Tot Clock, Baby Blues, and Eve's Best Friend

 Reed has a new love and affection. It is called My Tot Clock. I was talking to a friend recently and she had mentioned this specific clock and how much she loves it. After looking at options, I decided to buy it (a used one because it was about $20 cheaper). I mostly got it for Eve. She was starting to wake up early and come into our room. I wanted her to stay in bed, even if she wasn't asleep, but realized that she might need something to be able to tell when she was allowed to get out of bed. Most of the reason she started waking up early (at least we think) is due to our paper-thin walls and small living quarters. Tyson's alarm goes off and the whole apartment can hear it (and it's on vibrate). We'll see what happens when we move and our walls are on opposite sides of the house and the master bedroom also has a bathroom attached to it.

Anyways - I got the tot clock and have loved it! You set the awake and sleep times. The clock saves it and automatically turns yellow when it's time to be awake and blue when it's time for bed. You can have music playing and a story to listen to at bedtime as well. But, you can also turn this option off. You can have music playing for wake up time as well - but again, you can turn this option off. There is a red button for time out (or whatever you choose to call it) and a green button for encouragement. There is also a light blue button for nap time (you set the amount of time for each of those buttons. After the allotted time, it turns yellow again). The kids have really loved the clock! Time outs are better because they can see the clock and see it turn yellow. It is also amazing how fast Reed can get dressed when I turn the clock green (I set it for 5 minutes and he is usually dressed in under 3 minutes - socks and all. Without that clock, it can take him up to 25 minutes to actually get dressed). It has been a great motivator for my kids and Eve stays in bed until the clock turns yellow! So, yes, it was worth the money because it has saved some of my sanity (albeit, most of it is already gone).

Reed loves to take pictures of the new clock. 

All of my children have beautiful blue eyes. Both Tyson and I have blue eyes, so the blue is pretty much inevitable, and I am not-so-secretly hoping that one of my children has the purple-blue eyes that are extremely rare (I call them Elizabeth Taylor eyes). Maybe someday :) Although all of them have blue, each has a different shade of blue. Awesome! I just wanted to show off Aria's baby blues. I get comments about her beautiful blue eyes almost daily. Her eyes just 'pop' she looks at you. So beautiful and deep. Her are her baby blues :)

Doesn't it just make your heart melt?! (February 20th)

Being a happy girl! 

Aria's stare. 

She loves her bebe pod!

Eve is such a happy and friendly little girl. She loves her siblings (although Aria still gets a bit nervous because Eve can be pretty rough) and plays awesome with other kids. As I got thinking about it, I wasn't sure if Eve has any actual friends. I know that she is 2 and that most 2 year-old children don't necessarily have real friends because they still love playing by themselves. But, they are starting to really like interacting with other kids. Well, since Eve has been interacting with Reed since day 1 (pretty much), she plays very well with other kids and we discovered she knows all the kids' names in nursery! 

She was sitting at church one day and looked over at a boy in preschool. She said, "Mommy, there's Grant!" I had no idea she knew who Grant was. She then pointed to 2 different girls names Sadie and told me their names. She's a genius! :) But, her best friend (my guess, anyways) would have to be James. During preschool James' mom and I switch off watching James and Eve. They both get excited to go to the other person's house. They play famously together and have recently started making each other laugh and giggle! So, James gets the best friend status. Thanks James, for being such a fun boy for Eve to play with! She loves it and talks about him often. 

Eve - so happy that James is sitting next to her (February 20th)

James during snack time.