Dream 12/16/13

Ok, here goes. First dream was at home in NM. I woke up and it was snowing. Out on the front lawn were strewn a bunch of skis, poles, and bicycles. I guess what had happened was Alex and Daddy had been planning on going skiing, but at the last minute they couldn't go because of weather or something and Alex freaked out and chucked everything out on the lawn in the snow and had run off to sulk. Then Mari Padilla and Samantha Pompeo came by to look at the bikes. There were mountain bikes and road bikes of all sizes and kids bikes and bmx bikes--all sorts of bikes. They were test-riding all of them one by one to see what kind they liked best...in the snow.
In the second dream Joshua and I went to a huge ranch up in the mountains south of here (which I think I've dreamed about before - it's a fictional place though). It turns out the owner is a distant cousin of Daddy's and I told him that we were related. He was having a huge rodeo and a bunch of people got to dress up in old-western clothing for it to ride his horses around. Since I was related he let me dress up, too but the only clothes he had left were frumpy, bulky, nasty clothes. He declared that I got to be "the devil's bride" for the rodeo and threw a white afghan over my head. I didn't want to be that, but whatever. I guess Joshua got to dress up as the groom and that would be funny. I went to go find Joshua and he was playing with some other boys with some toy cannons that shot little baseball sized cannon balls. And that's it.

Dream 12/15/13

I can't believe it's already been 4 days since I posted a dream. I have had dreams, but they weren't terribly noteworthy. Last night I had 2 dreams again. The first one was about visiting Chelsea and Kevin in some foreign land and we went on a long walk. When we got back to their house, turns out their 2 girls had just been alone at home the whole time with the front door ajar. I was shocked, but they said they did it all the time, usually when they were napping and it was no big deal because they never left or got into any trouble or anything. Then a friend of mine stopped by to pick up something I had borrowed from her (a pen?).
The second dream I'll definitely categorize as a nightmare. It wasn't scary, or rather I wasn't scared or bothered by it in the least until the very end and it disturbed me to the point of waking. I dreamed my friend Molly and I were walking around in a city (where we lived) and we found this coin that was bigger than a nickel but smaller than a quarter and on it it said "9 cents" and it was a token to get into a secret club. Then we found a paper that had the instructions on how to get there. It was in a subway station and the paper was actually an old subway ticket. So Molly and I went to go try and find it. Molly was a klepto pick-pocket and she kept taking things from me like the coin, the paper, and a picture of Joshua. Turns out I realized that Joshua was missing and whoever had given us the coin and the paper/map had found Joshua and taken him there. We found the subway station and we had to wait until a certain train had left and the other two had arrived. Molly wanted to get on the one train because it went right to her house, but I told her we had to go find Joshua. Then we ran into the tunnel of the one that was gone and there was a little escalator that went up to the second level and there was a big empty room and then in a back, dark room there were a bunch of people playing games and eating junk food and they were all just chowing down and gambling and all sorts of ruckus. I went to go find someone that looked like they were in charge and Molly went to go look around for a game to play/something to eat. I found a huge fat guy and showed him my picture of Joshua and asked if he had seen him. He said he hadn't and I turned around and Joshua was literally right in front of him at a little table of little kids his age and they were all slumped against each other and glazed eyes and not moving. I ran over and went to pick him up and HE SAID, "Joshua! I found you!" Right before I did and he didn't really respond when I picked him up. That woke me up. It was creepy. Like he had been brain washed or something. A strange part of the dream was I felt no urgency or fear for finding Joshua until that very last moment when he was all slumpy and glazed over.

