Phone camera to the rescue

Since my camera broke a few months ago and I have yet to send it in for repair, our lives have not been documented very well. All photographic evidence has pretty much been left up to my phone. Here are a few events that have been captured over the last four months.

1. Evie begged for smile pancakes after she saw a picture of some in a book, so I whipped up a batch of blueberry pancakes for breakfast. Both girls politely took three bites each and asked for cereal.

2. A few weekends ago we celebrated my baby sister's wedding. Evie was on the dance floor all night with a few notable exceptions, cake being one of them.

3 & 10. The girls and I went on a date for some frozen yogurt. They both ordered chocolate with gummy bears and m&m's. I am so happy Anchorage finally has a few pay-by-the-ounce joints. Our favorite haunt is Yogurt Lounge.

4. Despite the -20 degree temperature three weeks ago, the clear skies and blaring sun called for sunglasses. Charlotte picked a new pair out and wore them all day.

5. About a month ago all our toilets went bad, so Josh installed new ones and put beautiful tile where ugly linoleum used to reside. Charlotte happily endured a long shopping trip to Lowe's thanks to a few episodes of "Mickey Mouse Clubhouse" on Josh's phone.

6. Six weeks ago Evie visited the dentist to get a canker sore zapped. She usually has a mouthful, but we have not seen a single one since the treatment.

7. The month of January was filled with wedding prep. I was in charge of making the bridesmaid skirts and I finished the last one the day before the wedding.

8. Evie and I snuggling on my mom's couch sometime in October.

9. In December I purged around the house to make room for the new Christmas gifts. Charlotte found an old bink amidst the clutter and for two days she refused to let it out of her sight. I thought a major relapse was in order, but I managed to sneak it away during her bath without any trouble.

11 & 15. The girls sleeping on our plane ride back from Utah in November.

12. I love that sweet face!

13. My sister hired a hairstylist for all the bridesmaids. She was very nice and did a great job with everyone else, but I wasn't a fan of the huge bump on my head. Luckily, I fixed it before the ceremony and all was well. Although everyone did get a good laugh when I texted the picture.

14. On our way back home from Utah, Charlotte escaped and made a beeline for the escalator. She tripped and smashed her face on the metal, effectively shredding her poor upper lip. Her nap in the #15 picture happened after she screamed for 40 minutes and the Ibuprofen finally kicked in.

Secret Keeper?

We discovered over the last few weeks that Evie is a terrible secret keeper.

For example, she happened to be with me when I bought Josh's Christmas present. We had a long talk about how it was a special surprise for daddy, so we shouldn't talk about the gift. Flash forward three hours and I overhear her whisper to Josh, "We went to Habitat and got you a knife. It's a special surprise for Christmas!"

What other secrets has Evie been sharing? Well, if you have been around Evie for more than fifteen minutes in the last four weeks, you may have heard something along the lines of this:

"My mommy has a baby in her tummy! It's a secret!!"

She always makes sure to add the "it's a secret" part at the end.

Here are a few tidbits about our little secret:

• We are equally excited for a boy or a girl. (Read: we didn't "try" for a specific gender or have our hopes set in one direction.)
• We are not finding out the gender until little lambkin arrives.
• I am due the end of July.
• With each of the girls, I gave birth and then took finals a week later. This baby will be no different, as my due date coincides with the week of my very last finals. I kind of feel like I am in some crazy marathon, but instead of a medal I get a college diploma and a baby at the end.
• Because of the previous tidbit, I am actually hoping to have this baby later rather than sooner. (I may or may not be secretly wishing for a July 31st birth. And if you can tell me why, then you are also a nerd.)
• Overall, the balance of college, little girls, Joy School, pregnancy, church responsibilities, and Josh is going very well.

Christmas Eve

Apparently going back to school full-time means that I don't pick up my camera or even think about blogging. Maybe that will change next semester; I am taking three classes instead of five. Only time will tell.

I managed to remember the camera for Christmas Eve festivities, but I only snapped a few photos. Here is the evidence.

Charlotte was her snuggly, mischievous self. She ran around the house all evening, alternating between passing kisses out to everyone and stealing candy from the gingerbread houses my brothers were making.

Evie spent the evening making spritzer cookies for Santa. She planned out every detail, from which lucky cookies got to be chosen for the Santa plate down to the note explaining our offerings.

Christmas day was pretty amazing. Josh got off work early the night before, so we stayed up late finalizing Christmas details and watching family home videos from our trip to Disneyland last year. Then we all woke up the next morning, went to church together, and came home to open presents. We spent a lot of time with family, whether in person or via Skype. Like I said, amazing.

Strawberries with chocolate

Several months ago while shopping at the mall, Evie saw a big display advertising chocolate-covered strawberries. She stopped, inquired what those "things" were called, and then proclaimed that instead of cake for her birthday she wanted strawberries with chocolate. Well, as she says it, "Thstwaberrieth wif chwoclate." Four years old and her adorable lisp is still just as prominent.

The girls' birthdays are just a week apart, so we decided to do joint parties in Utah and Alaska.

For the Utah party, Pop Pop and Tu Tu pulled out the chocolate fountain and Evie ate all the strawberries with chocolate her little heart desired.

When Charlotte woke up from her nap the girls opened presents and then returned to the chocolate fountain.

Aunt Becca worked hard the last few months and crocheted blankets for all her nieces (the other two can be found on her blog). Below are better shots of Charlotte's butterfly sky and Evie's jungle scene.

We had the Alaska birthday party for the girls yesterday, but I did not take any pictures. It was equally fun and involved a lot of giggling and playtime with cousins from North Carolina.

Thank you to all our wonderful family who love my sweet babies so much!

Birthday beginning

We flew to Utah two weeks ago to spend the Thanksgiving holiday with Josh's parents, Becca, Chris, and their best couple friends from college. We started the vacation with a trip to get pedicures in honor of Evie's upcoming birthday.

Evie sat in her own little Hello Kitty chair. She was pretty excited and had a lot of fun picking out the nail polish and stickers for her nails.