Dear Bria,

You are absolutely the cutest right now. I let you and Crew ride your bikes inside today. You cracked me up with you held up a helmet and asked for help with the "seatbelt." You wanted me to undo the helmet strap. After spending a minute trying to figure out how to word that, I don't blame you for your wording!

You are finally FINALLY potty trained! I already told you about how we started. By the end of November, you went pee on the potty fine but would not poop on the potty. I bribed you like crazy but you were scared. I knew you had to poop because you would request a diaper. I made you wait one day and you waited all day until night came! I was scared of poo poo accidents. (Dallin went through a string of them when we traveled to Utah.) Therefore, I caved with the diaper requests.

When we were in Virginia, your Aunt Christina challenged me to not give in to the diaper. I was scared of regression but I knew I should at least give it a shot! It took you over a day and lots and lots and LOTS of unsuccessful potty tries. However, after all that, you did it! Each subsequent time has gotten slightly less dramatic. Today was the best time so far. You still want me to come with you but there was very little theatrics! Fingers crossed it sticks.

Now all we would have left to do is night time potty train you. That can wait for January! I'm just thrilled to only have one kid in diapers! You seem so grown up in you "undies." I can't believe you're going to preschool soon.

Have I told you about Crew's bunny? I've been putting Crew to be awake more often now. For forever he would breastfeed to sleep. I felt bad leaving him on his lonesome and found a stuffed animal bunny in a toy bin. Even thought the bunny was discarded and unwanted, the minute Crew had it, you wanted it! There were several day of meltdowns on your part.

You are a very good kid but you are three. The worst public meltdowns are over shoes. Your poor mom NEEDS a new pair of shoes. That is the one thing I really hate buying online. Every time, I try to find some in store, you end up throwing a colossal fit. You'll see a pair of shoes you want and royally meltdown when I won't buy them for you! You scream so loud that we get lots of stares. One Walmart employee looked at me pityingly as she let me exit without checking my receipt. I give up for now on shoe shopping when you come along shopping with me (which is almost always-sigh).

Okay, I feel like I have already written this to you but I'm going to record just in case. Ages ago (I'm thinking in the summer), you discovered that your hair had grown long enough that it bounced. This amused both you and me. Now I'll tell you to "bounce your curls" and you'll comply.

I LOVE your curly hair. I hope you always have it and that you'll love it too. Everyone always asks me where you get it from. It's a little frustrating to me because I have very wavy hair. BUT I've straightened a lot of the curl out of my hair. My hair will still curl but I've only owned a straightener for years. I'm getting a curling wand for Christmas and I'm excited for myself but also for you. It must be mentioned that your dad has wavy hair too. I'm actually more shocked by your siblings stick straight hair than by your curls!

Love you girl,
~Mom

Tuesday, December 10, 2019 10:31pm

Dear Bria-

As a family, we love to hear you say, "Kung Fu Panda" because it sounds like "Poo Poo Panda" whenever you say it. I let you watch a short YouTube clip whenever I brush your teeth. This started out as a way to distract you.

Brushing teeth was not your favorite. Now it's a routine. The past week or so you tell me that you want to watch "Poo Poo Panda. But not the first one." It's going on at least day seven of you reminding me that you don't want to watch the first one. I asked you today what was so wrong with the first one and you said, "I don't like the first one." More likely, that's the only one you've watched the whole way through!

We're slowly getting out of your wearing-a-million dresses stage. I think me locking you out of Crew's room (where said dresses are) helped. Granted, you still get into the dryer or wherever else clean, unfolded laundry is located.

This new stage is slightly better but far from my favorite. You run around naked. Yep. Naked or in you underwear. Please don't get mad at the obscene number of photos of you in your undies. You have only yourself to blame. Now you only wear three or four dresses a day and this is a massive improvement!

Your dad is out of town but you have been seeing him everywhere! You manage to spot white Toyota Carollas all the time when we're driving. You'll exclaim, "I see Dad!" I indulge you and don't try to talk you out of your belief that Dad is driving around town.

It's funny because I consider myself a very honest parent. I answer tough questions about sex and life to the best of my ability with honesty. Heck, we don't even do Santa! But I'm not perfect. As mentioned above, I tend to indulge childhood beliefs. A couple nights ago was a bad moment for me. I directly lied to you.

Here's the background. I had to put four young children to bed by myself. I was emotionally exhausted as well as sleep deprived. You were my second-to-last kid to put to bed. We had read the stories. I had already said goodnight once before I realized I hadn't brushed your teeth. I went and brushed your teeth. In the middle of saying goodnight a second time, you realized that you didn't have your stuffed animals.

I went downstairs and found your Anna "Barbie" (really it's just a stuffed animal but you love Barbies and you know I'm not going to correct you on something like that) and your stuffed dog, Biscuit. I could not find your baby doll you named "Baby Boy." I gave you your stuffed animals, hoping you wouldn't notice the missing doll. Not a chance.

"Where's Baby Boy?" you asked way too quickly.

This is the lie part. I had already looked downstairs. I didn't want a three year-old meltdown or for me to look more for him. Instead, I told you, "Dad took Baby Boy with him to the hotel! Baby boy is sleeping with Dad."

