What I REALLY want to talk about...

I can't. I really want to share my excitement about our upcoming mini vacation. But I can't. It's a surprise. And since A-Dog reads my blog. I just can't. Sorry A-Dog. Really I am. But torturing you is one of our many perks of being your parent! Pretty sure we've decided to just let you endure the drive and see if you figure it out when we get there :- ). We'll see!

So, I could talk about the 12 shirts I'm making (2 for each of us), but then I might slip out a detail or 2. I can tell you this. We will all match :- ). I know, super corny. However, I've learned the more kids I have, the more I think corny is OK.  I mean, how much easier is it going to be to spot our kids? (and yes, look corny).

I could talk about why my kids (twins) are not taking naps today, or why one was stretching her little arm out as far as she could to reach toys on the OUTSIDE of her crib. How do I know this? Because when I opened the door, the lid was off a block bucket that she's never ever bothered before and was throwing them across the room after she removed them that's how.  And that I'm in real trouble when I move them to toddler beds because they will just get up and play. But that whole discussion would ruin my excitement for vacation! Total buzz kill!

How about I tell you about all the very strange things Agent P has been saying lately. Some are somewhat gross. Really. Like how tired of food he is because: "the problem with food is that it just makes me poop". See?? I told you GROSS. That and everything he eats he asks: "what's in it?" Will it give me super hero powers? What will it do?" Breakfast, snack, lunch, snack, dinner, in between drinks of water. You name it, he asks about it. Maybe we'll save that for another day, one less gross.

I should mention that A-Dog made the Honor Roll the first quarter of 6th. High Honor Roll actually. 'High' meaning straight A's with a 4.0 GPA. Last week we all went to his awards ceremony. We knew in advance (tho A-Dog didn't) that he was to receive an additional medal from his teacher. Over 50% of his class made Honor Roll of sorts (some High, some not) and of those students, his teacher selected HIM as the 1st quarter award winner. A special recognition for a student who stands out to the teacher. Proud does not even describe how we felt watching him. I could show you the video, but it's filled with "stop that", "get down", "please stop pulling on my arm" and "no, it's not a good idea to sit in a different row honey". You know. Stuff like that. Stuff that makes a video good annoying. :- ). Maybe if I can figure out how to put it to music or something....

We could talk about the fact that Agent P isn't napping today either. But I think we'll skip that as well.

I guess I'd better come up with something GOOD before I leave on our SURPRISE VACATION. I promise, it will be something good.

92 apples (2 partially eaten)

That is how many apples we came home with after our Apple Pickin' Day! I know you are all sitting at the edge of your seat, wondering what I'm going to do with all these apples!!! Me too.  Really. 92? But, like we keep saying - it wasn't just about getting a bunch of apples - it was about the FUN! And boy we sure did have fun, even if we got a bit carried away!

There is a U-Pick farm not too far from our house (1 hour 15 min). Actually, the farm has 2 sites only a few miles apart. One has apples, pears and peaches - including a gift shop with pies, goodies, fudge and did I mention goodies? The other is pumpkins and vegetables. We went, obviously, to the apple farm!

It is a U-Pick, but they do have prepared boxes if you are not into that. But in my opinion, why drive to a U-Pick farm, if They-Pick?

Never been to a U-Pick farm? Here's how it works:

1.  Get your bucket and apple picking tool and your favorite apple picker:

2. Stand around waiting for the tractor that pulls the "wagon" that takes you to the apple fields.

3.  Let your tractor driver know that you are READY to go!

4.  Have your favorite apple pickers pick you some apples

5. Have a seat and enjoy some apples fresh off the tree!

Mini P loved eating the apples, which is how we have 2 partially eaten.  Have a few bites... get a new one

6. Load 'em up and hit the road!

Now I have lots and lots of apples! This morning we had waffles with cut up apples baked in and dessert tonight is apple crisp. Now I have only 85 apples left :- )

The best thing the farm had was a guy out there making Apple Pie Ice Cream - it is vanilla ice cream with an apple pie with crumb topping mixed in!  I'm telling you, we walked by him at least 3 times to get samples. He assured us he wasn't counting!!!

Blankie Washing Day

Blankie Washing Day has become a day that I regularly procrastinate and always dread. It is not an easy feat, but I accomplish it on a regular semi-regular basis. OK. That is probably an exaggeration...I frequently get them washed when my sweet husband complains that they smell :- )!

Monkey and Mini P are very much blankie kids - much like their brothers. In fact (shhh, don't tell anyone) A-Dog still has his two of his blankies (because he had THREE) from when he was a baby (minus 1 that he gave to Agent P) and they are still in his bed to sleep with. I don't know if he cuddles them each night, but thankfully he doesn't have to carry them around everywhere like his youngest siblings!

Monkey and Mini P take the blankies EVERYWHERE. Outside to play, to drive 1 mile to the bus stop and back, plus to bed. And every chance we get, we leave them in the truck when unloading. Like on Sunday, we did NOT have them in church, which if you were in church with us, you would know that they would have been washed sooner to remove the chocolate bar from kids sermon. But I digress. Like usual. 

Getting the blankies washed is a delicate process. This is how it went today:

1. Drive A-Dog to school (somehow blankies remained at home and no one cared).

2. Come home, unload all kids and RUN FAST to the house.

3. Open house door and shut it before ANY kids can get in.

4. Run around frantically looking for all the blankies to wash.

5. Sprint to laundry room and get the washer started - SPEED WASH ONLY 30 min - don't mess around with the regular load setting, that takes 50 minutes, we don't have that kind of time!!!

6. Let kids in the house and act like nothing happened.

7. After they are washed, sneak into laundry room again and put them in the dryer.

8. DO NOT, I repeat, DO NOT GET CAUGHT!!!!

Well, I got all the steps done except #8. 15 minutes into the drying cycle, somehow they were spotted in the dryer. Somehow meaning I was in the laundry room getting their clothes out of the dresser in there and they were on my heals. This explains why they are naked.

