HellOOOOO!

Daniel in his usual happy mood

Emma feeding Andrew

Has she got teeth?

A pensive Daniel wearing the hood of his jacket.

Emma reading the riot act to Daniel

Now where did it go?

The postars singing a duet into their microphones

Emma the Popstar!

Daniel the crooner

Yes we are still here! Life seems to be passing in a flash.

We are all doing ok - nobody is terribly sick at the moment - a very rare event for 2008.

The twins are doing really well - except that they turn very clingey the moment I come home which is very painful as all one wants to do is drink a cup of coffee and rest. Impossible with two beings manouvering to be on top of you!

Daniel has shown an interesting amount of sharpness - more than Emma. We put up a poster from the newspaper that depicts various forms of transport. Interestingly, Daniel was able to remember more than Emma although he cannot always vocalise them (Emma can vocalise a few more). Fiona says my explanation is very long-winded!!! Of course it is, dear!

Both are coming up with a lot more words - the best being that Daniel calls Emma with amazing clarity. Interestingly, they are becoming a lot less selfish and are often quite willing to share things and will even give each other items when one is distressed.

Emma is learning to jump. When we ask her to jump she bends her legs in preparation for her feet to leave the floor. She now just has to learn to get her feet off the floor. Very funny and enjoyable to watch.

Daniel has got a very fine taste in music - often stopping what he is doing to listen or dance to a tune. He likes the female singers such as Leona Lewis. They both still stop what they are doing when the Isidingo theme tune comes on.

They have great fun racing around the lounge on their little motorbikes. They reach some nice speeds and are learning to corner at speed - but they don't always get it right. Daniel sometimes does not even cry after a fall - he's having too much fun. Another trick is to go full tilt into the couch.

They are also now feeding themselves - Emma is quite good at getting the spoon to her mouth but Daniel still gets everything everywhere. He then uses the spoon to scrape it up and eat it. They often feed each other or transfer food from one another's bowls. Daniel generally eats half of Emma's supper too. After supper, we often give them a small tub of yoghurt each. The lounge table is the ONLY place where yoghurt can be eaten. They have to sit on the table to eat it. Once they have eaten the contents, they then put their hands in to get what remains. Lots of laughter follows as their yoghurt covered hands are then licked (with plenty of yoghurt going every where).

Fiona continues on her celebrity ways - she will now be giving the speech at the launch of the Spar Ladies Race on 2 September 2008. Quite a change from a person who just a few years ago would never do anything in public.

On Friday, we are both taking the day off for our "date day." Life is just so hectic that we just don't spend much time together - so we are now going to take off a day every so often to enjoy. We'll do a movie after a nice breakfast. Then it will be lunch and we'll do something nice that afternoon before picking the twins up.

Fiona is the Samaritan Coordinator for SAMBA. Well, are South Africans a bunch of givers! Our house is full of prams, clothes, tins of baby food. Quite nice to be able to link up with people who really need help. Some horrific stories too - one women in Hillbrow has just had twins (to add to her triplets of a few years ago). All her men are gone and she has such bad asthma that she cannot hold down a job. How will those children make it? Scarey stuff.
Quite a few people just go out and buy a whole lot of new stuff which is then given out.

And then there is some good news too. The Boks beat the All Blacks, we won the cricket against England, there are no power cuts likely, Mugabe is talking to the MDC and it looks like the petrol price is going to come down next month. Two weeks ago, nobody will have forecast any of these things!

Lets hope that the worst of times are now behind us. It has been a very tough year so far.