Weirdest really great dream

I am in a hotel in IN and I just had the weirdest best dream ever. My friend Elizabeth will understand it.

My dream started off that I was in the basement of my RS president from church, but you know how dreams shift and suddenly you are some place else different.....well it shifted and group of ladies and I were in a building, a Sam's Club size building and it was more like a Flea market antique shop than a Sam's Club. AMAZING! I normally don't shop at places like this ....but really it was such as inspirational, inspiring for decorating that is. This shop had all of these amazing pieces in it. Most of what I looked at in my dream where armoire/wardrobe looky things. I think I ended up picking out about 5-6 that I just felt like I had to take home with me. One that I really had to have I even had the perfect space picked out in the house for it. BUT I realized that being prego I wouldn't be able to do what I wanted to it and was so hoping that Kris would share in my vision. I even came across the mirror. It was the kind that you would have horizontal and it had a very think detailed frame that was painted a creamy yellow color. It was about 4 feet wide and had Daisey craved in the frame and inside of each Daisey was a small antique key that was painted gold. Then it was set up for a quilt-having the bar at the bottom. I thought that I just had to have it, it would be so perfect my craft room that doesn't exist yet. I could put all of my ribbon spools on the pole that was ment for a quilt. It was slightly thicker than the hole in the ribbon spools but I knew I figure out a way to fix that. Everything had stickers on them. I thought that they were numbers for an auction and started to write each of them down and then someone told me that they were price tags. The most expensive piece that I wanted was on $147. WOW. It was a big wooden thing too. I was imaging Kris' face I came home with 5-6 huge piece of furniture that I had plans for. I think the funniest part was that I imaged what angle I would take a picture of each of pieces and then post them on this blog and have a caption under each picture explaining what I was thinking of doing with it and then saying "Elizabeth what would you do?" There really are many more details to my dream but you get the picture...

Sweet, Sour and in-between

Sweet: I wish I could say it like Kris does just so that you could all hear it....Today was great!!!! Or at least here is my sweet.... I got talk to Tyler for over an hour-which I have never done. He gave me a warm fuzzy too. In all the years that I have known him I don't think that we have ever talked that long. He called just a few minutes before I was going to head out the door for a Missionary BBQ thing....I so didn't care if I was late....as long as it was for Tyler. And for a quick up date he has not gone to Germany for surgery and he is waiting until he gets to back to base after his vacation home with family to have the surgery.

Sour: We had some sad news too, Judy (my mom-in-law) had a mild heart-attack today, but she is doing well. We are headed down to see her in the morning. I got the message from Phil when I got home from the BBQ-like normal it took me almost an hour after getting home to even check the machine....I think that I will make it more of a habit to check it right when I get home. I worry about it, she is just the type of person that says "I'm fine, really I am". I will post more after seeing her.

In-between-I am having weird feelings about being 30 in 12 days (really I am not counting the days-I had to look at the calender). Not that I have ever had a hard time with THE BIG 30, but I remember my mom being 30 and not that I thought that she was old but I don't feel as grown up as I thought that she was at this age, or maybe it is that I still don't want to grow up in an odd way. 30 is like really being an official adult. Does that make sense? The 20's are fun-what are 30's? I guess I will soon find out.

The kids, I have to mention them of course...since has been awhile since the last post....they are doing great. Elaine lost another tooth. The has lost the four bottom ones and none on the top yet but one of those is loose. Drew is still just a happy boy.... and Izzy is is amazing me more and more with how she is growing-growing up both in a physical and mental way. I should elaborate on them more, but I am way tired and a good book is calling my name.....I really have to retire for the night so that I can do more laundry in the morning before leaving for Indiana.

OUCH!!!

We had our first "boy" oops today. Poor Drew. He was standing on the arm of the love seat and Izzy jumped up onto the love seat knocking Drew off of it and he landed on the arm of sofa-right where it counts!!! I rushed over to comfort him...(I was on the phone) and all I could do was laugh! How mean am I? All I could think was "Please don't ask me to kiss it?" Which as happened in our family before. So after he was better Izzy and I were in the kitchen and talking about how Drew was doing, and what we should do to make it feel better. She runs into the living room and says "Drew I am going to give you a hug and kiss it!!!" I had to start laughing again....we always apologize with a hug and an "I'm sorry" in the house and she really thought that the kiss would make up for it hurting so bad. She really couldn't understand why she couldn't give Drew's owie a kiss....to her she was thinking that it would be the best way to show she was sorry....

