Strategic Bedtime Routine

Lately we've been getting more sleep than usual. Micah's finally sleeping through the night and Aubri sleeps through the night most of the time. Gavin always sleeps like a rock. The bedtime routine has been an experiment since day one and is constantly evolving depending on the phase of the particular kid, and of course it got more complicated as we added more kids. Aubri is still the trickiest one of the bunch as she has my sleeping disorder of being a night owl and an insomniac. We've started attempting to have her skip naps, which makes it easier at bedtime, although she starts the "melt-down" at about 4pm on those days.

Once a week, Sara gets away from the house for an evening, and I get the privilege of attempting to get all three kids to sleep before insanity sets in. My routine sometimes hinges on whether or not Aubri took a nap that day. If she napped, she's the last one to go to bed; if not, she's usually the first.

On my most recent attempt, it was a day that Aubri napped. My plan then is to get Gavin in bed by 8pm, and make sure he's sleeping by 9 before I put Micah in there (they share a room). If I ever put Micah in there before Gavin has entered his deep slumber, my plans fail. So by 9 (usually), I then get Micah in his jammies and feed him a bottle in his room. This usually only takes 10-15 minutes and I make sure to get a video going for Aubri so we don't have any abrupt interruptions.

So I pushed in the VHS tape on the VCR for Aubri and headed to the bedroom with Micah. During this time, Sara came home and saw Aubri working out to a Kathy Ireland workout video! Apparently I didn't look at what video was in the player. She quickly grabbed the camera and got a little bit of footage before Aubri spotted her:

Has anyone ever washed their cell phone?

On Sunday, I accidentally left my cell phone in my pocket of the shorts I threw in the wash. I remembered where my phone was by the time the load was done. I was certain that I'd be forced to buy another. I dug up one of our "old" cell phones and charged it up so that maybe I could get the service changed to that phone.

Later on Sunday night, after several attempts to get my "cleaned" phone working, I decided to plug it in to the battery charger. To my surprise, it turned on and works perfectly. In an age where most electronics are built to "self-destruct" or be outdated in a year or two, I'm impressed with the abuse my cell phone can endure.

Happy Birthday Grandma Pam!

Gavin worked hard on the letters and Aubri colored the balloons and drew you updside down...I think that's the creative side of her.

We love you!