I feel like alerting the media or something

The girls actually slept for about two hours on one of the plane rides home yesterday!!!!! (Yes that warranted five exclamation marks, hell it warranted 10 or 15 but I'm restraining myself.) It was unbelievably luxurious. I had time to read a couple of trashy magazines and even sneak in a little nap. Hands down the most relaxing plane trip I've ever had with the girls. They basically slept for one leg of the trip, then played quietly with their carryon stuff for the second leg. It wasn't until we landed for the second time and they careened off the plane at SFO that they lost their minds. They ran into a few people, wrestled like football players on the floor, and just generally got a little hysterical. Yikes. TubaDad and I each grabbed an arm and we hustled them into baggage claim and then out to the car where we breathed a huge sigh of relief. Ahhhhh, safe! It was a great trip, although a short one. Thanks to our relatives for the wonderful hospitality. It was so great to see everyone. The full set of trip pics is here (thumbnails, detail, slideshow), if you're curious. And here's a funny little bonus video of the girls testing out the backyard animals at Marlayna and Nick's house to make sure they were twinproof: PS: I wasn't on email at all, so I didn't see the questions asking where we were—sorry—it was a tiny little place called Burgettstown, PA. And folks were also asking what we take to amuse the girls on the plane, so here's a picture (click to enlarge). These things were divided between the girls' individual carryons, except for the large clipboards, which had to go in my bag. Basically we had snacks, lots of paper, crayons, pages from educational workbooks, pens, scissors, stickers, scotch tape, bandaids, playdoh, ID bracelets (they wore these during travel), mini photo books, Q&A flip books, crazy eights cards, legwarmers, ziploc bags, gum, chapstick, post its, mini flashlights, and a stuffed friend for each girl. We used everything but the legwarmers.

Winner has been chosen: Giddy Giddy clips giveaway

"Wendy" has been chosen as the winner in the Giddy Giddy hair clips giveaway. Read the full details here.

Can anyone guess what we're getting the girls for their birthdays?

A few pics from our vacation: They take their football VERY seriously around here. Very. We were driving around and someone had done this to their backyard fence. The girls have been having a ball throwing rocks in the stream under this covered bridge. They've got wicked strong arms, maybe tee-ball is in their future. Our cousins have these park animals in their backyard and they have gotten a huge workout this week. Plus, we have now proven that the rides are twinproof (thank goodness)—it was proven when Ro tried to rock so hard that the animal's nose would touch the ground. (She didn't succeed, but she did get bucked off pretty hard at one point. Hee.) We drove around visiting relatives and tried not to wreak too much havoc on our way. Cousin A had matching tutu PJs and all three girls could not wait to get into them. I think this picture was taken around 6pm. The cupcakes were a big hit (as expected). Can you tell who's who since they're both dressed in pink? It took the girls about half a minute to learn how to squeal the tires, crank the wheel and reverse, and drive back and forth right down the middle of the driveway. Does anyone have any links to cars like these that are available with two seats? Because the girls are dying to get one of these for their birthdays, and I'm pretty sure daddy will come through. Visiting the covered bridge again (they've thrown so many rocks in that we're afraid the stream is going to dam up). This was NOT planned. Seriously. And what's more, it's not the first time it has happened. These two cousins just kill me. Fun times. We had a big party tonight and got to see even more family, which was awesome. I'll have to download the pics later. Tomorrow is travel day, so keep your fingers crossed for us (and the fellow passengers).

Well we made it and the girls are already in hog heaven

Ro and Ree didn't nap on the plane (have I mentioned that they NEVER sleep on planes and have in fact only slept for 20 minutes total in all the plane rides we have ever taken? They slept for the last 20 minutes of our flight home from China, as we were landing in SFO, in case you're curious), had a bunch of snacks for dinner, and are STILL awake singing away in their beds. Sigh... Anyhow, my laptop doesn't work here (we're pretty far out in the hills), so I'm on a borrowed computer and don't have any image editing or posting, so this will be old-school with small Blogger pics. Alrighty, here's the trip update so far: We left my dad guarding all the carryon luggage at one point when my mom and I had to go buy chocolate and TubaDad and girls had to run. The sight made me smile: They didn't have enough upgrades for the whole six-person party, and TubaDad and I suspected (heh) that my parents wouldn't look favorably upon us if we left them in the back of the plane alone with the girls. So we suffered through it. Boy it sure was "cozy" back there in luxurious cattle class. Heh. The real grownups sat on one side of the plane, and the girls and I sat on the other side. Guess which side of the plane had more napping?: The girls asked the flight attendant if she had sparkling water. When she said "yes" they excitedly asked "Is it Pellegrino?" Hee. I think (hope) she was as amused as I. At one point, Ro and Ree hopped across the aisle and up onto BobBob and Wela's laps. Hooboy it was crowded over there. I'm thinking that Monkey and I really got the better end of that deal. I swear, they wanted to pull those heavy suitcases, we tried to deter them and they were determined. Yeesh. We got to our cousin Marlayna's house in PA and the girls immediately discovered two extremely important things (things that I'm quite sure they will never let us forget): Marlayna has a candy drawer at kid height (!!!) and she has a car that the girls could actually drive (more !!!). Does anyone want to bet whether they sob when we have to leave at the end of the trip? Alright, off to get some a touch more mama juice (and maybe raid that candy drawer, shhhh!) and then fall into bed. More tomorrow.

