The girls were at their 1/3 of a year marker yesterday and today with Natalie 3y4m and Jasmine 1y4m. They are both growing up so fast that it is hard to keep track of all the changes. Jasmine continues to add new words to her vocabulary although “No” and “Stop” seem to be her favourite. She loves to sing and dance along with the music and is quite good at both. Natalie’s memory and extroversion continue to surprise us. Just the other day Christina was paying for her groceries and had forgotten all about buying stamps, but Natalie remembered and took the initiative to politely ask the cashier, “Do you sell stamps?”.

We’ve been very busy over the past few weeks packing up our house. Since we’re going to be moving to a smaller temporary place until the house is built, only a small subset of our belongings are coming with us and the rest is going to storage. It’s been quite a task finding time to pack with two small children and a very busy work schedule, but we’ve managed to pull it off and are just getting the last few items packed before our move on Tuesday. Thankfully our temporary accommodations are just down the block so we don’t have to change much else in our life for now. We are very eager to get the move over with so that we can focus on Christmas.

The girls are still enjoying all their programs although some are wrapping up for the year. Natalie had her ballet dance recital on Friday and I took off that end of the day to watch. It was very cute and she did a great job. Great work Natalie! Both the girls are still in their swimming lessons and doing wonderfully. Jasmine and I swim together, while Natalie swims with just the instructor now.

We continue to monitor progress on our new house, and visited it again just this Saturday. They have finished most of the foundation now and should be filling the dirt back in soon. It’s exciting to see it take shape, and we can’t wait for them to start on the main floor! We may not be able to visit again until after Christmas, so we’re hoping to see lots of progress by then.

The girls have a toy mailbox that we store behind a chair in the living room when it’s not in use. The girls can still get to it and Jasmine has made a habit out of playing with it back there, probably because it is away from Natalie. We’d never really given it too much thought, but today I looked back there when she’d gone to play with it and found her holding three different socks and noticed another sock spilling out of the mailbox. When I pulled it out I found the mailbox stuffed FULL of socks. We’d been starting to notice that a number the girls’ socks seemed to be missing, but didn’t realize just how many. She must have been stashing them there for weeks. Who knows what else we’ll find as we start packing up the house!

The construction on our new house has finally begun! We can no longer say it is not even a hole in the ground as it is now just that! We’re very excited to see that construction has begun and are looking forward to visiting regularly to watch it develop.

The girls had their first joint trick-or-treating this year. Natalie was a butterfly and Jasmine was an elephant. The fact that Natalie wore that elephant costume just last year shows how quickly Jasmine is catching up. Earlier this afternoon we carved our pumpkin, roasted the seeds, and decorated the girls’ treat bags. The girls had a great night out in our complex. We were out for less than an hour, but the girls came home with full bags. After we examined all their treats, the girls got to enjoy a little sugar high before bed. Jasmine was particularly thrilled with her mouthful of Smarties. We hope everyone had a happy and safe Halloween. Don’t forget to “fall back” to Standard Time tonight.

Although we’ve posted about the housing situation, we’ve had a lot going on over the last few months in our lives. So much in fact that I’ll just highlight them.

Christina is back at work part-time. At the beginning of August, Christina returned to work having run out of maternity leave. :(

Photographed a wedding. A long-time friend of ours asked me to photograph her wedding this summer. It was great experience and a lovely wedding. The photos worked out great and she was very photogenic.

Natalie and Jasmine have started kids programs. This year we signed up Natalie for pre-school and dance class. She loves both and it’s great for her to have the focused learning and Jasmine to have some dedicated Mommy time. Jasmine is in a music class and goes to Moms & Tots with Christina while Natalie is at pre-school. They both start swimming lessons again in November.

Bought a house. We found our dream house in Coquitlam, and snapped it up. Now we just have to wait for it to be built.

Las Vegas Getaway. To celebrate our 10 year wedding anniversary (albeit almost a year early), we decided to take a short no-kids vacation. We had a great time and took in some shows (Cirque du Soleil Ka, and The V Show), ate lots of great food, and relaxed by the pool-side. It was a wonderful opportunity to re-connect and de-stress. Thanks again, Grandma Lori and Aunty Amy for watching the girls and welcoming us home with a Thankgiving turkey dinner.

Sold our house. We listed on the 5th and sold on the 20th. Up and gone in 15 days. We’re relieved to not have to worry about it anymore, but sad to leave.

As of last night, we’ve officially sold our townhouse. We’ve lived here for more than 3.5 years now and have loved having such great friends for neighbours during that time. We listed our house on Oct 5 before we left for our Las Vegas getaway and finished the paperwork for the sale last night. Now we just have to find somewhere to live for the next 5 months as we have to be out by Dec 2! We’re hoping to find something in the area so we can continue our lives and kids programs until the big move to Coquitlam.