Butt or no Butt....

In our family you either have no butt or a bubble butt. I never had a butt growing up, Elaine and Drew take after me. Well now that I am adult I have a little junk in the trunk-okay more a than a little when I am pregnant, everything wants to catch up and be as big as the belly. BUT my kids still being young don't have that issue. Once when Elaine was being babysat as a baby she had a messy diaper and it got changed, but later she was teased (in a very fun way) that she had a board with a crack-no cheeks what so ever. Yes her legs run right into her back.
Then came Izzy-who has quit the fleshy bum as we call it. I love it. It is perfect. She is getting a little old for this but she gets her bummed pinched and we call it a fleshy bum. this been ever since she was born....we might have to stop she will get a complex about it. Ever noticed that children are so honest....a couple of weeks ago, after shower time, she got a "fleshy bum" pinch and then I turned around to get something out of a clothes basket and she gave my bum a pinch and said "squishy bum!" Now that is something that you want to here. I guess my bum is catching up to the belly quicker than I thought.
Drew came and sat down on my lap this afternoon and I complained that he had no butt.....he response is "yes I do...." and pulled down his pants to show me that yes indeed he does has a butt-a very flat butt. Nothing like being mooned by your 5 year old son-good thing he only pulled them part way down-just enough to prove that there was something in there......and he has no sence of modesty what so ever.

Pink or Blue, and an unwelcome visitor

Blule, blue, blue. We have had quite the eventful day. The ultrasound was great. We have quite the silly little guy-he doesn't like to have his picture taken. We had a clear view of the boy parts, but he didn't want us to see much else. He kept putting is arms into an X and kept them crossed whereever the tech. was trying to view things. Everything looks normal and I LOVE MY DOCTOR!!! He wont let me go overdue...I am so excited about this....all of my kids are exactly a week late. Doc even said that he would induce me before the 16th if my body was ready, and I am not due until the 18th. Love it, love it, love it!!!!

We had an unwelcome visitors tonight. I have a habit of shutting the garage door every time right after I pull in the van but for some reason tonight it got left open-might be the prego brain. Kris and I had gotten the kids to bed and the girl kept acting up, I was hearing all of these really weird noises from the side of the house that there room is on. We even hollered at them that they needed to go to bed and stop goofing off. Soon one of the neighbor girls and a friend came and knocked on the door and said that we had a raccoon in our garage. So we went to investigate and sure enough we have a baby raccoon in the garage. I guess the mom was hit by a car and now all the babies are running around the neighborhood and the neighbor's cat chased one into our garage. The raccoon ended up under the wheel well and will not come out. We have moved the car out to the driveway. We have tried a bunch of things to get this demonic thing out of the car. Seriously-the raccoon is mean, and I mean really really MEAN!!! Even called Animal Control-no luck we just have to wait it out. When I went to move the car it came after me-I image it was funny site for the neighbors to see pregnant me running across the lawn screaming because a raccoon was charging me. From everything that we gather if the raccoon is big enough to hiss and fight back it knew that we were a threat to it and it would not budge. So the car is in the driveway until we are sure that our unwelcome visit is gone. It reminded me of the squirrel story....for those who haven't read it....I will add it on to the end of this blog. If you are in the mood it is a funny read.

