Week 30: Nursery Creations; Drawers and Celebrations

My beautiful cousin B, came to visit last weekend with some friends in celebration of graduating med ical school. Our first doctor in the family, and I'm sure many more to come. Cousin B is highly intelligent - of course goes without saying she is officially a Doctor, but she is also gorgeous, funny, great sense of humour, and down to earth. cousin B and I decided to put the twins chest of drawers together.

Cousin B took the lead - she is a Doctor after all, and I was her side kick. we laid out all the nuts and bolts, screws etc on a mat - really the instrument table. Cousin B followed the instructions and I passed her the required piece. It was like playing surgery in the nursery with furniture. Great experience, Cousin B was very methodical, very relaxed (mmm no matter what your profession is, it takes great self awareness to be relaxed when putting Ikea flat pack furniture together) and most of all focused. a few hours later and we were done. YAY! no tears, no swearwords, no tantrums, just good old fashion chatting, laughing and hanging out together. Cousin B will be known as Aunty B to our babies, such a delight to be able to tell them their Aunty and I created the drawers for their clothes.

Week 29: Nursery Creations; Cots and Viable Babies

WE HAVE COTS AND VIABLE BABIES

Our babies have a place to rest their weary heads. Sam and I spent over an hour trying to choose the perfect cots. there are just so many choices, sleigh style, ones that convert to toddler beds, white, oak, ones with coloured rails, oh the list goes on. I left this to Sam to decide on the cots as he is very practical and has good taste in furniture. We spent a friday night hanging out in the nursery putting the 2 cots together, thank goodness it was just bolts and an allan key. Nothing too stressful nor complicated. It was great fun putting the cots together, feels so real now that soon 2 tiny people will be coming to our home and living with us. Its a dream almost coming true!!!

Samosa Babies Update:
Our latest scan results show the babies are growing well and our surrogate Mrs U is healthy and doing just fine. YIPEE - we have viable babies.
Twin 1: HR - 148Bpm. Weight - 1250grams
Twin 2: HR - 154Bpm. Weight - 1169grams

Week 28: Baby Shower

Its our baby shower today, we are super excited to be able to experience this one time event and share it with family and friends. We aren't having the 'usual' style of party, afternoon tea in the garden type event. We decided on yes a garden party, but one at night and with endless drinks flowing. candles everywhere, the tables covered in blue and pink shiny confetti shapes of crowns, balloons and swirls. and glitter. my gosh the glitter was everywhere. This set up made for us the perfect baby shower.

We had wonderful food prepared by my long time friend of 20 years Mr C and his partner Mr M. Gravy for the lamb made by Mrs M's mum, the best gravy in the world. meatballs by Mrs D and the lamb cooked by both Sam and our mate Mr M. Top job everyone. We wrapped up the party at around 3am. I think this may be our last big party night in a long time.

Well....come to think of it, our next big party night will be with 2 tiny people with milk flowing and lots of cuddles - as much as we enjoy going out and having a party, we are truly looking forward to our night parties with our samosa babies.

My dear friend Mrs M, made the most delicious cake. white chocolate mud cake covered in hundreds and thousands. Its a freckle cake! I'm amazed at how she got those tiny hundreds and thousands all over the cake.

Thank you to everyone who came to celebrate with us, one of many celebrations we will have over the coming months. And a big thank you to all the lovely gifts we received, we feel blessed to have such wonderful support from you all. XOXO

Week 24: Getting our baby schooling on

We joined the Perth districts multiple births association this week and went to the Expectant parents meeting. This meeting and organisation will probably be the best source of information and education for us in being prepared for our babies. We signed up for the 2 year membership. The group is runned by parents of multiples where they share their experience and tips on saving money, being organised and challenges they have found.   http://www.pdmba.org.au

A very good childhood friend of mine Ms K had twin boys 11 months ago.  I have been very fortunate to be in contact with her, in fact so fortunate that I got to have a sleep over this weekend and have hands on experience with her darling boys. I wasn't sure what to expect, except for being busy, which I knew would be a given. What I did find out was how much I really enjoyed playing with them both. Yes its a lot of work, but it was so much fun and an absolute joy. I was up with Ms K at about 5:45am, yes even on a sunday morning. we got them out of their cots, played with them, fed them,  we played some more, they had bath time, giggle time, singing time, milk, changed nappies (and they were very patient with me, sincere thanks Master D and Master P) and down for a morning nap at 9am. Watching the boys interact with each other in such a loving way, and giving lots of cuddles was just special. I'm thrilled we are having twins, we are ready for 2 babies to cuddle, giggle with and most of all love on every day.

It's double the giggles and double the grins, and double the trouble if you're blessed with twins. 