We're leavin', on a jet plane...

Pennsylvania, here we come! PS: We had a small near-tragedy this morning when we discovered that Ree's newest and bestest friend Lambie (the stuffed lamb) accidentally spent the night on the lawn and was soaked. Oh the tears... Thank goodness the blasted animal survived the dryer and could still make the trip with us.

Review and Giveaway: Giddy Giddy hair clips

Want to see how Giddy Giddy hair clips stood up to the twinados? Check out our product review here and enter the giveaway (open till 8am on 9/1).

No wonder we were tired

Just a few pics from Sunday. We were going to have a low-key day, since TubaDad was heading out on his biz trip in a few hours, but ended up packing quite a bit into our lazy little Sunday. We hit the road as early as possible (which always seems to be around 9am, no matter how frantically we run around in the morning) bound for the Monterey Aquarium. Along the way I had to make a restroom pit-stop (as usual, sigh...), so we pulled into a fine burger establishment, heh, and the girls got crowns and apple slices. The girls visited "their" octopus (Ro is still fascinated with the creature), then hopped into the big shell so I could get one wee little picture (because obviously I never get any pictures of the poor dears). We spent a lot of time at the waterplay area. There were a few incidents. Then we walked out to the deck area because it looked like they were going to put on a cute kiddie show with fun costumed characters. Turns out it wasn't cute, and it really wasn't for little kids. In trying to teach about not wasting energy, they went on and on and on about scary monsters who show up in the dark and live in your closet (!) and other things we just don't want to be teaching the girls about. When the freaky "wasted energy" guy came out and started trying to scare the little kids, we bailed (along with about 50 other families). Hey Monterey Aquarium: we love everything about your aquarium, but your "little kid" energy show stinks! Here's a quick smiley pic of the family before the show started (Ro left, Ree right): A little restorative chocolate at the Ghirardelli store and everyone forgot all about the dumb show. These chocolate bars are for me, by the way. Then we had planned to head home and relax for the rest of the day. But... the girls fell asleep in the car just as we drove past the Gilroy Outlets, and I really, really needed some new white tees. So... Anyhow, the girls took short naps then woke up just as I was paying, so we asked if they'd rather go home or go to Gilroy Gardens, which was just a few minutes down the road. You know what they picked, right? We closed out the park then went home. And everyone slept very well that night.

TubaDad's on a biz trip, the girls are napping, and I'm supposed to be packing

So of course I'm on the computer instead... These funny, beautiful girls are just so fun to be around lately. Ro and Ree have such strong, quirky personalities and are learning new things every day (most of which are a surprise to me—I'm constantly scrambling to recover saying "Wait! Where did you learn that?!") A few memorable moments that I don't want to forget, interspersed with some pics from this morn (they chose the outfits): 1. This week, after I parked the car in the garage and yanked out the keys, they both popped their carseats open and jumped out of the car. Yipes. 2. At Gilroy Gardens, Ree was furiously pumping the steering wheel of the miniature car back and forth when she grinned, cockily looked back at us over her shoulder, and tossed out: "I guess I'm ready to drive a real car now!" 3. Today at the mall the three of us were grabbing a quick bite. In between chomps, the girls looked around and Ree said "When will we be old enough to come to the mall by ourselves?" I nearly spit out my diet coke. I think I sputtered something incoherent about not for a loooooooooong time, and needing to be able to drive first, and gee, uhhhhhhh. Meanwhile Ro calmly took another bite and told me she had it all figured out already: "Dat alright mama, you can drop us off and drive home and den daddy can pick us up." When I called my mom to report this latest conversation, the only thing she could say was "Oh Lord." 4. Last night while I was reading them bedtime stories, they both (at separate times and for different reasons) said "Mama, will you pause the book for one mitten?" (one minute) Heh. Guess they've gotten a smidge used to using remotes. 5. They both love to help out. And the more important the perceived job, the better. Unfortunately, this lately translates to wanting to "make breakfast" for TubaDad and me. Which means they get out some bowls, pour cereal, pour the milk, and in the process dump a massive quantity of something on the floor. Seriously. Every single time. I don't even know how many boxes of Special K we've gone through this month—maybe 10?—but I'm betting that we've only consumed about one box. 6. They've learned the whole chorus to the Doobie Brothers "Give Me the Beat Boys" and dance around while belting it out (that's what they're doing in the last three pics). Sweet girls. Dang they've changed a lot this year... Alrighty, off to tackle those suitcases.

