We recently received all of Poppie's photos from their December visit, so we've posted some of them below! It was so special to have the four generations of Slatters together.
Both Eli and Grace are smiling so much now, we have tried to catch Eli in the act but the camera distracts him, although this shot has him smiling\chuckling... either way, it's pretty cute...
The twins are doing really well at creche, they sleep well and eat well. Last week was pretty difficult for us as they slept well at creche but then were awake the entire afternoon and evening, only sleeping at about 11pm, so that was pretty demanding, but we seem to have passed that... for now.
It's actually unbelievable how much work twins are at this age, it's almost as if we're single parents, because each of us always has a child to hold when they're going nuts. Eli is on 4-hourly feeds now but Grace is still on 3-hourly, which keeps us really busy! Their doctor has pushed for this so that Eli can start drinking more at each feed and start growing a little quicker. He was 3.3kg on Monday and she was 2.9kg. We took them for their inoculations at the clinic and managed to fit the Paediatrician in on the same afternoon so it saved us a trip.
It's been an amazingly spiritual time for us as we have two beautiful people in whom to admire GOD's work. Eli and Grace are so different, yet so similar, one cannot spend a few hours with them and not believe that there exists a deeply magnificent Creator. Just take a look at their pre-creche nap last week...
Paul and Catherine recommended that we take my day off to watch the new movie 'Avatar', whilst the kids were in creche. We managed to book at a 3D cinema and duly went through on Friday morning. WOW - what an experience. A fantastic movie and even better in 3D!! if you haven't seen the movie yet - we HIGHLY recommend it! El and I also had time for breakfast before the movie as there was virtually NO traffic - it was really awesome, but we missed our kids.
Worship and church has been going so well this year. Last year I really felt led to lead the team on a journey of fellowship, it took a full year of obedience and resisting the musical urges to push forward, we stuck to simple musicality but really focused on relationships within the team. This year, so far, has been amazing - every Sunday! Our church is starting to experience worship on a deeper level and the musical side is just developing on it own. We have a long list of new songs that I want to introduce, including 6 Afrikaans worship songs!
On Monday we heard that our building plans have finally been passed, so we are now ready to start building the new church!
On the side of El's job, we've been blessed that she can work until the end of the term AND they've employed a teacher in her place already, which will relieve much of her stress as she will only have to do admin work when she returns!
We now need to pray really hard for a new job for her to move to or for GOD to pave the way for us to new things. There are a couple of options, but nothing cast in stone. This really is going to be another stretch in our faith journey, and we know that GOD will provide for us, but faith tested always requires much prayer - so please - pray for us and send scripture and encouragement whenever you like!
Micheline (principal at the creche) recommended that we put some of El's tops in the cots with the twins to help them sleep... Eli was so cute, he really snuggled up to El's top!
When we arrived home from creche this afternoon, Grace was moaning lots, so El picked her up and popped her on her knee... Grace loved the new view! She sat quite happily, nestled in her mom's arm. She has quite a stare!
We were so blessed last week to be given some cash to employ a domestic helper on a second day every week to help us with all the house work that we just can't get to. Our current maid, Ellen, hooked up her sister Maria for us. She did and excellent job and will be coming through every Saturday for us! What a massive blessing!
El starts work in just under two weeks, so things are soon going to be returning to relative normality, and then, whatever GOD has planned for El in her next chapter will, we are sure, bring even more blessings and opportunities to grow ourselves, our kids and others! I certainly hope to get back to my other projects as well, as soon as I can break through the backlog of church admin from when our offices where under reconstruction... but that'll be soon, i'm sure!
El's mom, Amanda, will be staying with us over next weekend, so we're really looking forward to that visit! She arrives on the Thursday evening and flies back on the Monday evening.
Thank you again to all of you who send us messages of encouragement and updates of your lives! May you be blessed as we gain ground in 2010 and start to unravel what GOD has planned for us.
I took this little video just this morning. Eli and Grace love lying in our bed whilst we get ready in the morning, they lie calmly and watch what's going on. They are becoming really observant and our pead is stoked with their progress. Grace seems to be more visually alert whilst Eli is more responsive to sounds. I reckon that means Grace will be good at sight reading and Eli will play by ear...
There is no audio, but this shows how active our daughter is!
We've had loads of smiles, but none ever caught on camera... everytime we grab the camera they stop smiling! Ella managed to capture this one on her cellphone - it's just too gorgeous!
Finally, I get a spot of time to update the blog!! The last four weeks have been amazing, really blessed and really busy! Grace and Eli have grown lots, we are so proud of them.
We were so blessed to have both Ella's brother and my parents AND my grandparents with us over Christmas. We made good use of the extra hands and made sure that the twins had lots of time with their uncle, grandparents and great Grandparents!
