Bel and Dan finally had their baby. Baby George arrived on December 8th. We visited the Kinneally family on Tuesday so that I could have a little cuddle of George before they all head up north for a couple of months.

We discussed George's future prospects as an olympic swimmer because he has enormous feet. He might be our next Ian Thorpe.

So who won the guessing competition at the baby shower? Well Sue was spot on with the weight. George weighed 3.2 kg (7 lb 1 oz) when he was born on the 8th. Nobody guessed the correct date, but Clare was closest with a guess of December 4th. George was eleven days late and had to be evicted so he was obviously in no hurry to join the world. Poor Bel.

Bel and Dan are welcoming a new member to their family at the end of November. To celebrate the impending arrival of Monkey (the baby's nickname, not what the baby is... hopefully) we held a baby shower for Bel last weekend.

I'd volunteered to host. I figured that it would be a nice sunny day and we could have a little picnic in the green area in our apartment complex. I had visions of lolling in the sunshine and a few games of boules or frickets. Of course, the weather had other plans and the forecast for the day was 40km an hour winds and a maximum temperature of 12 degrees (in spring! It snowed in some parts of NSW.) With this news I had a minor panic attack the day before the shower and decided that I'd have to have a contingency plan. The only contingency I could think of was to hold the shower indoors in our apartment. So, Andrew and I did a mammoth clean (actually, a mammoth shove everything into the study and close the door) so that the apartment looked presentable. Lucky we did this because it was very windy on the day. I ended up hosting the shower in the apartment.

I think everyone had a good time. I'd asked people to bring a plate or a bottle of soft drink so we had lots of yummy goodies for afternoon tea. We hung out and chatted and ate and Bel opened some presents.

I'm not a massive fan of silly baby shower games (melted chocolate in nappies anyone?) so I didn't organise any of those. I did ask everyone to enter a guessing competition. Everyone made a guess on the date of Monkey's arrival and how much they think Monkey will weigh when he / she arrives.

Congratulations Bel and Dan! We're looking forward to meeting Monkey soon.