Bedtime

I have been SO excited to write this post.  We have big girl news!!  Claire is sleeping in her very own big girl bed and is out of the crib!!  And it took ONE night.  Yes, yes, you should all be very jealous of my perfect children.  ;)

I've been thinking about doing this for a while, as Emma has been bursting from the seams of her bassinet and I didn't really want to have two cribs set up.  The boys were in toddler beds this early, and just because Paige was never a fan when she tried it doesn't mean it wouldn't work now right?  Anyway, it all got thrown together so quickly last week.  I knew Brandon would be leaving out of town, so I asked him to bring the bed in from storage before he left intending to give it a go while he was gone.  That way if we had a few rough nights at least he wouldn't have to deal with it.  But then it was in, the sheets were on, she was playing so cute on it and we thought why not?  And guess what......she loved it.  We let her play awhile on it that first night before we put her to sleep, then tucked her in and walked out.  She thought it was such a funny joke.  And so silly that she could get right up and walk back out to us.  Which she tried about 10 times.  Not really wanting to be naughty, just caught up in the novelty of it.  After that she settled right in and slept wonderfully.  She did get up once in the middle of the night and come into my room....but was content with being put right back in bed.  (Side note: I also took a chance and put Emma right into the crib that first night.  And whatayaknow?  Big sister thought it was great!  Lucky Emma gets to sleep comfortably in the crib now.)

These first shots are from the first night, getting settled in and used to the idea.  Then the next night big brother Parker decided that he needed to have the job of reading her a bedtime story and tucking her in.  {Sigh} Yes, my children are that sweet!

It quickly turned into one of those magic moments.  I'm telling you folks, I was a puddle of mush after this.

The funniest part about our Claire Bear and her new big girl bed?  The look she has when she comes out each morning.  I should get the camera out to capture that one of these days!  She pokes her head out of the room and gets this sly look on her face, then toddles out as fast as her chubby legs can go looking all the while like she's thinking, "If I can just make it to the living room, then I'm free and NO ONE can stop me!"  It's adorable really.

And an added bonus??  You know that big sister that didn't think toddler beds were so cool a year ago?  She's digging it now.  And lucky for her we have two.  So now we have TWO big girls in beds, and it's so adorable to go into the girls' room each night and see three beautiful peacefully slumbering princesses all in the same room.  And Paige isn't such a stink about bedtime anymore.  She loves it!  The only down side to this all....Parker's feeling a bit miffed that Paige left the bunkbed to go to the girls' room.  He's thinking it's not as cool to only have 2 kids in the boys' room.  He's informed me that it's time to have another brother so that the proper balance can be restored and he can sleep peacefully.

And now because I'm feeling generous, I'll share one more photo of my goofy girl.  This is Claire trying out her baby's bed.  I guess she had to test it out to make sure it was good enough??  What a sweet little mama.  True story: we have to tuck her baby in bed next to her each night.  And if she doesn't insist on it Andrew does.  He also checks to see if baby is awake each morning as well.  ;)