Yay for pictures.

The above pictures contain, a Nanna, a Great-Grandma, a Grandpa ("Papa") an Aunt Misty, a Great (in all ways) Aunt, 2 precious darlings, a hard-working Daddy, and a Momma too busy to individually label the pictures! a clue with the girls, choccy tresses = Violet! Barely Bald = Livster.

Santa Claus is comin' to town

Its easy to feel the christmas spirit here in the cold. Everyone has christmas decorations on their doors and in their yard and its getting colder by the day.

The girls are very excited that Santa will be here in just over a month. They havn't done up their lists yet, but they are very excited and cannot believe they'll be meeting their cousins, grandpa, uncle and aunts soon.

Thanksgiving is on the 23rd and Dustin's grandma is doing up a big feast at her house. I believe all or most of Dustin's family will be there. I have some special thanksgiving outfits picked out for the girls.

They are both doing well with their feeds, still on 4 hourly feeds (although i hear Violet crying out at the 3 hour mark now). Gaining weight by the day.

Passports

The babies passports arrived today!

They are so cute, its not funny. Olivia looks like a mugshot, i wont be surprised if they give her trouble at security. She has this smouldering dangerous glint in her eye. Violet looks cutie pie.

So nothing stopping us now, we'll be heading off with the girlies. There are some future Qantas passengers walking around now who have no idea the flight they have ahead of them. They are in for quite the sensory journey, both audibly and aromatically.

Freezing here right now, its still very pretty though. "Fall" is literally fall, our yard is filled with bright red leaves.

Look forward to see ya'll in late Nov.

Same ol' Same ol'

Sorry no updates of late on the blog. Its been second verse, same as the first around these southern parts. Changing, feeding, settling, sterilizing, changing, feeding settling .. you guessed it, settling and sterilizing.

We did get the girls passport photos yesterday though, and it was the ordeal imagined. First place didn't do them. We ended up in Walgreens and the rule is baby's head must be straight, facing camera, upright, eyes open and no visible hands (ie we cannot hold her head up if our fingers show its not valid, dont ask us why!, the guy in Walgreens had no idea either). We just knew if we didnt' follow these silly rules, we'd line up back at Post Office and they wouldn't accept our application. Little Violet couldn't stand the bright light and didn't want to open her eyes, not to mention her head was rolling everywhere. They had to have a specific background too, in the end i suggested laying them on their backs with the background behind them, this eventually worked (approx 20 pics per girl), and we got some VERY cute passport snaps. I even had a wet washer to wake them up. We did one girl at a time and Mum waited in the car with the other baby, as it was very cold and wet and we wanted to keep their time outdoors to a minimum.

Other than that, its just been the usual cycle. Mum and Auntie Net have gone to town today to check out Memphis city. Tomorrow is a doc appointment for the girls.

Sat

Well the girls earned their wings the other day (we actually received two golden wings from the airline for their first flight, along with two certificates, so cute) and tonight they attended their first birthday party.

Dustin and I put on a little soiree for Greg, his Dad's birthday. It was spontaneous, but a really nice night. We put up streamers and a big Happy Birthday sign, and had KFC (i was going to do canapes, but apparently fried chicken and gravy wins over finger nibbles every time here in the south). Annette had her first 'biscuit' (sort of like a savory scone, very popular here, you eat them with gravy. I was going to organise a birthday cake, but Greg had already bought one for himself, pretty funny, even had his name on it.

Corey (Dustins 21 yo brother) hadn't met the girls before and just loved them, he was staring at them from the moment he arrived til when he left, playing with them and analyzing their faces, it was so sweet. He fed Olivia too. He loves being an Uncle. He and Misty didn't leave the girls' sides all night. We took a ton of great pictures (yes i know i need to post some more, we've been slack with uploading them off the camera).

The girls were on their best behavior too, only getting fussy at meal time, but other than that, just sleeping peacefully in their blanket.

Ruby came to visit (she's still at Dustin's grandma's until we get more settled in) and she was incredibly jealous. She spent most of the evening sulking. She'll take a while to get used to her sisters.

