Before November 26th, never in my life have I gone Black Friday shopping.  Why would anyone want to?  Hordes of people and no parking – yuck.  But for some odd reason, this year seeing Joel and Malin riffle through the Black Friday adds at my parents’ house, got my interest peaked.  Maybe it’s because we live with a shop-aholic (Malin – she has a problem) and we were encouraging her to go out and experience this (American?) phenomenon (with perhaps a little bit of schadenfreude).  Or maybe it’s because when Friday morning rolled around, Joel and I were bored.  Anyway, we did it.  We loaded the boys into Kanga around 9:30am and hit five stores.

Our first stop was to Ace Hardware for Christmas decorations and a present for Joel.  Yes, Joel was with us.  He’s the one who told me to buy him this specific present.  :)  Oh, and Nicholas discovered donut holes.  There were three kinds – old fashioned, powered and chocolate.  I told Nicky pick any one as long as it is not powered.  Guess what he picked?  I think this picture speaks for itself.

The boys were incredible.  The marched around a somewhat dangerous store and had a blast.  Very few people were there which made the experience even better, and the cashier’s fell in love.  Next up was Bartell Drug store for medication and wine, oh and a few stocking stuffers.  We had so much fun, we let the boys ride on the side of the shopping cart.

Once again, no problems and no crowds.  What was all the hubbub about?  This Black Friday shopping was a piece of cake.  We followed up these two easy stores with Toys R Us.  How stupid are we?  Pretty darn stupid.  No parking – aisle ways crammed so full of people that we couldn’t move around and thus restricted the boys to stay in the shopping cart, and every single sale item sold out. Here they are, looking longingly at the toys surrounding them.  We made it out of that store with festive hats and that’s about it.

Our last stop of the morning was Kmart.  We had seen and add for toddler beds – to be more specific – Cars themed toddler beds.  We wondered if the bed frames would still be in stock.  They were along with twin bedding in the same Cars theme.  So you can now guess what the boys’ room looks like (or, if you’ve seen Malin’s blog – she’s already shown you their new ”big boy room”).  The boys just go wild each time they get into their room.  It’s totally cute and exacerbating all at the same time.

Our pictures of their room will be up another day.  I can’t believe my little miracles are getting so big.  I fall in love with my sons more and more each day.  It’s truly amazing how big your heart can get.

Wait, that’s not how the song goes but that’s what we got – a white Thanksgiving – which is so wrong.  You see, I’ve had only two, maybe three white Christmases in my lifetime so waking up to snow on Thanksgiving was totally weird.  Although, my most favorite Thanksgiving of all was the year we had a wicked storm and the power went out on Thanksgiving.  My mom had to cook the turkey in the motorhome that year which sucked for her but for us kids, it was awesome.  My mom and I shared that memory a few days before Thanksgiving, when all the snow and super cold temperatures started and she made me wish for that not to happen this year.  Bummer.

In previous years, we’ve enjoyed Thanksgiving with my dad’s side of the family. For numerous reasons, many of them were not able to attend this year.  Instead, we had a great time with my mom’s side of the family which was a neat treat.  Gone are the days of the “cousins – aka kids” seeing a movie in-between the main course and the dessert course.  Now we watch children and talk about parenting.  The newest member of the family, cousin Keira, was passed around and cooed over.   Man, she is light compared to the boys.  Speaking of Nicholas and Dexter, the boys entertained, like always, with many ROARS, much talking, some pushing buttons in the kitchen that Grandma Marilyn could have done without (like running the dishwasher without permission), chasing of Rylie the dog, and a wonderful game of “Hello – Goodbye” with Grandpa Carter.

