BABY ON BOARD

Charlotte's going to be a big sister!  Our due date is January 30.  I've started a blog just for the pregnancy (as I also did when I was pregnant with Charlotte) and you can find it by clicking here!

My First Solo Album!

Please check out this video and consider donating to my Kickstarter campaign!  I'm trying to raise an ambitious $10,000 to make an album with violist da gamba, Andrew Arceci.  We are already over 60% of the way there, but still have a ways to go!  There are fab awards for each level of donation and every donor is listed in the CD booklet!  

Click here to be a part of this project!

America 2013

We posted loads of pictures from our America trip on my Instagram feed, but it was fun to look through the photos we snapped with the big camera.  Here are a few of our favourites:

Joiner family reunion 2013

Molly (and the baby belly!!) play with Charlie

our dear friend, Father Brant

cousins

Charlie wants a pool BAD

Charlie and Pa (Jason's dad)

Charlie and Grandma Barbara (Jason's stepmom)

morning poolside lounging at Jason's mom and stepdad's house

Jason and his mama

poolside bedhead

Easter 2013 with cousins

Rebecca has a perfect smile in nearly every single photo!

As always, we wish we had taken more photos, but it was nice to just be able to relax and enjoy our moments as well.  We had a fantastic time with everyone!  Charlie especially.  She was laughing in her sleep last night, and I can only guess which one of you she was thinking of!

Two-Year-Old Portraits

It turns out that our downstairs neighbour is a photographer!  She used to work as a children's photographer in her native Australia, but hasn't done much of it since arriving to London.  She asked if she might take some pictures of Charlie to get back into the swing of things.  I enthusiastically agreed!  

I love that the pictures are all natural and unposed.  Rebecca put both me and Charlie at ease and you can definitely see the result of that in the pictures.  Because it was so relaxed, Charlie had an absolute blast on the shoot!  She didn't want Rebecca to leave!  It was particularly special to have Rebecca in our home to take the pictures (as opposed to as studio).  As a result, we got some really sweet pictures of Charlie doing what she does best:  playing and being absolutely adorable.

Click here for a link to Rebecca's Facebook page or give her a call at 7447 456205.  I highly recommend her and her work!

And some unedited ones:

THANKS REBECCA!

Charlie's Second Birthday Party

Many apologies to those of you who have been waiting for this post!  I've been traveling within the UK and to Germany for work and Jason is currently in Amsterdam as I write this.  It has taken me a few weeks, but I'm happy to finally get pictures of Charlie's birthday party up!

First of all, you should know that there were balloons . . . lots of balloons . . . two hundred balloons to be exact!

The overall effect was a bit hard to capture, but you can get the idea from the pictures:

They were SUPER fun and festive and Charlie LOVED them!  They had to be blown up that morning (unless they arrived "treated" the day before, but that sounded awfully chemically for a kid's party).  So we had a guy arrive at 7am to start blowing up balloons with a huge helium tank.  Charlie slept in pretty late so they were all blown up and ready to go by the time she woke up.  She was thrilled!

The rest of the party was pretty simple, we had brunch foods complete with mimosas for the adults and flavoured milk for the kids (and Josh).  We added sprinkles to the rims of the glasses by dipping them in powdered sugar and water and then into a pile-o-sprinkles:

The cake was also sprinkle themed:

 

As were the party favours:

I didn't want to organise many activities but I did make a "Pin the Face on Charlie" game.  It started off looking like this before we played:

I spun the kids around and let them put the individual face parts on without a blindfold:

It ended up like this:

It was pretty hysterical to watch.  That bow tie just kills me!  

Everyone seemed to have a great time, and Charlie loved opening all her gifts:

Her favourite part may have been having everyone sing happy birthday to her.  She seemed so flattered and honoured by it all!  The look on her face while people sang was absolutely priceless:

It was a fantastic day!

PS:  Charlie's first birthday party!