Kindergarten!

The day (week) has come to let my first born fly from the nest! 

Brief Aside- In Baltimore Country the kindergartners have a staggered start.  Tuesday is a half day with parents, Wednesday is a half day alone, and Thursday is a full day (the first REAL day in my opinion). 

Evie and I had the house to ourselves Monday night and Tuesday morning as the boys were still in Cincy.  It was nice to have a little quiet time together before her big day.  For weeks everyone has been asking if Evie is ready, excited, nervous.  The same for me.  I am definitely not sad or nervous.  We've been home together for 6 years; I am ready for a change!  Evie didn't seem one way or the other.  She is definitely eager to tell her brother she is going to Kindergarten .

We are excited about Evie's teacher this year, Mrs. Sugarman.  She's been there a long time and is apparently "the one" parents want.  Score.

Tuesday was the day I was worried about the most; Evie is typically clingy when I am in the room with her.  This held true a little.  Mrs. Sugarman did a great job of having the kids on the carpet with her while parents sat at the tables.  Today's school day was brief and pretty uneventful other than our first walk to school with our friends Clara and Niki.

Obligatory First Day of School Picture

Evie missed the point of a BACKpack and walking to school WITH friends.  She looks a girl on a mission.

 Still just holding her BACKpack, but improving on the obligatory first day picture smile.

Half day #1 over!  And the girls are outta there!  (Notice improvement with one strap on and walking WITH Clara now)

Full day #1!  It's time to really fly from the nest today.  Backpack fully on and Mom's first lunch of the year.  

Big Girl is READY!
(Whatever "ready" is...)

And so begins our 13 years of living based on public school schedule.  Looking forward to a fun year at Hillcrest Elementary, home of the Hedgehogs!  (Best mascot ever)

Pre-K Graduation, Take 2

A second year of pre-k was a great decision for Evie.  6 months makes a big difference in abilities and I am glad that Evie will be on "par" next year in Kindergarten.  She doesn't have an interest in reading still, but I have noticed a large improvement in her artistic abilities.  She sits for a longer period of time, carefully planning out her project with various colors.  Her people look like people now.  If you could see Evie's room, you would notice her love of writing letters on paper and using tape to hang these notes.  

Another area of improvement is her interactions with classmates.  Last year Evie didn't really have a buddy or ask to play with all the kids on the playground after school.  This year Evie quickly had multiple buddies and begged to run around with them after school.  The boys in the class seemed to enjoy chasing Evie since she is so fast.  I loved watching her smile and giggle as she escaped across the monkey bars.  I really enjoyed the moms of the kids in this class too.  Jungle Room was a great experience for all of us and I couldn't be happier with my decision to give Evie another year to gain more confidence and grow in all areas.  She hasn't grown as tall as I hoped, but we still have a few months for that growth spurt :)

T/Th Jungle Room
Lots of boys!

Graduation was the same adorable ceremony as last year.

Cap and Gown Photo, Signature Dog,
and a collection of pictures and artwork from the year

Processing In

Class photo on the cake

Singing a bunch of songs.

Evie sang all the songs on stage without the hand motions.  She practiced those motions and songs at full volume many nights in front of her mirror.  I enjoyed the concert she did for us at home.

Unfortantely Evie was still too shy to stand up to receive her diploma.  I had warned her teacher about last year, so she quickly took her hand and didn't make a big scene out of it.  

All smiles back with Mommy

Getting any kind of pictures was near impossible with a sugared up group of preschoolers.

Her best friend Tyler.
This picture captures their friendship
perfectly.  Tyler making Evie laugh :)

Next year Braylen will be graduating!

Evie will be back in the Jungle Room this summer for MDOW's summer session, 2 days a weeks.  I look forward to how she will grow in Kindergarten next year.  

Operation Quit Thumb Sucking: Mission Accomplished!!!

Evie is celebrating 1 month thumb-free tonight!  She decided on Sunday night, March 5th, that she was done sucking her thumb at night.  We made her this sticker chart to earn prizes at 1 week, 2 weeks, and a biggie at 1 month.  We are so proud of our little lady for kicking this habit before the summer deadline given by her dentist.

We came from early Easter dinner at the Hettinger's to find the Amazon box containing her big prize waiting on the porch, a double baby stroller.  The baby on the left is her week 1 prize, another baby doll.  (SOOO glad we didn't spend the big bucks on a real American Girl Doll since her "American Girl Doll" quickly got replaced by this baby...) .  Evie picked out a Barbie for her 2nd week prize.  We are hoping the money we spent on prizes will be a small portion of the money we are saving on orthodontic work in the future.  Braces are coming no matter what, in my opinion, but at least our 6 year old will not be sucking her thumb in Kindergarten this fall!

