Today, our lovely babysitter friend came over and watched the three oldest so I could go out and get Ace’s birthday gift. I’m so excited and can’t wait for him to open it. I just hope he likes it because it was more than I’ve ever paid for a birthday gift for them. I usually can scour and find what we’re looking for on sale, at yard sales or at consignments…not this year.

I also got The Voyage of the Dawn Treader book for the kids. We have a set of the Chronicles of Narnia but they are over ten years old and the pages are getting brittle and our Dawn Treader book was a little torn in the back pages. I thought I had better get a new copy before we got to the back pages. We read a chapter each night (that we’re not out late). It’s been a lot of fun. I usually sit in the hallway between their bedrooms and read to them. They enjoy it. I’m not sure how much of the story they are comprehending but I predict the older they get the more they’ll understand. So far, we’ve read The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe, Laura on the Banks of Plum Creek, and Prince Caspian. I’m anxious to read other great stories but for now they really like to read the Narnia books…so that’s what we’re reading.

Josiah is still being a good sleeper for the most part. It is getting harder for him to settle down with all the noise…but we’re working on that. He usually goes through one good stretch during the night (the first part). If we put him down too early, he gets up very early in the morning. That is what he did yesterday. Today, he got up around 6:30 ish so that was not too bad.

Liam is still a screamer but we’re working on it. He’s been having trouble sleeping at night. Which, if you know our kids, is highly unusual. He’s waking up screaming and very hard to console back to sleep unless you lay down with him. I lost count of how many times he woke up last night. I know this is a phase and an adjustment to the newness of little Josiah, so Mark and I are trying to be patient and work with him without encouraging him to stay up! Loads of fun. We have to grab ideas out of our parenting hat and adjust them to fit his personality. Right now, Mark is trying to stay in there until he gets settled and then leave.