Nightly Routines

The last 30-45 minutes of every day at our home is pretty routine.  Anna Claire and Charlie take turns brushing their teeth (mommy or daddy ‘check’ behind them).  After that they each get to pick out a book to read and we lay on the floor in AC’s room and read them.  Then we all say our prayers.  Then they go potty one more time and eat their vitamins.  We all give hugs and kisses.  Charlie always says, “wait!  One more thing…” then he picks up Anna Claire and tells her she’s the older one but he’s the stronger one.  🙂  Seriously, every night this happens.  Then Charlie walks to his room while I tuck Anna Claire in to her bed.  Before I leave her room we have this little routine (it reminds me of a secret club handshake).  We do the sign for ‘I love you’, wave, and blow a kiss.  The child cries if we don’t do this.  Then I walk in Charlie’s room and he is ALWAYS sitting by this lamp.  Then he comes and climbs in my lap and we rock (yes I said rock) while I tell him one story.  Just FYI, if you’re reading this blog you probably know us which means I’ve probably told a story about you.  After that, I ask him how he is getting to bed and he says like…spiderman, or wolverine, or hulk…and we pretend he is that character and he flies or jumps to bed.   I tuck him in, kiss him, and leave the room.  I then go back to AC’s room and lay in her bed with her for about 3 minutes talking about the day and what we will do the next day.  I tuck her in, kiss her, and do our ‘secret handshake thingy’ and leave.  Whew!  I seriously always thought those crazy things parents did at night were nonsense, but it works for us, my kids are good sleepers, and I sure do love that time with them!  🙂

**just a little side note, if mommy isn’t home, daddy still does all of that…teeth, potty, books, prayers, secret handshake, tucking in…except the rocking and the laying in bed.  🙂

Summer Adventures – Week 5

Oh boy I’ve got to catch up with my blogging considering we are in week 8 now! 🙂

During week 5 we celebrated Independence day.  On Monday we headed to the library…it was a pirate theme.  After the library we headed to a July 4th playdate with the Perkins and Broadwells.  The kids enjoyed eating hot dogs and making red, white, and blue cupcakes.  That evening I took AC to gymnastics and Devin took Charlie bowling. 🙂

Tuesday we headed to the movies to see Rio (it was another rainy day here).  The kids enjoyed the movie. 🙂 Charlie’s tball practice was cancelled because of the rain so we decided to play outside with our umbrellas after dinner.  That day they also got some patriotic shirts in the mail from Aunt Bekah.

Wednesday we had ‘Water Wednesday’ at church.  Charlie helped me out by dressing up as Naaman.  That afternoon I took Charlie to the ENT then the kiddos spent the night with Granny and Papa.  They just think they are in ‘high cotton’ there because they get to sleep in some big beds…much bigger than at home…and sure do love it (not to mention they stay up way too late…but I guess I did the same thing with my grandparents. haha!)

Thursday morning we all met at the peach festival for the parade.  That afternoon we went swimming and had dinner and fireworks at my parents’ house. 🙂

Friday morning we headed out to pick blueberries with Nana, Aunt Caity and Parker.  Yummy! 🙂 We came home and made cookies.  That evening we played outside with our friends.

Saturday morning we headed to the state museum.  It was GREAT! That evening we had fun playing in the water, eating dinner, and doing sparklers/pop-its with the Hensons.

Sunday afternoon Devin took the kids to play tennis.  They had fun!

Hopefully Week 6 will be posted soon. 🙂

9 years

From our wedding day, finishing graduate school, building our house, having babies, and more….these past nine years have been a blessing.  I can’t wait for 90 more! 🙂

Stuffed Friends

Today I washed everyone’s sheets and comforters.  Tonight as I was making their beds, I started thinking about how different Anna Claire and Charlie are when it comes to their stuffed friends.  Charlie is pretty simple…here you have (from right to left) monkey, froggy, bunny, doggy, bear,  huggle buggle bear (He has a book about Huggle Buggle Bear and had just read it before we got this bear…hence the name), and his 2 lovies.  🙂 Anna Claire has a lot more ‘friends’ with more creative names…here are a few…kitty(who is sometimes called apple?), 2 lovies, princess music bunny, flow (pronounced like the beginning of flower)and thicket, lucy, kayla, squishy, and baby susie.  Creative huh? 🙂 {there are way more than pictured!}Isn’t it interesting how different they are even with the little things?  I sure do love these sweet little ones! (especially when they are so clean after bath!!) 🙂 

Train up a child…

…in the way he should go;  even when he is old he will not depart from it. -Proverbs 22:6

Ok, let’s be honest.  Sometimes it’s just easier to do things by myself than with the kiddos.  However, when we got home from our morning of fun….it took my children approximately 30 minutes to make their rooms look like this:So, I let them play. 🙂  Then nap time rolled around and I was about to go clean their rooms.  But then I had an idea. (Now don’t get me wrong…they’ve had to help clean many times.) My idea was to see how well they would do by themselves.  Let’s just say this Momma was super proud of them!  Ta-da!!Now let’s not bring up the fact that while Anna Claire was taking a bath tonight, Charlie emptied 11 puzzles on his bedroom floor that Devin and I ended up putting together…  Oh boy! 🙂