They were NOT happy.

Standing at the dryer, hoping the blankies will magically fall out.

Can you see those HUGE tears???

Mini P banging on the dryer, Monkey watching and hoping...

It was so very sad.  Mini P kept screaming SCREAMING - "bankie, bankie, bankie". Over and over and over. Did I mention over and over and over??? I literally had to drag them out kicking and screaming (I now know how that phrase came to be) - one at a time, racing to get the other and get the door shut and locked before the other snuck back in.

Finally I pulled the blankies out of the dryer, partially wet and handed them out and all was good!

A Day at the Zoo!

With my wonderful husband out of town for the weekend visiting his family in MI, we ventured off to the zoo. This is not typically an easy feat to do solo as Monkey and Mini P really like to walk around and explore...in different directions. Luckily, I had A-Dog and he is more than helpful...usually :-).

First stop was the Tiger.

He kept pacing right in front of us and Monkey was going crazy pointing and yelling :- )

Look behind the tiger. Really, WHY do we have the garbage can out there? Would it be THAT hard to just remove it??? I could have photoshopped it out, but really, was it my job to remove it??? I have enough to do, so I left it :-).

The elephants and polar bears were somewhere else today - getting manicures or pedicures I suspect. But the giraffes were out. Mini P kept calling them horses, I assume because she can't say giraffe. We did not feed them today, which is a big event here at our small zoo. It's $2 for 2 treats and you get to walk right up to them and they stick their very, very, very long tongue out and eat it right out of your hand. It is kind of freaky, but if you don't mind the very, very, very long tongue, it's fun! Today however, the line was super long and we don't do lines at the zoo - we have a membership and can go anytime to feed them.

The zebras and ostriches were out and right on the other side of the rocks is a tortoise.  He was pretty cool, no tricks or anything, but he was moving around!

My favorite part is the Education Center. Mostly because it is indoors and all my kids are contained. There is window viewing of the Macaque, a fish tank, snake terrarium, bearded dragon terrarium and little activities for the kids. Sometimes they bring in little animals for kids to pet. Once we got to pet a hedgehog. He was pretty awesome!

Agent P with his friend the Bearded Dragon

All in all, it was a good trip! We had to leave when it started getting crowded and I couldn't keep track of my kids :-) But, I did leave with all 4!

After snack of course!

Sleep Schedules

I am somewhat of a stickler when it comes to the sleeping schedules of my kids. I didn't used to be, what happened to me? Twins. Twins is what happened to me. There is nothing that will take your sanity right to the edge quicker than twins popping into your world, especially when there is also a 2.5 year old as well.

I wasn't always like this. I used to be footloose and fancy free. OK. Well, you're right, I shouldn't go that far! But I was better. Or worse. Depends on how you look at it.

Child 1, A-Dog. Terrible sleeper as an infant. Terrible. So terrible I won't even admit to you that I ended up co-sleeping with him, nope, won't even admit that. Totally MY fault though. Someone one should have gifted me a book on sleep and importance of a *scheduled sleep pattern*. Yup, that would have helped. But, no one did. By age 2.5 he was actually a pretty good sleeper and I trained him to only get up with there was a *7* on his clock (I taped over the other numbers). He was/is exceptionally smart and a TOTAL first born achiever, so it was an easy task. :-). Now, being pre-teen, I have to worry about him waking up :-)!

Child 2 - Agent P. Better sleeper. Sleeping all night long by 5 months (at least) and putting himself to sleep. No rocking this one, bedtime was for getting in bed and that's how he liked it.  We have always been able to play around with nap and bedtime without him falling apart or having fits - and when his brother's baseball games went until 10pm, that was a good thing!!! We occasionaly struggle with staying in bed, going right to sleep, getting up before the chickens.... He is a restless child and is certain that *one more hug* will do the trick. He is also a master at squeezing one last drop of pee out if he needs to. It's impressive actually, but still annoying.

Children 3 and 4 - Mini P and Monkey have very different sleeping habits which creates new challenges. They have slept thru the night (in their bed/s) since they were 3 months old. We decided that it really wasn't an option NOT to sleep all night. So they do, I guess, if I hear movement, I turn the monitor down/off. (bad mommy).

Monkey is a morning person and loves to fool around in bed with trucks. The boy loads his bed up with trucks. We've tried to draw the line. Really we have. But, we have 4 kids. We pick our battles. 

At nap and bed (and I've even found lately if you say the word nap this happens...so I have to be more careful) we tell them "time for bed" - Monkey will frantically start swooping up all his favorite trucks and cars and trailers and making deliveries to his bed.

See the full arms? That is just the first load. He will get at least 1 more and sadly, Mini P will carry some for him too. She picks out all his favorites and puts them in bed for him (how sweet is that???). He will try to climb out of his crib  SCREAMING if he doesn't have *just the right ones*, which is why we don't fight it. (Don't worry, when he heads out for a 2nd/3rd load, we do remove some).

Mini P loves loves LOVES to sleep. Adores it. At almost 22 months she will run to her crib (nearly always) and try to climb in. She typically has just her blankies and her baby. She lays down and goes to sleep (90% of the time) while her brother plays trucks and sings.

We have found with the twins, that a very rigid sleeping schedule is the only thing that works.  It's a fine line of compromise to finding the right schedule that meets both their needs. She can go right to sleep and he can play if he wants to (she honestly doesn't care - and we think she fetches his trucks so he will play and stop bugging her...only a theory tho!)

Truly tho, I think the hard core scheduling is selfish on my part. I have to know that part of my day will have some sort of quiet. It's like my own piece of serenity :-).