Asher is 4 months!

So there is no point me trying to catch up on Hannah's last 6 months of pregnancy, the arrival of our healthy little boy Asher, and his first 4 months. Suffice it to say its been a whirlwind! Here's the man himself with his fantastic mother...

Asher's Journal

04 October 2011

I will be 4 months old this Saturday and a lot has happened over the last 4 months! After a long 24 hour labour and without pain relief, I was finally born at 11.35pm at the Harrogate District Hospital. Mummy was extremely tired as she went into labour at midnight on the Tuesday 7^th June and didn’t give birth for another 23 / 24 hours. She went 2 whole nights without sleep! In fact, mummy looked like a zombie and her face was completely white. Daddy did a very good job at looking after me and mummy whilst in hospital. At first I did not get the hang of feeding so mummy had to express and then use shields. My weight went down quite a lot after 4-6 weeks and the midwives suggested a formula top up feed every day. Since that time I've started to put on weight. I smiled for the first time when I was just over three weeks old and a couple of weeks ago I rolled over for the first time. I have a great laugh and absolutely love going in the bath too. I kick my legs all the time and do not seem to mind when water goes on my face. 

A video of me when I was just a few hours old:

At 4 weeks old I was blessed and here are some of the notes that mummy wrote down:

Your parents are so grateful to have you in our family. You will grow in health and strength and will be a great joy to your parents and everyone. Lively and energetic and will have a joy of life and of service. In your youth, you will be an example to friends as you come to know the Saviour. Follow His example. You will be tall and upright and your friends will look to you. You will value the priesthood. Seek to know its depth. Exemplify Christ. Will have respect for Heavenly Father’s daughters you meet. Get to know your wife’s family as wife’s family will be a strength to you. Bless you to remain fully active in church. Finally, always seek to follow the Saviour. You will come to know the Saviour as you pray and read the scriptures. Out of your faith will come charity.

My blessing day was a wonderful day. Beautiful blue skies and all my family and friends were there. After church we all went for a picnic at Swinsty Reservoir which is not far from where we live. Our next door neighbour’s John and Ange came too, we all had a great time. 

The weekend after my blessing, Daddy, Mummy and I went down to Reading with Jared and Esther as it was Uncle Simon and Auntie Ruth’s wedding weekend. Mummy played in the string quartet. She was extremely tired though and taking part in the quartet was a little bit too much. We stayed in a hotel the whole weekend which was great. Mummy was able to watch Simon and Ruth be sealed as Daddy stayed and looked after me. 

When I was 2 ½ months old Daddy, Mummy and I went on a family holiday to France. Mummy ordered my very first passport and I flew on a plane there and back. I was very well behaved on both flights and coped really well. We went to the house in Brittany for the first ten days and then we drove across France to Annecy. Annecy is mummy’s favourite place in the whole world so far. Mummy was able to have a real rest on holiday as daddy, Granddad and Grandma were around to help look after me. She felt refreshed and more on top of things.

Mummy did not emerge from the bedroom until 2pm / 3pm (she did still feed me every 3 hours though!) Mummy also managed to get off the shields, which made feeding much easier! The weather in Annecy was perfect and I even had a swim in Lake Annecy twice!

Love you Asher xXx

Baby Flinn

We're having a baby!

Hannah is about 16 weeks pregnant at the moment I think. The baby is due on the 22nd May. Very excited and also scared! Weighing on my mind mainly is the responsibility of being a dad and the fact that Hannah is definitely not going back to work so we're going to be skint!

For the first 12 weeks Hannah felt nauseous and tired but was only actually sick a few times. Now she is feeling great. She has been ridiculously busy at work preparing for the school show 'A Christmas Carol' over the last month or so but has coped amazingly well. Hannah was in charge of the music side of things, teaching and rehearsing the choir/solos alongside running the band. This week there were 7 performances, one each night and two matinees (the school she works at specialises in performance arts so they do it in a big way) which has meant her leaving at 7am and getting home after 10pm every day. Exhausting. It's no surprise she is in bed with a sore throat now. Despite all of this I think being busy has helped her pregnancy go well so far - with no time to mope around and feel ill and sorry for herself even if she wanted to, she has just got on with things fantastically!

We kept the baby secret up until 12 weeks when things get a little safer thereafter. The picture at the top is the scan they did at the time. Hannah had thought she was going in for a blood test and that the scan was the following week, so I wasn't even there for it. I did go the next week though and got to hear its heartbeat going like the clappers. Despite all this it still hasn't really sunk in yet - and the picture of our blob looks just like every other 12 week blob photo I've ever seen! (Do you think they just have a standard one they print out)

Hannah has RhD negative blood type. Mothers with negative blood types run a risk of developing antibodies that would fight their baby's positive blood (inherited from the father). This condition is called haemolytic disease of the newborn (HDN) and can cause anaemia, jaundice etc. Last week Hannah had been called back for more blood tests because some antibodies had been found in her blood. Following a phone call yesterday to get the results it seems that the antibodies she has are not likely to cause HDN, however they will be keeping a closer eye on her as things progress. Phew!

snow!

otley from the chevin. can you spot our house?!

'08 update

so, this is what i've been up to since we last saw you...

• finished my masters (no more education for me ever!)
• went to new zealand (snow boarded on 'mount doom' which erupted a couple of days later)
• finished the house (well kind of - there is a distinct lack of skirting board)
• got married (hannah said 'yes'!)
• went to egypt 
• bought house next door (rennovation beings again)

and here's a few photos to prove it...

life is good!

