Backtrack: Ben's family visit!

Ben's Mum, brother and sister visited us here in Aberdeen the first week of June. It wasn't really June-weather (and still isn't!!) but we had a lovely time- bonding with our baby boys and visiting places. Here is some photographic evidence (courtesy of them- they take a lot more photos than I do!! For which I'm very grateful, now that I have none of my own!)

Bonding with Uncle Dan:

Daddy, Nanny T, Uncle Dan and Aunty Sarah with Zach and Oliver at Balmoral Castle:

On Newburgh beach (it was SO foggy we couldn't see more than 25m ahead of us!!)

Super! I only wish we had more photos. We also went swimming (Oliver went on the flumes with us...!) to Slain's castle (a ruin right on the edge of a cliff) the Royal town of Ballater, into Aberdeen city centre, to pizza hut!! Fab. Will catch up with them at the end of next month when we are "down south" for our Summer holidays.

Brothers

Olympic Torch in Aberdeen

Emeli Sande- she was good!!

Three guesses what's going on here

Kirsty Williamson!

Bunting!

Guess who is the oil and gas sponsor??

We bumped into some friends!

Zachy baby out and about

We had a lovely few days with Ben's family last week!! Crazily I only took ONE photo (of Ben with a Balmoral postbox?!) so will post about our adventures when I can get some photos from the family. Above are some photos from the Olympic torch celebrations in Aberdeen city centre. The photos don't show how packed it was... bringing the double buggy was an epic fail, we couldn't move!!!!!!!!!!!!

The Diamond Jubilee!

On Saturday I realised that the Queen's Diamond Jubilee was here, we had no TV licence so we couldn't watch any of the BBC coverage of the concert in front of Buckingham Palace or the boats along the Thames or anything! Also I had wanted to have some friends over for 'High Tea at the Twiggers' and it was all a bit last minute now... but I was determined not to let the Jubilee pass by and not do anything (after all, how often does someone stay on the throne for 60 years?? It won't happen again in my lifetime!) so we searched online for things going on around here... not much since we are in Scotland and they generally consider themselves Scottish, not British :'(  But we found an afternoon tea party in Aden Country park with a yummy food, pin the tail on the Corgi (I did it!!) union flag face painting and a great play area for Oliver. I invited friends last minute for a rather chilly Jubilee tea on Monday (a BBQ and way too many scones, some delicious eton mess, trifle and Great British fancy cakes) Fab! The celbreations came to a close with our third celebration yesterday evening- a party up at the church. Even more scones with jam and cream and some yummy scrummy sandwiches with very British fillings. Ben entered the crown making competition with his very tall crown (he wrote KING BEN is capital letters, and 'All hail!' underneath... he didn't win) and Oliver tried out the boucy castle. Zachy Baby was on the milky for the whole thing- good boy!

Some photographic evidence of the festivites (I wish I'd got more):

Two weeks old and we are STILL alive and well!

Hello again!

The past two weeks have flown by and I am in the throes of my first day with the two boys BY MYSELF. I was despairing a little bit yesterday evening as I was about to drop my Mum back at the airport after she came to stay for a few days (Oliver was holding onto her leg whining and Zachy was screaming the place down while we were trying to throw dinner together in five minutes...) but other than that teeny tiny episode the boys have been good to me and let me in gently. At the moment they are both napping at the same time, everyone is fed, watered, we have read books, played with cars, watched some Elmo, I am showered and dressed and we have been for a walk and to Tescos. Fab!

In Zachy Baby news, he contines to sleep pretty well (I rarely get less than 8 hours sleep at night?! WOW) and Oliver is showing more interest in him... he likes to give his head a pat but it's starting to get a bit hard... will carry on watching that one! The biggest thing to happen to Zach this week was our trip back to hospital to have his tongue-tie sorted out. (The bit of membrane at the bottom of his tongue was attached very near the front of his mouth, so he couldn't stick his tongue out and was a bit rubbishy at latching on when feeding) I was there when he was dosed up on sugar (?!) and then the surgeon just snipped it in his office. There was no blood to speak of and he cried when he was being held down- not when the scissors came out- but I was still squirming...! Glad it's all over and it won't affect his speech or anything in later life. He is wiggling his tongue around all the time now.

It was really lovely to have Mum here. She was helpful and an extra pair of hands to handle the boys but even more, just super company :)

Here are some recent photos-

Poor boy- he got sunburnt in his buggy last week!! We felt terrible :(

Haha, looking angelic in his bath!

Baths can be tiring!

Brothers- the friendly looking pat is turning into a bit of a wallop...

Zach and Nanna

Still alive and all well over here!

Hello!

Well, Zach will be a whole week old before this hour is up, and the past week feels like a dream... where has it gone??! Everything is SO much easier with a second baby than with the first, this past week has surpassed my expectations thousands of times over.

- Apart from a couple of hours in the hospital, there has been practically no post-birth recovery necessary- my body feels great and frankly better than it has done for as long as I can remember (last time I could barely sit down for a week or two!!)

- Zachy Baby SLEEPS, wow! It really is quite amazing. Since night 3/4ish he was been sleeping during nighttime hours (waking very frequently for feeds at first, but now only about every 3 hours... wow) So I genuinely don't feel like a walking zombie at all

- It is amazingly sunny and warm and Ben is off. It feels like a holiday!!! We have spent a lot of time out on walks with the whopping double buggy, and the rest of the time in the garden with Zach napping in his Moses basket (it only took a few days to get him to nap there and not only on us, hooray), Oliver pushing his scramble bug and diggers around, me drying loads of washing, Ben planting out seeds for our vegetable patch. Bliss!

- Somehow the last couple of days both boys napped in the afternoon. At the same time. Ben and I playing Scrabble to celebrate... he practically DOUBLED my score, I was absolutely pants! My only consolation is that Ben needs to check most of his words with me first because he can't spell. Hooray for beating him at something :) He also slaughtered me at Risk last night too, although I was doing my bit as a milky machine at the same time, if that helps my case?

The bad bits- not too many!!

- Absolutely explosive nappies. I had forgotten about those!
- Very painful breastfeeding... again. Major deja vu there and it is the worst worst WORST feeling in the world.
- Juggling two children. It's alright now but I suspect when Ben goes back to work and I am outnumbered...! Nah, all well so far.

Brothers!

HUGE bouquet... ah yes, BP! I love the thistle, it is beautiful

Headfirst down the slide on Saturday

Walking out by the river on Tuesday

Cool!

I was mocking Ben for trying to convince me that "wifts" was a word (as in wafts?!) when I realised that chrome has an h in it... oops! NOT very wordy then?!

Out in the garden with the washing

He stole a sock from the line and brought it back to his den

Brothers!

Two nappies to change??!

Oliver can now get into the car unaided. Uh oh!

Zachy Baby, pensieve in the garden at 9pm

Daddy watering his precious courgette plant :)

He's here!!

We are pleased to announce the arrival of Zachariah Peter Twigger, who was born at Aberdeen Maternity Hospital on Thursday 17th May 2012, weighing a healthy 8lb 11oz. Mummy pushed him out into a water pool in 20 minutes after 3 hours of contractions (not bad!) He has had lots of milky, sleep and cuddles and Oliver happily met him this morning and now says "Zack, Zack, Zack..."

Here are a few photos to prove he is real!

About to go out on our first outing this morning

Mummy + two boys!!