Squirrel Story
We always knew there was something sinister about squirrels...Neighborhood Hazard (or: Why the Cops Won't Patrol Brice Street Anymore) If you need a laugh, here it is.
Author: Daniel Meyer
I never dreamed slowly cruising on my motorcycle through a residential neighborhood could be so incredibly dangerous! Little did I suspect ...I was on Brice Street - a very nice neighborhood with perfect lawns and slow traffic. As I passed an oncoming car, a brown furry missile shot out from under it and tumbled to a stop immediately in front of me. It was a squirrel, and must have been trying to run across the road when it encountered the car. I really was not going very fast, but there was no time to brake or avoid it -- it was that close. I hate to run over animals, and I really hate it on a motorcycle, but a squirrel should pose no danger to me. I barely had time to brace for the impact. Animal lovers, never fear. Squirrels, I discovered, can take care of themselves! Inches before impact, the squirrel flipped to his feet. He was standing on his hind legs and facing my oncoming Valkyrie with steadfast resolve in his little beady eyes. His mouth opened, and at the last possible second, he screamed and leapt! I am pretty sure the scream was squirrel for, "Banzai!" or maybe, "Die you gravy-sucking, heathen scum!" The leap was nothing short of spectacular ... as he shot straight up, flew over my windshield, and impacted me squarely in the chest. Instantly, he set upon me. If I did not know better, I would have sworn he brought 20 of his little buddies along for the attack. Snarling, hissing, and tearing at my clothes, he was a frenzy of activity. As I was dressed only in a light T-shirt, summer riding gloves, and jeans this was a bit of a cause for concern. This furry little tornado was doing some damage!
Picture a large man on a huge black and chrome cruiser, dressed in jeans, a T-shirt, and leather gloves, puttering at maybe 25 mph down a quiet residential street, and in the fight of his life with a squirrel. And losing .. I grabbed for him with my left hand. After a few misses, I finally managed to snag his tail. With all my strength, I flung the evil rodent off to the left of the bike, almost running into the right curb as I recoiled from the throw. That should have done it. The matter should have ended right there. It really should have. The squirrel could have sailed into one of the pristinely kept yards and gone on about his business, and I could have headed home. No one would have been the wiser. But this was no ordinary squirrel. This was not even an ordinary angry squirrel. This was an EVIL MUTANT ATTACK SQUIRREL OF DEATH ! Somehow he caught my gloved finger with one of his little hands and, with the force of the throw, swung around and with a resounding thump and an amazing impact, he landed squarely on my back and resumed his rather antisocial and extremely distracting activities. He also managed to take my left glove with him! The situation was not improved. Not improved at all. His attacks were continuing, and now I could not reach him. I was startled to say the least. The combination of the force of the throw, only having one hand (the throttle hand) on the handlebars, and my jerking back unfortunately put a healthy twist through my right hand and into the throttle. A healthy twist on the throttle of a Valkyrie can only have one result. Torque. This is what the Valkyrie is made for, and she is very, very good at it. The engine roared and the front wheel left the pavement. The squirrel screamed in anger. The Valkyrie screamed in ecstasy. I screamed in ... well ... I just plain screamed.
Now picture a large man on a huge black and chrome cruiser, dressed in jeans, a slightly squirrel-torn-t-shirt, wearing only one leather glove, and roaring at maybe 50 mph and rapidly accelerating down a quiet residential street on one wheel and with a demonic squirrel on his back. The man and the squirrel are both screaming bloody murder. With the sudden acceleration I was forced to put my other hand back on the handlebars and try to get control of the bike. This was leaving the mutant squirrel to his own devices but I really did not want to crash into somebody's tree, house, or parked car. Also, I had not yet figured out how to release the throttle ... my brain was just simply overloaded. I did manage to mash the back brake, but it had little effect against the massive power of the big cruiser. About this time the squirrel decided that I was not paying sufficient attention to this very serious battle (maybe he is an evil mutant NAZI attack squirrel of death), and he came around my neck and got INSIDE my full-face helmet with me. As the faceplate closed part way, he began hissing in my face. I am quite sure my screaming changed intensity. It had little effect on the squirrel, however. The RPMs on The Dragon maxed out (since I was not bothering with shifting at the moment) so her front end started to drop. Now picture a large man on a huge black and chrome cruiser, dressed in jeans, a very raggedly torn T-shirt, wearing only one leather glove, roaring at probably 80 mph, still on one wheel, with a large puffy squirrel's tail sticking out of the mostly closed full-face helmet.
By now the screams are probably getting a little hoarse. Finally I got the upper hand ... I managed to grab his tail again, pulled him out of my helmet and slung him to the left as hard as I could. This time it worked ...sort-of. Spectacularly sort-of . so to speak. Picture a new scene. You are a cop. You and your partner have pulled off on a quiet residential street and parked with your windows down to do some paperwork. Suddenly a large man on a huge black and chrome cruiser, dressed in jeans, a torn T-shirt flapping in the breeze, and wearing only one leather glove, moving at probably 80 mph on one wheel, and screaming bloody murder roars by and with all his strength throws a live squirrel grenade directly into your police car. I heard screams. They weren't mine... I managed to get the big motorcycle under control and dropped the front wheel to the ground. I then used maximum braking and skidded to a stop in a cloud of tire smoke at the stop sign of a busy cross street. I would have returned to fess up (and to get my glove back). I really would have. Really. Except for two things. First, the cops did not seem interested or the slightest bit concerned about me at the moment. When I looked back, the doors on both sides of the patrol car were flung wide open. The cop from the passenger side was on his back, doing a crab walk into somebody's front yard, quickly moving away from the car. The cop who had been in the driver's seat was standing in the street and was aiming a riot shotgun at his own police car. So the cops were not interested in me. They often insist to "let the professionals handle it" anyway. That was one thing. The other? Well, I could clearly see shredded and flying pieces of foam and upholstery from the back seat. But I could also swear I saw the squirrel in the back window, shaking his little fist at me. That is one dangerous squirrel. And now he has a patrol car. A somewhat shredded patrol car ... but it was all his. I took a deep breath, turned on my turn-signal, made a gentle right turn off of Brice Street, and sedately left the neighborhood.
I decided it was best to just buy myself a new pair of gloves. And some Band-Aids.

