Happy Easter!

We went out of town for Spring Break week, and our perfect night-sleeping boy was never to be seen again.  We slept in the same room with him for the entire week, and he just couldn't handle this for some reason.  He'd climb out of the pack-n-play, and then try to play with us while we were sleeping in bed.  When we brought him home, we were hoping he'd go back to his normal ways, but climbing out of his crib was no big deal either.  So after a couple of weeks of inconsistent, failing strategies -- we chose one weekend to implement a strict routine.

Once he lays down and gets 5-10 minutes of bedtime reading, he's not allowed out of his bed.  If he walks out, we walk him back in without talking to him.  After a few times, we tell him that if he gets out of bed again, we'll have to close the door.  I've had to do this a few times for one minute, and then once I open it again he lays down for good.  The first night, he woke up and came out of his room 6 times.  Last night was the first time he stayed in his room until 6am without getting up once during the night, which was quite a treat for us.  So hopefully that's the new pattern.  It's a bit heartbreaking though when he walks into our room at 3am all sleepy-eyed and wanting to get into bed with us and I have to walk him back to his room... especially when he dragged his comforter and pillow pet with him into our room!!  I think he knows how to emotionally affect us, but he also knows when we're not going to give in.

We had a great Easter day with Grampa and GiGi.

And here's a carrot cake being made for Easter.

We also have a few additional pictures to share from the past month.

Pretending to sleep with Abuelito.

Picnic on St. Patrick's Day.

I walked into the kitchen one day and couldn't believe what Michael had done.  How he got these 14 books to stack like this is a bit beyond me.

And yesterday I plopped him up on the sofa and he watched me shoot pool for a good ten minutes.  Who knew he could stay still!