Milestones and Memories, So Long 2014

January – Started the year off with a few sales on my Etsy shop. Just sold another pair of baby booties! A lovely lady bought the Blooming Garden Booties, shown on the left. Jack scored at his hip hop class and Morgan performed a perfect launch off parallel bars at gymnastics.

February – Went for a walk and a chicken followed us home. It was just hangin' in the yard and wouldn’t go home. What do you do with a chicken in your yard that has 4-year-old twins very intrigued? We learned all about what to feed a chicken and where eggs come from. They still won’t eat eggs. Sigh.

March – We moved! And it’s raised our quality of life by at least 50 percent. 

April – Jack has found golf. He has watched the game since infancy on television, but his first trip to the links brought his interest to a whole new level. Ha!

May – Successfully sewed curtains and a few items for the kiddos. Who knew the tedious reading of sewing books would pay off! 

June – The twins are spelling their names without prompting from me! They are also taking off on their bikes like pros.

July – Enrolled the twins in summer camp and started having regular tea parties as a summer tradition. Have to use those Pinterest ideas somewhere!

August – Wrote a story for the NY Times, made the frontpage, A1! The twins ‘helped’ by begin quiet while I worked the phones and typed away. I love being able to work from home and be with these funny little people every day. Very grateful. Here’s an entry from a typical day “I love my jobs. Saved the kids from the crocodiles in the bocce courts as they did their gymnastics in peril on the concrete edgings, finished my interviews in the car while they were in school and had a picnic with some good friends. Feeling pretty grateful. Freelance is a hustle, a worthwhile one today.”

September – Started homeschooling and also found an amazing in-home preschool for two half days a week! They are loving their new friends at school and I'm loving the crafts they bring home! Miss Kim is a talented teacher!

October – Jack took over reading duties on a regular basis. He likes to 'read' his Three Musketeers book to us, sitting on the reading stool, carefully running his finger over the words, stopping where he knows the word and getting really excited at recognizing a word. It's pretty darn cute.

November – We went camping for the first time! It was lovely. The twins jumped out of the car and ran up the sandstone formations, immediately getting a good 20 feet off the ground. We'd have a quiet moment and one or the other would say "It's time to climb," and off they would go. I love them.

December –My babies turned 5. I still see the toddler in them, particularly when they sleep, and their little hands are still just that, pudgy, reaching little hands. But they are growing, and more fun than ever, particularly at dinner when they take over the conversation.

We ask what their favorite part of the day was and what they are looking forward to tomorrow, but they have changed it up. Morgan to Jack: "Do you want the good news or the bad news?" Jack: (long pause) "Good news." Morgan: "There are houses on fire in the valley." Jack: "That's the good news?" Morgan: "Well, the fires were put out, but only for the people who didn't go shopping late." (She said this while looking at me intently. I had gone shopping, without her, on Christmas Eve. She apparently is still a little peeved.)

Jack: "OK. The bad news. Somebody is afraid of the dark."

They both laugh like they’ve just heard one of their knock knock  jokes.

Then Jack, mouth full, says, "I think it’s me," rather matter-of-fact and nodded his head like a little man satisfied with his answer. Scott and I just about fell out of our chairs laughing. It's funny in that he will get up from what we're doing, take himself to bed because he's tired now and turn out the light. He's so grown up!  

Words/phrases to retire and/or redefine from 2014

When it comes to language, our twins offer up words and phrases throughout the year that are pretty darn cute, at first. When an older boy climbed on the forbidden outer play gym area at the local McD's, they were both in shock, claimed it was “unnatural” shook their little heads and wondered when management would alert the police. Earlier in the year, after our first big science experiment, they switched out the word 'guess' for 'estimate.' When considering a choice between carrots or celery, “Carrots, I estimate.” Adorbs, right? But there are a few phrases and words we’d like to see end with the twins' 4^th year and the last days of 2014.

Oversharing: When we go to the grocery store, the twins turn into little reporters, sending out verbal news blasts about our little family. “We can’t buy ice cream anymore because Daddy lost more weight than mommy.”  “Daddy slept on the couch for two nights.” (It was a back problem, I swear!)

"Sharing": As in “I’m sharing with Jack” while the boy whimpers he wants his toy back, please, and rubs at the mark on his head. They really want to "share" the neighbor kid’s iPad, a lot.

