Gabriel's First Day of School

Breakfast with Daddy!

Handsome little dude.

Not a shy bone today for pictures... lots of smiles.

Daddy and Gabriel while watching the trash truck... can't miss it!

In the car... we're almost there. The excitement is boiling over... you can see it on his face.

As his teacher, Ms. Julie, bent down for the picture, Gabriel thought

it appropriate to bend down to. I couldn't get him to stand up straight.

He wanted to lean down like his teacher! Crazy boy.

Anthony throwing a party in the parking lot after we dropped Gabriel off...

"MOMMY IS ALL MINE." (for three short hours) Haha.

After much debate, mostly because I wanted to keep Gabriel all to myself, we decided to send him to one half day of preschool. So happy to have made this decision... he ran into the classroom, yelled, "Bye Mommy," and never looked back. My little social butterfly had the best day ever. He returned home to skip his nap because the excitement was unbearable! My baby boy is growing up. Love it. I think he may start running the classroom soon... they said he is the first 2 year old they have encountered with a vocabulary of a 6 year old... we were pretty proud! And this year Anthony didn't care at all that Gabriel was leaving, but like Jeanne (my sister-in-law) reminded me, next year he will be. Until then, Anthony is throwing a party since he gets me all to himself!

I have fallen in love... with power naps.

I have discovered a new love... power naps. After severe exhaustion day in and day out from refusing to take even a moments time to rest when the kids would go down for a nap. I would get right to it... cleaning up, dusting, organizing, couponing, searching the ads, making a grocery list, mopping, bathrooms, preparing dinner, making beds, laundry, and the list goes on. It would come time for naps to be over and I would want to crawl into a little hole and sleep for weeks... I couldn't find it in me to finish out my day without being grumpy, short, and totally fried. SO... I did some research...

Studies show that if you can stay within the first two sleep cycles and you do not enter into a deep sleep, in cycle 3, then you can maximize "the benefits of sleep versus time" (Wikipedia). If you do enter into cycle 3 and fail to complete it, you will wake up feeling awful, groggy and pretty out of sorts. So, you wanna shoot for a 15-30 minute nap. Since it takes about 30 seconds for me, but around 3-5 minutes for most people to fall asleep, just set an alarm for 30 minutes after you lay down. The results... AMAZING!! Your body does not reap the benefits of a full nights sleep, but it feels very close to it. It has been found to be as good as a full nights sleep for your memory and helps so much with many other cognitive functions.

My life has changed. I am more energized and able to finish out my day with some "umph" as they say... as long as the boys overlap their naps for at least 15 minutes, I am golden.

Try it. You'll like it. Thank you, Jesus and my husband, for encouraging me to just let it all be a mess for 15 minutes and lay down and SLEEP!