Salem...

Skip Salem to shop? No way, Angie. We had everyday full till bedtime. I am going post them seperately by days...

Day 2
We toured the old homes by Derby street and the wharf and a replica of the ship Friendship. It was very interesting to learn more about sea life and trade routes. I could never be a sailor on one of those tiny ships and leave my family for years!
We toured the Derby house, the Customs House And The House of Seven Gables.
One thing that struck me was how cold the homes were and we were not in the dead of winter. These people must have been cold all the time!

We were going to take a walking tour but they would not answer their phone and we were SO cold. The tour guide at the House of Seven Gables recommended a trolley tour. It was different than the one we read was recommended online but we figured first hand recommendation was best. Not so... this guy was terrible. He told us so little that we fell asleep and he had a heavy breathing problem. He did this in the microphone most of our ride, it was like a bad crank phone call! He did stop at this scenic spot (off his route) for good pictures. He kept calling us "the patriot cheerleaders".

Oh well... We did do one witch thing and learned about the history of witches. Salem was very interesting. We ended the night with a trip to my favorite restaurant- The Cheesecake Factory. We were so busy during the days we ate only snacks so our dinners had to be good.

Flashback Friday...

I decided I needed to mix it up a bit. Fridays on my blog are now "Flashback Fridays". I will be sharing funny memories, pictures and other things of my past (some older than others).
First day of school for me and my siblings. Can you pick me out. Don't you love our style?

Wise thoughts...

I read this quote on my friend Kristi's blog. I really love it so I thought I would share.

"It's pleasant, even peaceful, to run a household, raise children, and deal with life at home when your mind isn't filled up and overwhelmed with thoughts of how you could be doing better."

An Apology...

An Apology to any and all that encountered me and my twins today. It was not a great day, not a good day. We had some errands to run and the screaming and fit throwing done by two toddlers in unison was unbelieveable! I was embarassed but had no ability to stop it. I tried bribery and many other things but nothing worked. Sydney also climbed out of her stroller and got hurt in a fall. It was miserable and people were very very annoyed. One sweet Grandma offered a lot of sympathy and said she was on the phone with her daughter who also had twins. She said the noise scared her good. I left most of what needed to be done and got out of there as soon as possible. After this event my sister in law and I went to lunch at mimi's (we had a gift certificate which would expire soon). I spent the entire meal running the girls back and forth to the bathroom. It was a total of 6 trips! I ate almost nothing and I was very frustrated. Someone sitting near the bathroom caught my attention to tell me she felt sorry for me as she had been counting my bathroom trips. I guess going to the bathroom that many times was still better than the alternative, accidents. I need to go to bed early tonight, I have had it!

Newport

We arrived late Friday night but forced ourselves out of bed after just a few hours sleep. We drove up to Newport Rhode Island to see the mansions. I love history (thus the trip to Boston) and I love houses. Last time I went we saw three houses so this time we saw four more we had not seen. All of them were wonderful and interesting. One of the homes had live actors and at the end the actors held a dance in the ballroom. I got picked out of the audience to dance w/one of them. Of course my sister enjoyed watching that (I was not as thrilled). All in good fun, and it was...



After the houses we drove up the the Wrentham outlet center. That place is HUGE. I have never seen so many people in one place (well I have) it looked like Disneyland.

Interesting story...

Over the summer I read this story on my friend Heather's blog. It really touched me. I was thrilled to read this story. I know their loss is still profound.

Coble family expecting triplets!

Welcome home...

I arrived home late last night. The kids were bouncing of the walls, fighting for luvs and cuddles. When I put the twins to bed their usual antics (I need water, my special blankie, don't close the door, etc...) did not bother me. I was patient and happy. So tired, but happy! I missed those kids. We had a amazing trip, no resting, just visiting everything we could find time to see. It was truly wonderful and fun. When I arrived home Alan had repainted our front door and garage black and put new shutters on the house. I was so happy (I have always wanted that). Alan seemed tired and very happy to see me. Thank you to him and his parents for taking care of the kids. They were very happy to see me, but did not miss me much. The girls have no real sense of time yet and were just living happy in the moment (which made is great).

Leaving on a jet plane...