We filled ourselves up on good food and conversation.  Malin, Nicholas and Dexter all were given a shot of trying to make Uncle Too Tall’s back pop back into place.  Thankfully, nothing else popped out of Ryan while the boys were jumping on him.  Come on now, I am a French afterall - what’s a Thanksgiving without fart joke?   That reminds me, Ryan entertained Dexter with an amazing round of burps.  Dexter spent a good 5 minutes pushing Ryan in the belly in order to get him to burp and each time, Ryan came through.  Even I was impressed.   Grandma Marilyn behaved like a grandma and gave the boys cookies before lunch.  The grandparents sat at the grandparents’ table and everyone else sat at the kids table.  Malin graciously ate one itty bitty bite of the pumpkin pie I made from an actual pumpkin.  Not much else to say.  It was a really nice day spent with family and the best food ever.  Once again, Mom, I love your cooking.  Great job on Thanksgiving and great job everyone else who contributed to my waistline that day!

I know this is not the most exciting of posts, but then again, Thanksgiving is not the most exciting of holidays which is probably why I like it the best.  It’s full of family and food – what else could I wish for?  Oh, and I got to eat most of my meal hot.  All I had to do was give my roll to Nicholas and he graciously let me eat in peace.

I hope you all had a fantastic Thanksgiving.

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As Joel and I were flipping through pictures of this past year, we stumbled upon this one.  You can tell it’s an oldie because you will never again see Nicky’s hair long enough to curl until he is old enough to advise what kind of hair cut he wants.  Joel tells me I will need to give in on the hair situation unless I want to alienate my sons.  It already gives me panic attacks to think they may want long hair, or heaven forbid, the mullet comes back into style.

Anyway, check out this photo and then take a closer look.  You’ll notice that Mr. Potato Head is getting fresh with Nicholas.

Thankfully, Nicky doesn’t really notice.

All I can think of is how adorable my sons are.  Yes, yes, I know.  Spoken like a true mom.

We have an ever-urgent need to distract our boys on a regular basis.  They act a bit like your typical soccer fan – excitable, but brutish when displeased – and since we’ve made a conscious descision as parents not to use riot gear or tear gas on our children, it becomes important to – HEY LOOK, something SHINY!  The need, when it arises (and it does often) almost invariably coincides with the boys having chosen some new way to express their individuality and control over our home.  Probably by screaming for the remote, or trying to put a stuffed animal into the KitchenAid, shoving their brother into the diaper pale, or catching sight of some other forbidden object or toy that is currently suffering from parental disapproval.

Our standby is a tub of Jelly Bellies.  Laura left behind a container of maimed and mangled gimp jelly bellies (factory rejects) which the boys have devoured with relish.  We’ve supplemented since then, of course, as these little skirmishes aren’t exactly infrequent.  So much for good teeth…   We also have a stash of toys in the den.  Not necessarily the most exciting toys, but ones they don’t use often, so if, for example, your son is screaming out his desperate lifelong desire to hold down the toilet handle until we have to build an arc, then you could say, “What about Robby the Robot???”  Suddenly a plastic robot is doing the electric slide on the floor, and your children are hiding under furniture wondering when this abomination will be destroyed.

I tend to fall back on highly age-inappropriate options.  Sometimes harmless (Wii remotes, anyone?)  And sometimes only moderately harmless (cordless drills, anyone?)  Really, I only ever earn offspring approval when I let my boys play with tools.  I’m going to buy them a Saws-All for Christmas.  Well, Nicholas, anyway.  Dexter’s getting a jackhammer.

Fortunately I am married, and have a spouse who really makes me wish that the homosexual community hadn’t appropriated the term “gay” for themselves, as I really can’t think of a better word to describe her than the 50′s version of the word.  Seriously, she has almost as little shame as Carter.  I really don’t know how Marilyn has managed to cope.

A few weeks ago Nicholas was losing it about god only knows what (probably mad that we wouldn’t let him climb into the dishwasher), jumping up and down and hitting his head on the couch.  To be fair, he is getting his 2-year molars, which is a well-documented excuse for any behavior short of Parenticide.  In this instance, instead of grabbing the soldering iron for some afternoon crafts, Katie did the only thing reasonable:  she scooped up Gizmo the stuffed animal, tossed him on her back, and started giving him doggy-back rides around the house.