Christmas day was awesome! I had the privilege to preach in the morning and then we all headed to our cottage to open pressies. Most of the gifts were for the twins - thank you to everyone who sent such lovely gifts!!!
We had 12 people around for lunch. Anthony and Nadia brought their parents and Nadia prepared all the meat (delicious) whilst Ella and Renee prepared the salads and pudding (equally delicious!). On boxing day we went to the Hopkins' new place and had another large lunch with them and their family. Then, on the 27th we had my dad's aunt, cousin and his family, and my grandparents for lunch, another roasted fare - so we did well!
My folks headed back to Oz on the 31st. That evening we hired some movies, ate KFC and saw in 2010 with Goltmans (Andrew & Renee). It was chilled but awesome, having the twins over this time was really special for us. A Christmas of firsts for all of us.
As you will know, Grace hates her bath time, still, but I managed to catch her in a chilled moment in between having her head and body washed. It lasted about 9 seconds.
Whilst 'on holiday' I had three funerals in addition to the normal Sunday services and Christmas day service. Over and above this we have renovated our church offices and this all happened over this period so I was running up and down to deal with tilers, painters, roof people, glass fitters, carpenters, alarm techs and electricians... so not much of a holiday! In and amongst this we were able to spend so much time with our children. They have spent almost every morning snuggling in bed with us and often lie quite contently next to one another, but still, their favourite place is in our arms.
Eli and Grace still continue to amaze us with the cutest faces and smiles. Sometimes we find ourselves just staring at them, quite intent to let life stop and freeze in that moment... but life continues. With that in mind, we have reluctantly introduced them to creche this week.
Ella will be returning to work in under a month and we wanted to slowly ease into and be ready once she starts. It has been hard for us, but having them at the creche at church makes it a little easier. They were very good and seem to have settled well. At the school they have been introduced to the play mat, so we pulled ours out and they seemed really interested in all the colours!
On Thursday we took them to El's school to show them off and also to meet with El's principal to discuss her options for the future. All we can say is that GOD has definitely been paving a way forward for us on that front and the school will be getting back to us next week with a final proposal, so please keep us in your prayers!!
I was back at work 'officially' on Monday and it's been a DRAINING week of note! The new offices are rocking, but it's been a mission to unpack and sort through things. We have our year planning meeting tomorrow morning and then we'll be going out for afternoon tea to celebrate my birthday.
Thank again - everyone - for your amazing support and love. El and I often feel alone here and, as blessed as we have been, it's still really hard work. But it is GOD alone who is strengthening us!
We are so proud of our two little ones for gaining weight and doing so well this week! We have borrowed the baby-scale from Micheline and this morning Grace was 2,19kg and Eli was 2,41kg. Eli lost a tiny bit of weight whilst he was on the scale as he decided to urinate everywhere - it was funny moment for all of us! Grace just screamed, she hates it when we fiddle with her.
We have had tiny amounts of sleep, but are feeling strong. When parents at church hear about the screaming matches between the twins they just laugh, I guess it's a rite of passage that we must journey. Thank GOD we're doing with HIM on our side!!
We have found that after the 4/5am feed the twins settle really well in bed with us and we have a family 'lie-in' until 8am, the next feed time.
Ella popped out to the shops by herself this afternoon to buy some more bottles and pick up some things for lunch. We have now got 6 milk bottles and 2 for water which we use in between feeds if Eli or Grace get niggly. She loves the water but he moans if it's not milk!
They have both been registered with home-affairs, I sorted that out last week whilst Grace was still in ICU, so glad that I did it then! They tell you that it takes about 45min... after an hour and a half I went walking around to their back-offices and found my forms and got a lady to capture them, it only took another 5min after that! Grace Colgan Slatter and Eli Neil Slatter are now official South African babies.
We have had a few visitors, some planned, some not, but we're trying to lay low this weekend and recoup what little strength we can before the new week. Wednesday was our 3rd wedding anniversary and we tried to have some take-out and rent a DVD... we made it about 5min into the movie with about 5 mouthfuls of Thai food when the twins started their thing... so in the fridge went the take-out and when we finally got to watch the movie, I fell asleep...
We are loving our children so much, they are such a blessing from GOD. We can't wait till they're a little bigger and we can really start showing them off!
As we enter our fourth week as a family of four, I am certain, now more than ever, that parenting is not for sissies! Learning to operate around feed times and exist on a few hours of sleep in a week is actually possible, now that we've had both of our beautiful children home for almost a week. It's amazing how much love GOD gives us, even when screaming her head off at 3am, all we want to do is kiss our little Gracie and tell her how wonderful she is. Even when I'm changing Eli's nappy, for the second time in a row and he jet-propels poop into my hand, I still think he's the cutest little guy ever. And a little note to whoever said that breasmilk poop doesn't smell... it does.
