Mornings

I didn't get very far in updating with Elf pictures, did I? Things got a little hectic in December. I traveled to Boston for a week for work and then we did our annual Cincinnati/Pittsburgh travels for the holidays. We had a wonderful holiday and if I get some time, I'll backfill with a post of some holiday pictures.

This post is about our morning routine. I'll be honest, it's tough getting everyone up and dressed and out the door by 7:30am on weekdays. I hate waking up the girls any earlier than absolutely necessary. They already have a 7:30pm bedtime, so it's not like we can put them to bed any earlier so they can get up earlier. So we just have to be very efficient in the morning. We wake the girls up at 6:45am. We don't actually have to wake Brooke up. She has a sun in her room that turns yellow at 6:45am and so then she sneaks down the hallway and into our room and yells "Surprise" to wake us up. Luckily, we have our alarm set for about 30 seconds before she gets there so she doesn't scare us too much!

Brooke does pretty well with the morning schedule. She listens well and helps get ready when she can. Paige, on the other hand, has been a bit more difficult. Part of it is because she's tired, but also I don't think she likes being told what to do every step of the way. And, we also don't like having to tell her each and everything she needs to do every step of the way. There is frustration on both sides. So we came up with the idea of making a chart so that she could mark off each step and then know what to do next without us constantly having to remind her. It worked REALLY well this morning. We didn't raise our voices once, and she was so proud to be independent and get ready all on her own! Paige filled out the first column with magnets and then Brooke wanted to do it also, so she got the second column. Notice which activity Brooke didn't complete? That's another whole blog post!