Dream 12/10/13

Again I had 2 dreams last night. I'm wondering if I have one dream per REM cycle or if I have both dreams twice or 3 times.
The first dream was pretty vague and not too interesting. Something about picking up my grandma from Colorado with enough time to get back to New Mexico for church. Something about a train, too. That's about it.
The second dream wasn't as much of an adventure dream as I've been having recently. It was actually a business idea. The idea was to start a towel company. You know how hotels all have the plain white towels and sheets? They come around every day and take the used ones and replace with clean ones. Well, what if that was offered in apartment complexes around here, only weekly. (I'm just realizing now that where Chelsea lived in DC it was done that way.) It would be one more thing college students wouldn't have to worry about and it would be included in their rent. Well I dreamed I bought the big, nice, white, fluffy towels from Costco and the agreement was $20/apartment per month. The towels would be counted, inspected, and washed each week. If a towel was missing or damaged, the apartment would have to pay $6 for it. Then I started thinking about how we'd have to make sure and have washing products that would kill bed bugs and lice so that those wouldn't get spread rampantly around the complexes. Of course now that I'm awake, I realize that no one would want to pay $20/month when they can just buy and launder their own towels for much cheaper. In my dream though, I had started it with this apartment of girls and they kept putting camisoles and blouses in with their towels in the laundry bags that would be collected. I kept thinking, "How do you not understand that this is just for towels? Where are your towels? They need to be washed weekly or they'll get so gross."
Maybe if I own an apartment complex some day I'll make it partially furnished with couches, beds, towels, and sheets, and I'll offer the weekly laundering service. I'd have to get some of those giant washing machines and dryers. They'd cost more per month, but it'd be nice. I wouldn't mind having someone wash my towels and sheets for me weekly. That's 2 or 3 loads I wouldn't have to do myself. If they were the nice fluffy towels from Costco, too that'd be an added bonus. Next time I buy towels (I've never bought towels...we are just using those we got for our wedding and those Dave had previously and those I had that were hand-me-downs from Chelsea. They all have bleach stains from acne medicine on them.) I will get the big white fluffy ones from Costco. They will all be white so they won't get bleach stains on them and I'll be able to throw them in with my other whites with hot water to save time, energy, and water. Oh, and since they'd all be white they'd all match and they'd all go with everything (except if I decide to decorate in off-white or something--I don't see me doing that).

Dream 12/9/13

Last night I dreamed I had grown my hair out long again really quickly. I still had bangs though. They kinda swooped to one side like they never actually do. I was in high school again with one of my friends here, Mindy who I visit teach, and we were getting ready for the second day of school. I couldn't remember what time school started or if we were going to seminary or not, but I wasn't too stressed about it. We decided to not go to seminary and to be there by 7:30. I was curling my hair on the way with a curling iron AND a blow dryer at the same time. When we got there I had burned Mindy a couple times with the curling iron and had been apologizing profusely but she was still a bit mad. Then I realized I had to get my books out of my locker, because I had put them there the day before, but I could not remember where my locker was nor the combo for it. I had to go stand in a line for the office because it was the first week of school so a lot of people were having issues with stuff. It switched dreams before I got my locker combo and location. I've had similar dreams so many times about lockers and forgotten combos.
The second dream was kinda like this show Dave and I are watching together called Leverage. It has a group of thieves that help people that have been conned or hurt by people with money and/or power and the "system" doesn't help them in any way. It's a good show. It's on Netflix if anyone wants to check it out. Right, so my dream was about this guy Florian that I know in Vienna. He was with his birth parents and these baddies came and told the mom that she had to pay up or they'd come kill Florian and the dad. Dave and I were there and we were the "Leverage" people who were going to help them out of this situation.  We went through files that they had which included files on people that had been foster parents for Florian. It was people like Taylor and Jamie Cardon, and there was another family that I knew but I can't remember who it was, and then there were a few I didn't know. While we were figuring out logistics of how to help them out, I was trying to distract them by fixing them dinner, having Florian show off his trick where he can tell you what day of the week any date is (ie: Sept. 22, 1985 was a Sunday). And...that's it, I woke up.
I felt so rested this morning though, which doesn't usually happen when I have crazy dreams all night. Here's hoping today goes really well (yesterday was a doozie...)

Dream 12/8/13

I've been having some crazy dreams. I thought it'd be fun to make a record of them so I can remember how crazy they are. Since they are dreams, don't count on this being super coherent. Last night's dreams:
I was given a package to deliver because I was a war spy or something. I want to say that the package was bombs of some sort. Something crucial to help the effort. I was dropped off (think google maps view of the world, zooming in on an area) in Austria or southern Germany somewhere and I had to trek across the country to a certain area without being seen. There were other people also trying to deliver packages in other parts of the world and we were racing to try and get to our destinations first. I took trains and bikes and walked. It was like a giant game of fugitive.
Then it morphed into a different dream where I was going to school (unclear if it was high school or college, it had aspects of both). I was wearing overalls and a long sleeved shirt. I had homework to do, but I went to the football/basketball game. It was a few games of several teams on different fields at the same time and it lasted all night. By the time it was over, both my teams had lost quite miserably and it was time for school again. I had to figure out how to change my clothes, get my homework done, and get to school and I was overly tired since I had been up all night. I vaguely remember Matt and Lisa Beard at the games.