Her next chart is some kind of attitude chart... 

Operation Quit Thumb Sucking: Her Decision

Similar to when Evie told Daddio she didn't want the training wheels on her bike, then was riding without them completely one day later, she told Daddio last night that she didn't want him to take the "thumb stuff" off for bed that night.  Seeing her determination to master the two-wheel bike, we are hopeful this is the end of the thumb forever.

I was in complete shock when Jason told me that Evie fell asleep last night without her thumb (I was at a meeting for bedtime).  AND there were no tears!  This is the day I wanted to come; the day when SHE wanted to stop, not US forcing her to stop.

Tonight was night two of falling asleep without her thumb.  This is huge people; this girl has been sucking her thumb to soothe herself at bed for five years.  Cold turkey is hard.  Last night it meant that she needed some middle of the night snuggles from mama to help her get back to sleep.

Is this the end????

Two Less Wheels for Evie

Today Evie reached a big milestone, riding her bike without training wheels!

Evie recently moved to a bigger bike since the baby bike seat she received for Christmas didn't fit on her little, white bike.  She's been riding the bigger bike for a few weeks now.  Evie has been a comfortable bike rider for years; I'm actually surprised she didn't take to riding without training wheels sooner.

On Friday, a few families from our street gathered on "the lane" for happy hour.  Evie suddenly wanted to ride the little bike with one training wheel up.  Daddio worked with her for about 30 minutes, helping her to balance without the training wheel.  She asked to practice again on Saturday.  We only got in about 10 minutes before the spring-like storms rolled in.  Then today, we encouraged her to try without her training wheels...

This is her ride back from her first trip down the lane sans training wheels

We are so proud of our little girl!  And though she be little, she is a fierce bike rider!  :)

Even more thankful the County paved "the lane" across the street from us this fall; it is the perfect spot to learn to ride a bike: flat, very smooth, not too long, not too short.

Operation Quit Thumb Sucking: Attempt 2

So it's been a while since "Attempt 1", which has failed miserably.

We finally came the realization our children will not stop sucking their thumbs by us simply screaming reminding them to stop sucking them.  And before we went to publicly humiliating them with the "thumb guard", we tried the bitter nail stuff.

Off I go to the pharmacy and pick up a $5 bottle of "Thum".  Tried that for a few days to find them still sucking their thumbs.  Clearly the bitterness is not enough of a deterrent in this one.

After a few more months of laziness and me getting absolutely sick of Jason correcting the kids for the 10,000th time, I spent the big bucks, $14, on a small bottle of "Mavala Stop" off Amazon.  This is do or die at this point.

Well, Friends.  The $9 was worth it.

Before:

Car rides = lots of thumb sucking, especially to sleep

Just waking up and needing some snuggles.. and thumb

Bored
(Please ignore the fact that Braylen's car seat
is not buckled in correctly.  No one was
injured as a result)

There has been ZERO thumb sucking when this stuff is painted on nails.  We only take it off, with nail polish remover, at bedtime.  Braylen learned quickly how to nap without his thumb, which quickly translated to not needing it for bed either.  Evie, on the other hand, has that thumb in the second we take it off at night.

Two weeks in, I think we have broken Braylen's habit.  We are so proud of him for kicking the habit; he was an almost constant thumb sucker when his hands weren't being used for play.  And since "winning trophies" and being better than his/her sibling is the game our kids like to play, we praise Braylen constantly for winning the thumb trophy.  We'll get there with Evie... once we go for broke and keep it on all night too.  We will fight one battle at the time... the extra crying and tantrums are enough stress on all parties for right now.

Trophy winner

Now who can create a thumb trophy for this guy?  :)

Operation Quit Thumb Sucking: Fail

I gave in; Evie is allowed to chew gum now.

Since we are trying to help her kick her thumb sucking habit, maybe gum will help during those boring/down times when she is tempted to put her thumb in her mouth.  She is super excited about chewing it in the van; my van is covered in gum wrappers.  She was handling it well: no gum stuck in random places, no bubble blowing, limited begging for multiple pieces in one day, and not gloating to Braylen about being able to chew gum.

Then it happened....

I got a text from Jason when he and Evie were at our other home Home Depot... the gum was in her hair.  He made it seem like we needed to chop her hair off completely.  No fear, Google is here!

