Wait, I know that trick.

Whenever I'm on the phone Brielle will come up and ask if she can have candy. My standard answer is no, or if I can't interrupt right then I just shake my head vigorously. Then she calmly climbs up to the top of the refrigerator to retrieve her Halloween bucket and she'll ask "Mom, can I have one piece or two?"

I will shake my head no.

She will pretend not to understand and repeat the question: "One or two pieces, Mommy?"

If I shake my head again she'll hold up three fingers and ask "Three?"

She'll keep pestering me until I cave and hold up one finger, and then she walks away with a piece of candy, and I'm left with peace and quiet.

This negotiation tactic stems from the method of never asking a toddler an open-ended question. You always give them two choices, both of which being acceptable options.

Brielle does it very well.

Caution

I lifted my water bottle to take a drink when Brielle walked by and casually said "Don't drink that Mommy."

"Why?" I asked.

"Because Hyrum filled it up with toilet water."

Why, why, WHY???!!?!

They dressed themselves.

I can't take any credit for this, the children decided to be fairies and put on costumes all by themselves. It took much pleading on Brielle's part to get Hyrum to let her wear the pink costume for awhile. He was pretty attached to it.

Humble

During the dinner prayer yesterday Brielle said "and we're so thankful for my beautiful voice."

Nice. We've taught her well.

The problem-solver, or the problem...

We have three kids in car seats now. It makes loading up the car a smidge tricky. To make the car seats most accessible, we put Clara's seat in the middle on a captains chair, removed the second captains chair, and placed Brielle and Hyrum's seats on the back row. That way I don't have to move a chair every time I need to buckle them in.

This puts the two trouble makers in the way back of the mini-van, which means I can no longer reach back and grab a leg or arm and say "Stop screaming." "Stop hitting your sister." "Stop spitting on your brother." "Stop kicking the window." "Stop shrieking." "Take that out of your mouth." etc...

However, even though I am no longer able to physically show my disapproval of their actions, Hyrum found a way to show his disapproval of mine. The other day he was mad because I wouldn't take him to the store he wanted to go to, so he took off his shoe and chucked it at my head. Perfect aim. If I didn't know better I'd swear my brother Christian had taught him this move, it's such a trademark Christian thing to do.

This was hardly my first time being hit with a shoe, just the first time in a vehicle. That's why I buy my children Crocs. They're light. I should be their spokesperson.

At least now I know that if I get desperate I can always remove my shoe and toss it back there. =0)

Hyrum's Birthday

We celebrated Hyrum's birthday almost two months ago, one week after Clara was born. Hyrum had been telling me for months that he wanted a train cake, so that's what we made.

And he approved.

Our cousins came down and we had pizza, then went to Jump Planet, an inflatable bounce house place, then back to our house for cake and ice cream. You can see how sweaty the kids are, they did some good quality bouncing!

And the candy train....alternating chocolate and white cakes, cream cheese frosting, oreo wheels, root beer jelly bellies, red licorice, skittles...

...gum drops and twix bars....

chocolate rocks, nerds, peach rings.

Opening presents.

Now everyone is getting into the spirit of things!

Yahoo for presents!

Hyrum's new favorite activity is lining up his millions of cars along his road rug. His grandma gave him the coolest cars: garbage trucks, cement trucks, oil tankers, jeeps, vans, ice cream trucks, snow plows, etc, and every day Hyrum lines them up carefully and admires them.