We’ve been living in our new house in Coquitlam for almost a month and a half now and we love it. My schedule has shifted earlier to accommodate my new commute on the West Coast Express, however the early start means I’m home by 5pm and we have lots of time to eat dinner as a family and visit before bed. We’re all appreciating the extra family time.

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!

While the house has preoccupied a lot of our attention and blog posts of late, there has been a lot else going as well.

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.

On Sunday, May 16th we completed our move to our new house in Coquitlam. Although we started moving boxes and smaller items over on the Friday afternoon, it wasn’t until Sunday evening that we finally had all our stuff from the storage locker and the apartment in our new house. It was a busy weekend, but it went relatively smoothly with only a few minor hiccups. A big thanks to Christina’s family for coming out and helping with the move and the girls. With their help we even managed to unpack a good chunk of the boxes on the moving day.

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.

We’re pleased to announce that we are pregnant with baby number three! The expected due date is September 9th, 2010, which means we’re almost 12 weeks along. Both Natalie and Jasmine are very excited to be big sisters and are already talking to and kissing Mommy’s belly. We only just told the girls today and already Natalie has been telling everyone she meets, “I have secret. There is something in Mommy’s tummy… and it’s not food.” Christina has been and is very nauseous, but has done a good job of hiding it so far, don’t you think? :) Thankfully she doesn’t seem to have any food aversions this time, but she’s craving oranges again.

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

We ventured downtown this weekend to take in a bit of the Olympic experience with the girls and enjoy the sunny weather. We took the Skytrain all the way to Waterfront station and walked to the Vancouver Convention Center to see the Olympic Flame. We enjoyed a lunch out and walked around looking at all the changes downtown. We finished up our day out with a Bobs & Lolo concert at Robson Square. The girls LOVE Bobs & Lolo, so it was lots of fun for both of them. Natalie even got her picture with Bobs and Lolo. While we watched the concert, we also watched people fly overhead on the zip line that they built across Robson Square. Although the crowds were large and the Skytrain busy, everything moved very smoothly.

We also visited our house again this weekend and it looks as if they are just about ready to start insulating and drywalling. Once they’ve finished the drywalling, we find out our official closing date and the planning begins. They have also started putting up the siding, so we can’t wait to see what it looks like next week.

The girls got ice skates for Christmas, so we took them ice skating at Robson Square. It was lots of fun and the girls really enjoyed it. I think we’ll have to do that again!

The last two weeks have been a little crazy around our house. Christina just completed the two-week OR course at work, which meant she was working every day for the last two weeks instead of her usual part-time shift. Our Mom’s graciously agreed to watch the kids on alternate weeks with her Mom watching the kids the first week and my Mom taking the second. My Dad was able to join us for a few days as well. It just wouldn’t have been possible without them. THANK YOU!

Even though we’d told ourselves that we’d only go every couple of weeks, we’ve been visiting our new house every weekend. It’s very exciting to watch it being built and imagining how the rooms will look. We visited it again today and the house is really coming along. The basement and garage concrete slabs were poured this week, and a lot of major plumbing is in place. All the walls are framed and roof is finished. All the windows are in, but the doors are still sitting in the den, waiting to be installed. They framed the kitchen island and the fireplace this week.