Owen's First Swim

Hello People,

Yes I am still alive, just haven't had much time for blogging of late, don't know why!!! Owen is doing well, he had his six month check last week and he is now weighing in at 8.8kg and is 70cm long.

He started swimming in early February and is doing really well, he went under the water the other day and blew bubbles as he was coming up, I was so proud. Colin was able to have the afternoon off work to attend Owens first swimming lesson, so we were able to get some photos of the occasion.












Colin's father came down from Queensland at the beginning of March to met Owen. It was the first time I had met him as he had been overseas for our wedding. We had a good weekend catching up with him and by the end of his visit I think that he was quite smitten with Owen, but who isn't. This is Owen with his Grandfather Peter.




Of course there has been lots of photos of Owen over the past few months, but here is a selection of some of his more cutest moments.

Update on Owen

Hello All,

I have been asked if we had stopped taking photos of Owen as there had been no posts for a while. As if we have stopped taking photos, it is just finding the time to actually getting the photos up. All is well with the little man, he has been sleeping through the night for us and I cherish each night that he does it. He is now in his cot as he was getting too big for his bassinet.

He had a check with the health nurse this week and he is now weighing 6.1kg and measures 61cm and he is now 12 weeks old. He is becoming a little boy and losing his newborn look. Here are some photos for you. I will try to add more on a regular basis.



He is now starting to smile, which is nice to see.



On Sunday mornings we try to have a sleep in, when Owen wakes up, I will feed him and put him in bed with Colin and myself. We generally end up with the two cats on the bed as well. It is quite the treat!

The Arrival of Owen

After 41 weeks of pregnancy our son arrived on Thursday 29 September 2011. He was delivered by c section, which was not the original plan. I went for a check up on the Tuesday and was told that the head of the baby was not engaged and I would therefore need to have a c section, which was a bit of a shock to me. It turns out that the reason for this is that the head of the baby was quite large, it measured 40cm. Our midwife, Judy, said she have never measured a head that large. So I am thankful that I didn't go into labour otherwise I would have been in an awful mess!

We named our son Owen John Glenn Butterworth. We were thinking of Harry, but Owen was on the list and he seemed to suit the name when Colin said it, so that is what we went with. John, comes from my father and Glenn comes from Colin's Grandfather. I have two middle names so we decided to go with two for our child.




Owen weighed 10 pounds 5 ounces and measured 54cm in length. The c section went well and before I knew it I had my son draped across my chest in recovery enjoying some skin to skin time, which is an absolutely magical experience.



The Mid Wives at the LGH were marvellous, I cannot say enough about them. We went home after five days in the hospital to face the shock of realising that we had a small human that we were responsible for. I can honestly say that this was a complete shock to both our systems and I was convinced that we had made a huge mistake. But things have gotten alot better and I think we are coping quite nicely now.



Owen has changed so much since he was born and continues to change everyday, which is amazing to watch.




Owen is the first grandchild for all parents and they are all really happy. However my dad is the dotting Grandfather and obviously loves Owen to bits and looks forward to when he will be able to do some painting with him (my dad does oil paintings of Tasmanian landscapes). This is my Dad holding Owen as his first visit in the hospital, I love the look on Dad's face!



One of the things I look forward to is dressing little Owen for an outing because he is in triple 0 in clothes I can put him in some cool outfits. I particularly like this one:



My brother, Matthew, was down from Queensland last week and although he doesn't have a paternal instinct in his body, he did have a hold of Owen (only because his wife, Heather, who couldn't come down wanted pictoral evidence of Matthew with Owen).



There have been many photos taken of Owen and I am sure that many more will be taken. But one of my favourites is when he was looking really crabby, this photo always makes me smile:



I was determined that my child wouldn't be having a dummy, so naturally he has a dummy! It calms him down at times, which helps in trying to get him off to sleep. His dummy is called David and he loves it to bits (at times, other times he doesn't want to know anything about it).



Well that is all for now, I am sure there will be many more blogs about Owen in the coming months.

Long Time, No Post

Hello,

Yes I know it has been a while, but the arrival of a baby tends to eat up a lot of one's time! Yes that is right our little bundle of joy, a boy, arrived on 29 September 2011, we have called him Owen John Glenn Butterworth. I promise that there will be lots of photos of Owen, soon.

Before the arrival of Owen, Colin and I celebrated our first wedding anniversary. I have no idea where the time went, one minute we are getting married and enjoying our honeymoon and then the next we are expecting our first baby and we have been married for a year. We have decided to try and stay with year appropriate anniversary gifts, the first year is paper, which is right up my alley. I put together a little album of our story thus far, which Colin was very chuffed with. Colin arranged for me to be a sponsor of the Red Pandas at the Chester Zoo in England, which we visited on our honeymoon. I managed to get a photo of the baby red panda as it popped its head out of the nest (which doesn't happen very often). So my name will be added as a sponsor for a year and I got a certificate (which Colin had framed) stating this. I thought it was a very thoughtful gift.

