Big Girl Beds!

At the end of July, we moved the girls into their big girl beds - we didn't post on it yet because Christina has been working away trying to finish quilts before the "reveal" on here.  Last night, the last stitch on the last quilt was done, so this morning the girls finally had their beds finished!

There are about a million and two steps to making a quilt, Christina has found.  The girls helped pick out their fabrics as we visited every fabric store in town.  They helped hand stitch on the binding.  And here is Clara's:

And here is Elena's:

And after a million and two steps, the million and third thing you see is THIS, and it all seems worth it.

Clara is a girl after Christina's own heart - this pattern was picked because Christina thought it would be fun to compare all the similarities and differences of the blocks that make up the quilt.  Clara almost can't get UNDER her quilt, because she is busy matching "this one and this one - the same!  This side and this side - the same!"

Steve picked these beds out for the girls.  He found a man in Oregon who does custom metalwork, and we worked with him to make these "river reed" beds that should last the girls until they leave our home (thank goodness that day still seems very far away!).  We'll raise them and add thicker mattresses as they age, but for right now they are the perfect height for them to climb in and out on their own.

As for the actual sleep?  It's not nearly as bad as we feared to have the girls out of the confines of a crib.  We have the occasional setback, but by and large the girls go to bed at around 7:30, with us reading books in bed with them, and then they stay in bed until 7:00, when they come upstairs to say "Good morning Mommy!  Good morning Daddy!"  It's so very sweet.

We are aided in our sleep efforts by the guidance of Marc Weisbluth (sleep guru of many books!) and his sleep rules, and the good old bunny clock (at night the bottom part is illuminated as a night light; at 7am the upper part is illuminated with a slightly brighter light so the girls know they can wake up and come get us).

 

And we will leave you with video of the first time the girls saw their beds - and you will immediately realize why we chose sturdy, steel beds!