Fall Back: a primer on how to ensure your kids don't wake up an hour early the next morning

The second night at Westmoreland was the end of daylight savings time, where you set your clocks back an hour and dread the next morning when your kids wake up at their usual time only to find it an hour earlier.  To them its cool because they get an extra hour of Disney Junior while you try to pry your eyes open.  To you, its really not cool at all.  Sometimes there's just not enough coffee.

Given that we were on "vacation" for the weekend, it seemed like an alright idea to keep the kids awake later than usual in hopes of getting them to sleep an hour later the next morning... but actually wake up "on time."  We came prepared with ways to fill up that extra hour.

We made s'mores.  Nothing makes my kids stay awake like a mouthful of chocolate, graham crackers, and especially marshmallows.

After s'mores, the kids built a fort by stringing blankets between two chairs in the living room and piling the inside with pillows. 

Fort play time lasted for a good long while.  When we started noticing kiddos spending a little too much time laying on the fort pillows, we pulled out the big guns... a Halloween gift from Grammy and Papa.

Glow swords!  Don't worry, they're made of foam.  Totally safe.  And okay for kids strung up on sugar and chocolate and the best night of their lives... when their parents threw all the bedtime rules out the window and cheered them on as they made more and more noise as the hours wore on.

I feel like such a bad mom right now.  But you know you've been there too ;-)

We turned out the lights, cracked the glow swords, and oohed and aahed as they started their green glow.  Matthew and Matthew played "baseball game" where they swung the swords around like a baseball bat.  Luke and Katelyn shook the swords as hard as they could and laughed.  There was actually very little sword fighting, thankfully.  Will fell asleep with the lights out... 1 out of 5 ain't bad.

The eyes grew heavy with the lights out, and the fun of baseball games ended as the s'more sugar rush ended.  But the battle of bedtime had been won... by the parents, hoping desperately not to wake up before the sun!  The kids went to sleep easily, we weren't too far behind (we had hiked more than 4 miles that day after all!), and we woke up at the same time as the sun (not before it) so all was right with the world.