Eli & Grace reading their magazine

Grace & Eli chilling in their cot

We have just emerged from a really tiring weekend with both Eli & Grace suffering from high temps, loss of appetite and just a general sicky feeling, which left them really uncomfortable and restless almost constantly! By the grace of GOD, and a few choice-word moments, El and I have come out the other side ridiculously exhausted but so relieved that our babies are feeling way better. We will be looking out for a rash in a few days, we think they may have had infant measles. Gracie's temp maxed at about 39.9 and Eli's was only a little lower at 39.4, so we are turbo stoked to have that behind us!! They were both at creche today and seem to be 100% again. Thank you LORD!!

Three weeks ago we had the wonderful opportunity to spend the morning with Uncle Mike and Aunty Hilda from NZ! We met them (almost) half-way at the Primi at Lifestyle centre and had a really good time touching base and finding out about our distant relatives. Grace & Eli were more than happy to play with them and Aunty H took them for a little walk around the restaurant, freeing us up to eat our breakies. They have been in our country on a 6 month furlough and have been involved in teaching and outreach programmes in CT and Durbs, which was an enlightening and growing time for them. It was amazing to hear some of their stories and learn, through them, so much more about our own country. Ironically, infant measles featured in the conversation. Forewarned...



Gracie loves being able to crawl around and pull herself up on things. She is quite a handful, thank goodness Eli is still staying relatively in one place!! Gracie can now climb up the little steps in our passage, but hasn't yet mastered the downward route, so there really is nowhere in the house that she can't get to, unless the doors are closed and the gates are pulled shut, thank goodness for that.



Eli is sticking to his rolling routes, so pretty much finds contentment in what's going on around him. He's pretty determined and although Gracie has the illusion of ruling the roost, that will no-doubt change when he finds his feet. Today, in fact, he started his first crawling antics, which we managed to video and will post on youtube soon.



A few weeks back, as many of you may know, we purchased an ozone spa, which, apart from it's many other benefits, has a mat that you put in the bath and it bubbles ozone through the water. We have started using this with the twins every night and it has taken bathtime to a new level in fun-ness...




Some friends at church have given us a collection of their kids' old ride-on toys and we hooked the one up with a set of fresh batteries about two weeks ago. It's a "Little Mermaid" themed toy and when you press the hooter or the little characters it plays tunes from the movie. Both Eli & Grace absolutely love it and have figured out that they can push the buttons themselves. We loved it too, for the first two days or so. It's amazing how long batteries last when you'd rather they ran flat...

It's also cool because they're small enough to fit on it together, so we take them zooting around the lounge, but they seem more intent on pushing the hooter, well, Eli's main button is the hooter. A good sign I think.


Last weekend, with the onslaught of summer, we went hunting for a shell-pool for the kids but found a rocking inflatable Winnie-the-Pooh option that was half the price and far better suited to our needs. So, we outfitted the kids in their new cozzies that mommy bought for their CT trip and pumped up the pool. After adding some warm water to take off the chill, they were in and loving it. These last few pictures were just too cute not to include!!

Spring update

Things are going well in the Slatter JHB household! With the weather warming up, we've had some awesome days and spent more time just chilling as a family.

Last Saturday our church had their first men's breakfast in the entire time that I've been here, and it was completely organised by our men, and not by Paul and I, which was rocking! We had it a the Rusty Hook, which is a German restaurant just around the corner from our church that is built on a trout lake. Renee came and spent the morning with El to help with Eli & Grace whilst Andrew and I joined all the other men for an absolutely divine breakies! One of the newer guys in our church (in his late 50's) gave a really inspiring talk and started the ball rolling for a FATHERS ministry - which is really exciting!

We had a special service on Sunday where we thanked and celebrated the gifts in our church and had a huge party in the 'still busy' new church sanctuary. It was a wonderful service but it was just too busy with too many people so unfortunately El and the twins left and went home early. The cry-room was packed, the church foyer was packed and we spent half the service standing outside, which, with the twins, was just silly. Everyone else, who didn't have children under a year, had an awesome time. Ant and Nadia invited us around to their new place for lunch afterwards and we had a rocking afternoon with them!

As you can see from the pic above, Gracie is really pushing her boundaries... and buttons... that she can get to. She stands up in her cot and has started standing up against our coffee table and the couches, so she's making sure that she checks up on everything that's going on around her. Eli started pulling himself up in his cot this morning, for the first time, but only got to knee height.... but that was enough for him and he was laughing so much at his achievement! Everyday we are so blessed to have them in our lives!