Feeds at 2am seem to work best in the lounge with a hot cup of coffee and the movie channel on in the background. We tried doing the graveyard shifts in the bedroom, but wow, trying staying awake in a dark, warm, sweet smelling room with soft baby music on... not going to happen. Hence, lots of light, lots of action and we live through it. The best is when we've finally settled them, so chuffed that we've done everything in under an hour, slither into bed (because only two muscles are still operational) and then hear Grace or Eli start their pre-cry sob (which sound identical, by the way)... then race to the room to get the responsible child out in time before they wake their sibling... However, we have found that they seem to be resilient to one another's cries. It's almost like they lie awake in their cots planning who's turn it is next to get mom and dad to come racing through the door. We will look back and laugh, one day.
Whenever we wake them, which we actually try really hard not to do, both Grace and Eli have their stretches to do... it's important, you know. Generally they're really good about having their nappies changed but Grace likes to let you know if you've woken her too early. Eli normally just lies there and stares philosophically at the ceiling. One day he may actually define the meaning of life.
Eli is really enjoying his bathing, we wish Grace would too, but she'll get there. We keep telling her that one day we won't be able to get her out of the bathroom, I don't think she believes us, she's not really too responsive. We have put Eli into size 1 nappies now, they're still a little too big, but at least he's well covered!
After dressing them only in pink (just Gracie...), green and blue baby grows, we decided to venture outside of the cottage with them and took a walk around Clearwater mall in search of some cute clothes. Eli's new blue vest was modelled very nicely, Grace refused... hence no nice pic... The trip was a great success. We got to use our turbo pram and really turned heads. All the ladies stopped to comment to Ella and try peek at the twins (who were safely covered in blankets!). The guys were all impressed with the steering wheel of the pram, my favourite part. However, even with a steering wheel, I still managed to hit a few isle displays.
They sleep in their own cots, but when Grace came home on Wednesday, we put them in Eli's bed for a little while. He smiled (probably just a wind) but she didn't look too impressed.
Today we made a second trip to the shops, this time we needed to start buying Christmas things. We bought an awesome tree from Pick 'n Pay Hyper and will be following our family's cue and setting up our house this evening - our first Christmas in JHB and our first Christmas with the twins - AWESOME!
We stopped off at the Woolies cafe for some coffee and had a moment to feed the twins, they were so well behaved! We need to keep them wrapped up because people can't resist the urge to try and touch them, something we were warned about in ICU. Either way, we're getting more and more confident in taking them out on trips. We're going to try some more shopping on Thursday morning - will let you know how that goes!
We are so happy to share with you that Eli came home yesterday morning! Grace was very dignified about the whole process and promised her brother that she'd be home soon - and we're holding her to that promise! GOD is so good and Eli has been putting on weight and drinking well from the bottle (of milk...). Yesterday he was weighing just under 2.1kg and the doctor was really happy with his progress. Grace is still on all sucks and is weighing about 1.93kg, she is loving her bottle feeds and is very enthusiastic. She is a noisy eater and makes US work for it!! Her little personality is so strong already, but as her father, I will not crumble, ever...
The procedure for taking your baby home is that you need to have the piccolo ready for the nurse to carry your baby to the car. This is to make sure that the baby doesn't go home in an unsafe manner. So, whilst Ella packed his bags, I settled him in the car seat and strapped him in. I then went to fetch the car whilst Ella finished off paperwork and we were re-united at the front of the hospital. We had to pop into Baby City so El and Eli stayed in the car whilst I ran in to buy more bottles. He was such a champ, he didn't cry once!!
In the afternoon, Ella went back to the hospital to be with Gracie and I stayed to look after my son. We had an awesome little bonding time, it was so nice doing everything without the nurses hovering. Paul and Catherine popped around for a quick cup of coffee and spent some time with us. It was such a nice and relaxed afternoon, which was broken just after 17h00 when Eli decided to start crying... until about 20h00! It was only after we'd fed him, burped him and cuddled him extensively that Ella checked his nappy... shortly after that the crying ceased! It's always the most obvious things that we overlook!!
Ella bonded with Eli in the evening and I spent time at the hospital. It was quite lonely only having half the family there, hopefully, GOD willing, it won't be long.
Our first night went so well, Eli ate, pooped and slept on cue. We leapt out of bed every noise he made, but I guess that's part of the fun of the first night... which we'll have again when Grace arrives! Please pray that she keeps gaining weight and managing on all sucks - then she'll be home REALLY soon!! We thought it was hard leaving both of our children at the hospital, it's even harder leaving one.
