Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!

A bit of a belated Merry Christmas to everyone and a Happy New Year to all!

You may have heard it's been a cold and snowy December here in the UK. We made the most of it a few weekends ago and took Don's snowboard for a spin - well Don did as I don't think my balance would have been up to staying on the board... Baxter loved it too! Here are some pics of the park in the snow.

 

And then it was Christmas! We were sent lots of lovely pressies from NZ so we just had to get a Christmas tree...

Sadly Sarah W couldn't make it for Christmas with us so we had a pre Christmas dinner at her lovely new flat in Clapham Junction. She cooked us a yummy dinner and it was lovely to see her.

We were lucky enough to be invited to Hannah Hill's Aunty Kate and Uncle Mark's beautiful home 'Grendon' near Gloucester. Not just us invited but Toby and Lucie, Malcom and Amanda and Mark as well. We had a such a wonderful happy time.

The tree looked pretty good there too!

On Christmas Eve we left some carrots out for the reindeer and a beer for Father Christmas which we hope he enjoyed.

There was lots of snow at Grendon so we had a proper white Christmas - YAY.

We made the annual Christmas video while away. Here it is!

Also - check out this video Don made of our sailing holiday with the Hills in Silcily in November...



We hope you all had a very Merry and Happy Christmas and that 2011 is filled with love and wonderfully exciting things!

Lots of love from Anna, Don, Baxter and Smudge xox

29 weeks today.

Hi everyone. As of today we are 29 weeks pregnant and we decided to take some pictures of my tummy - which as I look through the photos I am very surprised at the size of! I guess I become used to the size and it doesn't feel this big to me.

We spent last weekend fixing up Smudges room... I had already made some curtains - 1st attempt and not too bad - and bought some storage baskets but I was really keen to get everything sorted even though it has been pointed out that 1 - the baby won't be here for a few months and another few months before it is in its room and 2 - it won't really notice what it's room looks like for quite some time... I of course don't care and just wanted it done.

Here are some before shots...

And here is what it looks like now.

We hung some pictures and got a lamp off Freecycle. The amazing quilt over the sofa is Malcolm and Amanda's wedding present. Very cool. Check out Amanda's blog - she is very clever. http://wigglepounce.blogspot.com/

We cut out a stencil on wallpaper and painted it onto the wall. There are birds sitting in the tree and flying into it. We might have to repaint these as they are white and quite hard to see. And we put the cot up of course!

We also covered the desk with this really cool oilcloth covered in chickens. Cute!

All that needs to be done now is a curtain to cover the bottom of the desk and put some shelves on the wall above it. Oh and for the baby to arrive to put in it!

You may have heard or noticed that November and December have been pretty cold over here - here are a few pics from the snow we had a couple of weeks ago.

 

And this is my favourite photo from the last wee while. My two tired boys...

Sailing, Babies and Birthdays.

The week before last we went on a sailing holiday to Sicily with the Hills. We had such a lovely week - not much sailing but a bit of sightseeing and lots of wonderful company and yummy food.

We went to a wine tasting... the wine is all grown at the base of Mt Etna...

 The wine was lovely - Han and I could only have a little taste - and the food was great!

 Orla had a lovely time playing off the boat.

 We stayed in a town called Riposto for a few days - this is the view from the boat...

 The town was small but had a great fish market where we bought dinner for a couple of nights.

 We went for a day trip on a train part of the way up Mt Etna - it was a bit chilly but a good outing.

When we eventually got out of Riposto we were in a town called Sarcusa. It had a great old town which we really enjoyed exploring.

The next day we finally got to do a bit of sailing - it was a beautiful day with just enough wind to get the sails up and even warm enough for a swim...

 We ended up in another small port called Mazameme.

 On our last day we took the boat out for  a few hours - it was a bit cooler but still lots of fun... While we were away we were filming a short piece for a sailing company in London.

It was such a fun and happy trip - albeit with a bit of drama. Thanks Hannah, Jon and Orla for coming with us and for helping us have such a lovely time!

It's my birthday tomorrow so we thought we would have a combined birthday and bay shower celebration. We had about 20 people to our house - which was a bit of a squeeze but we managed.

There were four pregnant woman here - here are me, Han and Mo...

 Han and Orla organised a game where everyone had to guess the size of my tummy with ribbon... a few people were way off but most were pretty close. Toby and Sarah Whetter were the closest!

 We were extremely spoilt and got some very lovely pressies.

 And Don had even organised some very very yummy cupcakes with candles for me to blow out. Thanks!