Tyler to Germany, sick kids, and Enrichment.

I was happy when Drew was able to make it to his last day of school. We could only find 2 right flip flops for Izzy to wear. I have no idea how this happened we are good about keeping the shoes by the front door-sometimes they make it into the closet! It was a funny site. I dropped Izzy off at a sitter and then went to his "End of the Year" Party. It was crazy in a slightly fun way, but at least I know that he really enjoyed it. Afterwards I picked up Izzy and went to make a phone call on my cell only to discover that the battery had died. As soon as I got it plugged in and on there was a voicemail from the school nurse and Elaine had been in the nurses office for over an hour with a high fever-poor thing, 102.7. I canceled lunch plans and then went to pick her up. Not thinking much about her having a fever-as soon as we were pulling out of the parking space she complaining-"Mommy please slow down." Then I knew that it just wasn't a fever-we needed the bucket. She slept a good part of yesterday. When she calls for us I can't hear her. I need to run out and get a new baby monitor just for the sick kids-I thought that I would be able to wait until it was closer to have the new baby to need another one of those. I am really hoping that the fever that Izzy had last week was her spout of whatever this is. AND I can not get sick until Thursday after 8! Ah, wouldn't it be nice if we could actually plan when it was convenient for us to get sick. It always happens to me when Kris is out of town on business.

On to a good thing-Tyler is either on is way or in Germany to have surgery on his thumb. I am very excited about this, Germany is so much safer than Iraq, and a hospital bed is much better than jumping out of airplanes into odd places. I am curious to know where he will be going when he is ready to leave the hospital-does he get to come stateside or back to Iraq to come home with the rest of his group? Either way I know that stateside will be soon and safe.

We also had Enrichment night last night. It was a really good evening. I sliced up my hand pretty good making a fruit tray. I even had a little thought before hand that I was going to cut my hand, but I of course realized that I do know how to handle a knife-too bad that Kiwi had such tuff skin! So Enrichment was about Emergency preparedness, and we got lots of handouts and made these burner things. I haven't ever really known much about this kind of thing but I am sure glad that I am getting things ready. I am looking forward to having our 72 hours kits ready. The things they had for examples were great-lost of stuff that I would have never thought of. Living in Illinois we have tornado warnings occasionally. I really liked how they had things set up Michigan-they gave one siren for your warning to go to take cover and then another for the all clear. Here they just give one. I take the phone and call the fire department to see if its all clear after awhile. The kids of course think hiding in the basement is great fun.

