Time to Separate?

Well, I thought I would be refreshed from a long weekend with the girls at the beach and that the kids would be well behaved at least the first couple of nights home from time spent at their Papa's house (where they had a great time it seems), but last night certainly tested patience (and luckily made us laugh too). The only solution I can think of at this point is to separate them at bedtime and put door guards on so they can't get out of their rooms - but I just don't want to do that because they really do enjoy debriefing with each other every evening and I think they will get a little scared without their partner in crime in the room. Last night, for an hour and a half, they continued to get out of bed and cause mischief. I am beginning to feel like a horrible parent, especially after talking to my friends with young children whose kids don't seem to take it to the same extremes. In fact, even outside of bedtime I can't seem to find a way to get them to listen and do what they are told. It may be the age and the fact that there are two of them getting the other riled up and causing trouble, but nothing seems to work. The whining, in particular, is about to drive me insane and the only thing that even moderately works is ignoring them until they talk in a normal voice - now I just wish I could be more like Lance and tune them out rather than just getting progressively more annoyed when I am supposed to be ignoring :)! Bedtime is a perfect example of the kinds of things they are doing - Tyler can now reach the light switch and gets out of bed repeatedly to turn the lights and fan on and off and we haven't found a way to get him to leave them off - told him it is dangerous, put him in time-out, stayed in for a while to watch him stay in bed only to have him get up as soon as we leave. Also last night they emptied the drawers, climbed up the dresser to get lotion that they proceeded to spread all over the room (and strangely put boots on and walked in), undressed a couple hundred times, and then Katie managed to go in her diaper so should could yell for her dad to come change her. No matter how many times I have told Lance he has to be stern and firm and not acknowledge their delay tactics he just won't do it, so they have caught on that if they yell for daddy they have a chance of him coming back in the room and entertaining them or reprimanding them (they don't really care which as long as they aren't having to go to sleep). So, last night Katie was yelling that Tyler hit her (always a surefire way to get one of us up there). When that didn't work a second time she began to yell loudly (they understand that we can hear them in the monitor) "Daddy, I am crying." She said it many times and in many different volumes and whining levels but never was she actually crying - it was pretty funny. When we went up the final time (after a loud noise that we learned only after getting up there was them jumping into the pile of clothes and blankets and pillows from their beds) the door was locked and Tyler had to be walked through the process of getting it unlocked again (this time with the child safety handle on which made it more difficult). He managed, we made it in the room, got them settled down again and they finally went to sleep. When we went up to bed I wanted to check on them again only to find that the door had been locked again. Of course, I started to panic thinking that if we had a fire or an emergency we wouldn't be able to get in so I had to get it unlocked, preferably without waking them. We finally managed to pick it with a hanger and both were sleeping soundly until way too early this morning (at this house that is anytime before 6:00) when I could not convince them that it was not time to wake-up! We will go with the three day rule and give it a few more days for them to catch on that staying in bed is not an option, and then we may have to move the bed and computer out of the guest room (AKA Tyler's room) and give them separate rooms already :(!