A little peanut butter in her hair while she ate dinner...

... and voila!  Gum slides right on out.

Crisis averted.

It's kind of a right of passage for a girl, right?

He's a BIG Boy Now!

It was time for Mommy and Braylen to put on big panties and get this potty training thing over and done.  The poor kid is almost 3.5.  For the love Marisa.  But I needed something to motivate both of us.  (like buying, changing, and smelling diapers isn't enough motivation to get OUT of them...)

IKEA was the answer for this kid.

Here's how it went down:

Liz and I planned a trip to IKEA about 2 weeks ago.  The last time we met there (months ago), Evie was apparently too short to go into the kids play area.  I now had solid evidence that she is indeed 37 inches and can go into the play area, Braylen too.  So we walk up to the desk to hand over our children and low and behold, kids must be 37 inches AND potty trained (we knew this... but played dumb for Braylen's sake).  Braylen was devastated he couldn't play with his friends and had to go around IKEA with the mommies.  I mean, this looks like a horrible thing to do....

Yes, my best friend and I sat on the couches at
IKEA, pretending we were having a martini, talking,
while our older kids were in the play area and Braylen
was in the cart watching junk on the iPad.  I love Liz's ideas.

Braylen talked the rest of the afternoon how he wanted to wear "under-roos" so he could go to the play area at IKEA.

Ok, bud, here we go!

That afternoon, diaper pants off,
Under-roos on!

Here we are 2 weeks later... He was so much easier than we feared.  Big sister was a huge help in getting him to bathroom and helping with clothes on and off.  She was like his mother; it was great!  Braylen quickly proved to us he could be dry during nap, so goodbye pull-ups for that.  He continues to be mostly dry in the morning, but I am not ready to change sheets at 3 AM yet (and his bed is complicated with bed rail up.  Parents, you know what I mean).  So for now, we'll use up the pull-ups we have and kiss it all good-bye when they are gone.

Yippee!  So proud of my Bray-baby who is officially no longer a baby, he's my big boy!

And let me just say before he gets too old and it is creepy, little boys in underwear is the cutest thing.  His little butt in those under-roos and boxer briefs!  Dying!  His favorite thing to do at night is pick out his under-roos for the next day :)

Big Beds

I will spare you the bed and mattress moving saga of the past two and half weeks.  Let's just say we started off with zero beds for the first week and have moved mattress from Pennsylvania, our townhouse, and Big Lots to now be a family in two full beds and 1 queen.  If we don't have to move mattresses again for a LONG time, that would be awesome :)

That's right folks, my 37 inch kids are sleepin' in double beds!  Do they need a bed that big?  Absolutely not!  But when you have grandparents staying the night at least every 6 weeks, this bed and breakfast needs some extra bed space.  So my bed from post college/our guest room bed traveled back via roof from PA for Evie's room and we converted the toddler bed to a full bed.

Jason and I are thrilled to have a place to sleep when the kids need extra snuggles in the middle of the night.  I predict there will be a few nights coming up where Parker will have our queen bed to himself while the parents and kids are together!

Speaking of Parker... he is loving life in the new house.  He thinks Evie's new bed is quite comfy

The video monitors coming in handy to check on the sleeping pooch

It's been a rough start for Braylen in the new house; he's been getting up 2-3 times a night.  Fingers crossed a bigger bed with snuggly sheets will do the trick!  (and a parent sleeping in HIS bed)

Operation Quit Thumb Sucking: Attempt 1- Day time

Gosh, it doesn't feel like it has been 6 months since our last dentist appointment, but alas, we were back getting the kids' teeth cleaned.  Evie has always done a fabulous job at the dentist.  This year she elected to sit all by herself in the chair instead of on my lap like the past visits.

I questioned Dr. Mohler about how much damage Evie has done to her bite by sucking her thumb still regularly at 4.5.  Her mouth wasn't too bad, yet, but he followed up with an email to Jason and I about the long term concerns dentists are seeing with thumb suckers, things like sleep apnea.  He suggested something new to him called a Thumbguard.

I did a little research on it and it sounds like parents have been having success with it.  Let me start off by saying that we have done NOTHING to stop Evie's thumb sucking: no horrible tasting polish on it, lovies taken away, etc.  Honestly, I didn't feel like the battle.  Bad parenting, I know.  But it's time we face it.