"Butt": As in “Look at my butt, hahahahahahah.” “I have a butt, hahahahahah.” “Jack has a butt, hahahhahah.” “The dog has a butt, hahahahaha.” “Daddy has a big butt, hahahahaha.” “If I eat more chocolate I’ll have a butt like mommy?” No, seriously, this was a question when we were trying to share with them that eating more than the allotted one piece of chocolate would make them ill.

"I have an idea": As in “Please put shoes on so we can go shopping.” “Wait, I have an idea! Maybe we go to the park? Do you want to go to the park or McDonald’s? Your choice.”

Knock Knock Jokes: This started earlier this year. It began kind of cute: “Knock knock.” “Who’s there?” …. "It’s me, Jack,” said with a bit of an incredulous pout because we obviously didn’t recognize our own son. It has devolved into: “Knock knock.” Sigh “Who is there?” “Butt, hahahaha.”  Of course.

All That Glitters

A version of this originally appeared at What's On Magazine.

It’s not officially Christmas until we’ve wound our way through the spectacular Glittering Lights display at the Las Vegas Motor Speedway.
The more than 400 animated and sparkling displays over the 2.5-mile course is one of the twins’ favorite seasonal things to do. They look for their favorites—rainbows and butterflies for Miss and dinosaurs and trains for Little Man. This is the Glittering Lights’ 14th year of being a local tradition with more than 1 million lights setting the Speedway aglow every night.
Take a snack, make it a tradition. Of all the holiday events this one is our favorite because we can “ooh” and “ahhh” and discuss the many lighted structures as we drive along together.  Here’s a few of my favorite asides from our trip:
“How do they come to life?”
“Does Santa know about this? Can we bring him here?”
“Lights are prettier at night because they can glow like they are supposed to.”
“Daddy, can we do this at our house?”

As you cruise through the display with dazzling lighted arches, animatronic Santas, toy trains, dinosaurs and more, holiday music plays on the set radio station.
Glittering Lights opens at 5:30 p.m. each night, including Christmas, and runs until 9 p.m., Sun.-Thur. and until 10 p.m., Fri.-Sat. and holidays, through Jan. 5. Tickets are $20 per vehicle and can be purchased here or at the entrance to the Speedway.

Contesting Takes Its Toll

I thought contesting would be a mild, simple little hobby. However since starting this experiment at the beginning of last month, I've been inundated with urgent emails asking me to please take action or fail my family and destroy their bright futures.

Publishers Clearing House was a personal favorite of mine since I was a little kid and dreamed of Ed McMahon with his wide smile appearing at our front door with a bouquet of brightly colored balloons. Now I'm worried someone from PCH will actually show up at my door, and I'll make sure it's bolted and call the police. An example of their pushy PR-mails is below.

The one email I opened from PCH as an experiment was a maze of instructions. I had to go through four pages of ads, for magazines that I am a sucker to buy, but didn't, and it was so sad, asking me to reconsider, over and over, and are you sures and you are failing your children right now by not opening and responding to this email! 


XXXXX, your Official Document 382 is enclosed! Your failure to act NOW could cost you a Life-Changing fortune ready to be awarded 

Publishers Clearing House will soon take a "Special Early Look" for a winner from Giveaway No. 49OO. And, if the Mcgee number from this very Notice matches the winning number drawn, you will win $1O,OOO.OO A Week For Life this November.

PLEASE BE AWARE that this is the ONLY notice you will receive regarding YOUR forthcoming Prize Number from this Bulletin. TAKE ACTION BEFORE IT IS TOO LATE! (This was one of many untruths from PCH.)

P.S.  the Prize Patrol will personally award a life-changing Prize and the winner will be announced during NBC Nightly News with Brian Williams so the whole country can share in the excitement! 


However, the travel and home decor contests have been fun, with breezy, wistful emails piling up in my account tempting me to places my beat-up SUV can only imagine taking us to and dreamy kitchens that make you want to whip out the butter and start baking your way to a new life.

Curious Call of Contests

I am a crazy coupon lady. Some of the best hours of my week are rooting around coupon sites and gathering my lists for shopping, trying to get the little total at the end of the bill to savings of 70 %, or more. That’s my goal anyway. With my freelancing being a rather unstable revenue source and the twins getting older and involved in more expensive activities than free play dates, I need to save where I can. 

Which got me thinking.

When I was little, I supplemented my allowance with rebates and prize drawings I entered by saving my parent’s shopping receipts and soaking labels off soup cans and cutting out barcodes on boxes of cake mix and sending the whole package off with high hopes. It was fun, when I was 10. 