Terrific/Terrible Twos - Joshua 2 1/2 years old

Out of Joshua's long long life, the past 6 months or so have been my favorite so far. I love that Joshua talks well enough that he can explain to me what he wants, when he wants it. Or if he isn't feeling well he can tell me what hurts, usually. It's fun to be able to tell him something and he understands more than I think.
He has a great sense of humor and is such a silly kid. He goofs around and says the funniest things. He is currently rolling a back massager thing on my belly. "Mom, roll you! On your belly! See?"
He has become a cuddly kid, which is great, because I love cuddling. Up til now he has hated being hugged or cuddled, or anything inbetween, which was fun when I would try to get him to go to sleep at church as a baby.
We go on at LEAST 2 walks a day at his begging request. Going on a walk is up there with watching TV and eating cake and ice cream. He'll come in first thing in the morning and say, "I want to go for a walk and watch TV, k?" or "I want to eat cake and ice cream and go for a walk, k?" On our walk, usually just round the block, he insists on bringing our small, cheepo umbrella stroller so he can push it. We go up every "ramp" along the way.
He loves people (as he has his whole life) and points to people anywhere we go and asks, "Who's thAAaat?" On the same note, he is very curious about everything and will point to almost everything wherever we are and say, "What's thAAAaat?" until he learns the name of it.
A couple of weeks ago he learned how to give raspberries. So now, when he pretends to go to work he'll say, "I'll be right back. I'm going to work. Bye!" Then he will come up to me and give me a hug, a kiss, a raspberry, and butterfly kisses, always in that order, and then will be on his way. For some reason this week he is also on a licking kick, which is just gross.
He still loves cars and trucks and trains. He'll talk about each car we pass and tell me the color and whether it's a car, truck, semi, garbage truck, bus, etc. If there's a UPS truck within a mile, he'll spot it and point to it and exclaim, "UPS TRUCK!!!!" He actually gets UPS and BYU mixed up so sometime it's, "BYU TRUCK!!!" Or once Grandma mentioned that his chair was "BYU Blue" and he said, "No, BYU is brown."
Joshua is potty trained! YAY! He only wears a diaper at night, but usually keeps it dry. We'll try doing underpants at night one of these days when I feel up to doing laundry every day if he wets the bed.
I had to have Joshua in with me in the bathroom when I showered today and first he sat on the potty (so he was completely bare bum for the rest of this), filled the sink up with water and splashed in it, took off the little drain thing in the sink, put it back on, took the last roll of tp (in the room, we have more in storage) and rinsed it off in the sink so it was all soggy. Then he decided he actually needed to go potty, so he sat on it again and pooped. So by the time I was out of the shower I had a poopy bummed toddler with no toilet paper to wipe him. Oh the learning process of toddlers.
Just an update: Right now he's opening our mail for us while sitting on my lap as I type this.
Now, with all the cute stuff, there's also the stuff that makes me want to just shut him in his room all day.
He bites. No warning, no reason, and really hard. Luckily it's usually just Dave or me, and not other people. (knock on wood)
Like I said earlier, he's obsessed with licking, so I constantly have toddler spit drying on me.
He hits. This one is every
He gets sooooooo whiney!
He absolutely cannot play by himself. The only way he'll play with his toys, which are all in his room, is if someone is in there sitting with him. Is there a way to teach a child to do independent play? Do I just shut him in his room til he plays by himself? I think he insists on having someone there because he narrates everything he does the whole time.
He has a VERY short attention span, even for a toddler. I can't use the big square babysitter like Chelsea because he'll watch for like 5 minutes and then lose interest, even if it's his favorite movie (Cars). If you sit with him to watch something it's more like 15 to 20 minutes, but that defeats the purpose a little bit, unless you're trying to sleep a little bit more on those early mornings.
He's really good at not listening. Sometimes I think his ears are painted on.
Mealtimes are like pulling teeth from a hippo. (see above biting) My finger is still aching from the latest lunchtime bite. The only thing he will eat on his own, without me feeding it to him is yogurt. Everything else he'll take one or two bites and then just stand up in his chair, get down and run away, hit the table with his fork, etc. I used to make him eat everything I served him, but then the last few bites were just agonizing and I realized he gets extra frustrating to feed when he's full (makes sense, right?) so I only make him take one more bite at that point.
Most of the obnoxious things are normal developmental things for a toddler though, so I try not to get too frustrated and just focus on all the fun stuff we do instead.

