Mr Albion Stanley Payton Rutherford

 

Meeting Mum for the first time.

 

Dad has some skin to skin contact with me to settle me down.

 

Hello world... I would like you to please call me Albion Stanley Payton Rutherford. It's a long name and I think it suits me cos I am quite long too.

Mummy stares at me all the time.

Even when I close my eyes she is still there.

At the moment I am sometimes being housed in this peculiar plastic box. 

 

But I prefer hiding under the covers with mum. 

 

This is me with mum and dad - they love me HEAPS! 

Anniversary

It was our 1st Anniversary on the 30th of Jan... I know - where did that year go! We had a lovely lazy day at home and didn't do a thing! It was bliss.

To celebrate we went to see Les Miserables in London the following Monday - my 4th time but it was as amazing as ever! We were lucky enough to get the best seats in the house thanks to my friend Debbie's sister. Very cool!

I also gave Don some photos of our wedding - a year later I have finally managed to get some printed... And he gave me a three hour ceramics course for the both of us. Cool aye! We did it on Saturday and it was so much fun. It was at the teacher Su's house and we had a great time. We made a few little bits and pieces and once they have dried and been fired in the kiln we get to keep them. Here are a few pics...

It was such a great pressie and I am really keen to do some more at some point.

So we made it to 37 weeks on Friday - the baby is full term. I think we are all sorted for its arrival and are getting pretty excited about meeting the little one...

I have finally finished work so have been busy nesteing. It is SO nice to have some time at home and I have been busy stocking the freezer and cupboards, packing my hospital bag, relaxing, hanging out with Baxter and generally getting things ready for Smudges arrival.

We have done lots of catching up with friends and it feels very strange to think the next time we see them we will have a baby... Scary!

This is me and Moana who is due early in May.

 

We had dinner with friends Trav, Ganon and Janelle in the weekend.

And we went and visited Dan and Leigh and little Nate on Sunday to have lunch and take some photos for them. Here are a few shots of Nate. He's pretty cute!

So only 2 and a half weeks till Smudgy is due to make his or her appearance in the world... We will keep you posted! Love to all xox

Quilt Making.

This weekend I made a quilt for the baby...

I decided that I didn't want to spend lots of money of buying sheets etc for the baby when I can make them so have spent some time at the op shops looking for old sheets and duvets and cool fabrics. I spent last weekend cutting up old sheets and creating new ones. For the flat sheets I used some of the ribbon from wedding presents to make them look pretty and also made fitted sheets for the mattress.

I couldn't resist making up the cot to see what they looked like!

While I was op shopping for the sheet fabric I decided to look for cool fabrics to make a quilt - I was thinking spots and stripes - maybe old shirt fabrics - but shirts are still £3-£5 from the charity shops and as I wanted about 6 different patterns I went to one of my favourite websites www.etsy.com and bought a really neat fabric bundle dor about £7. This along with a couple of cool pillowcases I found I made my quilt. Here are some pics.

It took most of Saturday to make and I had to spend a bit of time unpicking a few mistakes... But I really love it and it wasn't too difficult at all (just don't look too close as there are a few scruffy bits)!

I hope Smudgy likes it...

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