Today I on my way to Boston for a girls weekend. My sister and I are meeting up (although we all live close) and staying in Boston. We have a lot of cool things planned and I am thrilled for the break. This was my birthday present from my parents :)

Alan is really excited about time alone with the kids. I took him shopping to Costco so he could get himself meals to prepare. He picked things I would never choose. The kids are going to have such a good time. He has promised them fort building, movies w/popcorn and lots of fun. I am so glad he is so willing (even encouraging) to let me go and is the kind of Dad that looks forward to this special time with his children. I know he will be tired when I return.

I come back Tuesday night! I am so excited!

Teamwork...

Last night when Alan arrived home he removed the gate from the stairs. Even at three yrs old we need gates our house, maybe more than ever. Not for the safety of the girls, but for the safety of our house. So the gate had been removed and pretty soon the girls were upstairs w/o me. Sydney comes to tell me "Hailey is making a float in the bathroom". Yup you guessed it. In seconds flat she has the sink clogged w/toilet paper full just waiting to overflow again! She was immediately taken to time out, where she screamed "Sydney did it" over and over. Alan being the diplomat removed Hailey (after her appropriate amount of punishment) and asked her who did it and she continued to insist it was Sydney. I was not buying it at all... because she was soaked. Regardless Sydney was called in and asked about her role in the "float in the bathroom". She had claimed to be innocent and because Hailey was found in the front the sink running the water wet it shocked me when Sydney said that she put toilet paper in the sink and Hailey turned the water on. Oh my it was a team effort. See why I need gates and locks? Disaster averted this time!

Thumbs up...

I see a lot of movies, usually late on my girls night. Last week we saw Dan In Real Life. I just wanted to recommend this movie to everyone. It was a light, fun comedy and I loved it! I have seen so many lame movies, many ify movies, a few good ones, but this one was GREAT!! Highly recommend it. Steve Carel was wonderful in it too!

Jane Eyre...

I recently finished Jane Eyre. What a wonderful book this was. It inspired me and had me spellbound the entire novel. What will I do without my good friend to read and listen to? No book will ever compare or be as wonderful!

Drudgery...

I spent my entire day cleaning and doing laundry. Kids are out of school again. By 10:30 this morning I was at my ropes end with the older two fighting... so I called my mom for some moral support and she saved me and took the older two to a movie. I did not use it as a break I just continued my cleaning and I fed and bathed the twins. So after cleaning the entire upstairs and all the bathrooms I came downstairs to this:

All the wipes removed. When I questioned Hailey she told me she had to get them her kitty was poppy.

And I still have this (and more)...

Why is it so hard to feel you get anything done? Did I mention the twins are sick with a cold and still never stay in their beds? They were up at 6:30 this morning and I have put them back to bed zillions of times today.

Experiment...

We tried curlers out the other day...





We were happy with the results.

Pumpkin Patch...

Pictures taken in California on our Vacation.

Not so loveable...

Ironically the girls were wearing shirts that said "L is for lovable" today. They have been anything but lovable. They have been having fits all day long. Nap time went awful (again). I sat outside their open door till they went to sleep (to avoid them getting out of bed), they did eventually fall asleep which lasted all of 30 minutes and they were out and screaming at me again. I know they are overtired which leads to more tantrums. Things better get better or I am going to lose my mind! It's been such a hard week with them not sleeping and up ALL THE TIME!

A trick and lots of treats...

This year was the first year the little girls were excited about going trick or treating... this ended abruptly though... because after two houses a friend of ours answered the door with his ski mask and a very real looking knife and then because he knows us he followed us around until I had to separate from Alan because the twins couldn't take the terror any longer. Now Ben is handicapped and doesn't realize that was terrifying the girls & thought it was funny. Yes we told him and yes we asked him to go home, but he really does not understand! Regardless after that they were begging to go home. We made it to a few houses to show them off and at each house they wanted to know again if it was "Ben's house". On our last house the kind lady offered each girl a candy, Sydney took it willingly and said, "I think I need some more" and grabbed a handful out of her bowl. The lady was so charmed by the girls she gladly shared it all. In fact even though the twins only made it to say 5 houses, each of those houses loaded them up good. Sometimes it pays to be cute! The older kids had a wonderful time and enjoyed every minute. Sydney and Hailey somehow found the candy bucket (I thought I had hidden) and had it in Sydney's crib this morning and they were enjoying it very much, until I discovered them! Hope you all had a wonderful night! As for us, I am tired! We are staying home today, all day (except the gym).

