Jon & Kate Plus 8 - Twins Turn 7

Twins Turn 7
Jon and Kate try to cater to two unique personalities for the girls' 7th birthday celebration.

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Happy Birthday Cara and Mady!

It's Cara and Mady's birthday and unfortunately they have school that day. Although I'm not sure why they didn't have Columbus Day off. But they did get birthday shirts with their names on them. As they head to school, they are promised a fun night upon their return.

Hannah didn't feel good that day and seemed kind of mopey. Unfortunately, since the other kids were headed to Gymboree, they couldn't let her stay home alone or have the other parent deal with 5 kids alone. So Jon heads upstairs to get the kids dressed for the day. They are super cute playing around on the bed and hanging out.

A fine parenting moment happened when Jon sent Collin to the corner for not eating his cereal. Kate didn't agree with what he did and then contradicted his punishment. She then told Collin that Daddy was mean and not to deal with it. They then decide they shouldn't have these disagreements in front of the kids, but since there isn't any other time for them to have these discussions, they do it with the kids listening. No wonder the kids don't know what's going on half the time. The parents don't even agree.

They head to Gymboree and they had another disagreement. Apparently Collin hit Alexis with a banana and Jon figured that the same rules apply. In most households, that would still apply. But Kate decides that since they are at Gymboree, the kids can do whatever they want. Nice. Consistency.

The owners of the Gymboree tell us that they opened the place up for them on Mondays, when they're usually closed. That is actually super nice. Most of the places I know wouldn't do that for me. But it is cool that they did that for the kids.

The Gymboree teacher was super creative and let them pretend to be animals on all of the gym equipment. The kids had a blast playing make believe and loved the ending of parachute time. I don't know if that's extremely true but I loved the parachute in gym class!

Everyone headed home and Kate started to get ready for Mady and Cara's birthday. She decided to make them a chocolate cake, but wanted it to be a surprise. So she hurried through it and as she was putting the finishing touches on it, the girls came home from school. Phew...she made it! Although I don't know why she insists on it being a surprise.

Unfortunately, when Mady got home from school, she was not in the greatest mood. Upon walking inside, she stomped over, with a sour look on her face, and kicked a balloon. Kate kind of blew her behavior off and let her unwind for a few minutes. Here is where I have some issues. How come she just let her get away with that behavior? If I *ever* did that, my mom would have sent me to my room and let me sulk for awhile and then no party that evening. Rewarding me with some alone time and tv wouldn't have been what happened. A few minutes later she was completely fine, but I don't know that I would have just let her behavior slide like that.

As a special treat, the family went off to Olive Garden for the special dinner. The dinner didn't start out well with Mady, again, getting upset that the kids didn't sing happy birthday correctly. Seriously? But I have to say, that after she got her large strawberry shake, everything was better.

After dinner, the girls started to open their presents. That was complete madness. The girls *raced* through their presents to see what they got and to avoid having the surprise spoiled. So they put them back to back so they couldn't see what the other girl got. Unfortunately, present opening turned into a meltdown and no one really enjoyed it.

SassySarah's Review: I don't know how you avoid having twins open presents without a complete meltdown, but I think that the editing could have been done so that Mady didn't come off so bratty. The kids did seem to have fun at Gymboree and Cara and Mady got some beautiful and fun presents. Two thumbs up.