OK, so I'm horning in on the whole "Mom's Nite Out" thing, by offering my own giveaway :-) I happen to have an extra copy of the "The KidDictionary" (that's separate from the one being given away at the carnival). To win it, just tweet the following:

RT @TwinHappyJen to win a free copy of "The KidDictionary!" And visit http://twinhappy.com/carnival for more giveaways! #twinhappy #MNO-09

I'll pick a winner at random at midnight!

P.S. And the winner is... @faithfamilyfibr! Please message me so I can send you the book!

I know I've been talking about it for awhile, but now it's official: The TwinHappy Carnival is now open! It will continue throughout the entire month of May, but please feel free to submit to the various booths now! And just a reminder that, not only do you get a link to your website/blog with each submission, but you're also entered into whichever giveaway is going on in whatever booth you submit to. Feel free to make as many (or as few) submissions as you like in as many or as few of the booths as you like... it's all up to you! But, more participation equals more traffic... and more chances to win prizes!

You can check out the entire thing at http://www.twinhappy.com/carnival/... and even make a quick entry by simply checking in at the carnival registry! However, below is a quick list of all the different ways you can participate:

The Duck Pond:
This is the main "booth" and the one that is the most like a traditional blog carnival, in that all you have to do is write a post on your own blog and submit the link to me! The theme for the blog posts we're looking for is "Summer Vacations." You can write about past summer vacations, plans for upcoming vacations... and they don't have to be big trips. You can just write about your general plans for the summer... planning to visit any farms? Just hang out poolside? Feel free to write whatever you like! Once you make the post on your blog, just submit the link to me, either through the form in the "duck pond booth" or you can feel free to e-mail it to me at [email protected] (or even send it to me through Twitter @TwinHappyJen)... whatever you prefer :-)

The "Duck Pond" sponsor is "DoubleUp Books" who is giving away a copy of the book: "Chicken Soup for the Soul: Twins and More!"

The FacePainting Booth:
For this booth, all you need to do is send me pictures! I chose facepainting as a theme because it's just something that comes to mind when I think of the carnival, but even I didn't have any facepainting pictures of my girls, so any carnival/fair/amusement park related images are just fine! Again, just upload or send me the link to your photos through the form in the facepainting booth, e-mail them to me at [email protected], or message me on Twitter @TwinHappyJen)!

The sponsor for the "FacePainting Booth" is MuthaCrafter who is giving away a "I'm so crafty, I make multiples" t-shirt!

Concession Stand:
In this booth, we're looking for recipe submissions! Post a recipe on your blog (or find one you've already posted) that you'd like to share, and send me the link!

The sponsor for the Concession Stand is BabyDipper.com who is giving away a Baby Dipper Bowl/Spoon Set!

Virtual Rides
This is basically a place to submit your videos (preferably from YouTube)! I'd prefer that they be ride-related, but I'm even less picky here than I am in the face-painting booth :-) Just have a cute video that you'd like to share? Send me the link!

The sponsor of this booth is... me! :-) I'm giving away a copy of my book "Two Snowflakes!"

The FunHouse:
This is the place to share your little artists' masterpieces! Just scan in your children's drawings and send them to me! (As with all the booths, you can post them on your own blog, or just send me the files, through the booth forms, e-mail or Twitter... whatever you'd like to do!).

The sponsor for this booth is Shidonni who is giving away a 3-month pro membership to their incredible site!

Shooting Gallery:
This is actually just a cute little game I added to the carnival for fun :-) Play the game, post your score... that's all it takes to enter this giveaway, which is being sponsored by "The Kid Dictionary!" (The prize is a free copy of this very funny book!)

Clown Around Booth:
This is another cute game I just had to include (even though it's more circus-y than carnival-y :-p)... my girls just love to play this one! Again, play the game, post your score(s), and enter to win a pair of CDs from Discovery Toys!

Restroom:
Yes, we even have a restroom... and don't worry, it's much nicer than the port-a-potties you find at most carnivals! :-p We're even doing a giveaway in there, as well! And it's quite a nice one, as a matter of fact... this one is from Chronicle Books who is giving away a copy of the hysterically funny book, "Porn for New Moms!"

You can enter by simply leaving a message on the "bathroom wall," but you can actually get extra chances to win by simply spreading the word about the TwinHappy Carnival on Twitter! Just visit the restroom for more info :-)

Sound like fun? :-) Again, you can participate as much or as little as you want :-) But why not check it out for yourself, by heading over to the main fairway! Just visit http://www.twinhappy.com/carnival and start exploring our little blog carnival (yes, we're using the term very literally) for yourself! :-)

P.S. If you plan to participate, please help us spread the word about the carnival, by posting either a text link, or our button, on your site/blog!

