night, night

We have a routine that we try to do with John Mark each night.
It's so sweet and he is always so precious.
I decided it would be fun to walk you through our "night-night" routine.

We start with a bath. Now, I have to make a confession- I am not a fan of giving John Mark a bath. I don't know what it is, but I am much happier when Micah gives him the bath, which is usually.

After bath time comes lotion (he always says "put the lotion on skin, mommy"... yes, my 2 year old quotes joe dirt. Thank you Micah & Chris Wehunt), diaper and jammies. He is pretty particular about his jammie choice. His favorites are Cars (obviously) and his new "monkey pay 'tar" (sock monkey playing the guitar). If those are dirty, "most-0-cycle" jammies are the next obvious choice.

At this point, the whining (I mean, sweet, perfect asking) for "MIIIIILK", "nigh-nigh" (his blanket), "eeyo" (eeyore) and "nemo." Those things get gathered in his arms (Nemo is HUGE) and then he chooses one of us to "hold you."

We go into his bedroom and sit in the rocking chair. Someone gave us a sweet, sweet picture bible with stories and cool pictures, so we read a couple of stories from there. He always asks Micah to pray ("daddy, paaay to Jesus") and then we turn out the light and lay down on his bed. This is usually preceded by the announcement "mommy snuggle non nart big boy bed."

(I am totally getting teary thinking about this... it's so sweet!)

Now for my favorite part- singing songs. He always picks songs for us to sing and he sings along with us with all his heart. His favorites are "Jefuh love me" (Jesus loves me), "tikle, tikle" (twinkle, twinkle little star) and "spiduh" (the itsy-bitsy spider). After we sing a few of those songs he starts to sing "How Great is Our God." And oh my gosh, nothing gets to me more than hearing him sing "how geat our God... sing me how geat..." I have been singing that song to him at night since he was a baby. I love it.

Usually at this point he is getting sleepy. We say goodnight, give kisses and hugs and tip-toe out. Some nights he goes right to sleep, other nights he talks for a while. Either way, bedtime is quite possibly one of my favorite parts of each day.