Twas the Night Before a Conspiracy

Everyone knows the popular poem that starts "Twas the night before Christmas..."  But few know for sure who the author was.  It was first published in the Troy, NY Sentinel in 1837 and has been credited for shaping our view of Santa Claus and Christmas.  It has been attributed to a poet named Clement Clark Moore and he claimed credit for it 14 years after the original publication.  Although the Livingston family would argue that Major Henry Livingston was the true author.  So in true New York fashion, they decided to go to court and hold a trial to finally settle the argument.  Two of the popular local law families from the area agreed to argue the case.  The public was invited, so we bundled up and headed off with Nathan, Rachel, and Bryson.

After a jury was selected from the audience, the lawyers gave their opening remarks and proceeded to lay out their arguments.  The Livingston group had some very compelling, although circumstantial, arguments.  The Moore group mostly cracked jokes and stood by Moore's claim of writing it.  The final witnesses of Livingston and Moore were subpoenaed from beyond the grave to give their testimonies.  

In the end it was a hung jury (big surprise there) and I guess they will have to retry it next Christmas time.  I am guessing this was the 1st annual trial, and there will be more to come.

All aboard the Polar Express!

This year for our Ward (congregation) Christmas Party, they did a fun activity for the kids that was based on the book/movie The Polar Express.  First the kids got their tickets and waited in line.  Then the Conductor punched their tickets (he was fantastic and must have had a really sore hand by the end of the night).

Then the kids boarded the train for the the North Pole (the chapel overflow) where they watched the Polar Express Movie.

Refreshments of cookies and hot chocolate were served by a set of Missionaries serving in our Ward.

 It was a fantastic idea and the kids had a great time.

This is what I call "Booty!"...ARRRR!!!

Halloween is always more fun with little kids around!  We had a paper chain that counted down the days to trick or treating, starting with the Trunk-or-Treat at our church.  This year the twins got to pick what they wanted to be.  Austin, of course, was a pirate.

Kadence started out the month saying she wanted to be a Princess, but that quickly changed into insisting on being a cat.

 

We weren't sure we were going to have time to carve pumpkins this year because David had to run to Canada on a business trip just before Halloween, but we managed to squeeze it in.

 

 

 

We went to our friends' house for their annual Halloween/Birthday party and went trick or treating in their neighborhood.  One of our friends went with us.  She was a big help.

 

We accidentally left the wagon at home and we thought the twins wouldn't last long walking the whole way, so David improvised with our friend's wheelbarrow.

 

We only had to use it for the long stretches.  I was surprised how much walking Austin and Kadence were willing to do.  But I guess they had been looking forward to it all month long, and there was a candy on the line.  Both of their favorite treat this year was lollipops.  They downed about 4 each before we left for home.

David's pumpkins turned out really cool.

Happy Halloween!

Pumpkins!

 It's just not fall without a trip to the pumpkin patch.  And Austin's finally big enough to carry them (although he's been thinking he's big enough for years now).

Kadence, on the other hand, is happy to have one of her brother's carry it for her.

 

 

 

Most of the pictures I have of Bryson these days are with a hand over his face to avoid pictures.  So you have to catch him when his guard is down.

 

 

That should be enough pumpkins!

Bye bye Ba-Ba

I consider myself fortunate that my twins were pacifier babies.  It made bedtimes so easy.  And with all the travelling that we did, it made things a breeze.  Austin named his pacifier Ba-Ba when ba-ba was the only thing he could say.  Kadence followed along and the name stuck.  They started out with the pacifiers clear back when they were in the NICU.  The pacifiers were almost half the size of their tiny heads!

 

From the beginning the Ba-Ba's and Silkies (their little silky blankets named by David) were a "crib only" activity.  And if they were sad and needed some extra comfort, they could go to their crib for "silky time".

 

One day the babies were on the front porch while I was trying showing them that they could see into their room from outside and I was in their room and I decided to mess with them a little.

 

Kadence even tried multiple ba-bas but didn't find it very satisfying.

But oh how nice to get them to sleep on planes!

This is what we called the ba-ba kiss.

One time Kadence even tried to smuggle her ba-ba and silky out by hiding it in her hat.  I thought it was nice that she was helping get ready to go by putting her hat on by herself until I was zipping up her coat and noticed something sticking out of her hat.

  I had been looking forward to and dreading taking away the pacifiers.  I didn't want to do it until after our trip to Hawaii.  But that would put them at 3 years old.  Really old for getting rid of the pacifier.  I had read up on different ideas and we had been talking to the twins about it.  But I was totally chicken to "pull the plug".  I mean, really, with one kid it's bad enough, but two!  I just knew that I would get one consoled and over it, then the other one would bring it up and the memory would be revived and I would have 2 screaming kids at bedtime for weeks.  I was NOT looking forward to it.

Then one day at bedtime Austin bit a hole through his pacifier and I couldn't find Kadence's.  We were getting low and I didn't want to buy more, so there were only a couple around.  I gave Austin his broken one and told Kadence I couldn't find hers, but that I would go look, but if I didn't find it, she would have to go to sleep without it.  Austin threw his out of his bed because a broken one wasn't satisfying.  I went off to look for Kadence's which was down on my bed because she napped down there that day.  I decided to wait to see if they cried out for it.  If they did I was going to take Kadence hers and get the emergency pacifier out of the diaper bag for Austin. But no one cried, no one called out for it.  Then they fell asleep.  So for the next several naps and bedtimes I told them I would go look for more, but I didn't know if I would find them.  Not a single tear and it was over.

Bedtimes are not as easy and we frequently have to separate them to get them to fall asleep (without the pacifier to keep their mouths busy, they could talk and sing all night!).  But the pacifiers are gone.  That's it.

These last pictures I took at the beginning of October not knowing that they would be the last ba-ba pictures.

 

 

Awwww!!!

Apple Time!

New York does fall right.  Along with beautiful colors, comes apple picking time, cider donuts, and apple cider.  We went apple picking with the twins preschool group.

The trees are kept pruned low so the little people had no problem reaching plenty of apples to pick.

 

 

 

Of course, there was some taste testing going on.

 

And balancing apples on our heads.

 

Then we went to another part of the farm and fed the animals

 

And we had to stop at the farm store for apple cider and cider donuts.  Yumm, Yumm!