Come two, come all...
The TwinHappy Carnival!
<B><a href="http://www.twinhappy.com/carnival/">Come two, come all... <BR />The TwinHappy Carnival!</a></b>


<a href="http://www.twinhappy.com/carnival/"><img border="0" src="http://www.twinhappy.com/carnival/img/button.jpg" /></a>

Just thought I'd post the slideshow I made as part of an e-vite I'm going to be sending to the family and all, for Anna and Josie's 4th birthday party :-)

With all the other projects I have going on right now, one has taken a bit of a back seat, but it's still one that I'd really like to get off the ground. It's my site at KrazyBaby.com! It's inspired by icanhascheezburger.com... only instead of kitties it's babies (or toddlers/preschoolers or even older children... we're not picky :-p). A lot of what's posted right now are my own pictures, although I've posted some various funny youtube videos, too... I'd really like to get some actual submissions, though! Here's my latest submission:



So, if you get a chance, check out KrazyBaby.com and maybe submit some of your own KrazyBaby pics! :-) (I will post links to websites/blogs in return!)

I'll start this out by saying that, I'm as proud of a mama as the next mama :-) I think my girls are exceptionally sweet, smart, talented, and of course, beautiful. And, that's fine... I think it's perfectly natural to think that way about your children... healthy, even. All the better if you're right! LOL :-p

However, I do think you can take it too far...

I used to frequent the message board at TwinsMagazine.com... I don't anymore because, the way it's set up now, it's less of an all-inclusive community, and really just all these little groups, grouped together by birth month. That always seemed a bit of an arbitrary way of deciding who you would socialize with, to me... and, most people with children my age have moved on to other things, anyway. It's mostly just people with infant/young toddler twins there, and the last time I tried to get involved there, I just felt too much like an outsider... I felt funny posting in the birth month groups, but hardly anybody visited the other areas of the board, so you were lucky to get even one person to respond to a post...

It's for the best, anyway... I definitely need to prioritize my time and it's so easy to get lost on those boards :-p But, I was just reminded of something that happened when I was very involved with the board there...

Yesterday, I was going through pictures, and came across a few that my MIL had taken of the girls when they were spending the night at her house awhile ago... Josie was standing next to me and I opened up this picture:



I asked her, "Who is that?" And she said, "Josie!" I said, "Actually, I think that's Anna..." But, I actually had to open this picture to be sure:



Now, in this picture, I can easily tell that, Anna is in the foreground and Josie is in the background. And, it's the same set of pictures, so I now know for sure that the first picture is of Anna, because she's wearing the same nightgown :-) And I usually don't have any problems telling who is who even in pictures, whether I take them or not. But, every once in awhile, there's one that will trip me up a bit :-) It's something about the smile on her face in that first picture... it just looks so much like a Josie smile... although, it does look like an Anna smile, too... if you have identical twins, I think you'll understand what I mean :-p

But I just always think it's funny when even the girls get each other mixed up, sometimes :-p She hasn't done it in a long time, but there was a time when Anna would look at herself in the mirror, and say, "There's Josie!" It's one of my favorite cuteness reports... :-p

Now, I posted the mirror story on the TwinsMagazine message board when it happened... and a few people did think it was a cute and funny story, which is all I meant for it to be :-p And possibly an illustration of one of the many ways that having twins is such a unique experience...

But, there were actually some Moms who got on, and started saying things like, "Well, my twins have been able to tell each other apart from the time they were a year old!" Or something to that effect... like it was a contest or something. As I always do in situations like that, I just ignored it... but I just thought it was funny how some people can turn anything into a competition :-p

ANYWAY... :-p To those of you with identical twins, do you have any similar stories? I use stories like this to make my husband or my in-laws or others feel better about getting them mixed up here and there :-p So many people will say, oh they do look completely different... and then promptly get confused on who is who :-p And, I'm not immune... most of the time, I think they look completely different... but every once in awhile, my brain will have to take half a second of analyzing "OK, which one is this..." :-p

I was inspired to write this after seeing a tweet from @onparenting "Looking for guest bloggers willing to share what life's like in a blended family." Not sure if I'll get a chance to guest-post or not :-) But, thought I'd go ahead and at least write a post on this topic for my own blog...

The focus of this blog, twinhappy.com in general, my book at twosnowflakes.net and even other sites I do (like krazybaby.com) are pretty focused on my twins, being a Twin Mom, connecting with other parents of twins, etc. However, there are a couple of other kids in the house :-)

Actually, it's hard to think of them as kids, as they're both taller than me now :-p In fact, one of them is a legal adult now. Ryan, my stepson, just turned 18 this past March and my stepdaughter Dawn will be turning 16 in June. They have actually spent most of their childhood with their Mother in New Jersey... we did have occasional visits with them, and they even lived with us for the school year of 2001-2002. However, again, they have spent most of their childhood with their Mother.

My husband and his ex broke up when Ryan and Dawn were very young... my husband and his ex were very young themselves and, admittedly (and this is their words, not mine) were not really ready to have children when they did. My husband still regrets not being more involved with Ryan and Dawn's childhood... again, we saw them on birthdays, holidays, etc. But, even though their Mother did move them over 3 hours away (to be closer to her family), and yes he did pay child support on a regular basis, he admits that he really should have made more of an effort to be more actively involved in raising them, than he was.

