What happened to Fall?

Well, I wished for snow and apparently I have secret powers because we're getting it. Tomorrow. Its not even November and they are saying we're getting around 6". That's insane.

So I figured I better get our pumpking picking pictures up before the snow comes so I don't look crazy for posting snow pictures first!

Last weekend we went to a cute place called Karabin Farms and the girls had a blast! They had a place to pick pumpkins, and you could pick apples, they did tractor rides to and from the apple orchards, and even had a ton of animals for the girls to look at.

They had such a great time, I felt horrible making them leave! Next year we will skip Lyman Orchards all together and go right to Karabin Farms. Much more family oriented, less commercialised and overall a better experience for the kids!

Some of these pictures are from 2 weeks ago when we went to Lymans too but its all pumpkin pictures just the same!

Play Doh

I decided to make playdoh tonight for the girls, I wasn't sure if I was crazy or not but decided it was easy enough to find out!

I used this recipe http://www.playdoughrecipe.org/playdough-recipes/traditional-playdough-recipe/ and it came out awesome!

I rolled it out into balls for the girls to smash and gave them some toothpicks, cheerio's, magnet letters, and curly pasta. They loved sticking the toothpicks in the playdoh and then putting O's on them.Finley was making sculptures with the toothpicks and pasta and Gillian was a huge fan of taking her magnet letters and smashing them into the dough so it left a print of the letter too.

They played for over an hour, straight through our normally scheduled bath time and into our movie time. They had a blast and I had a blast watching them!

I love finding something that will keep their interest for more than 30 seconds and I'd say a hour is a huge SCORE!

Toddler Activities?

So, its getting cooler out and I've been looking for fun things for the girls to do inside.

We have tried coloring here and there but Gillian is the only one who likes it. Finley just likes to eat the crayons.

They both love painting so I started filling a silicone muffin tin with washable finger paints, giving them each a brush and letting them go crazy in the tub. They love that. They paint the walls, themselves, each other and then after they help me wash it all off. Amazingly they love that part too. Then when were all done I do baths.

So what other activities does everyone else do with your 2 year olds? I need some ideas! I hate to say " I can't wait until their a little older so they can do more" because I really don't want to wish my kids older but I'm not going to lie I'm looking forward to the days when they can help me decorate cupcakes or do real crafts with me!

So ideas please!!!!

Sleep......where are you?

I'm pretty sure I'm going to lose my mind.

For the past 3 months Finley has refused to fall asleep in her room. I'm still am not sure what happened to start this whole thing but I have a feeling it was because Gillian was climbing into bed with her while she was trying to fall asleep and it was ticking her off. She would start crying and throw Gillian's blanket out of her bed while pointing for her to go away but Gillian kept on persisting.

Then all hell broke lose and my normally easy to put asleep baby freaked! I mean freaked. She was so upset when we were putting her down I was scared!

So I started letting her fall asleep in the living room every night. After she passed out I would move her into her room all while praying my heart out I didn't wake up Gillian in the process.

Lately though Finley has been a button pusher and is getting up off her couch instead of sleeping and running around like a crazy girl. Then to make matters worse she gets up at 6:00 every freaking day and poor Gillian will sleep in until at least 8:00. So of course Finley is tormenting Gillian at 6 and getting her all worked up. Then I'm waking up to Gillian screaming her head off. Not how I want to start my mornings thank you very freaking much!

 Last week I had enough and took apart Finn's bed and moved it into the playroom. She obviously needs her own room. Her and Gillian are on two separate wave lengths in terms of sleeping and its killing me slowly.

So, now my playroom is gone, and Finn has her own room. The problem was getting her to sleep in it.

I was going to gradually try to move her in there. Don't ask me what my gradual plan was because honestly I have no idea but in my head I was going to be nice about it.

Then 3 nights ago after dealing with Finley staying up until 10:00-11:00 a couple nights in a row I had it. I threw up the gate (Gary still hasn't put the door back up) and chucked her in there. She cried, not hysterically but she wasn't happy, for about 30 minutes and then passed right out.

The next night she decided she wasn't going down without a good fight so she spent an hour yelling "Mama where are you" out the door towards the living room. Over and over and over again until she woke up Gillian from yelling it so loud and I was ready to strangle her!

Tonight was better. I'm not sure how long it took her to fall asleep because I actually went to my room and fell asleep for about 35 minutes but she only yelled "Mama where are you" once so that's a plus!

Gillian however got up again tonight and I'm hoping this isn't the new trend in the house for me to deal with.

On a bright note though Gary and I have slept until 8:20 every morning since separating them. I have no idea what time Finley is waking and I don't care, as long as she's playing quietly in her room and I don't have to listen to poor Gillian screaming at 6:00am every morning I'm one happy camper!

Now if I could get them to both go down without any drama or waking back up we'll be okay!

So I'm not super mom......

I'll admit it, I am not supermom!

I may have twins, I may work, I may have a busy day,  but I just can't keep up anymore.

I've been begging Gary to let me hire someone to help around the house, even if its just twice a month. I can't keep up with the little things anymore. You know the filthy walls, fingerprinted windows, my once white kitchen cabinets......

So, my neighbor has a girl come in once a week to help her, I asked if she was looking for more work and thankfully the answer was "yes!"

So she came today and did the cabinets, the walls, windows and the bathroom. Not having to clean a bathroom was worth every penny.

I will admit though, I'm anal and like things done perfectly so it's hard for me to let someone else come in and clean my house. I did go back and redo a few windows that looked streaky, and may have redid a cabinet or two but I'm okay. I can let go. I will let go......

Sharing!

I probably shouldn't post this because that's usually how I jinx myself but the girls are being awesome with each other lately! I mean awesome!

They went from attacking each other non stop, biting, pushing, hair pulling, and smacking to playing nicely with each other overnight. Its so strange.

They are even learning to share, that is huge. We do have a few things in the house that are "no shares", they are specifically that child's and they do not have to share it with their sister if they don't want to.

Both of them have their blanky's, Gillian has her wubbanub (or her mubby as she so affectionately calls it), Finley has her Pooh (that really isn't a pooh, its a green bear but she calls it Pooh), her puppy (a German shepherd beanie baby dog nana gave her) and most recently her sock monkey (which is a whole different post).

Both of the girls understand that they can't take these things and are pretty respectful of that. If Gillian finds Finn's monkey laying around she'll pick it up and bring it to her. And if Finley is looking for her blanket and finds Gillian's she'll give it to her. Its all very sweet to watch.

Tonight I had a glass of water and they both wanted to drink out of the cup, of course when one took a sip and I handed it to the other there was a freak out.

I explained they had to take turns and we went back and forth making a big deal about who's turn it was. After about a minute they had it and were gladly handing it back and forth to each other.

So my tip of the day is this: If your giving one child a drink, give them their sisters (or brothers) cup to give to their sibling too. If I give Finley a cracker I tell her to give one to Gillian also and when she does praise her for sharing, I've been doing it with both of the girls for months and months and I think its paying off! Now they will automatically give whatever they have 2 of to their sister. Except M&M's. I can't get either one of them to share their M&M's!

Heres to many more happy sharing days!

2nd and 3rd place go to.....

Finley and I! We got the dreaded cold a day after Gillian and it knocked me off my feet for about 24 hours. Now the house looks like a bomb exploded and I have to deal with the aftermath.

Which is no small task when you have two kids running around destroying things faster than you can clean them up.

I'm working from home today in an attempt to completely recover and get the house back in order.

Gary is the only one left to get sick, I'm sure he's next. I'm hoping his immune system is better than mine because he has been working on the dining room and I want it finished sometime this century.