Halloween

Yes, I am a zombie. The party was very crazy but a great laugh. Three course meal of slime soup, blood and guts potatoes with witches fingers, goblin toes and bogies, with cat litter cake and cows eyeballs to finish. Between each course, a three part ghost story was projected onto the wall about Robert Butcher and his antics on the 21st October at the Old Bakery... told by a throat cancered Mike wearing a shawl in a rocking chair.

After apple bobbing, Mike and I spent the rest of the evening in the basement taking guests round the 'dungeon' we had built. Candles and thick fog plus all the junk, damp and peeling paint I have down there made a fitting setting for the bowls of 'chickens livers', 'cat vommit', 'monkey brains' that our victims had to retrieve coins from. A rope to follow led them nicely into our traps, meeting drill wielding psychos, hanging corpses and mutilated dolls ending in the darkest room face to face with two severed pigs' heads and a stobe light. Great fun... for us!

Welcome back

Yes, just when I thought that my blog had died the usual premature death I am taking a minute to update on what has been going on over the last 2 and a bit months.
So the first week after quitting my job I didn't get to go to China but did do efy - Especially For Youth - as a counsellor for a gruop of 10 youth as part of a 900 strong bunch of kids from my church at Manchester University campus for a week. It was amazing. After that I had a week working on my house, fitting the stonework - sills and mullions for my windows that also went in that week. Very proud - I had to keep standing in the street and looking at the job when it was done!
Then I went to Croatia with Dan Jones for a week that was supposed to be chilling but turn into a mental whirlwind tour which was an amazing experience and involved island hopping, sleeping rough on beaches and in an olive grove, lots of swimming in the clearest water in the med and great food! I cannot hope to do justice to it so briefly so my only hope is that I'll remember it vividly (and that I get to go back in spring... plans are being made already).

Then for that last week before starting my new job, my fantastic dad who had only just that weekend got back from slaving on the french house all summer, came to work even harder on mine. He got everything done that I had hoped... all the plastering basically so that the front room is now ready to be decorated. Jon Devine had also come up the satuday I got back from Croatia and helped me board the ceiling. I have the best family and friends ever.

So worked started - Estell Warren - and I love it. I have a nice little office on Blenheim Terrace and my desk is in front of a window that overlooks Leeds University. The work is interesting (well - that's why I moved there). I spent the first couple of weeks working on designs for a small public square just down the road from my house in the new Holbeck Urban Village. My only worry is that the office are thinking of moving to Otley - a small town further out in the coutryside. I am not happy about the extra travel time this would need. At the moment it takes 15 mins door-to-door which is great.

This week I also got some great news... I've won that Landscape Institute award!!! I really hoped I would and thought I stood as good a chance as anybody but I am so chuffed! I have to go down to London for an awards ceremony on the 30th November. Also, my company has won an award for the category they entered and my friend Emma Baker has won the Student Dissertation award - a bit of a Leeds clean sweep really. They were a bit strange when they told me - trying to keep an air of mystery - so I don't really know what level of award I have won, just that I have won an award, but all will be revealed on the night! ahhhhhhhhhhhh!

The reason I haven't been updating this is because I have been serious busy as you can see - and I only posted before because my job was seriously boring!

Last day at work!

Well it has finally come, after handing in my notice a month ago, my last day at Scott Wilson!

I am excited not only beacuse I am leaving to work in a great little company, but also because I am taking a month off between jobs. Although yesterday it looked like I might be roped into staying a little longer when our director Mary came through and asked if I'd like to go to China for two weeks to work on a design competition for a new 'small' town of 8million people?... uhhh YES!

The problem is that I have committed to be an EFY counsellor for next week and have been looking forwards to it for ages. So Mary is checking if the dates are flexible but I'm not too hopeful. Nevermind. Plus I need the time to get my house fixed in time for everyone moving back after the summer.

Clearing out my desk and computer I am coming across some funny stuff from my last year in this office. We found this article while our colleague Shing-i claimed she was on annual leave in Taiwan.

Landscape Institute awards

Tonight I got in from work at 10:30pm, soaked to the skin, after missing my bus, walking home, and getting caught in a torrential downpour. I was at work late because over the last couple of days I have been getting my portfolio together to enter the annual Landscape Institute awards Student Portfolio category. It came together pretty well courtesy of Scott Wilson's (work) printing and binding capabilities! It's got to be in London by noon friday so I'll put it in Special Delivery post tomorrow lunchtime.

A few people asked me 'what do you win?' To be honest I hadn't really thought about it, I don't know if there are prizes? Just the honour of winning really... or is that pride?! Eitherway, fingers crossed!

thanks Jes... and Niall

Last night I felt it was high time I caught up with Jessamyn Pui Ching Lau, after randomly bumping into both her younger sister in Chelmsford, and younger brother in Leeds within the last month. Jes is an old friend and former landlady of mine (actually I used to squat in her Bermondsey house - oh and the Elephant and Castle one I think too?!), and we hadn't spoken for too long so many tales were told of past adventures and future plans. Anyway, after Jes suggesting that I start a blog, and I being entirely skeptical about the idea, I have spent the last day at 'work' looking into it and creating landscape fika. And now I have decided to start a personal one.

Me being me, I really wanted to have flinn.blogspot.com but this was already taken by a Niall Flinn who had written a brief couple of posts back in 2004. Luckily he mentioned where he was working, and luckier still, he was quite amiable when I called him a couple of hours ago at his workplace to ask if he minded me having the blog name. Cheers Niall, wonder if we're related?

Lastly; for all those who feel like they have bitten off a little more than they can chew, here is a picture of my house last saturday.