My mom hosted thanksgiving this year. We got to my mom's around noon and she had a huge pot of chili on the stove with fresh garlic bread ready for lunch. I don't even think she knew we were coming over for lunch but it was just perfect! We celebrated the holiday by making a gingerbread house, playing black jack, playing soccer in the backyard and taking pictures. We managed to squeeze the whole gang into one photograph, thanks to the help of a little self timer and ladder as a tripod.



Abby somehow completely fell into the toilet at some point and ruined her dress, but being a mom of twin toddlers I ALWAYS pack a spare change of clothes! The spare set just wasn't as pretty as the dress I picked out for her to wear. Oh well. Clean clothes, though not as cute, are always better than clothes soaked in toilet water.

I think the kids were the only ones that saved room enough for dessert after the feast. Tom had two gingerbread cookies, an ice cream cone and a brownie! Abby had the same, minus the ice cream cone. But that's what grandma's house is for right? To get spoiled!

Happy Thanksgiving Everyone! More pictures available on Flickr.

I've started asking Tom and Abby what they're going to ask Santa to bring them this year for Christmas and it seems every time I ask their list gets longer and longer. Here is what they told me last night.

Tom's Wishlist
Helicopter (exactly like the one he already has)
Airplane with Pilot (exactly like the one he already has)
Building blocks (exactly like the Lego Duplo blocks we already have) See a theme here???
Necklace (with his name on it, only because Abby want's a necklace with her name on it)
Thomas and Friends - The Great Discovery DVD

Lucky for Tom, Santa already found the DVD... but the other things... seems a little silly to get duplicates of toys we already have! But these were the things he was busy playing with yesterday when I asked him what he'd like for Christmas... Maybe I'll try again tomorrow!

Abby on the other hand has not wavered from her list in weeks.

Abby's Wishlist
Necklace "with my name on it so Tom knows it's mine"
Bracelet "with my name on it so Tom knows it's mine"
Phone "with my name on it so Tom knows it's mine"

She has a cute little pink toy phone but guess who always steals it? Hmmm wonder who that could be?

We'll have to see what Santa comes up with this year! Stay tuned...

Tom started talking about annual Pezific Coast Pez Convention already. I'm kinda surprised he remembered it at all. We went last February!

He asked me if I remembered when we went to the Pez Convention and if we were going to go again. Silly question. Is the sky blue? Of course we're going! He wanted to know if we were going to do all the same things we did last time. I just had to find out what he was talking about! He starts describing his hunt for the Nemo pez that didn't have broken fins and then he talked about the Disney Cars Pez he got last year. Apparently we have a little mini-he collector on our hands!

It's funny that Tom brought up the Pez Convention today because we just booked our rooms yesterday! This year Paul and I are spoiling ourselves and getting two adjoining room for three nights. Usually we all stay in one room. The twins have blow up beds which they are perfectly happy to sleep on. But the Marriott is just not the same when you have to step over toys, suitcases and beds all over the floor. So we're spreading out! It will be nice to have the extra space and not have to pay for a suite. Plus the twins sleep a lot more than we do so it's hard to tip toe around them in the dark. This year we won't have to! And I'll get to watch TV while I babysit the sleeping beauties this year. It was a bit boring sitting in the dark while Paul went out drinking with his buddies last year. I'm looking forward to it already.

As seen on our whiteboard this morning... so I have been assured this is completely normal. When children are developing writing skills when they learn their name really really well they will start writing it forwards and backwards. Yeah, I'm gonna stick with that.

Tom announced this evening, "Hey guys! Did you know Pluto is not a planet anymore? He's too small to be a planet." He told us Miss Phala shared this tid bit of information with him at preschool.

Paul and I were duly impressed. They're teaching about the solar system in preschool? We're definitely getting our money's worth!

Then it occurred to me, maybe... just maybe, Tom is not talking about the planet Pluto. So I asked him,

"Um Tom, what color is pluto?"

His response, "Yellow."

Indeed. Pluto is yellow.

Yesterday was so gorgeous that I couldn't resist taking the twins to the park for a couple hours. Tom was so busy digging in the sand in the sun that he forgot to tell me he needed to go potty. All of the sudden a panicked look on his face, "mom? I have to go potty!" Too late though. Damage was done.

