5:55 challenge {update} + birthday excitement

the view at my first 6 a.m. ocean sunrise (Hawaii, 2009}

It's been a week since I challenged myself to get up before 5:55.  I'm happy to say, with the exception of one alarm accident on Monday, I met the challenge every day!

There were at least two nights of the week that I went to bed at 12:45 and 1:30 a.m.- those late nights made it much more difficult to get up after getting 5 or less hours of sleep. And I had a terrible cold for two days. {The day my husband accidentally set the alarm to 6:30 was at the worst part of my cold and the night with only 5 hours of sleep. I think God knew I needed more rest! ha!}

I was glad I did it though- it has been so good to get up early and meet with Jesus. And I even had enough time to write and work on the house before the kids got up. :D

I just love it.

So what's the negative side of getting up early?

You are so tired at night.

By 10 p.m. I felt a little bit like a zombie. Maybe the cold and the lack of sleep made it worse, but I felt really, really done by 10:30 p.m. At that point, I needed sleep. :)

One night after dinner, my husband needed to go to the hardware store at 8:45. I went with him {and all the kids}, and I very nearly died when my sweet {talkative} man started chatting with the lumber guy at 9:15. I wanted to crawl onto the insulation and go to sleep. Instead, I was wrangling four wired {tired} little boys and girls who wanted to practice home-run sliding across the smooth concrete floors of Home Depot. ;)

That was rough. My husband is such a late night warrior, and I've become Cinderella ;) that has to be in bed by 11. I'm not sure that he is fond of that part of the rising early business.

Most nights I slept for 7 hours or so, so I didn't feel too tired to function. I'm not sure if I will adjust to getting less sleep or get more tired as the weeks go on. :D

I was very motivated by having a goal of a week to complete, and by having you guys as my accountability partners, so one week was very doable! {Thank you for your encouragement!}

But really, I love getting up early even more now. It's kind of like exercise. Once you get up, you never regret it. You only regret not getting up early. :)

This weekend though, all bets are off as far as sleeping in goes! My birthday week starts tomorrow {though the actual day is next Wednesday}, and I'm seriously excited. It's going to be fun. {We go big, don't we? :) }

I love birthdays! And we really enjoy them around here.

I had fun being in on my bestie's surprise party last weekend:

And we have lots of them happening this month in our family too!

Luckily, no matter what the cake looks like, our birthdays always include lots of good food. Like my 25th birthday:

my 25th birthday dinner 2007- Isabella was just 6 weeks old!

My 26th birthday dinner. :D I found out I was pregnant with Avalie the next month!

Last year, my husband took me out to the nicest restaurant I've ever been to {ironically, right after we went Goodwill shopping! ha!}:

Oh, and then there's the one birthday I'll never forget:

I can't help it. I love all things birthday related.

And while I always love getting some Starbuck's time on my actual birthday, here's why I'm the most excited about turning 30 next Wednesday. :D


q: do birthdays come in groups at your house too? We have five family birthdays in October alone!