Honestly, tell me there’s a single word better than old-school gay to describe this?  Regardless, Nicholas was a bit startled, and then concerned, so he tried to help him Mom pull back from the crazy by pretending to play along, which was moderately successful (she’s still nuts, but then she married me and has twin red headed boys, so we’re just hoping she manages to stay back from the “psychotic & homicidal” level).  Nicholas scooped up Trouble and gave him rides around the house as well.  I know it’s a little hard to see in this picture, since Trouble is a black lab and Nic’s wearing a dark brown shirt, but trust me, there’s a puppy hanging on to Nic for dear life.

There, another crisis averted.  At this rate, we’ll be dead by Friday, but we’ll surprise them with a victory cry and come out on top.  But then – HEY LOOK, something ELSE that’s SHINY!!!

This post was going to be a WAY TO GO NICKY post but now I’m not so sure.  I’ll let you be the judge.

This last weekend, Nicholas decided he wanted to poop in the toilet like his mommy (correction – ladies DON’T poop).  This is what transpired.  The scene – Nicholas grunting.  Mommy notices and says in her best cheer leading voice “Nicky, do you want to poop in the toilet?”  Nic responds “No.  Hmm, I want to poop by Dexter’s cart.  Hmmm – No – I want to poop over here.”  Mommy with a huge smile: “Nicholas, I know, do you want to poop in the toilet like Mommy and then flush it?”  “Yes” Nicholas says and runs to the bathroom.  Mommy is shocked and stands still but then runs after him.  “Nicky, I need to find the toilet seat.  Wait right here.  I’ll be right back.”  Mommy runs upstairs and looks everywhere but can’t find it.  By the time she comes down the stairs, she notices a poopy smell from her son.  “Nicky, I’m sorry.  You already pooped.  Do you want to sit on the toilet anyway?”  “Yes”  Mommy is shocked.  She pulls down Nic’s pants and carefully takes off his diaper.  “Let’s put the poop in the toilet Nic.”  Nicholas insists upon sitting on the toilet anyway.  Mommy makes sure he doesn’t fall in.  Nicky grunts and tries to push out more poop but to no avail.  They flush the toilet together and praise is given to Nicholas. 

This scene happens twice that weekend.  The second time we get Nic on the toilet before the poop but we don’t wait long enough.  As soon as the diaper goes back on, the poop comes out.

So, what do we do?  We get Malin to clean all the little toilets we bought and set them up.  Today, she got Nicky and Dexter to sit on the two toilets a couple of times.  Nicky PEED in the toilet TWICE!!!!!  Way to go Nicky!!!  Dexter is not quite there yet but he did enjoy sitting on the toilet.  So much so that he didn’t want to get off, Malin told us.  ;)  Love you Dexter.  You the man!

Tonight, when it was time to change their diapers before their bath, Joel and I had them sit on the toilets.  Nicky peed again!  WOW.  Then they both wanted to touch it and insisted on playing musical toilets.  Gotta love twins.  Anyway, Joel and I decided to risk it and not put their diapers back on before heading to the shower.  Guess what?  Dexter stayed dry but sir Nicholas baptized his pants.  No worries – we just threw him into the shower with Joel and Dexter. 

They were en  joying quite the shower.  Lots of  laughter, screaming, playing and washing.  Things were starting to wind down when it happened.  I saw Nicky grunt.  Oh, by the way, Malin had told us Nicholas hadn’t pooped yet that day.  Yep, you guessed it, a little turd was set free to sail the high seas.  Yep, Joel keeps about two inches of water in the shower for the boys to splash in.  “Joel – look out, Nicholas pooped.  Nicky, stop pooping!  Joel, get Dexter.”  Dexter was thrust through the shower door closely followed by all the toys.  Joel grabbed Nick and that when I noticed a big turd had also been set free to sail the high seas.  Joel yelling at me to stop laughing and to finish drying Dexter so he can hand me Nicky.  The one positive thing about pooping in the shower is that the butt is already clean.  Nicholas is passed to me and Joel leaps out of the shower.  He runs to the sink and I see him washing his feet.  I’m then told I get to clean the shower.