"Is Daddy giving him a bath?" you inquired.

"Yes! Daddy is taking good care of him. He's feeding him and and bathing him." We talked back and forth a little. You wanted to know where Daddy was and I tried to explain the concept of a hotel to you.

I told Dad about my fib and he stressed that we wouldn't find Baby Boy and that he would get blamed for losing him. I wasn't worried about that at all, sure that Baby Boy would show up. Bria, it's been three days and I still haven't seen Baby Boy! Dad comes home tomorrow and we'll see if you remember that he's supposed to have him.

I love you, Princess,
~Mom

Dear Bria-

You are growing too quickly and you are SO cute! You say the sweetest things. You talk a lot but your talking is still hard to understand. It's adorable to hear what's going on in that little head.

We spotted some deer last night (might have almost hit them-eek) and you were very excited to see the "reindeer." We saw some this morning in our backyard and you had to call your Nana and tell her about the "reindeer."

We checked out a book from the library called, "Anne's Feelings." The book is rather simple. Every page describes how Anne is feeling with pictures from the book, Anne of Green Gables. For example, one page says, "Anne is surprised." The picture shows Anne looking in a mirror at her green hair.

You woke up in the middle of the night sobbing last week. When Dad asked you what was wrong, you proclaimed, "I'm in the depths of despair!" The next morning you kept telling me about how you were in, "the depths of despair for a minute."

Your curly hair is getting so long. I love it when you talk about your "curly hair don't care." For well over a year I've referred to your hair as, "Curly hair don't care." I'll have you repeat it because it's the cutest thing ever when you say it. I'll ask you, "Bria, do your curls care?" You'll exclaim, "No!" And I'll chime in, "They don't! Your curly hair doesn't care." I'm a little bit of a weird mom. Ha, ha. It's all paid off because I love hearing you say, "Curly hair don't care."

Your hair has grown longer, mostly in the back. Sorry girl, your sporting a mullet. You realized the other day that your curls bounce. You've taken to shaking your head to make them bounce and it is about the most adorable thing I've ever seen.

Over the past week, I've started potty training you. I've despaired a little bit that you would ever be potty trained. To be honest, I'm still sweating about it a little. You had NO interest in going to the potty. I even bought you a special potty and new underwear.

You are clothes obsessed and I knew if anything would tempt you, it would be underwear. But, nope. You had no desire. Now I must say that I waited until you were three years two months old to push it. I was determined to wait until you were ready. My patience ended in September! Partly because you started (again) wanting to change your diaper all of the time. I went through a huge box of diapers in ten days. We can't afford that, child!

I'm ashamed to admit I threw a mommy fit or two after doing everything I knew and having you still refuse to even sit on the potty. Then I realized that my getting angry wasn't going to do anything. So I started talking up underwear and peeing on the potty. Oh, the conversations I've had with you!

Everyday I would talk about how much fun it is to pee on the potty. I talked about the "pleasant noise," the good feeling, and the rewards. Of course the rewards.

"Bria, you don't have to wear a yucky diaper when you go pee on the potty. You get to wear cute underwear. Do you want an M&M? Did you know that you get M&Ms for going on the potty? Oh, and you can earn stickers for your sticker chart to earn your Barbie! Going pee on the potty is so much fun..."

After a couple weeks of that, you wanted to wear underwear! However, you still wanted to pee in a diaper! The next day you went on the potty, though. It's been an up and downhill thing. Some days you do great, other days you're asking for your diaper. You're scared to go poo on the potty. That's definitely been a struggle. A lot of times when you ask for a diaper, you need to poo. You get a whole packet of fruit snacks for going poo on the potty.

I thought we had you trained on Saturday. You had gone two days wearing underwear all day and staying dry. You even pooped on the potty. However, you had an accident at Nana's last night and requested a diaper today. I don't fight you on the diaper. I really do believe you have to want to go on the potty. After wearing a diaper for a few hours, you were back to underwear.

You aren't prone to accidents. Your accident at Nana's may have been your first. I don't know why I have such willful daughters when it comes to toilet training. Fingers crossed that by 3 years six months you're trained!

Oh, and one funny story. One day when you were requesting a diaper, I told you that princesses wear underwear. Would you believe that kept you in underwear?! Ha, ha. You are such a girly girl it's crazy.

I'm sure I've told you about your church dresses. You wear dresses all of the time. You change clothes 1,000 times a day much to my grief! My house has clothes strewn all over and it often aggravates me. I know I'll look back on this phase as so cute and remember how quickly it went by. For now, it's a pain in my butt and never-ending and I'll admit it, cute.

I love you girly,
~Mom

Dear Bria-

You are so ready to go to school! Dallin and Akarie had their first days of school and you wanted to stay with them at the school. Daddy gave you a book bag. You wanted a lunch as well and so he put a banana in your book bag. When we got to school, Akarie's teacher told her to put her book bag on her desk. You followed suit and put your book bag on a desk. You even told me, "Bye!" Sorry, girl. Thankfully, you handled having to go home with me all right.