My Halloween fright...

We got up early and got everyone dresses in their Halloween attire, Lindsey we sent off to school and the rest of us went to see my Grandma. My Grandma is living alone since my Grandpa's passing and I knew she would love to see the kids in costumes. She lives 40 mins away and Jacob starts school around noon so time is limited. While at my Grandma's the girls were learning all about trick or treating and receiving candy... and they were loving smarties. Pretty soon Jacob alerted us to the fact that the babies had some "other" candy. To my horror I discovered that the girls had found my grandma's pill box. My Grandma has atleast 25 pills a day, all seperated by morning, noon, evening, night and the days of the week. The pills were all mixed up and we were unsure what was missing (100's). So while I sat in fear with the girls, seeing no signs of trouble other than her spitting out a pill, my aunt counted every pill. This required reviewing her schedule and comparing each pill to the bottle (locked in a safe). Eventually we discovered that the only pills missing were half a vicadin, and a blood pressure med (we had the halfs). My Aunt counted very carefully. We knew they had those already because they spit them out in my hands. So.. even though we could see they had not really swallowed any of the pills (because half of them were still intact and the rest was spit in my hand and on the floors) we still called poison control. He said that they were fine and it was obvious they had not swallowed anything (because they were behaving fine). It was a horrible experience! I keep all our medicine in child proof containers locked away. It did not even occur to me to check my Grandma's and put it up. I have learned a very serious lesson now though. We thought they were getting toys out of the toy closet. They told me the candy was yucky! I think we have helped teach them a real lesson but I won't ever be finding out if they will obey. Every place/home we visit will be inspected. It's serious. Did you know more children OD on medicine at Grandma's than anywhere else? I can't stop beating myself up about letting this happen and I am still not over the stress etc... UGH! They are fine and we made it home for kindergarten carpool and then the halloween parade at the school.

For Sale...

Gone are my nights of total security, my nap times without worry. The girls are free and I fear life will never be the same for anyone! I know I know... we got more time in these cribs than any mother normally gets, I realize we were lucky. I realize they couldn't possibly be caged forever! Good-bye to our beloved traps ... I mean cribs. May we still have girls who go to sleep at night and nap on occasion and may my sanity not leave with you!


This is how I found Sydney several times last week...
and Hailey was like this one morning, and when I asked her what on earth she was doing she told me very plainly, she was climbing.
and one afternoon after an hour in bed "napping" I heard a lot of noise. I opened the door with force expecting to find them both out of bed, instead I found that Hailey had joined Sydney in her crib (oh the fun of being a twin).

There is no more sleeping a little later, while they play. Getting more done after a nap while they chatter upstairs.. safe from disasters and other mischief. All bets are are off!

The Flood...

Yesterday we had a busy day! The twinados struck again. I was downstairs and the twins were unattended for a moment. Lindsey came running down telling me the bathroom was flooded. I was expecting a small mess, but what I found was a real flood. Hailey was standing at the sink with Sydney right behind, she had clogged up the sink with toilet paper (which was also wet and flung all over the bathroom) and she was letting the water run. Run it did, it ran over the sink, down the cabinets, filled up the whole bathroom floors (2 inches of standing water) and into the hall carpets! Both girls were soaked and the water was still running! Providence would have it that we had a plumber at my house (working) so I ran to get help (Alan was not home). He brought in his industrial strength wet/dry vacuum and I began the clean up process. To make an impression both girls were dried and sent to their beds, both girls proceeded to climb out of those beds (4 times) during their punishment. I then said we were not going to the gym, which sent them into hysterics( they love the place so much). I don't think it made a huge impression though as later I found all of Rochelle's chocolates eaten (so it did not get mailed saturday) and other big messes! When Alan arrived home from his "guy" day I had quite a story to tell. It seems like the bathroom has dried out o.k and I will be locking it from now on.

Happy Fall

The night before we left on vacation we headed up to the mountains, for my birthday.
I love taking fall pictures. I love the fall colors. I did not grow up in a place that had much of a season change and we certainly never had any mountains with fall colors! I ordered no pictures be taken of me. I had been packing all day (for our trip) and was not looking very good.