I feel so incredibly blessed that we were able to take Benjamin all the way to Africa and introduce him to my family. It was so special and meant so much to me to see him with them! Having been to Cape Town before, Mark and I didn’t feel like we had to do too much or see too much, and instead just enjoyed being a family and having no agenda. It was marvellous! We stayed at an incredibly beautiful part of Cape Town called Noordhoek at Monkey Valley. Wild and exposed to crazy weather, beautiful wooden chalets and breakfasts on the porch looking out over the beach. We saw friends and family and rode the cable car up the mountain. It was wonderful! Benjamin did as well as he could with the time change and I am hoping that the pain of those 4 long awful flights (he decided to start crawling 2 days before our trip…need I say more) will dull with time. In the meantime, it is awesome to be home and we have no desire to fly anywhere again for a long loooooooong time!

It felt a little silly to dress Benjamin up for Halloween this year as he is so small, however we were given this hand knitted adorable little pumpkin hat and I could not resist getting the poor guy out there for a mini photo shoot in it with Mark’s carved pumpkin. Benjamin looks very unamused, and I am sure this is a photo that will resurface in years to come ie. 21st birthday praps! It turns out there is a very similar photograph of Mark taken with a pumpkin when he was a little older than Benjamin, so I am going to have to dig that out to do a little father-son comparison. Watch this space!

Now the next series of photos are not to be misunderstood! I want to point out that contrary to how it may look, we are NOT getting a lot of sleep at all. In fact, all that these photos show is that he is a darn cute and has a sweet fat tummy that I can’t resist. Enjoy!

Of course we have to start with Holly…

Daddy time:

Play time:

We have been totally spoilt by family and friends with the most generous gifts. Check out the beautiful handmade quilt from the Nanster!!! She made two miniature ones just in case we lose one and a crisis evolves! Good thinking!

Baby shoes, baby shoes, baby shoes – you can’t beat them:

Happy family – happy Mom…

happy Dad…

happy baby …

and it all falls apart when we get to the golden retriever! Poor thing, life is a little challenging for her at the moment. She can’t quite understand what all the fuss is about.

We were lucky enough to have Mark’s Mom Rosemary to stay for a few days. She was on official baby duty dashing between our house and Mark’s sister Stephanie’s house, as Stephanie had a gorgeous little girl called Sarah just two days before Benjamin arrived. Thank you for all your amazing help Rosemary, you made it all seem far less daunting!

The first bath!!! It took an awful lot of convincing to get me to give Benjamin his first bath, which we did when he was 1 week 1 day old. I didn’t want to wash off his newborn smell, but I knew I eventually would have to cave and do it! Luckily Rosemary  was here to show us the ropes. Benjamin was not as opposed to the water as I thought he would be, and he loved the olive oil massage afterwards. Much to all of our surprise, he came out blonde! His hair color reminds me of my Mum’s hair and I see a lot of my brother Myles in him.

Here are some random pics from around and about getting used to life with Benjamin.

Hanging with dad…

Almost caught that smile…..

Weighing in at 8 pounds 12 ounces (3.9kg), 23.5 inches long (59.69 cm), he is a healthy and hefty little boy. He is a lot bigger than I expected (although it explained my enormous stomach) and our doula said she had never seen such a long baby delivered before! He is just beautiful and has us totally enchanted.  We feel so blessed that he is not only finally with us, but is also so healthy and strong.

What a blessing indeed!