Easter Begins!

Today the kids had an Easter egg hunt at school and Lance and I went to cheer them on.  They get so excited when one of us can make it to their functions at school, and were absolutely giddy when they saw both of us.  This might be the only one they get this year with the weather being predicted, so I am glad today was actually perfect egg hunting weather!

We are still having massive bedtime struggles - we just can't get them to go to sleep before 10:00 and that is way too late for a multitude of reasons.  I think part of the problem is that they have rest/nap time at school and sometimes do sleep (especially now that they stay up later), but it is also that they keep each other awake and entertained.  I don't really think separate rooms would do any good because I think they would just cry for the other, or talk about being "scary" as Tyler calls it.  Plus, they are fully capable of putting themselves back in the same room and there is no locking doors since the bathroom is in the hall!  The sticker charts worked well for a while, since praise really does work better than the current tactic of yelling, cajoling and punishing with consequences.  So, we are bringing back the sticker charts and giving them "Disney Dollars" for every sticker earned.  It could definitely get expensive, but since they are still young enough for us to tell them the value of the dollars once we get to the park, I think it can be controlled.  We just had to go up there for what seems like the 500th time and it is obvious they are nowhere near ready to sleep - ugh!  The conversations they have with us and with each other are pretty entertaining - Katie told me tonight (after I told them they were smart enough to know what is good behavior and what isn't) that she isn't really that smart - she only knows how to spell "just a few words like, mom, dad, hat, dog, cat, pig, Katie, Tyler," and then when she started naming all of the kids in her class whose names she can spell I cut her off.  Tyler was simultaneously going through the list of animals he wants to see at Animal Kingdom like a wombat, a giant anteater, a skunk, a rhino, and an ostrich. They have learned that it is a great distraction technique to engage us in long, meandering conversations when they are trying to stay awake and while I really do enjoy talking to them like that and hearing their perspective on life and how they are trying to figure it all out - I don't want to do it at MY bedtime!  They need sleep, and we definitely do too!