It'a struggle to teach two little night owls when to sleep and when to be awake. In the 11 months since Kandace was born, she has seldom gone to sleep before 10:30 p.m., and stayed that way for the night. It's not unusual for her to settle down even later, in spite of our efforts of holding her tight and fighting her to sleep. At one time, we'd even put her in the crib and let her cry it out. But that doesn't work to well with an older sister sharing her room, especially if Kandace decides to really get upset!

It doesn't help that the 2 yr. older sister is also a night owl. She would stay awake half of the night and sleep half of the morning away if allowed too. It helps to not allow her to take a nap during the day. But there are times toward evening, that she will fall asleep while looking at a book. And it's nearly impossible to awaken her.

I've been turning it over in my mind, how we can get them on a better schedule. One way is to wake them up earlier in the mornings, thus having an earlier naptime, thus sooner ready for bed. But so far, it hasn't worked too well with Kandace, especially since she gets up early some mornings anyway. Then she falls asleep before lunch, and wakes up again by 2 p.m. or before. Then she wants an early evening nap, thus ruining an earlier bedtime.

Leandra is another story. Sundays seem to really ruin what little I get accomplished with her during the week! If she drops off in church, no nap in the afternoon, unless she falls asleep late afternoon, thus the impossible to awake. A week ago Sunday, we went to an early evening service at the neighboring Methodist church, since Ralph was helping the youth group with singing there. That child fell asleep on the way there, (and no kidding!) I carried her in, laid her on the cushioned pew, and she slept right through the singing and banging of the piano. After our part was done, I picked her up, carried her out again which woke her slightly. She seems to have no memory of being there!

After a night like last night, I'm ready to try harder on Leandra. I couldn't awake her after a late nap. When she finally awoke, after 7 p.m., she still wasn't sleeping at 11. In bed, with a CD going, but not sleeping. She fell asleep sometime. Then in the wee hours of the morning, we were rudely awakened by the bright ceiling light in our room! Looking around for the reason, here was a little night-gown clad girl, standing on a small chair by the light switch!! She was whimpering, saying that she wants her CD player on. I carried her over to her bed, and found her pillow and blankets on top of the changing table. Wonder how long she was prowling around before awakening us??? Oh well, she should take an earlier nap today since she was up by 7:30 this morning!

On a side note, there WAS one morning a while back that i was shocked to walk into the girls room, and found Leandra sound asleep on top of the changing table, with her pillow and blankets. Nights, I fall asleep from sheer exhaustion, and hope they all stay asleep and don't get into any danger!

Zachary is five now! The most important feature of his birthday was not turning five, but a Bob the Builder cake!  Think some fingers got on before the pic was taken.

Our little chubs.......she probably gets most of the blame for her mother not updating on Xanga anymore. She is doing better, I must give her credit for that. She is the kind of baby that defies everything that her parents thought they knew about training babies.......she has caused more tears of frustration in her short six month life then the other two put together before this! Kandace does have a cheerful smile these days, but I believe that we are going to have one long battle in training her to be quiet and patient. I'm really looking forward to the day when she will be a sweet, grown up young lady, using her voice and energy to serve the Lord! Not sure how we'll get there, but maybe someday.....

Last but not least, I find that facebook is the way a lot of people are going these days. According to the footprints, not many people stop by here, so I don't make it a priority to write something that not many folks see anyways. But we will keep this site open for the time being to stay connected with others who do update on Xanga.