I took him to the bathroom to finish which is where Abby nearly gave me a heart attack. First I had to pull her away from her digging so we could all trek to the bathrooms together. As family friendly as our neighborhood parks are on a Sunday morning, I still don't trust leaving my child unattended. They are so little!

So Abby trailed behind us all the way to the big cinderblock bathroom building. Tom and I went inside and apparently as soon as we got in the stall, Abby left! She just walked out. So I peeked out to look for her, and she was GONE! Holy heart attack. I ran out of the bathroom yelling her name. Luckily she was right there, but not where I could see her. There was a strange loud buzzing type sound in the bathroom and she was frightened by the sound, so she left but forgot to tell me first!

I tried as best as I could to dry off Tom's pants and underwear to no avail. So I made an emergency call to Dad to see if he'd left the house yet. He was supposed to be grocery shopping soon. Lucky for us all the stars were aligned and he hadn't left yet! So he dropped off a new pair of underwear and shorts so the park-a-palooza could continue.

After another hour or so we started to pack up to leave, but not without hunting down the drinking fountain first. Good exciting times when you're four! As Tom was walking back to his bike he exclaims, "That was nice ice cold water on a hot summer day!" He had all the parents in the sand pit laughing... you know, cause it's MID NOVEMBER! But I'm enjoying the warm weather. I know it will be cold and dreary soon.

I've already been thinking about Christmas and I seriously think there is something wrong with that. We haven't even basted the turkey yet, but I'm thinking about what's going to go under the Christmas tree six weeks from now! I don't think I plan birthday gifts this far in advance. Why in the world do I plan Christmas this far in advance?

Oh! Maybe it's all the Christmas ads, the Christmas music in the stores, the Christmas commercials on TV. Yup! That's it. Christmas is so commercialized I can't avoid it. Still... It's got me thinking.

I've started asking the twins what they want for Christmas. Since September Tom's been begging for "Thomas and Friends - The Great Discovery" movie. Santa took care of that one since it was on sale at Amazon. Tom's also been carrying around the weekly target ads like they are the bible. He studies them until they are worn and asks me over and over if he can have this or that toy. The answer is always no of course. He doesn't even know what half these toys do, but as long as it's marketed with Thomas the Tank Engine or Lightning McQueen he doesn't care! (Because we don't have ANY of those in the house! *rolls eyes*)

Abby on the other hand is much less needy when it comes to asking for gifts. Sure once we're in a toy store she wants anything pink and frilly but at home when you ask her what she wants, she is very shy and selective. So the other night I asked her what she was going to ask Santa for. Her response, "I'm going to ask Santa for a necklace with my name on it... so Tom won't steal it." There's a little history there. For her first Birthday she got a necklace, and for the life of me, I can't remember who it was from. Afterall it was three years ago. I think it was from one of the godparents. I tucked it away her in baby box and then about 18 months ago I pulled it out. Well guess who set his eyes on this sterling silver heart necklace? Why Tom of course! And he hasn't taken it off since. He wears it proudly every single day and night. Even in the bath. Abby on the other hand had to get a new necklace last year for Christmas. When Aunt Kate was in Hawaii I had her pick up a cute beaded necklace. Abby has worn that day in and day out for the last year (no competition from Tom) but I guess she wants more. Santa will have to work on that. I thought it was a sweet request.

I've been working out regularly for several months. As if chasing the twins wasn't enough, Paul and I actually schedule time three times a week to work out. The twins work out with us, standing on our feet, counting sit ups, imitating all sorts of our "moves" and even trying out the old push up!

Yesterday I decided to switch things up a little bit. Before Paul got home I strapped the twins into their bike helmets and set out on a bike ride for them, a jog/walk for me. I checked my route before I left the house. Since I didn't know how to tell Google Maps how to make a loop I picked what I thought was the half way point and mapped that. It was about 1 mile. Perfect! A 2 mile route. Well 2 miles turned into 2.6 miles and I got exhausted after the first 0.8 miles. I was sweating, hacking, coughing, choking... you name it. All the glamorous side effects of moderate icky lung disease. I kept thinking to myself, boy, this was so much easier 10 years ago! My lungs are so old!