We of course made cards for each other, this is the card that I made for Colin:




And this is the card Colin made for me:



As usual Colin put a lot of thought and effort into the card he made for me. So I had to step up and try and make something that would come up to standard. I was pleased with the card I came up with and loved the card that Colin made for me.

Some Honeymoon Photos

Hello,


Yes I am still here, just been busy getting ready for the arrival of bub and being tired. It shouldn't be much longer and our little one will be with us. In the meantime I thought I would share some of the photos I took on our honeymoon, which was nearly a year ago! I cannot believe it. Under the guidance of my husband I have done some work on some of the photos I took on the honeymoon, I really got into photography whilst we were away and got a real buzz to see what I had captured at the end of each day. I think I took around 2,500 to 3,000 photos whilst we were away for 6 weeks. Hopefully I will get some more photos up one day.



This is a glacier called Edith Cavel, near Jasper in Canada. It was awe inspiring to be so close to huge chunks of ice.




This is Colin at Maligne Lake, again near Jasper. To his right is "Spirit Island", which we had to get to by boat. Again the weather was absolutely beautiful, which is was for the majority of the time we were in Canada.



Above and below is the beautiful Athabasca River, near Jasper in Canada. I fell in love with this river, it is just so stunning. If I need to clear my mind and think of a happy place, this is it!





This is Pyramid Lake which was located close to where we stayed in Jasper, we stayed on a lake called Patricia Lake. Everywhere you looked there was an opportunity to take a photo.



And finally, this photo was taken somewhere in Canada, not sure where though!

Hope you liked these photos.

Preparing for our new addition!

Hello,

While some people may have been using the long weekend to relax Colin and myself have been busy moving furniture (well Colin has) and putting furniture together for our first baby which is due in September! We have a two bedroom house, one of which was used for our crafting/hobby room, which we have now had to give up and change into our bedroom. Poor Colin is exhausted from moving alot of things around, it is quite frustrating not being able to help him, but he would tell me off if I did. Colin's Mum, Anita, was kind enough to spoil us with all the big items for the nursery so we were busting to set it all up, plus my nesting instinct is setting in and I want to get things organised. I am quite happy now, just need to sort out where were are going to store all of our crafting goodies! But we will get there.

Hello There

Hi

Me again, no I haven't dropped off the face of the planet, sometimes life just gets in the way of blogging, which just doesn't seem right! I have been making some of the challenges but just haven't been able to get them in on time. One the of challenge cards I was please with, but didn't submit was the Just Add Ink, Chocolate Wrapper Challenge. I am not a big lover of chocolate, but my chocolate bar of choice at the moment is a triple choc Mars Bar, I thought the colours were interesting so I gave it a go. Here is my creation (with the chocolate bar in the photo for a comparison).




The chocolate bar is still in tact!

Colin and I are off to the Stampin Up Convention being held in May in Melbourne so we are busy planning and making some 'swaps', which are cards that you create, make in bulk (we are making 50 each) then swap with other. It is a good way of collecting ideas and a great way to met fellow stampers. We are really looking forward to Convention, it will be our first and my upline, Sharneewill be demonstrating at the Convention, we are looking forward to seeing that!

He Stamps and Cooks!

With Colin showing an interest in learning to cook I recently suggested that he should have a go at cooking tea, which he has now done on a couple of occassions. He plans the menu and cooks it, I am always on hand to answer any questions, but I generally just let him do his own thing in the kitchen. On Saturday the menu was Parmasen and Parsley Veal Schnitzels, mashed potato with bacon and roast pumpkin. It was a lovely meal and I am very proud of the effort that Colin puts into his cooking and it is always nice to have a night off from cooking. This is the meal he dished up:



Here is Colin, enjoying the fruits of his labour!



What a fabulous husband!

After that wonderful meal, we headed over to Sharnee's to do some stamping. We had such a great evening, chatting and stamping and we all managed to get projects done, which is always good. Here are Sharnee and I enjoying the night:








And here are all our projects for the evening:



One card that I was particulary pleased with is this card that I made for a good friend of mine.



I used a new stamp set called Nature Walk and my favourite colour at the moment Marina Mist.

Another card I made was for my brother and sister and laws wedding anniversary:



And this is the masterpiece that Colin created:



It was a very productive evening!

My Manly Stamper

My lovely husband, Colin who presently dying of man flu, dabbles in some stamping every now and then and thought that he might get on board with an online challenge, he combined two challenges in one. This is Colin stamping up his creation:



And this his creation, which you can also view on his blog Colblue Photography



I think he has done an awesome job, but he always thinks that he can do better, typical stamper!!