Week 37 and a half

Laundry and dinners and homework. And the weekly cub scout meeting. That's what it's been about here the last few weeks. Learning to write sentences, learning to write letters, and learning to almost crawl and pull up on the coffee table. Frank and I have seriously been falling into bed at 9 to try and hoard sleep as much as humanly possible.

Week 36: Shifting our routine

There's nothing new since school started, but we're all adjusting our sleep schedules. The boys get ready for bed at the usual time, but they stay up and play for awhile. That play time, of course, gets taken away when they are too loud, but sometimes it works. Charlotte has switched to one nap a day; that has its advantages if the nap is long enough. She also wants to stay up a little later (than 6 pm) and get up earlier (anywhere from 5 to 5:45), which sucks, but Frank and I have to get up by 5:45 anyway. The mornings seem a little easier because there isn't as much of a rush. I get Gabe ready, then he leaves with Frank, and I only have to get Zach ready before the bus. And walking back from the bus stop with only one kid is a great feeling!

I didn't take many photos last week. The only ones that stand out are some of Charlotte playing with her new dollhouse...mainly when the boys are gone because when they are here they are the ones playing with it!

She at the stage where she has to be up close and personal when I've got the camera!

Week 35: A busy birthday week

Last week was a crazy busy week. I really didn't expect immediate calm when Gabe started school, but I wasn't prepared for such a tiring string of days either. All three kids came down with a cold, and Gabe actually had to miss his second day of school because he was up all night with a terrible sore throat. We had our first week of coaching Zach on spelling words, and he aced his test. He also went to cub scout sign-ups and is so excited about the prospect of camping with his friends. We had a disappointing week with Amazon orders; they sent us a wrong item twice, and the dollhouse we ordered for Charlotte was damaged. A new one is on its way. By the time we got to Friday I think everyone was just glad it was the weekend. Here are some pictures of Charlotte and a couple videos.

"I find stuff to get into while Mommy's in the bathroom."

"Gabe missed me so much on his first day that he wanted to take his bath with me."

"I still mostly scoot but I am getting better at the low crawl."

"Look at me! I'm one year old today!"

"Yay!"

"I see you! I like to point at everything now."

"Okay, enough photos. Let me finish my banana."

"My brothers are making me laugh!"

"I'm pretty good at demolishing a cupcake!"