So, do we still love Nicholas?  Yes.  Is he on Joel’s shit list?  Maybe.  No, not really, but the pun was too good to ignore.

So much for “tomorrow”, huh?  Oh well.  So here’s the final Halloween 2010 post.  First, though, some pictures from a week before Halloween, when we first tried on their costumes.  We’re all about the prep phase – we practiced security lines before we flew, so we figured we should practice Trick or Treating.  We had Dex dressed up in a little pumpkin outfit, which he seemed to love, but which we decided wasn’t quite up to snuff for Halloween standards, so instead we let him wear it throughout the week:

Here too you see half-Tigger Nick – the bottom half, specifically.

How often do you see a kid this happy?  Seriously, we need to dress him up as a pumpkin more often.   It workse better than Jelly Bellies, better than Cars, better than IBuproven, and even better than a bulb syringe (don’t ask).  We hadn’t even let him have any candy yet!

Alright, we’re finally ready for the night-of.  It starts with Malin showing off her shapely M&M costume (i.e., circular).  I’m surprised she’d didn’t find a black M&M.  Seriously, this has been a big month for Malin – so much color!

Once the boys were all dressed up, we sent them to answer the door while Katie and I got ready to go.  And by “ready”, I mean we put on our shoes and fleeces, we didn’t have the energy to manage costumes this year.

Apparently we took too long, and the M&M got sad…  :(

And we’re off!

Our first victim!  But Lorna chose “treat”, and the boys were a bit scared, but rose to the occasion well.

Dexter was totally into the spirit of it.  He’d happily run up to each door and knock, and then yell “Trik Teet!”

When we got to Ann’s door, she’s specifically set aside some of the chocolate bunny graham crackers for the boys, and this was the very first treat the boys ate (they might have let us be inside for a good 30 seconds before they yelled for their bunnies).

Bunnies!  ’kay, gotta run!

Little did we know that once we got home that’s when the fun really started.  Nicholas manned the door, frantically yelling “people people!” every time he saw more trick or treaters.  Then he’d pick up the candy bowl and hold it for them to take candy from.

Dexter got into the spirit of it, too, though he was done being a game animal.

They did great, as long as the costumes weren’t too scary.  They weren’t happy with the Scream masks, or Shrek, but they did well with everyone else.  Dexter even started passing out the candy, grabbing candy bars one at a time and putting them into kid’s bags.

Then I *mistakenly* let the boys have a piece of candy, and they suddenly disapproved of passing the candy out and wanted to open them instead.

Nicholas is a fiend for candy!

For some reason they decided to stack the candy on the window sill next to the door, maybe to display to Trick or Treaters.

And then they attacked me with it.  Sometimes I just don’t understand…

Okay, this one is hard to see, but Nick is grabbing a candy bar with both hands and squeezing for all he’s worth.  It was hilarious and bizarre.  He had such a strained look on his face, and he was shaking with how hard he was squeezing.

Yes, this is Nick’s “I’m squeezing the candy for all it’s worth!” face, which is surprisingly dissimilar from his “I’m trying really, really hard to poop” face.

And there ended our evening, except for the the Jack-o-Lanterns, of course, who kept burning long into the night (or at least until people didn’t get the hint with all of our lights turned off, so we went and put out the candles).

Trick or Treat!

The best laid plans usually fall apart.  Last night was my volleyball night.  It’s the one night that I get to go out and release some pent up energy without too much grief.  We’ve learned some do’s and don’ts to volleyball night along the way.  Do let Katie go but make sure she is back before the boys go to bed.  Don’t let Katie come home after work and before volleyball.  That just creates a bad situation with the boys and Joel.