However, in November of 2006, their Mother became homeless (again) and they came to live with us full-time here in Maryland, once again. As it stands, they'll probably be with us until they are ready to go on their own... their Mother does now have an apartment, but it is a one-bedroom that she shares with her new boyfriend, and she is really no closer to being able to take back either Ryan and Dawn, or her two other children (now 8 and 10) that she had with another boyfriend (those children live with the ex-boyfriend and his Mother). In fact, although she complains quite often about having to pay her ex child support, she otherwise seems pretty content living the single life once again and no longer even talks about getting custody of any of her children anymore. She does talk with Ryan and Dawn on the phone pretty regularly, but only sees them when we drive them up and back... she doesn't have a car and, it's like pulling teeth even to get a little gas/toll money out of her. We haven't even sought child support from her because, frankly it's not worth it to us... she still can barely support herself and it would cause a tremendous amount of resentment within my stepkids towards both me and my husband. And, again, one of them is now 18 with the other not far behind, anyway....

I'll admit, it has not been easy for me... when they came to live with us, my girls were just 18 months old, we had just moved to a 3-bedroom apartment, from our old 2-bedroom (I was hoping to turn the 3rd bedroom into a guestroom/playroom for the girls)... and I was just starting to get settled in, and hoping to lead a little less-chaotic life :-)

Well, one of the first stresses that we had to deal with was, my stepkids entered our home absolutely infested with lice. We tackled it immediately, but I don't know about lice today... they seem to be completely resistant to all these shampoos/medications/sprays they have today. I think they've become immune :-p Because, it took MONTHS of them going away, coming back, going away, coming back.... the girls got infested and, with them being so young, we finally just made the decision to shave their heads... which I hated doing, but there just seemed to be no other way. We finally did get rid of them, but only after completely disregarding all the instructions on all those bottles and blasting my stepdaughter's head (where they seemed to be really breeding) with everything, over and over again. I don't mean to be overly dramatic, but the whole thing was just horrific... luckily we did finally get rid of them and we have been lice-free for a couple of years now. But, I do now know why people freak out about kids getting lice :-p

In addition, my girls were at the age where they were putting everything in their mouth... and my stepkids were throwing their things absolutely everywhere. I was constantly cleaning... constantly on the lookout for choking hazards that one of my stepkids might leave laying around... earrings, batteries, etc. One day, I turn my back for a second and my stepdaughter takes the batteries out of a camera, sets them down, and Josie immediately picks one up and puts it in her mouth. I'll admit, when I caught Josie sucking on a battery, I went a little ballistic on my stepdaughter. I really had to drill it into their heads for weeks and months on end, to not leave things like that laying around. But they were just so used to doing so... let's just say, I'm SO glad my girls have left that stage of putting everything in their mouth, behind them. For the most part, my stepkids now keep their mess contained to their room (it's really Ryan's room, but even though Dawn's bed is in with the girls, she keeps most of her stuff in "Ryan's Room")... but God love 'em, they're both still the biggest slobs I have ever encountered :-p

I'll admit... there are times when I have been ridiculously angry with them... with their Mother... and with the whole situation in general. I won't blame it completely on having them here, but in January I finally sought treatment for depression. One of the biggest problems for me was, it got to the point that every little thing my stepkids would do would get to me so much, I would just turn it over and over and over in my head, getting angrier and angrier... and then feeling guiltier and guiltier and feeling more and more like the consummate evil stepmother. Luckily, the prozac has helped a lot :-p

Because one of the things I do have to say is that I love my stepchildren. Do I love them like my own children? No, truthfully I don't. I don't have the same relationship with them. While I've known them since they were both very young, for most of their childhood, they lived 3 states away and they were just a couple of sweet kids I saw for a couple of days, maybe a few times a year.

But, I do love them... more than either of them will ever know. I worry so much about their future. I want them to be happy, healthy, successful adults... much more so than I want them to like me :-p So, at times I get a little tough on them when they bring home one failing grade after another... when my stepson still refuses to go out and get a part-time job. It took me awhile to relinquish control and let them do things like the dishes... I know it's good for them to have chores, even if it means that I never know where anything is (because no matter what I do, they always just shove the dishes in the cabinets, wherever they can fit them...)

Yes, I know a lot of this post has sounded like one long complaint... and I know it's probably been as big (if not bigger) adjustment for them as it has been for me. But, honestly, I can't speak from their perspective... I can only speak from my own. I know I would look a lot better if I just said, "They're beautiful kids that are the light of my life!" :-p But, I felt like if I was going to write a post like this, I had to be truthful... I'm not going to say it's all been rainbows and puppy dog kisses, just to try and look good :-p And no, it hasn't been all bad... they have been very helpful with a lot of things... they're great with the girls and, while they may not do everything like I might want, they do still help with things like the dishes and taking out the trash. And, it's not just the chores... they add a lot to this home, just by being themselves. They are funny and sweet... and I am happy that I get a chance to be a part of their lives. Even if it is a very small part...

I know I haven't done everything like I should... but, I'm also not giving up. I try every day to be a better stepmother. Because I know that those kids deserve it... not because they've had a hard childhood, or because I owe them anything... but because they're good kids, in need of a helping hand into the adult world. And, I'm going to do what I can... because while they may not be my kids, they are a part of my family.