We had a family come and look at the house today too, they are coming back tomorrow, but we're not getting our hopes up, we've sold enough houses to know even a signed contract means diddley and it aint over til closing day.

That's about it for the day, we're all feeling pretty good now that we have a pattern that includes shut eye. My flu is ok too, i'm better during the day, and by night i feel weary. I think i'll live though.

Dustin's family will probably be visiting again tomorrow, they want to get as much time with the girls as possible. His Mom rang several times, shes very upset she's not 'bonding' with the babies and the other Nanna is (Mum), but she's in town soon, shes going to drive from Vegas in two weeks when Brittney and Brandon get out of school.

Fri

Today was a good day, we are starting to get settled in.

Mum and Auntie Net took over from me earlier than we had planned, Auntie Net heard them both crying and came out and saw me with Olivia in the sling crying, while i was changing Violet on the floor, also crying, she felt my neck and the two golf ball sized swollen glands, and told me to get to beddy byes, my head was hitting the pillow before she finished her sentence, i was so grateful. She and Mum came out to the lounge room and each lay a girl on their chest and they both slept. So they ended up getting sleep too.

Dustin and I had nearly seven hours sleep! We didn't know ourselves when we woke up without an alarm or a hungry bub. Sheer bliss, i tell ya!

Dustin's sister Misty came over and played and fed the girls, she loves them and said "i want one". By the time she left and had been spit up on by Violet, she was less enthusiastic about that notion. Just like every person who has met them, one of her first comments was how Violet is a replica of Dustin. Its very eery but also very cool.

We took the girl's for their passport photos, packed the car with all the goodies required, got there, and Dustin went in to explain the situation, lined up for 20 minutes and the passport camera was broken! Luckily we never left the car, so it wasn't a biggie. We had called but being one of those slow govt dept's with huge lines of people (and this is Memphis, so imagine a more chaotic scene, with minimal organisation) , nobody would answer. So, back home with the hungry girls and we'll try a different place tomorrow. Good news is the passports only take seven to ten days as per the expedition route, so we'll definitely have everything in order for us all to fly home after thanksgiving (yay).

Auntie Net and I did a huge grocery shop and bought everything we'll need for quite a while. It feels nice to finally be organised and settled in again. We even sat down and had a soup for dinner, it was nice to eat something that doesn't have a wrapper on it, my diet hasn't exactly been the epitome of nutrition, we've pretty much gone with convenience over the past weeks. In fact, its all such a blur, i can't even remember what i ate, although i know there was a Pepsi Max or two in there.

The house went on the market today and a sign is in the front yard. Now we're just looking forward to the joy of all the nosey neighbors coming to check out what we did with our house. We're going to make it appointment only, and Dustin is going to screen first.

I have a full-blown coldy flu situation kicking, it won the fight, I'm consuming a cocktail of medicines, tablets, sprays and potions and if they all fail i popped a few Nurofen plus with the codeine to at least take away the insane pain that is my throat. I feel great!! :=)

Its about 1am i think, and i'm one girl down (Violet) and ready to go for Olivia. The girls are a dream tonight, last night they were quite the opposite. Dustin is with me here and hes working o his computer and holding Violet on his chest.

They really are doing so well. Violet has calmed down a lot in the last week, and become a relaxed lovely baby. I guess the reflux has sorted itself out or was wrongly diagnozed, in fact i think it was the nasty bottles she was using at the start, since we changed to Dr Browns shes been a dream. She's growing so much and i can feel her getting chubbier. Her little belly is filling out and becoming round, its so cute. Olivia is just so sweet, she's so very needy, she gets very upset if shes not on our chests or swaddled up tightly. She just needs to feel secure. Both the girls are great though and Dustin and I couldnt't be happier. They are now doing 4 hourly feeds, which is heaven after more than 2 weeks of 3 hourly feeds, although now each feed takes a bit longer because they take more, but its just nice not to have to prepared everything as often.

Anyways, time to feed Livi.