That's all for now! Miss and love you all, GOD bless

xxx

Bringing out the musos

Grace & Eli have much fun playing with their percussion table, xylophone and maracas! Eli always migrates to the table and Gracie sticks to the tambo & xylophone. Their recorder has also drawn much interest, but more for chewing on...

Both of them have surprisingly good rhythm, we are really impressed!

Eli & Grace playing percussion

Playing in the park

We are so fortunate that our church playground is at the top of our garden! We took the twins up to play on Saturday and spent some time on the swings with them. They absolutely loved it!

Fun in the bath with bubble hair...

Many of you have already seen the little video from our fun in the bath with Eli & Grace. As you know, they only have a little more hair than their Poppie, and a little less than their father... so we used the foam in the bath wisely! Grace even had a massive bokbaartjie...

This was also our first real opportunity to catch, on film, Eli's first two lower teeth... they may be small, but when he chomps down the bite force is worthy of the Discovery Channel.

Grace & Eli water fun!

Rocking & Rolling

Well - there are loads of pics this week for you all! We have had two turbo weekends and very busy weeks, coupled with a bit of sniffles and colds, we've been hectic! On the mobillity front, Grace is still half-crawling but every now and then she get onto her knees and rocks for a bit, but then crawls on her tummy again. Eli, he seems to think it's easy just to roll to where he wants to be!

El's big birthday surprise was having

her mom up here for the weekend (last last weekend) but in true investigative, CSI-MIAMI style, she gathered all the evidence and, since the evidence never lies, she figured it out! On her birthday we really just chilled a bit. I took the day off work and we went shopping in the morning whilst the twins were at creche. In the afternoon we were outside with Eli and Grace, letting them experience grass for the first time. Honeydew grass, not Obs grass...

The big 'surprise' was really planned for Friday. Owen had arranged for us to go to breakfast at a garden shop in Muldersdrift, which was on the way to Lanseria Airport, and to my surprise, he paid for the entire bill and had arranged bubbly and a beautiful table arrangement. We had taken Gracie & Eli with us and it was truly an awesome morning! The food rocked, the setting was stunning and the company unbeatable. After that, we moved to the airport to fetch Amanda and after that it was a rocking weekend. We had Anne & Simon and Renee around for dinner that Friday evening. Anne & Simon are expecting twins early next year, so we had lots to celebrate, and talk about!

On the Saturday, we took a trip to the shops with ouma and bought bath rings for

the twins as they have now graduated from the small bath and into the big bath! They are now able to spend more time playing in the water and with the bubbles that we've started putting in! They try to eat the bubbles as soon as the hit the water and then get these adorable little bok-baartjies, but to capture that on camera has been near impossible! Either way, the twins really love their bath time now! Ouma also bought them some more toys for water fun as well as a pair of sneakers each... just too cute.

Last week kind of flew by, I'm sure lots happened, can't really remember it though

. I had to give some of my brain-cells to the twins.

So, last weekend, Candice came to visit. She flew up on Saturday morning and out again on Sunday evening, so it really whizzed by! Anne & Simon had invited us all round for a braai on Saturday, so it was good timing to have Candice as she, El and Anne all studied together. Again, there was loads of twin-conversation and it was encouraging and enriching to share our stories. We took Candice to lunch at our favourite restaurant at Broadacres, Ouwe Werf, and received such shocking service, well just a total lack thereof, that we left. We had only managed to get drinks in the hour that we were there, and after complaining to the manager and declining her offers to speed up our order (which had even been taken yet) and pay for drinks, we left.

The couple at the table next to us told us we were doing the right thing as they had also had enough! So we strolled along to Mugg & Bean, trying to shake the feelings of complete and utter disappointment, were shown to our seats and gave our drinks order. Just as I had said to El that we would definately try Ouwe Werf again sometime, the guy who claimed to be our waiter at Ouwe Werf, I suppose he really did make us wait, sneaks into M&B and asks me to pay for the two soft drinks and one coffee that we had 'ordered'. I politely told him to head back to where he came from and turned to El and told her that we would in fact, never go back to Ouwe Werf. Pity, but that's the way it is. M&B served us an awesome lunch, even if it was almost 3pm.

In the freezing cold weather, we have started to put the twin's first pair of stokies on, and they were fascinated with them! They are really cute, Minnie for Grace and Mickey for Eli. I suppose not everything can be Winnie-the-Pooh...

We hope you like the pics and news - looking forward to hearing from you all!

Love and blessings!