Bedtime is one of Cliff and I's favorite time of day. When we tell people this, they usually guess it is because we finally get some time to ourselves, but really it is because we have our little special routine and family time. The kids go down around 8 and we start our bedtime routine around 7:20. Ryla and Aidan each get to choose two books. Then we head to Aidan's room. We had the bunkbeds designed for story time but we always end up on the floor. We start by reading our books. Ryla gets pretty bored with Aidan's choices so she will wonder around the room during his story time (as you can see from the pics below). Then she will crawl in one of our laps, whoever is reading, for her book time. Aidan enjoys her books as well. Noah is usually with us but has recently been taking up a 7 o'clock bedtime. After the books we have singing time. We sing one to two a night. Again the kids get to choose but it almost always roll the gospel (ryla's) and whatever song Aidan has learned at preschool that week. We then have prayer time. We ask the kids what they want to pray for. Ryla will say "esus" and Aidan will list off everyone in our family and usually something regarding his day. For example, the other night he asked for God to watch over his toilet. :) We take turns on who prays and then the kids head to their beds. If Noah is still up he will go with one of us to put one of the older kids down. I want to note that right now we put Ryla in her bed and then rock in her glider for about 2 minutes until she falls asleep. This is important for us to remember as she was an even worse sleeper than Noah and now she goes down and sleeps beautifully. Whoever has Aidan will climb up in bed with him and "cuddle" with him for about 5 minutes. The whole thing takes about 45 minutes and we cherish it every evening!!