Anyway, last night, we actually had 7 people show up for our games and we were totally kicking butt in our games.  So, when 7pm rolled around and we had two games left, I thought this would be a great time to go home early and surprise everyone.  I had had a bad single parent night with the boys the night before and I had been feeling horrible and missing them something fierce all day long.  I asked my team if anyone had any issues with it and left.

Unbeknownst to me, Joel had talked to our team captain John earlier that day to find out when would be a good time to bring the boys by to watch Mommy play volleyball.  Joel, Malin, Nicholas and Dexter arrived about 5 minutes after I had left.  John said nothing to me before I left, and both Joel and I are little ticked off at him right now because he was the only person who knew what both parties were doing.  Well, he and Nicholas.  You see, Nicholas did not want to go to volleyball.  “No volleyball” he kept telling Joel, as Joel wrangled him into the van.  Nicky must have known I was on my way home.

Long story short, my boys had the biggest smiles when they saw me standing in the doorway, waiting for them to get out of the van.  Dexter’s face was alive with his excited smiles and Nicholas gave me the best hug ever, cuddling in close when I picked him up.  I asked him if he had missed his mommy and he smiled sweetly and said yes.  Made my heart melt.  He and Dexter then fought over my lap as we sat down to read a book.  I’ve had to allocate my legs to each one of them.  It’s nice to know that at this age, they don’t hold gruges very long.  I hope the cuddles and love last for a very long time.

Here at long last I finally don’t write the Halloween post.  Seriously, we’re only 6 days past Halloween.  We only just today had to throw our out moldy pumpkins today, and we’ve barely made a dent on our candy.  I mean, uhmm, THEY have barely made a dent on THEIR candy.  Right.

So anyway, I can, at least, offer the first glimpse (well, the 50th or so if you fallow Malin’s blog) of the boys in their Halloween costumes.  So, here’s Nicholas the Tigger and Dexter the Giraffe:

On Saturday morning, the 30th, we dressed the boys in their costumes and packed them into Kanga for a Fall Harvest Festival with the SNOMOMs group.  It’s been hard work, harvesting all of our acreage.  I think we had something like 18 apples this year!  The boys were surprisingly cooperative.  Nic LOVES tigger, and we bribed Dex into his costume with a few minutes of Cars, and a couple of Jelly Bellies.  It’s always the Jelly Bellies…

When we arrived, the ever talented Anna was taking photos.  We waited patiently in line, and used up our last couple of Jelly Bellies bribing the boys into standing next to one another.  No amount of bribery would secure a smile, however…  Perhaps photoshop?

One thing we noticed was how clever people were with themed costumes.  Knights escorting their twin Princess, or the Cat in the Hat with Thing 1 and Thing 2, and the cleverest, little Bo Peep watching her two little lambs.  If only we had an extra sibling or two we could really get creative.  Well, until the boys refuse to indulge us any longer, anyway.  I wonder what age “cute” has to give way to “cool”?

They had arts and crafts tables set up, and the boys spent a short while coloring.

And I had to include the following shot.  In looking over our photos for the year it became painfully obvious that we take very few of ourselves, only ever the boys, so I’m making it a point to document that we’re actually present at each event, even if only as assistants and shadows.

After the coloring we discovered the donuts.  Perhaps it was a mistake to allow Nicholas to choose one with frosting, but he certainly seemed to enjoy it, and at least the frosting was orange.

More gratuitous frosting images:

They also had a few buckets with candy and small toys in them, and the boys loved the pack of Cars-themed Go-Fish cards.  They were also a little intimidated by the hordes of children running around, so we grabbed some chairs against the wall and played quietly for a few minutes to build up our courage.

It doesn’t take long for Nic to start exploring.  Well, Dex always runs off first, but once Nic gets started there’s no stopping him.  The only problem being when Katie thought I was right behind her and told Nic to “go find your Daddy”, but I’d actually walked off with Dexter and was half way across the room, and a minute or so later Nicholas was scared and crying, but we found him before any other mothers tried to make off with him.

