Lou and I saw Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2 last night – has anyone else seen it?

It felt like the end of an era in so many senses. Lou and I have seen almost all the films together along with another dear friend. As the years have gone by and lives have got busier, I think the release of each new film has got more and more exciting for us! Coming out of the cinema last night felt like the conclusion to a long tradition.

I loved the film – powerful, touching, it hit just the right note of the drama and tragedy of the action, without labouring it. And it felt like you could sense the off-screen comeraderie of the three stars, and a definite sadness on their part that it has all come to an end. (Anyone else think those last scenes were not necessary??)

Otto fell off the couch and hit his head (above his left eye) on the coffee table a few months ago. Bit hard to see but I reckon his (temporary) scar is a bit Potter-esque, don’t you?

And yes, he is a poser. He thinks by squinting his eyes he is smiling. 95% of our photos of him are with his eyes closed.

Our little fish out of water turned one this week!

Regular readers might remember my thing about birthday cakes. It’s my favourite bit. Otto’s party had an animal theme (I used these invitations from a favourite stationer, Poppies for Grace) and his cake was inspired by a favourite animal alphabet book, Alphabeasties.

Alphabeasties comes from the graphic design duo Sharon Werner and Sarah Forss. Each letter of the alphabet is represented by an animal made up entirely using the letter in question. It’s one of those very simple but extremely clever ideas, and so beautifully executed. You can tell these two girls just love typography and there’s more clever typographical fun in extra asides at the bottom of each page.

So the idea inspired by the Alphabeasties page for ‘O’ went from this:

to this:

I hadn’t really thought about how much surface area eight legs have… it was a lot of green icing. But yum.