Need a new bike

Bike rides have been the in thing for me lately while Alli is at preschool.  Put my twinners in the cart that attaches to the bike and off we go.  It keeps them occupied and quiet and gives me a good workout. We go about 6 miles when I take them.  There's a few hills so I'm adjusting those gears like a mad woman just to get up that hill.  The bike I use was Ross' old mountain bike, it's about 15 years old.  That bike got some really good use for it's lifetime until it bit the dust today. 

I stopped at the park with the boys today, I normally don't.  I thought it would be a good way for them to burn off some of that toddler never ending energy.  They had fun at that little park.  I bribed them with fruit snacks to get them back into their little bike caddy and we started to go. 
We were attempting to go up a steep hill and it felt like out of no where the bike came to a halt.  I hopped off the bike to take a look and saw that the wheel was all screwed up.  The wheel was stuck at the back of the bike frame.  There was no room for it to turn.  The apparatus that holds the chain was broke.  I couldn't ride it so I walked it.  That was no easy task.  The back wheel wouldn't budge, but the front would.  I attempted to take off the caddy the boys were sitting in, but I couldn't get it off.  And of course, I didn't bring a cell phone with me.  We were about half a mile away from home.  So I started to walk with my hands on the handle bars and dragged the rest of the bike with the caddy behind it home.  It was no easy task.  I had to go up a steep but small hill with it too.  Thankfully, the boys were well behaved.  I had to switch sides every few minutes because my back was killing me.  I finally got to a place where I could drop the bike down on the blueberry farm.  (We live on the other side of the blueberry farm.) I unstrapped both boys  and walked a little less than half mile home on the dirt two track through the farm.  Reed had shoes on so he walked part of the way, Luke only had socks on (my bad) so I carried him.  Part way home, Reed got tired so I carried them both. 
We made it though.  I was tired, but I figured I had a really good work out.  We made it home just in time to go get Alli from preschool too.  The lesson I learned, never go anywhere with out shoes for both twins and never leave with out the cell phone.

The mice will play while the cat is away

This week was quite busy in spite of my calender having minimal plans on it.  The twins both had croup pretty bad.  Luke woke up Monday with difficulty breathing and a good croupy sounding cough, Reed caught it on Friday.  He wasn't as bad as Luke but he still was having difficulty breathing.  Both boys needed some medicine to help them breathe better until they could get over the hump of their colds/croup. 
But between all Luke and Reed catching croup, they were still up to their regular shenanigans.  Getting into stuff and just being plain naughty.  Thursday, I decided to go through my bins of clothes I keep from the other kids in the basement.  Both boys were downstairs with  me having fun taking clothes out of the bins and tossing them in the air (that was fine with me, it kept them occupied).  I was being very diligent and got caught up going through them all and I lost track of the boys.  This is what they were up to

 

Yup, 2 boxes of cereal and vegetable straws down my hallway.  I just got the upstairs cleaned up and vacuumed prior to their first big mess.  They were having FUN!  I came upstairs and looked at that mess and just kept gasping with my mouth hanging wide open and they thought I was laughing, so they kept grinning and giggling like "see mom, we are having fun".  I was not amused, although I couldn't resist taking a few photos.  So I tried to pick all that cereal up and I was going to just put it back in the bag and let the kids eat it because I'm dutch and I can't stand to see things go to waste.  As I was trying to save it all, I noticed that the little carpet fuzz were sticking to the cereal and I couldnt' make my kids eat it.  I decided to throw it out.  Since it was going to be time consuming to pick all that up, I got my vacuum out and started to go to town.  However, half way through the vacuum got clogged with all that cereal.  I fixed the vacuum and went to town again.  And wouldn't you know it, as I was finishing up vacuuming, I looked over and Reed was standing on a chair at the table pouring salt all over it.