Online workshop: Talking to children about adoption

Remember a while back when I posted that Talking About Adoption is Hard? Well I still think it's hard, and I'm still trying to learn as much as possible. I'm reading blogs from folks who seem to have a better handle on it than I do, devouring as many books as I can get my hands on, and just signed up for an online workshop called "Talking to Children about Adoption," which is being held by the well-respected folks at the Center for Adoption Support and Education (C.A.S.E.). C.A.S.E. is a non-profit adoptive family support center, and their description says that "since 1998, adoption-competent experts at C.A.S.E. have dedicated their work to ensuring the well-being of foster and adoptive children of all backgrounds." These guys have offered tons of classes and training in the past, but this is their foray into the online arena, and I was really excited to sign up. If you want to sign up too, here's the info: When: Thursday, September 24, 2009, from 6-7pm Pacific time (9-1opm Eastern time) Instructor: Ellen Singer, LCSW-C Details: Finally our most-requested workshop is available online. Discover what children understand and think about adoption. Find out how and when to share your child's adoption story and how to encourage them to feel safe to ask questions and share their thoughts and feelings. (toll-free dial-in/log on instructions and passcode will be emailed upon payment confirmation.) Fee: $20 Registration: Click here to sign up for the workshop. By the way, when I talked to a director at C.A.S.E. (to get permission to post this), she said to be sure and mention that this is their first online class, and they are a tiny non-profit staff, so please have patience with them as they explore this new territory and work out all the kinks. If you do sign up, please allow at least a week to receive follow-up materials.

Winner of Sundaes Best hot fudge sauce

I've drawn and announced the winner in the giveaway for a case of Sundaes Best hot fudge sauce. All of the details have been posted on Salsa Reviews.

Friday flicks: this one is the dueling elephant seals, uh, I mean trumpets

(Direct link to video)

A self portrait? No kidding?

TubaDad was upstairs giving Ro a bath (yes the girls are getting separate baths right now to protect TubaDad's sanity—more on that later) and I was hanging out with Ree in the family room. Well "hanging out" isn't quite accurate, to be honest. She was sitting on the little couch with some paper and crayons, and I was slouched on the big couch just zoning out after a reallyreallyreally long day. I wasn't ignoring her, but have to own up to not really paying attention as she scribbled away and asked various questions about hair, eyes, that sort of thing. So you can imagine my surprise when she suddenly said "I'm done. Yook, mama, it's me!" and handed me this: Oh my gosh! Little sweetheart. It's her first self portrait, actually her first recognizable picture of anything, and is so crazy precious to me that I don't even have words. She signed her name and told me she was wearing her yellow shoes and those were her ears up on the top of her head. I'll treasure it always. Ro heard me making a big commotion about it, and later, when she came downstairs, said she wanted to draw herself too. She used all pink, because "I yike pink," and concentrated superduper hard on getting five fingers on one hand and making the "holes" (nostrils) in her nose. Adorable, especially in how different it is from her sister's! You know these are getting framed, right?

Happy birthday Candy Land!

You've played the sweet board game Candy Land, right? I know, I know, probably everyone has. Ro and Ree are no exception. I think it was the first game they ever got, and they're just nuts for it. Well you can imagine the excitement when the girls got invited to Candy Land's 60th birthday party in San Francisco. It was crazy—event organizers transformed Lombard Street (the world's most crooked street) into the world's largest game of Candy Land. Ro and Ree couldn't believe their eyes. They ogled the larger-than-life gameboard; chatted up King Kandy, Princess Lolly, and Princess Frostine; ate more candy than I'll ever admit; stood in line for a piece of the wild birthday cake (which they promptly gave to BobBob); and even got their very own preview copy of the new Candy Land Sweet Celebration Game. Neat, neat day. "Um, Princess Frostine, can we touch your pretty pink dress?": I asked them to stand near the games so I could get a pic, and they plopped right down on them. Eeps. Ro snuck a feel of Princess Lolly's lollipop: Ree asked King Kandy why he had such big feet: "Cake? Did someone say cake?": "Wow, this is a really big game": Thanks, Candy Land, we had fun celebrating your birthday!