So I showed Evie what could be her "bracelet"

We had a short talk about how Dr. Mohler said she has to stop sucking her thumb or she'll need to wear to help her break the habit.  She told me she would stop on her own.  Ok, girl, whatever works!  So we made a deal, I will not order one if she can stop sucking her thumb during the day.  She is allowed to use her thumb while in her room reading books and going to bed.

We are 4 days in and Evie has kept up her end of the deal!  I am so proud of her!!  TV time and car riding time are the hardest for her.  She holds a toy or eats to help keep her mind off her thumb (maybe this will help her gain weight too!).  She is dying for her thumb by the end of the day, which is fine with me.  She doesn't sleep with it all night, just to get to sleep.  Day time is a huge start for her.

Doing her best to keep it out during
TV shows.

As a thumb sucker until the age of 7, I know how difficult it is to stop.  As my dad said, I needed to have "mental toughness".  Praying my girl can beat this habit before she starts elementary school!

Moving On

Something huge and crazy is happening to our family.

We are MOVING!

It all came about really fast and unexpected.  We have been saying since we bought the house in April 2005 that we wouldn't be here forever.  But after 10 years and becoming close with a few of our neighbors, I wasn't sure we would ever pull the trigger and move on.

A few little things came up over the past two months that put the moving bug in my mind.  During our bible study, the author commented about how we discern God's plan for things like moving when it isn't written in the Bible.  What do we do about things in that gray area?  It caught my attention, was God telling me we needed to move?  How would I know?

As I quietly listened, God presented more information to help me see His plan for our family.  I went to a wine night with a bunch of neighborhood moms.  I left feeling blah with the conversation that happened that night.  I didn't feel like these are the moms I am meant to be standing at the bus stop with.  Jason could tell that something wasn't right that night.

Then a beautiful single family house less than a mile from our townhouse popped up on one of the Catonsville parent groups I am in on Facebook.  It was perfect, but way more money than we could afford.  I drove past it a few times over the next few days longingly wanting a big yard for our kids.  It appeared another family was checking it out too.  It went under contract quickly.

So I started looking on real estate sites... and you know how addicting that is!

I found a foreclosure in Howard County, about a mile from church.  The house was an adorable cape cod with a detached garage and .6 acres of land.  It was somewhat affordable for us AND the kids would go to top notch Ho Co schools.  I became kind of obsessed with the possibility of making this foreclosure into our cozy home.  It needed work, things like central air and finished basement, but it had a flat, huge yard, which is hard to find in our price range...

So we got an agent (who is also our neighbor) and looked at it.  It felt completely crazy to even consider a foreclosure since we are not "handy people".  We went back a week later to seriously think about it, as well as look at some other houses.

We completely fell in love with a 1924 Catonsville house that came on the market the day before.  It instantly felt like home to me.  Upon snooping at some of the pictures, I discovered I knew the mom that owned the house!  I quickly put in a message to her on Facebook telling her we wanted her house.

Again, completely crazy to even consider putting in a contract since I was leaving in a few hours for a women's retreat and Jason was taking the kids to PA for the weekend.   God had it all figured out though.  My roommate for the weekend was a lady at church I wanted to get to know better.  Sharon is in my small group and we seemed to have a lot in common.  She lives two streets over from where this 1924 house is located.  She gave me so much insight on the neighborhood, buying an older home, and the pros of a smaller home.   It all felt right to put in a contract and have Sharon be our neighbor!

So to keep it short- we put in a contract, they accepted as we drove to Lancaster for Thanksgiving.  The inspection was nearly flawless.  It is all moving smoothly.  I am so, so excited to stay in Catonsville with the community of moms I have created through MOPS and other groups.  I cannot wait to have a fenced in backyard for Parker and the kids.  I am trading my cookie cutter townhouse for a house with so much character.  Thank you God for this house!  Settlement is scheduled for January 29th (my birthday!!).

Our new house!!

On a side note- that original house that started my house searching that went under contract quickly, the family that is selling us their house bought it.  Kind of ironic how that worked out.  Clearly we have similiar taste :)

Oh yea, we need to sell our townhouse...

For the past 3 weeks we have painted trim, doors, rooms, Jason powerwashed the 3 decks, we packed up the excess crap, we took countless trips to the storage unit.  We are not contingent on the sale of our townhouse, but two mortgages for more than 1 month is not ideal!   So we are on the market as of today, Friday, December 18th.