I started getting dizzy (low blood sugar oxygen deprivation will do that to you) but I thought we were half way home, so I just kept pushing on. I tried not to actually turn my head, in fear of falling over. But if you've ever jogged next to two 4 year olds on training wheels, you know there's lots of head turning to make sure no one's falling over, or more importantly running into me!

I had to keep reminding Abby not to zig zag because she's going to fall over. And of course I had to remind her to keep looking straight ahead. But as we got further down the road she started veering off left, then right and I said, "Abby, what's the matter? You're not looking straight ahead!" Her reply, "Well, I've never seen this town before. I have to look around!" Keep in mind we drive up and down this particular street several times a week! I guess it's all about perspective. We've never walked there because it's too far!

For another half mile or so there was a lot of construction going on. They are building a huge sports complex about a mile from our house. The sidewalk had new gravel spilled all over it, making a bumpy ride for the twins. Then abruptly the sidewalk ended. Tom was going about 0.1 miles an hour (I'm not even sure he was moving) and then he started to tip over, right into the construction fence. Boom! Down he went. How do you even fall over when you're not moving... on training wheels? Genius I tell you. As we continued past the construction zone we finally made our way back to the nicely paved green belts. There was a huge sign with cones around it, but it was facing the other way. Tom asks me what that sign says. I told him it probably said "sidewalk closed." Sure enough! It did. No wonder!

Today I finally got off my butt and made the dreaded call... to the dentist! I've had a toothache for a couple of months and after some round the clock motrin and tylenol I've finally given up and gone to the dentist.

I made the phone call around 9AM this morning. Much to my surprise they could fit me in at 2PM today! What luck! I won't even have to lose any sleep about the upcoming root canal... I knew I was going to need one.

My casual conversation with the front desk went a little something like this:

Me: "I'm actually really nervous about this."

Reception: "Oh yeah, me too."

Me: "Excuse me?"

Reception: "I freak out about going to the dentist."

Me: "Sorry?"

Reception: "Well I have a problem staying numb so I really hate getting work done."

Me: "Have you ever had a root canal?"

Reception: "Oh yeah. It wasn't....." (seemingly reluctant she continues) "as bad as they say."

Well I don't know who "they" are, but I took the appointment and "they" were WRONG WRONG WRONG WRONG. It was bad. It did hurt. The dentist went into my mouth with a needle the size of the empire state building no less than five times. And each time he poked around in several spots. The shots were actually the least of my worry. It was the drilling, oh the drilling! The first three shots were routine. He likes to numb in stages. Fine with me. I'm a delicate little flower anyway. But the fourth and fifth shots were simply because I practically jumped out of the chair crying in pain. Oh yeah, make no mistake, I was miserable. There were tears. It was awful.

The good news is, once he "released" the root pressure, the pain was gone. He could have stayed there all day with a jack hammer in my mouth for all I cared at that point. Hey, once you're actually numb, it's easy peasy.

Today wasn't the end of my dental adventures though. I guess he just went in there, scoped it out and then plugged it up to let the tooth de-aggravate for the week. I go back next Thursday for the actual root canal. Wish me luck.

Below is the Telford Twins monthly email update for October 2008.

Tom and Abby celebrated their 4th birthday for a good couple of weeks as cards and gifts and parties carried on well past October 1. I think one of the highlights was going to Target with their very own $5 gift cards from Great Grandma Caruso. They had so much fun picking out a toy for themselves. Pictures from their birthday party can be found here.

Tom has surprised us this month by changing his wardrobe color of choice. He's been "that kid in red" for two whole years. He has a closet full of red pants, red shirts, red hats, even red shoes. Now he wants to be little boy blue! Of course he's not making this easy on me because it's not just any blue that he prefers. He likes the bright blues and powder blues. He even dressed up as a blue witch for Halloween.

