The beloved's birthday

I know this happened a while ago but I thought I'd pop up a quick post about Josie's birthday since it is a good excuse to post some more Pregatron photos :D

See, from the front you can't really tell she's pregnant!

But I promise she really is! Hard to believe we nearly at week 33 though.

The week of Josie's birthday was pretty hectic as we had collaborators visiting from Portland then a visitor from Tassie on the weekend, but we did go out for a special dinner with the work crowd on the Friday night at a fabulous place called Tre Trattoria. Great linguine with clams, excellent antipasto and I think half the table ordered the fresh pasta with wild mushrooms and thyme, including the birthday girl!

Somebody was asking what she got for her birthday, so I thought I'd post a couple of pics on here. Jose would be the first to profess that she was spoiled rotten, but it was brilliant to see her light up every time a card or package appeared. Eclectic presents not shown here include a footspa, antique plate-fragment jewelery and Charles Rennie Mackintosh glass decals direct from Scotland!

For those of you who don't know, our hamsters died while I was in Australia. They were well over their expected lifespan and had lived very happy hammie lives. We feel bad about the names we gave them now because Busy appeared to just run out of steam and Lumpy died of a tumor... Anyhow, the point is that I found her this actual-size needle-felted hamster for her birthday as a memento of our girls.

Robo the tiny hamster and her birth certificate. Also shown is a card that totally cracked me up!

I also found her these lovely earrings that were handmade by a jeweler called Joanna Rutter from Devon, and I highly recommend her work! I found both the earrings and the hamster on Etsy (support handmade goods!)

The tiny bird earrings

And one last present that I just had to show you. Our friend Katy went to Paris to bring us back some baby Dior socks! I kid you not. Ok it probably wasn't the only reason she went to Paris but still, how cute are they??

That's baby Dior darling