Our basement is nearing completion. The drywall, painting, flooring, baseboards, doors and trim are all done. At this point the majority of the work is complete and the only significant items remaining are the cabinets, sinks and toilets in the bathroom. Assuming everything goes well, it should be done in a week or two. We’re very excited, and are hoping that it finishes before the baby arrives.

Speaking of which, we are 37 weeks today. So far everything is going well. The baby moves a LOT these days and I can often see the movement from across the room. While Christina has been having contractions off and on for a while now, they have started to get more painful as of late which has helped it sink in that a new member of our family will be joining us soon. I guess we better figure out the names!

The last few weeks were busy ones for our family with both Natalie and Jasmine’s birthdays and our 10-year anniversary. We celebrated both of them on Natalie’s birthday by going to the Cultus Lake Waterslides. We all had a great time and the girls both went down lots of slides. Natalie even went down the big ones with me and loved it.

We got Jasmine a run-bike (pedal-less) for her birthday this year. We also got the girls matching baskets and bells for their bikes. Natalie got a Disney Princess video game for the Nintendo DS that she loves to play. I was very impressed with how quickly she picked it up.

Last weekend I painted our bedroom. I had been dreading that one for a while as I had to move a lot of furniture out and we used two different colours, one for the ceiling and the other for the walls. It was a lot of work, but we love how it makes the room feel.

His website: www.andrewallenlive.com

Leaving Sunday as our day of rest, we managed to paint 4 different rooms and 5 colours. It left the weekend a bit of a blur, but we’re very happy with the results. We painted the main bathroom on Thursday, the girls rooms on Friday, and the master bathroom on Saturday. Here are some photos of the results.

Now that we’re fairly settled we’ve been enjoying our backyard and exploring our new neighbourhood.

We’ve gone swimming in the wave pool at the City Centre Aquatic Complex a few times. It’s a great facility and the kids really enjoy it.

We’ve been to White Pine Beach a couple of times as well. It is only 15 minutes from our house, on Sasamat Lake in Belcarra Regional Park and is quite beautiful. Apparently it gets quite busy, but we’ve mostly gone in the mornings so it hasn’t been too bad. The girls had fun digging in the sand and making sand castles, but it was still too cold to go swimming (at least too cold for us).

We attended the Annual Teddy Bear Picnic at the Town Center in Coquitlam. The girls got to play games and win prizes, and we we able to learn about lots of kids activities in the area. They even have a Teddy Bear Clinic where you can bring your teddy bear for a check up. The girls brought their teddy bears and had them checked out. Natalie even got her picture in the Tri-City News newspaper:

Today we tried out a section of the PoCo Trail. It’s just a few minutes from our house and was a very peaceful walk in the woods. The trail section we walked ran alongside a creek that is a fish habitat and we could see lots of little fish in the water. It was really nice to be out and enjoying nature.

Although we’ve moved in and are settled, there has still been lots of construction activity at the house. When we moved in the exterior of the house hadn’t been painted yet due to the weather, but it has finally been done and looks great. Additionally, we are about three weeks into the construction on our basement. It was unfinished, but we’ve hired a contractor to finish it and we’re making great progress so far. It’s only been three weeks and it has already been framed, plumbed, wired and inspected. We’re expecting insulation and drywall to start in the next week or so and we’re very excited. We also had a Benjamin Moore colour consultation today and love the new colours we chose. We can’t wait to start painting!

Although it was more than a month ago now, we had our 20 week ultrasound and confirmed that everything was looking good and that there was only one baby in there. :) One interesting turn of events is that they felt that our dates were wrong as the baby measured consistently large at around 21w 3d instead of the expected 19w 6d. So, our new due date is now around August 29th and we’re now 27 weeks along.

Natalie has had a great time in preschool this year. She is really growing up and is a very helpful and independent girl. We’re looking forward to getting her involved in some programs and camps in our new area this summer. Natalie is very excited about the pregnancy and has even felt the baby kick. She is already a great big sister and we’re sure she’s going to be great with the new one.

Jasmine’s vocabulary is growing in leaps and bounds and she speaks in full sentences all the time now. It’s great that she can express herself so well. She really loves to sing as well and sings along with all the music in the car and at home. She has a great sense of humour and is constantly giggling about one thing our another. She is also a very independent girl and just as stubborn as the rest of us.

This weekend Jasmine moved out of her crib and into a big girl bed… at her request! In our new house we bought new beds for both girls, but we continued to put Jasmine in her crib despite there also being a bed in her room. Today, we put her down for a nap in her crib today as usual, but she didn’t seem to be settling so Christina went to check on her. She found that Jasmine had climbed out her crib and was trying to get in her bed without success. Since we’d been planning on switching her over soon, Christina took advantage of the opportunity and let her nap in the bed. Satisfied, Jasmine promptly said good night to Christina and went to sleep. Wow! Hopefully it continues to go that well.

We’ve been in the new house for a week and half now and are loving it. It’s been a very busy week at the house with almost every spare moment spent unpacking boxes, organizing, building furniture, upgrading thermostats, installing lights, wiring networks, mowing the lawn, etc.. The pace is finally starting to slow though and now we can just enjoy it.

Here is an ultrasound picture from today. Sorry for the bad quality. They were out of paper, so I had to use my cellphone.