Hope everyone is well. x0x

Long flights, rain, airport sagas, sore throats, exhaustion etc etc

The title says it all!

We are finally back in Memphis after a very very long day, a possible contender for most exhausting day, but i give that to the day Livi was transferred.

The airport scenario was one that you had to be there to truly understand. No words can begin to convey what its like carrying 2 babies in slings, 5 suitcases, 2 car seats, 2 diaper bags, video-camera in bag, hand luggage, cot-in-box (filled with other stuff), laptop in laptop bag, while making sure you have your tickets, passports, and take back the hired car (with the carseat bases in them, to be packaged and boxed up after the babies are out -- which all had to be done in the emergency parking station so that we could run the babies in quickly so they wouldn't get wet and cold), then go through security (taking off everything, down to our shoes), the full search of the bags too, apparently those enfamil formula bottles look a little suspect and Al-Qaeda-esque. All while we are half asleep, fighting flus and trying to keep a smile on our dials!

Anyway going back to last night for a sec, after Mum and Net arrived, they hit the hay around 10pm last night so they could at least be semi-concious for the trip ahead. I woke them at 4am (D and I were up all night with the girlies who decided to have a decibel competition. They were just so upset last night, we ended up moving them to this back room, so we didnt' wake Net and Jet. D was trying to work, and i was trying to settle them, but eventually gave up and started feeds at 3am, which took me to 4am, time to get ready to leave.

Anywayz, woke Net and Jet, and we had a frantic run around the house packing last minute things and loaded the girls in the car at 4:30am in the rain. A decent trip to Seattle airport (maybe 1.5hrs), and a mean security guard (one of those psychopaths who takes his job far too seriously) I had all the formula in zip-lock bags (as per the regulations), but i failed to note 3oz per bag, well if 1 tin is 8 oz, am i supposed to split the tin?? what a maniac!..Apparently so. Dustin and I had words with him, and i actually told him he was a mean man, i'm sure that really cut deep. All this with a preemie baby strapped to my stomach, he obviously doesn't have kids, he couldn't have cared less. He said "these rules have been out for 2 months and you're holding everyone up', he made us do a full search of all our bags. We all decided he was a waste of space and moved on.

Trains, and 2 planes later we arrive in Memphis. Dustins Dad greeted us and they went to get the cars organized, a couple of hours later, dirty diapers, hungry bubs, cable cut off (some billing error), dishwasher not working (story of my life!), and not enough formula (I had just enough to get us home, couldn't carry much more than that, and of course didn't buy any before the bubs because i didn't know what brand. So.. D has just gone out now, its 11:30pm to stock up, hes So tired, hes about to fall over. Mum and Auntie Net have hit the hay and i'm going to stay up and Mum and Net are going to get up around 6am. And i will finally get some sleep, yay! Right now i'm trying to keep the girls calm, so they dont wake up M and Net, so i have them both together in a sling against my chest, its working.. for now! They look so cute.

Oh yeah, sore throat saga continues, its now turned into full-on, excruciating pain to swallow situation. More vitamins and see what happens.

I'm tired but still doing ok, if its possible i'm still on adrenalin and have been since the day they were born. It might also be because I know Mum and Auntie Net are jetlagged and exhausted (have pretty much been flying non-stop since leaving Australia), and Dustin is a shadow of his former self, he came home tonight washed out and over it, and has to hit the computer all night for work, and then found out no cable (have to sort that out tomorrow) so we're on a slow wireless from next door, had his family come over too, had a variety of other, just-got-home chores, and just wanted to sleep, but work had to be done, so hes in the back room trying to keep his eyes open and work, and I'm just sitting with my girlies both in my lap, about to get ready for the next feeding.


More photos soon! I took some amazing ones of Mum and Auntie Net meeting the girls for the first time.

Wed

Jettie and Nettie arrived. It was so great to see them and they havn't put the girls down since arriving.

Maria and the kids came over too and gifts were exchanged, was a very nice evening.

Will write more later as we're sort of catching up. Will be leaving here at 4:30am.. gonna be another allnighter, used to it now!