However, I'm older and not a little bit skeptical about contests in the electronic age. Will they sell my info, will I be inundated with phone calls and emails? I did a little research, and there are quite a few impressive contests out there, from $25,000 outdoor makeovers to Caribbean getaways.

I decided to make it a contest for myself. I am going to sign up for and/or play at least five contests a day and see what bounty may be returned to us. 

It could be interesting, could be a giant pain in the ass, but I’m curious to see what comes of my little experiment. I'll post about what I've learned, how to safely maneuver these online info grabbers and other tips I find along the way.

Considering we are careening into the holiday season, it’s a great opportunity to fill our volunteer goodie bags that we give to a local charity at Thanksgiving and Christmas. Mostly it’s been filled with soups and toothpaste I buy for pennies through couponing, but who knows?

I’ll update weekly on any wins, which contests seem to be worth the effort and other tidbits I hope you’ll find interesting.

Here are my top contest picks for the week (if you are interested, I've chosen these for the least amount of personal info and a deadline to sign up by the end of Nov. in most cases):

Caribbean trip

John Deere $25,000 backyard makeover

Domaine $3,000 in prizes

Nabisco win $10,000

Publishers Clearing House $25,000 kitchen makeover

Happy contesting!

Mismatched Socks are a Prized Possession and Other Surprising Twin Tips

People have asked me, those who have twins and those who don’t, what are some of the best tips and things to buy as a new parent. Here’s a start of my list:

Store their socks in their shoes for those days when you are late. I call them every days. 

Buy a sweater organizer for the closet and label the large shelves M-F and put their laundered clothes away there. You then consistently have two, clean, matched sets of clothes for the week all done. Also saves prime drawer space.

Have a bunch of mismatched socks? Keep 'em in a big Ziplock baggie and stash ‘em in the car. It won’t matter if they match if a sock emergency pops up, and there will be a few of those. It’s surprising how handy they can be. They double as napkins for really icky spills and bandages (don't ask, but they really do soak up a lot of, um, fluid).

Load up the fridge with pre-made bottles when they are babies and continue to do that as they toddle on up to the preschool age. At 4 years old, you can leave pre-made juices in the bottom shelves or doors of the refrigerator so they can grab themselves. It will save you many round trips when you are right in the middle of something important. (Tip: If you are wearing the Fitbit or other step-tracking device, skip this tip, you’ll log a good 400 steps easy by mid-morning with all the calls for ‘juice, please!’.)

Time out for both. This can be tricky. When they are both upset over a toy or TV program, take away the object of contention. This saves you a double time out in separate rooms or areas. (Unless, of course, you are use a Fitbit, in which case double time out is a bonus to get to those 10,000 steps!)

A box of their plastic dishes to set the table. Around age 3 they can start to set the table. We live in a small house, so this box saves cabinet space and is really helpful around crazy time, or dinner in our house.

Blanket time. Read to them on their blankets, same blanket, around the same time, and maybe even the same book if it's not too monotonous. Then leave them there with a toy and go do something else for about 15 minutes, longer as they get older. Eventually, they get that when the blankets come out, they need to sit and play quietly until you are done talking on the phone, folding laundry, taking deep breaths in the bathroom for 5 minutes of alone time.

The remnant section at a fabric store is a gold mine of practical textiles that will come in handy at the oddest times. I have found small place mat sized sheets of thin plastic and yards of thick picnic blanket sized heavy duty rolls of polyethylene that have saved my tables, floors and carpets more than a few times, as well as some well-meaning friends who let us come over. The plastic sheets can be used under tiny baby fists as they mash their first solids into their mouths, the table, your hair, and the larger plastic can be tucked under high chairs to catch the spaghetti, tofu or whatever else floats your boat, but usually not theirs, as they traverse their picky palates over the years. They also make for great, temporary, art projects. Pin them to the wall and let your little one go nuts with washable markers, paint or stickers (a fine motor skills task that keeps them out of your hair while you do the dishes, or just sit, oh, yes, just sit). I also throw one in the back of the baby mobile and it has come in handy at parks, play dates and other jaunts we attend outside the havoc of our house.

To reuse -- baby jars come in handy for so many things for so many years, as do the plastic tubs the baby wipes come in (that your friends buy you for the shower, because you are going to run through those wipes, so don't spend the money on the cute container, which never works properly when you have a blowout of the bowel kind).

That's off the top of my head and in short advance of a friend's expected double bundle. 

Any twins moms have tips they'd like to share?