All my excitement over the new house quickly turned to tears as I watched them put up the sign.  This was our first house, our only house as a family.  We are leaving everything that has felt safe over the last 10 years.  I have the best neighbor friend and Evie adores Emily.   Evie and Emily were going to be bus riding buddies...  It's hard to leave.  We aren't moving out of state though.  We are only 5 minutes away from our townhouse.

And so we pray.  We pray for a buyer to come quickly.  We pray for our kids to have friends in our neighborhood.  We pray for sweet neighbors like Lisa.  God has this all worked out.

Oh Happy Day

This makes me so happy

I am happy because I am with Liz.  I am happy because all 4 of our kids are not being turds having fun.  I am happy because Evie has learned how to swing on her own!!

My sister and I spent hours upon hours swinging together as little girls.  We brought out our boom box, which had a Tiffany or Belinda Carlisle cassette tape in it, and sang our hearts out while pumping our legs.  Swinging was my childhood.

It makes me sad that schools and parks are removing swings because they are a hazard.  C'mon people!  We all survived the 80's and 90's on swings.  Yeah, there were some cut lips and bumped heads, but we learned our lesson quickly.  I need to start a petition to keep swings at our playgrounds!  (Or we need to move to a house where we can put in our own swing set...)

I am loving you summer 2015: Braylen learns to ride his bike and Evie masters swinging alone.  Oh happy summer days!

Her Beautiful Curls

This happened today, August 6, 2015

A first at 4 years, 2.5 months

Evie got her first haircut.  I have been putting it off despite all the knots and split ends because I am afraid her beautiful curls will be gone forever.

All natural beauty

Perfect ringlets

A brushing nightmare, but so pretty

Women pay big bucks to get hair that looks like Evie's: blond highlights and bouncy curls.

Daddio has been threatening to buzz Evie's hair off if she didn't stop twirling it or putting it in her mouth.  Thankfully we stink at follow-through :)  I mentioned cutting it to Evie a few times recently and she wasn't opposed to it.

So today when Liz said she was going to IKEA and to get Jack's hair cut, I jumped on the opportunity to do this first for me and Evie with my best friend.  If anyone makes me brave, it is Liz.  To White March Hair Cuttery we went.

4 plus years in the making.

No tears, all business

 The hardest thing was keeping her thumb under the cape.  Where was her brother during all of this?  With his girl.

Cutest younger siblings EVER.
Jason asked when they can get married.

My heart still hurts seeing those blond curls

All done!

Liz and I laughed that the hair salon was probably one of our easiest "errands" with 4 kids.  Jack and Evie sat nicely while the ladies cut their hair and the littles were happy as can be watching Daniel Tiger on Liz's phone.  Everyone got a lollipop.  Everyone smiled.  Wow, what a great experience!

Evie loves her new hair-do.  She looks older and claims she now has hair "like Emily" (her BFF).  She told me she wants it to be that length forever.  (Insert disappointment on my part here).   It always grows back... I still see some signs of curl left.  A really humid day will show the truth.

Did I keep her hair?  Heck no.  I am not that attached and sentimental about her baby blond curls.  One less thing for my kids to find as they are cleaning out our house 45 years from now when we move to the "home".

It's Like Riding a Bike

For weeks Braylen has insisted to "ride my bike".  His version of "ride" was to push his trike around the neighborhood.  Amazingly, he had excellent control navigating around the corners while running behind it.  He was having fun "riding" so you can't knock his definition of "ride"

I think after our beach trip with the cousins, he realized the big kids all SIT on their bikes.  He has taken up more of an interest in sitting on his trike.  My kids are blessed with Daddio's athletic gene and have both picked up pedaling quickly.

Here is Bray baby at 2.5 years old.  Yippee!!

My children are talented in navigating strollers and bikes.  I have corrected their steering skills very few times on bikes or pushing strollers.  Thank you God for giving my kids that skill at an early age; walking along side my bike riders is an enjoyable activity!  Poor Braylen is rather frustrated that he can't go as fast as Speedster Evie.  I think his little trike's pedals can't keep up with Braylen's fierce pedaling.  I'm sure Daddio will happily move onto a 2-wheeler for better bike transport on the bike rack.

My legs and back thank you my dear Braylen for learning to pedal so quickly.  Here's to a fun lifetime of riding a bike!

Dr. Tooth

It's time to see Dr. Mohler!  I absolutely love that our dentist's name is Dr. Mohler.  We decided to skip the pediatric dentist route and take our kids to our dentist.  The hygienist I see, Angie, was awesome with Evie at her last visit, so I made sure Braylen's first professional teeth cleaning would be with her.

