Merry Xmas and Happy New Year

The 3 of us have just returned from a week in North Wales. There was lots to eat and drink and I had a good time at some late night parties.............



I often had to take a nap in the afternoon to sleep off the excesses of the previous night...................



I met my Aunt Katie...................



went for a few walks with mummy..............



and generally hung out with the rest of the family.



All in all we are doing fine and hope everybody is enjoying the festive season.

what do you think I'm doing?

Alfie's first movie

4 weeks old

Time has ticked along and Alfie is rapidly growing, piling on 10oz last week. Grandma Suzie has been to visit from North Carolina and Alfie was very happy to spend time sleeping on her.




Alfie's favourite song right now is 'I got you babe' by Sonny and Cher and gets very angry when we try other tunes first. He has been on a number of outings including a trip to Wells with Suzie and his uncle Joe.



In other news I graduated from the Bar Course and picked up my prize from university and also won a prize from Middle Temple called the Baron Dr Ver Heyden de Lancey prize which almost completely paid for our tickets to America next year.



We continue to receive presents for Alfie and he has a number of fancy outfits.

Week 2

Alfie spent a good part of the weekend and following week with Granny and grandpa. He has a bit of a temper but once calm is pretty easy going. He does like to stay up all night and sleep through the day.

We took an outing into Bristol on Sunday and even took him out to a restaurant. Judging by the explosion which occured in the restaurant bathroom I am not sure he thought much of it!

On the way back we got the above photo of the 5 of us outside our flat.

....and here are some more photos of different poses for good measure.

Alfie logs on

Hello my name is Alfie and I am about a week old. This past week I have been mostly eating a mixture of breast milk and formula.

Most days I hang out in the living room in my basket, it is pretty cool and I just do what I want. Last night we did go for a ride in the car as I was pretty mad about something (although I cannot remember what), and that was fine. Mummy drove and daddy and I sat in the back. The ride did not last that long as I did a big poo in my pants and we had to come home. We got home just in time for the cricket, daddy and I watched a bit but I thought England's performance was rather poor. We are going to have to improve rapidly if we are to retain the Ashes.

Today we went for a little ride in my buggy, it is pretty comfy and I like the fact that my car seat fits on top. You can see in a photo that I decided to wear a blue cardy which, worn a bit baggy, is all the rage in Fishponds.

3 days old

Johanna and Alfie came home on Sunday afternoon after a rather restless night in hospital for Johanna but a good one for Alfie who slept through everything on the ward.

Anyway we are slowly settling into life at home was a little stressful yesterday but we are getting better....Alfie has been asleep all afternoon, perhaps he is saving the dramatics for tonight. Here he is in his moses basket.

Alfie's first day

It is now Saturday and I have just returned from the hospital where Johanna and Alfie are staying another night. They both had fevers and high temperatures after the birth so midwives are keeping a close eye on them, both however are doing very well.

Alfie weighed in at 6 pounds 6 oz and was born at 14:55 on Friday 17th November.

He seems a contented little fella and has been feeding pretty well today. He has a load of blond hair mostly at the back of his head, he is pretty small and has all his fingers and toes etc. His balls have not dropped yet but docs hopeful they will soon. He didn't like his bath but otherwise had a good day and was happy when Man Utd won today.

JOhanna is much better and feeling like herself again after taking time to have a bath and relax a little.

Staff at hospital have been superb. Here are some more pics.

Alfie Touches Down!

The story began on Wednesday night at about 9.30pm when Johanna started to have her first contractions, they got stronger through the night and I got about an hour and a half of sleep whilst Johanna stayed up all night, the midwife was called at 5am on Thursday morning as the contractions were about 2 minutes apart but we were only 2cm dilated. We then had a very tough day as Johanna spent the whole day with painful yet sporadic contractions. At 9pm after nearly 24 hours of contractions we called the midwife and she came round, only to find we were only about 3cm dilated, Johanna was getting exhausted and we decided to head into the hospital at that point as what was supposed to be happening was not. We got a room at the delivery suite at about 1am Friday morning, Johanna got a a shot of pethidin (?) and managed to sleep for a few hours. At around 5am we found out that the reason for the long period of contractions which were not really working was the fact that Alfie was facing the wrong way he had his back to Johanna's back and therefore his head was not applying enough pressure to Johanna's cervix. Anyway Johanna did start active labour at around 5.30am and it was hoped he might turn. However, he did not and because Johanna was tiring after 36 hours of contractions and no sleep for even longer than that she was given a drip to help induce labour, Alfie during this time was doing ok. The drip worked and Johanna started having closer more intense contractions. However, he still didn't really want to come out and his heart rate started to increase. Johanna started to get feverish, they called in the doctors who immediately said we needed to go into theatre as Alfie was getting distressed and Johanna's temperature had risen quite dramatically to 39.1c. We were wheeled off to the theatre and it was explained that he was either going to come out by forceps or C-section, Johanna gave a couple of massive pushes and the doctor said he was coming out, she grabbed him with the forceps and out he came and was plonked on johanna's tummy. A little purple thing he screamed for a while before settling down. Johanna needed to be sorted out and I took Alfie off to the recovery suite. Johanna came in a little later and we all sat around as a family for the first time...tired, relieved and elated. here are a couple of pics of him in the recovery suite...the marks you see are from the forceps.

Alfie begins to stretch mummy's clothes at 34 weeks.

Trip to North Wales

Johanna is on her summer holidays and I managed to get some time off before starting work so we spent 4 days in North Wales.



Visiting South Stack Lighthouse on Anglesey with mum,







the smallest house in GB in Conway,














Conway castle

and

Llanfairpwllgwyngyllgogerychwyrndrobwllllantysiliogogogoch the famous village on Anglesey with the longest name.

When translated means “St Mary’s church in a hollow of white hazel near to a rapid whirlpool and St Tysilio’s church near the red cave”.

Waylan

Waylan is growing up rapidly in our absense, thankfully Danielle has a new camera and has sent us many, many recent photographs.

Edie's new faces

We went to visit Tom, Emma and Edie in Abingdon, where Edie treated us to some of her new tricks.

Suki and Harj get married

Suki getting ready the day before the wedding.

We went to the wedding of Suki and Harj in Coventry at a Sikh Temple. It was followed by a party at the Hilton in Birmingham. Was a great day and Johanna also enjoyed festivities at the Gill house prior to the wedding.

We also managed to catch up with some old friends at the wedding.

Baby Boy on the way

Here is the 20 week scan of the baby, we found out that its a boy.

head is on the right, he is curled up pretty tight and the leg bones can be seen on left.

Danielle and Jenny Visit

Danielle, Jenny, Johanna and Bert

Danielle and Jenny visited us for a week just before Easter. They also went off to Paris during the week. Here we are out at an Indian restaurant in Bristol.

We also visited the New Forest with them for a family gathering in celebration of dad's grandparents 100th wedding anniversary.



Johanna, Edie and Bert

Danielle and Johanna (below)