I am board today-so of course I have rambled on and on about things that most of you don't care about, but know that enjoyed my time.

The logic of boys

Do you boys always think like this, or is it just Drew? I mean just think about the turn of events here and realize it is very logical, but Drew tends to be a bit of a different thinker. Saturday all the kids played outside and did a bunch of different things....sometime during the day Drew bumped his head. Later on that evening he ended up with a fever and of course we gave him medicine to bring it down. Fast forward a few more hours he is in bed and has thrown up. You have to understand that Drew has never talked much, just recently has he started to speak well and tell events or stories or even explain things to us. This morning we had an interesting conversation....

Me: "Drew are you feeling better?"
Drew: "Yeah I'm feeling better...." then he think for a couple of seconds and says "I bumped my head (pointing to his head), I got a fever (holding his head), then you gave me medicine and my fever went down my head down my neck and came out of my mouth (rushing his hand down the side of his head down his neck and then out the side of his mouth)!"

I just about laughed out loud! I had to at least snicker....what logic. I know this might sound silly but I was really excited that he was putting the chain of events together-even if it it was wrong at least he putting things together.....which is a start.

What a GREAT Sunday!!!

Heads up this is going to be a very random blog. Today has been great! The weather is finally starting to get warm (80*-ish), the sky is blue and it has those perfect white puffy clouds in it-you know the kind that kids always draw if they draw clouds? The Sunday lessons were good ones. AND Elaine gets to give a talk next week in Primary. Something about how the Temple has been a blessing in her family life. She has even planned to bring in some pics of us when we went to the Temple with her. Even though Drew was sick last night and still today the entire weekend has been pretty good. I am bummed about him being sick I am really hoping that he doesn't have to miss the last two days of school. Kris normally stays up all night on Saturday night to get himself back on the night schedule-so Drew got to stay up with dad, which I loved-I got a full night of sleep. We got some of the basement organized yesterday. When I went grocery shopping Kris and the kids managed to get all the boxes of books placed on the bookcase. From what I understand the kids weren't really that much of a help. Having 10 less boxes in the basement is at least a start. It is starting to feel like we might actually be really moved in here soon. Even though we have been here for 18 months the house still looks the same as is it did when this picture was taken.....no addition to the landscaping...maybe when the house in MI sells. Last weekend we got the cradle and changing table upstairs to our room. I know that it might seem a little soon for that kind of stuff, but I love having everything ready. So my project for next weekend is to go through all the bins downstairs and dig out the appropriate clothes for the new baby.....we find out Thursday what we are having. I am one of those people that has to know. When I was pregnant with Drew the doc wouldn't give me another ultrasound (I had one at 12 weeks) so I flew to CA and had one there with someone who I knew. I just have to know, then I will be able to start talking about names-and that I am excited about too.

So enough of my random thoughts....here is another favorite recipe.....well at least it is one of Kris's. It is one of those guys recipes.

Oatmeal Cookie Bars

350* 25-30 minutes
3 cups Quick-cooking rolled oats

2 eggs
2 1/2 cup flour

4 teaspoons vanilla
1 ½ teaspoon salt (I always skip this)

1-14 oz. Can sweetened condensed milk
1 teaspoon baking soda

1 ½ cups semi-sweet chocolate chips
1 cup plus 2 tablespoons butter
2 cups of brown sugar

½ cup chopped nuts
Beat 1 cup of softened butter for 30 seconds, add sugar and beat until fluffy. Add eggs and 2 teaspoons of vanilla. Stir in dry ingredients gradually. Heat together sweetened condensed milk, chocolate chips, 2 tablespoons butter over low heat, stirring till smooth. Remove from heat. Stir in nuts and the remaining 2 teaspoons of vanilla. Put 2/3 oat mixture in the bottom of 9x13 (or slightly larger) ungreased pan. Spread chocolate mixture over dough. Dot with remaining dough-flatten it with your hands first. Bake in preheated oven.