We found another craft project – this time affixing stickers to a foam-type board.  This was quite the hit for a while, and the left over stickers came home and were affixed to our windows instead.

After the grafts were complete, we started a grand parade of kiddos.  The parade didn’t go so well as we ended going down a one-way alley, but no one was killed.  And this gave Anna time to get everyone set up for a group shot, and conveniently dumped the children all out at the same point.  Katie snuck around the side to capture her own version of the shot (which turned out to be convenient since we haven’t seen any of Anna’s pictures yet), which worked great until the boys noticed her and started screaming.

And afterwards the boys collapsed in exhaustion, asleep before we’d made it a mile.

A pretty good start to Halloween weekend, right?  Well, if everything works out, we should have the real Halloween post up tomorrow.  Sorry for dragging it out, but we’ve got to do it right, afterall.  I’d hate for you to think that we just dumped the boys in costumes and started working the neighborhood, without spending weeks building up to the event.  What kind of parents do you think we are???

So it turns out that uploading photos to a draft post, and then letting the post sit in a dark, damp corner for a week does not cause it to start sprouting text, which is unfortunate.  And since spontaneous correspondence does not appear likely to occur, I suppose I’ll have to do it myself.

We started our Halloween festivities a couple of weeks before the main event, with a trip to the Pumpkin Patch and Corn Maze.  And if there’s one thing you can absolutely rely on, it’s that if we’re headed to a muddy field, we’re going to dress our sons up as Oompa Loompas.  Note, however, that Nic does not appear to mind:

It was a fairly decent day.  Chilly and foggy, but not freezing, and not overly muddy.  The fog made it very bright and hazy, so the boys insisted on accessorizing.

We brought Malin along, as well as our friends Julie and Trevor, just in case we needed to send someone back for a wheelbarrow (for the pumpkins, stick with me, people).   But now for some more posing:

Okay, so after an hour of posing, we climb on board a tractor for a ride to the far side of the corn maze.  The driver does a bizarre little dance, shaking his ample middle-aged posterior in an admonition for us to remain seated, and then off we go.  He drops us off on the East side of the field, and we (predictably, I suppose) choose to enter the corn maze near Pullman.

The outfits do bring up a good point – if it’s too raining on Halloween, or their costumes are otherwise damaged, we could just put their suits on them, give them one of those dust masks and say that they’re a Haz Mat team.

After a short while we come to our first real mud puddle.  Julie, ever the helpful one, teaches Dexter how to stomp in it.

True to form, he spent next 10 minutes whining at me to get the mud off of boot.  This kid will break any toy you hand him, run full speed off the top of a stairwell, let you throw him up into the air until he hits the ceiling, but he cannot abide having muddy boots.

Malin had a bit a nervous melt down that morning and mistakenly chose to wear a color.  We were all very concerned, but once we got back she headed out to go shopping and we knew she was all right.

It almost looks like Dex walked the whole way, doesn’t it?

He didn’t.

Regardless, after a few wrong turns, and avalanche or two on I-5, we made it to the Sound, and chose the simple option of just jumping in and swimming for it.  And then, ta dah!

I’m guessing Katie hadn’t intended for me to include that photo in the post, but then if she really wanted it hidden she’d have written the post herself, right?

So now we were on to choosing pumpkins, which the boys did with their typical aplomb.

“Come on, Mommy, it only ways a *little* bit more than me!”

Well, we survived.  With tired boys, and tired parents, and a Malin that desperately needed to be let out (to shop), we called it a day.  The pumpkins sat for a week, until Lady Jay and Trevor returned and helped us carve them.   Yes, their pumpkins are larger than ours.  No, this does not make us feel inadequate.

You’ll have to wait for the next post to see the carved pumpkins.  No, wait – for the post AFTER next, as we have the Fall Harvest Festival to tell of first.

I’ll go check that draft now and see if it has sprouted.

-Joel