I think I found a cure

I have always been a very light sleeper. We never could have a baby monitor when the boys were newborns, because I naturally would wake right up when they moved and they were all the way down the hall. With a monitor I could never get to sleep. If I am woken up for any reason it takes me hours to get back to sleep. This often results in me getting very little sleep.

We do not have a family bed. My boys start out in their bed, but often during the night they (Isaac and Josiah, John is a good sleeper) come in telling me they had a bad dream or their leg hurts (growing pains). Instead of having them go back to their beds, I just have them jump in our bed. I am the one who usually ends up in their bed hoping to get a few hours of sleep.

For a long time now, I have left like I did when my boys were newborns. I am always exhausted. This results in me being cranky and feeling like I need a nap all day long. I have tried it all, melatonin, Tylenol PM, simply sleep, no napping and no caffeine. Nothing would keep me from staying awake at night once they came in.

About 3 weeks ago I came to a breaking point. It wouldn't be bad if the boys would just stay in the bed with Monte while I find another place to sleep. They (mostly Isaac) don't stay with Daddy, he follows me around to try to sleep with me. One night I think I moved four or five times only to have him find me. I had had enough!

I remembered reading somewhere about putting a sleeping bag on the floor of your room and that is the only place the kids can sleep when they wake up in the middle of the night. I talked it over with Monte (he sleeps like a rock and never hears a thing). We sat the boys down and told them our new plan. No more sleeping in Daddy and Mommy's bed, period. They thought the idea was really cool and were all for it.

It took two nights and the newness of the sleeping bag wore off. They haven't been back in our room since!! It has been over two weeks and today was the first day I actually woke up refreshed. I honestly don't even remember the last time that happened. I am so thankful for a good night sleep!

Welcome to our yard...

I do not have a green thumb. Quite the opposite really. My thumb is black... very very black. So because of that I have never enjoyed gardening or anything having to do with flowers or plants. You can only kill so many things before you start taking it personally. I always end up watering things too much or not enough. The result is always the same though... dead.

The previous owners of our house did not have a problem killing things and did very well with the whole landscaping thing. I really appreciate them for that. They did start a flower bed on the east side of our house that they let go once they knew they were selling it. When we got here, there were a lot of weeds mixed in with flowers and I didn't know which one was which, so I just left it.

This year I realized I need to do something with our weed bed, because it looks awful. Thankfully our neighbor is really good at landscaping, so I asked her to help me with it. She was very happy to help and actually ended doing it all.

I now present you with our new flower bed...

I just LOVE it!! I am sure you are wondering if I have killed anything yet and the answer is NO! Monte has though. He forgot to water it while we were in Maine and a couple of small things kicked the bucket. I am sure it would of been me if I were home.

We also decided to buy a couple of trees this year. Monte absolutely loves trees and since we live in a subdivision we are lacking in that area. Here are our trees...

I think that as long as things don't start dying on me, I may actually start liking gardening!