- Author Unknown

Week 23: Celebrating Diwali and a little bit of Vegemite

Its Diwali this week, The festival of lights,  where good overcomes evil and the light shines brightly on everyone. We celebrated by adorning our house in lights, and also attending the festival at the Claremont show grounds. it was great fun! the food, music, dancing and of course the fire works. What I love most is that we can live in Australia, and also enjoy the Indian culture too.  Our kids truly have the best of both cultures growing up in Australia.

We also took the time to recognise our surrogate mother for this special festival week. We sent her a sari, its customary to gift new clothes during Diwali. We sent a silk emerald green with gold trimming sari. Green is supposed to be auspicious in hinduism, and particularly where our family comes from, (the state of Maharashtra). Green is a festive colour, it represents life and happiness. The colour green also stabilises the mind, is cool to the eyes and represents nature.  We were privileged enough to be sent a photo of Mrs U dressed in her new sari. - She looks radiant! We are thrilled that it arrived to her on time and that she knew we were thinking of her and that we wanted her to feel special and be able to get dressed up for such a holy week in the hindu calendar.

Some of you may know that my mum is a world champion surfer on a wave-ski, so with that mum (our twins Granny) has been researching the best nipper school. Yes I know its early but she is really looking forward to taking them to their first surf lesson and making them vegemite sandwiches.
Perhaps we should start calling the twins "Our Gumnut babies" or "Snugglepot and Cuddlepie"?.

Week 20: BLUE OR PINK, WHAT DO YOU THINK?

Our report update is fantastic. The twins are doing really well and so is our surrogate Mrs U. We were sent beautiful images of the twins on Tuesday. 3D images, WOW they look gorgeous.

We've fallen in love with them.

They both have a squishy nose and big full lips. They look like their Daddy!

Normal active and passive movements are seen.
Heart beats are: Twin 1 is 150Bpm and Twin 2 154Bpm

Week 17: BRAVING IT IN IKEA

A couple of years ago my gorgeous nephews and niece kindly donated some of their toys to us so they and other kids had toys to play with. The toy corner worked a charm. We weren't the boring Aunt & Uncle. We were somewhat cool and somewhat prepared for kids. Kids knew as soon as they arrived, after a kiss and hug hello they could run straight to the toy corner to play. Google also enjoyed time in the toy corner.

As part of my will to get organised and set everything up for our samosa babies, the toy corner needed shelving and baskets. I also kept kids art. We were often sent home with "master pieces". pieces of kids art I could not part with. The moment a kid hands you something they have created is just precious. Drawings, paintings, stick on things. didn't matter what it was, it was the fact they created something and decided to gift it. And gift it to us (how lucky were we). So sweet when you are engrossed in adult conversation and this little person comes up to you and holds out an art piece for you to look at and take home.

So who best to help me in organising the toy corner, non other then my wonderful neighbour, who is a lot more then a neighbour Mrs D and her husband Mr P.

Mrs D loves IKEA! I braved it on a Sunday no less with Mrs D. To my astonishment I've been doing IKEA all wrong. The trick is to have a plan, know exactly what you need and stick to it. It also helps if you know your way around the store so you can cut the corners and not go through every section. Another trick is if possible to go there on a week day. Not a weekend and certainly not during school holidays.  So Mrs D and I went to IKEA. I saw this store in a very different light it was my "friend" and maybe a very good friend over the next few years. Perhaps because I was looking for pieces for our kids or the fact Mrs D doesn't waste any time, she goes straight to the product puts it in the trolley and keeps moving, made the whole experience positive. mmmm I might need Mrs D to come with me again for another practice round before I brave it on my own.

We got shelving, baskets, photo frames (for kids art), waterproof cot sheets (wasn't on my list, but I couldn't resist the price at $9 - my friend Ms M gave me a full proof cot making tip that I'll share later when we set the nursery up) drawer organiser, this one was for me and a large mirror, also for me.

Check out our before and after photos. As you can see my kids play room is slowly coming together. Perhaps the trick is to show Sam what the play room looks like and then he might agree to it. Treading very slowly with this idea.

I would often find Google in the Elmo chair after kids had gone home. As much as Sam and I longed for children of our own, Google too showed his way of wanting play mates. 

Google helping setting up the toy corner. Actually he was annoying, always sticking his nose in where the screw needed to go. So I put him in the basket for a few minutes whilst Mr D put the shelves together.

The finished look. Feeling organised. Now to continue that conversation with my understanding husband. I need a play mat, space for the pram, and bouncy/rocker swings. oh and the kids art which is now framed to be put up on the wall.  mmm...The dining table must be moved! a very delicate conversation.