Our boys... as monsters. Nope, no editorial intent here.

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Consistency, consistency

If as a parent you think you've got it figured out, wait a couple of hours (or minutes as the case may be). This morning I was so pleased because I came up with a fun way to get the boys to listen to conference, and it was actually working! I made a list of words commonly heard in conference (Book of Mormon, Temple, Prayer, Family etc.). Each boy got his own copy and was told to make a tally mark next to the word whenever they heard it. When the tallies totaled 5 they were able to pick out a small piece of candy. If at the end of a talk they had also "taken notes" or drawn a picture, then they could have three additional pieces of candy (think small here, gumdrops, candy corn, etc.). I can't say it was any less distracting, or that I got more out of conference than I usually do when small children are concerned, but at least they were saying things like "I heard temple. Prayer! Obey! Temple!", Look mom I drew a picture". "They said Jesus Christ 45 times!" Instead of "Why do we have to watch this. This is boring. When is this going to be over. Do we have to?", so for me it was a success. And then the afternoon session came along. We gave the boys the option of watching with us, or listening on the radio while they played in the playroom. They of course chose the toy room. and they of course did not spend the entire time running and playing tag throughout the whole house, as the echoing stomping above our heads attested to.Or running up and down the stairs and in and out of the Family room making little brothers cry while we were trying to pay attention. Oh well. I guess it's nice to have room for improvement :) Thank you Elder Bednar for your encouragement "consistency is the key.... consistency is the key...".

Help! my dishes are being held hostage!

Can I just say I miss my old new dishwasher? We finally bought a new dishwasher after needing one for at least a year. And then we moved. Our "new" dishwasher is better than our last old one, but not as good as our old new one. ( how's that for confusing). Anyhow, the door has had sticking issues ever since we moved in, but with enough muscle and grunting noises one can usually get it open. Until last night... Seth went to Round Table as I was finishing up the dishes. I had almost all the dishes in, closed it so that Zach wouldn't throw all of the nicely rinsed dishes on the floor, and scrubbed a couple of things. I went to put them back in and couldn't open it. After about 5 min. of trying I gave up thinking "I'll get Seth to try when he gets home". Well, that was a whole 1 1/2 hours later so of course I forgot about it until I tried to put in breakfast dishes this morning. Still couldn't open it. And then at lunch I went to grab a knife to make sandwiches with and realized all of my silverware is in the dishwasher being held hostage. Along with most of my cups/glasses/bowls/etc. I do have a few forks left, and I lucked out and found some plastic utensils so we'll be able to eat dinner tonight without resorting to our fingers, which will be good since I was planning on making spaghetti. And I hope that once we receive a ransom note and pay whatever it's asking us Seth will be able to open it this evening. If not, I just might use this as a good excuse to not do dishes for awhile ;)