Evie went first to show her brother how to "be brave".  Evie was again very cooperative with Angie even as she took x-rays!  I couldn't believe Angie got Braylen to stand absolutely still in the hallway while Evie had her teeth photographed.

Both kids allowed Angie to polish their teeth and apply "vitamins" (AKA fluoride).  I didn't even need to bribe them!  Dr. Mohler reassured me that neither of them have bite damage from thumb sucking... yet.

After check-up shenanigans

But we all know there are plenty of goodies at the end of the appointment.  Angie loaded them up from the supply room with stickers, toothbrushes, toothpaste, and a tooth timer.  Then they hit up the tooth chest for MORE junk goodies.

That was the fastest they ever got into their
car seats; they were anxious to look at their
tooth chest loot again

Score!  A new ring!

Yay for a successful dentist visit!  I think I even got out of there without sweating; that is a miracle when you take two kids to any kind of doctor's office.

Two to None

There was a period of time, about one year, when we had two in cribs.  We lugged two pack-n-plays to the beach, we rearranged furniture to fit two pack-n-plays while traveling, and most importantly, we had two places to safely put our children where I knew they would not escape.

Those days are over.

Braylen is so proud of his new bed, he wanted to take
pictures of it too.

Look who is free to miss up any kind of nap and bed time routine we had going!

Braylen methodically escaped over his crib rail multiple times in the past few weeks to prompt us to remove the high rail for the toddler rail.  If he is already getting out, why make it a dangerous exit?   So first I have my three-year-old drop naps, now I have my toddler in a bed with an area that screams "make a run for it!"  I wanted that crib rail up for a long time.. for selfish reason.

Last night was night one for Braylen in his toddler bed.  He slept in his normal corner and slept all night.  He did get out of bed in the morning, but only once his clock turned yellow.  Will the clock work miracles a second time?!  We are hoping!  So far nap is going ok.  He got out once to tell me he wanted a snuggle, but as soon as I sat in the chair, he wanted his bed.  I reviewed the rules with him about the color of the clock face and needing to stay in his bed.  So far, a sleeping Braylen.  

Sweet dreams my big boy!

Room Swap

While Evie was vacationing at G's house (post coming...), Jason and I swapped the kids' rooms.

7.28 Evie's last night in her crib transitioned to a toddler bed

7.28 Braylen's last night in the IKEA crib

As soon as the kids woke up on Tuesday morning, Jason was breaking down the white, IKEA crib and putting the crib front back on Evie's toddler bed.  He accomplished more before work that morning than we can accomplish in a week after the kids go to bed!  We were anxious to start the room swap.

Braylen moving into Evie's room (the green room) was an easy move.  It required the crib front being reattached, sound machine relocated, his clothes moved over, the changing pad & related gear switched, and the diaper champ (and all its odor) walked one door down.  Braylen was soundly napping in his new room by nap time on Tuesday afternoon.  His first nap in his new crib lasted three hours.  No problem with that transition.

Evie moving into Bray's room (the blue room) required more time and effort, hence tackling it while Evie was gone.  Evie doesn't have a strong opinion on things like color yet, so we picked out a paint color and room scheme without any much input from her.  We decided on a light purple and dot decals.  Jason and I traded off Braylen duty and painting on Wednesday (Jason took off from work).  We worked quickly and had most of the room put together by the time Evie returned on Thursday night.

Welcome to Evie's new room!

My parents graciously took the double bed from our
storage unit and traded it with my daybed.  A daybed
seems to be a great transition from a crib to single bed for
a little girl like ours :)

Her amazing clock still serves its purpose.
Braylen got his clock this week.  The
training begins...

Really excited to have the hutch back to
hold lots of stuff.  The desk minus the hutch
served as the changing station previously

The "evie" letters were bigger than we
expected, but we're happy the way it turned out

Evie is doing very well in her "big girl bed".  She had no issues sleeping in her toddler bed without the rail, so we figured it was best not to give her that crutch from the beginning.  No issues thus far; she's pretty good at staying in one spot all night.  

Braylen is pretty excited about Evie's bed too. He climbs up there and relaxes on the pillows.  There is plenty of room for both of them!

How you decorate a room when you have two toddler-ish
children.  You give them the iPad.

The white IKEA crib, which by the way is a GREAT crib for $99, promptly traveled across the circle to our neighbor that just delivered her third.  We wanted it out and she needed a cheap crib.  Win-win!  After 20 months with two cribs, we are a one crib family again.