Dallin told me that you had to learn how to talk before going to Kindergarten. Your talking has improved by leaps and bounds. However, your sentence structure and vocabulary could use some work!

Today was a fun day. You are obsessed with the Barbie Fashion Fairy Tale movie. Every time it ends, I'll dance with you to the credit. You are a great dance, Bria. I want to put you in a dance class so bad! Anyway, one of the moves I'll do with you is to raise my leg and let you run over it. Our timing was off today and I ended up hitting you in the face with my foot. My foot hurt and so I can only imagine how your head felt.

I love you, girl,



~Mom

Dear Bria-

You are going through a phase where you want to help me with everything. "Can I help you?" You say that to me repeatedly. Here's the killer thing. I don't mind your help. I even love it sometimes. However, Crew. Yes, that should be a sentence. Crew is such a nuisance and if I pull a chair up for you, he'll join and cause all sorts of havoc. I say no to you more times than I want to due to your brother.

Okay, I'm looking over my stickies of things I wanted to write you about. I'm glad I wrote some down because I totally forgot about this. A few months ago, whenever you said "Jesus" it would sound like "Cheese-its." You know your mom can't let that one go. Every Sunday or whenever you said "Jesus" I would deliberately misunderstand you and replace with the word "Cheese-its."

Exhibit A:

Me: Bria, what did you learn about in church today?

Bria: Jesus! (Sounds like Cheese-its.)

Me: I love Cheese-its! They're so yummy. Did you talk about how yummy they are?

Bria: Ah-huh.

Sometimes you'll try to correct me. More often than not, you'll just go with it. Your mispronunciations crack me up. I love it.

You are all-girl. Not only do you love your church dresses but you love jewelry and to have your nails done. I try to keep up on your nail polish but it comes off of you super fast. Randomly throughout the day, you'll exclaim, "Oh no! My nail polish!" You'll then want me to fix it right away.

A repeated phrase by Bria is any phrase that has "right" in it. My favorite and oft-heard right phrase is, "Right Mommy? Right mommy?" You love to repeat your self until I answer. I'll answer back, "Right!" I even started parroting back, "Right Bria?"

You're a little adult sometimes. One of my favorites is when you were leaving with someone and everyone else was staying behind. You exclaimed, "Bye, Kids!"

Every morning when you wake up, you'll shout at as, "In! In!" We totally lock you in your room and you have to wait until we let you out. It's pretty dang cute to hear you shouting at us and funny that, "in" is what you say.

I love you sweet Bree,

~Mom

Dear Bria-

Did I ever tell you about the phase you went through of locking doors? You locked me out all of the time! The worst was when you would lock me out of the house. Many times when I took Crew's diaper out, you would lock the door. One time in particular, the only way I could get you to open it was to bribe you with food.

We didn't have keys for our doors and had to unlock them with a screw driver that was too big for them. It took me over a month to get keys and I went about mad with aggravation. You locked the door of every room you went into.

Another cute thing you do is that when you hear thunder, you think a lion is roaring. I think this is thanks to the movie, The Lion King. It's pretty hilarious. I'll hear thunder and then little you exclaiming, "I hear the lion!"

You are obsessed with "church dresses" and wear them all of the time. Far from minding, I've embraced this phase of yours. You have a million dresses.

Maybe you're compensating for your lack of hair. Your curly hair is still woefully short. You remind of Annie from the movie, Annie.

You like all girly things. You love your dolls, affectionately named "Baby Boy" and "Baby Doll." Your favorite movies are the Barbie movies. You're currently on a Barbie Thumbelina movie kick. You love Disney movies, especially Beauty and the Beast.

You are a spunky girl and your talking has exploded! I can't believe how much more you are talking. You're talking is so much clear now as well. I noticed this morning that you were actually saying "breakfast" instead of "breapast."

I love you sweet Bree,
~Mom

Dear Bria-

Thanks to me working, you've watched more TV than I care for. You love your "mobies" though. A recent favorite is "Barbies Under the Water" AKA "Mermaid Barbies." Your current favorite is "Christmas Barbies." Before that, you were obsessed with "Beauty and the Beast" and before that, "Frozen." I love that you're so girly.

I love you,
~Mom
Wednesday, May 22, 2019

Dear Bria-

Two year old Bria is my favorite! You are so mischievous and adorable. I don't know what to do with you. I have so much to say. I'm sorry that I've been the world's worst letter-writer. I don't want to forget anything but I am so busy!

I love how you say "movie." I've let you watch way too much TV. Half of the time it's for my sanity and the other half of the time it's for work. Anyway, you're always asking to watch a "moobie." It's the cutest.

We just came home from Virginia. I taught your cousin Lily how sometimes I tell you, "Curly hair don't care." She taught you to say it. You mumble the first two words together and then clearly say, "Don't care."

You love "church dresses." You wear them all of the time. You are constantly changing into and out of them. It drives me slightly crazy. I bought you a whole bunch of play dresses but they were not long enough or fancy enough for you. You want the real deal.

If we're reading a book, you'll point out "church dresses." If we're in the store, you'll shout, "church dress!" if you see one.

I love you sweet girl,
~Mom