Abby is reluctantly learning the ins and outs of wrestling and football. Tom may only be 1 minute older but he sure is that typical rough and tumble big brother. I took the twins to one football game this month and now Tom wants to be a football player. He calls out, "Abby, let's tackle!" Abby hangs her head and slowly slinks into her corner of the room. Then Tom calls out, "On your market! Get set! Go!" Then they both run toward the center of the room to "tackle" each other. Usually this means Abby curls up in a ball on the floor and plays dead as Tom collapses on top of her.

Pictures of the twins from October 2008 can be found here.

Last night was movie night. You see, because of the time change we wanted some sort of guarantee the twins weren't going to wake us up at 5:30 this morning. So we decided to keep them up late by watching a movie. The twins seemed excited to be able to watch a movie when it was dark outside. All of their movie watching happens when it's light out because, well, they go to bed when the sun goes down!

For most families movie night means the whole gang is tucked up under some blankets on the couch with some pop corn watching a movie together. Oh no! Not for us! I came up with the idea of setting the twins up in our bedroom with one of the DVDs from their children's collection and Paul and I rented a movie from Red Box for ourselves.

We did our usual routine in the evening. Dinner, bath, stories and teeth brushing. Then at 7:45 we started the movies! All went well for about 2 minutes. The twins' movie stopped playing for some reason. But after some fancy blowing on the DVD the microscopic culprit was dusted off and the movie resumed.



The rest of the night went a little like this:

8:15 PM Tom emerges from the room with a problem. "You see there's one thing I need. The thing is... I'm thirsty." A small sip of milk later he returned to the room for the rest of the evening... or so we thought.

8:30 PM Tom emerges once again. This time he sprawls himself out in the middle of the living room floor. "We should have picked a shorter movie.... this one is taking too long!"

8:45 PM Once again, Tom shows up in the living room. "We wanted to know, when is potty time and bed time?" After some coaxing we finally got him he was getting away with something by staying up late and finishing his movie.

9:20 PM Loud noises erupt from our bedroom. There's thumping and squealing and lots of happy noises. We found the twins wrestling on the bedroom floor with the movie credits rolling. We tried then to get them into bed but they wanted to "watch all the parts" of the movie. Funny after all that we couldn't tear them away!

Once the credits were done it took us about 20 minutes to wrestle them into bed. There was potty time. Procrastinating before potty time. And of course the gathering of all the important toys and animals to "watch" them sleep. They were really wound up at this point. But alas our plan paid off. I didn't hear noises from their room until 6:30 this morning... the NEW 6:30 AM! They ended up sleeping in an extra hour from yesterday. Yay! We got the hour back! I'm sure the rest of the day will go smooth and we'll be on track by bed time! Whew! Another daylight savings conquered.

Tom and Abby had such a blast on Halloween.

We started out the day getting ready for Preschool. They were tickled pink to be able to wear their costumes to school. Incase you haven't been paying attention, they were both witches for Halloween. Yes, both of them. My son wore a dress all day yesterday and loved every minute of it.

They had a costume party at school complete with games and of course, cookies!

I had grand plans for the rest of the day. I WAS going to go to the city of Davis and trick or treat during the afternoon. BUT that is a 40 minute drive and I was quite tired. So I gave that up for my nap. Then I WAS going to hit up the old town of Franklin. Downtown Franklin is about 2.5 miles from my house. It consists of about 7 buildings. 4 of the businesses were handing out candy until 4PM. Well, we didn't make that one either.

So instead I went with lazy plan C, which was stay home, cook dinner and go trick or treating around our own neighborhood. The kids were ready to go just as the sun went down around 6:15, so off we went! They were bouncing around the house beforehand telling me why Halloween is their favorite holiday. Tom was giddy with excitement because for some reason he was misinformed that he could stay up ALL NIGHT LONG! I think he just meant that he was going to be outside in the dark, something that rarely happens!

We hit up a good 20 houses at least. I got good and winded, which is totally lame since we were walking at a snails pace. So i went home early to pass out candy and then get my treatments started once the munchkins got home. They hurried through their bath and gave up story time so they could pass out more candy. Unfortunately because it then started raining, there were few trick or treaters. They had a good time anyway, and ended up going to be earlier than normal... which made for a lovely wake up call at 6:30 this morning. And today we set our clocks back? I'm not looking forward to tomorrow's wake up call.