a ladybug and Jasmine was a butterfly. They both had a great time and came home with quite the sack of candy which we’re still working our way through. :) Justin tagged along in the carrier, but didn’t dress up. Amy joined us for the evening of pumpkin carving and handed out candy while we trick-or-treated.

I’ve recently brought my trombone out of retirement and joined a local jazz band. I realized after my first practice that it has been 14 years since I played regularly, but I managed to keep up for the most part. It’s lots of fun playing again.

Natalie started in her new preschool back in September and is really enjoying it. She gets to do lots of art — she typically brings home at least two projects each day — and is learning lot of new things. Natalie has shown a lot more interest in drawing as of late and is getting quite skilled at drawing people, flowers, and the alphabet. We’ve also recently subscribed to the Reading Eggs activity website for her and already we’ve noticed her reading skills have improved.

Natalie has been going to the Power Hour swimming program at the local pool once a week. She loves being in the water and shows us all her mad skillz at bath time. Both Natalie and Jasmine are taking dance classes on Saturday mornings with Miss Annette. They love all the dancing, but the highlight is dressing up in their ballet outfits.

Jasmine also attends library and gym classes while Natalie is at her activities. It is a nice time for her and Christina to spend together as they are all still parent participation. Her imagination is blossoming, spending most of her time dressed as a princess. Or a fairy princess. Or a good witch. :) She is a very affectionate little girl, and showers her new baby brother with tons of kisses.

Justin is 2.5 months old now. At his 2 month appointment he weighed 12 lbs 2 ozs. He is a beautiful little boy, full of smiles and giggles all the time. We are quite pleased that he has started to go to bed at the same time as the girls, leaving the two of us with our evenings back again. He still wakes up a couple of times in the night to feed. He likes to spend time playing on his activity mat and is more interested in toys these days.

Now that all our children sleep in the evening, Christina and I have started scheduling regular date nights for the two us. We enjoyed a lovely stroll through the mall (sans kids), playing the new XBox Kinect at FutureShop, and dessert at Milestone’s for our first date night last week. I wouldn’t be surprised if this weeks date night included some Christmas shopping.

We have booked a family trip to Maui for the new year and are very excited. It will be our first big family trip and Justin’s first flight. Natalie has been talking about the trip lately. She explained that “we don’t need to bring cups because we can just drink coconut milk out of the coconut” and that “she will build us a house out of palm tree branches and vines”. Seriously, I don’t know where she gets this stuff. :)

Justin was one week old yesterday and we couldn’t be happier. Our first week as a family of five has gone great and Justin has been a very easy baby so far spending most of his time sleeping or eating. We have spent most of the week at home, although we did venture out right away to buy some boy clothes and groceries.

Grocery shopping with three kids four and under is quite an experience. Although the kids were great, the logistics were interesting and we ended up taking two carts, one for kids and the other for groceries. :)

I’ll post some more photos soon…

We are proud to announce the birth of our son Justin Micah Mitchell, born Friday, August 27th at 9:46 pm. He weighed 8 lbs 4 oz at birth and measured 52 cm long with a head circumference of 36 cm. Both mother and baby are doing great and we are settling in at home now. The girls both love their new baby brother and can’t stop fussing over him. He’s not even 2 days old, and we’ve already taken hundreds of photos. I’ve uploaded a few quickly and I’m sure they’ll be tons more in the near future.