New Favorite Park take II

A few weeks after Mother's Day we went on another picnic to the same park. This time we came more prepared with food for the ducks, more food for ourselves, and a bike lock so we could wander a bit more without worrying about our bikes. Here are some pictures I took that time (5/26/13).

 This bird was just chilling by the play area. I got really close before it flew away. Some other kids got even closer to another one.

 My picnic buddies.

 Best way to eat a sandwich ever.

 Old, stale cheerios for the ducks. They weren't terribly hungry though.

 Dave climbing up the fire pole to go down the slide with Joshua. They had fun going down the slide then coming over to me to discharge their static on my knee. When it wouldn't work, Joshua would try touching my other knee to see if that one would work. :)

 Dave testing out more playground equipment.

 Joshua trying out the same equipment. He was not very amused.

There were some pretty wild irises (?) along the little stream that I took like 20 pictures of trying to get the focus right. The light was fading and there were a million things for the camera to focus on. Aren't they pretty though?

Mother's Day

For Mother's Day this year I got to choose that we go on a bike ride/picnic along the river trail. I figured we'd just pick one of the parks we'd pass to eat at. We chose this one that I hadn't been to before. It's now one of my favorite parks. It's tucked away over by the freeway. There are a tons of tall trees, picnic tables, open grass, a pond with ducks, a great play structure, swings, and even some pavilions.

 Goofing off while eating dinner on the picnic blanket. We had chicken salad on croissants. So yummy! We were all still hungry by the end though. Riding bikes sure works up an appetite.

 I love this face he's pulling. He could swing all day.

 Dave getting in on the swing fun. He was having a blast re-living his childhood. He was giggling the whole time because he had forgotten that you get the falling feeling every time you go back or forth.

Watching the ducks. I didn't bring anything to feed them this time because, well, I didn't know there would be ducks. Look at those eyelashes! I hope if we ever have girls, they get those lashes! 

Splash Pad Fun

There's a new splash pad in town and last Friday we went to check it out with our little play group:

Taking off to go check it out while it's off. Doesn't know the treat he's in for!

 It's really difficult to focus on little toddlers running around while there is water spraying up around them.

 Barely wet and already having a blast (and blasting out everyone's ear drums with one of his ear-piercing screams).

 Just look at that happy face! Do you think it was a hit?

Really getting into it. I'm really glad I got some water shoes this year for this and for the water park all summer. Hopefully it will save us from some slips and hot sidewalk burns. Now I just need to dig out the swimming suits to see if any fit so he doesn't have to keep wearing just normal shorts.

West 1 Bedroom Apartment Pictures

Ok, yesterday was the 2-bedroom apartment upstairs from us. Today is the West apartment in the house next door which is part of the 4plex. It's a 1 bedroom, 1 bathroom with washer/dryer hookups. Let me tell you how much more I like the floors in these than in ours and the 2 bedroom upstairs from ours... A LOT! Whoever invented almost-black wood floors should be hung. They're horrid. They show every scratch and fleck of anything. With my cleaning habits, I need floors that show almost nothing. K, on to the pictures!

 From entry (see, aren't they lovely floors?!)

 Kitchen (don't you love the cabinets, too?)

 Front doorway (notice the nice view of the beautiful building across the street)

 Living room (yes, it's attached to the kitchen)

 Bedroom closet (unfortunately that big pipe is exhaust for all sorts of water heaters and furnaces in the basement and can't be moved.) Look! you can see our other house out the window!

 From the bedroom toward the kitchen and laundry/bathroom

 From the bedroom closet. There's another outside door in the bedroom. (it's open right now for more light)

 Door closed.

 Laundry room/hookups. 

 Bathroom from laundry room.

Laundry room from bathroom (I'm standing in the shower to take this hah!)

This unit and the one next to it have central heating and air conditioning. Super nice.

2 Bedroom Apartment Pictures

In case anyone wants to see what our other apartments look like, here's part 1 of a 2-part blog post. Here are some pictures I took of our 2-bedroom apartment upstairs from us:

 Entry-way: stairs up to the apartment.

 Looking back down the stairs at the front door.

 Bathroom (I had to sit on the toilet to take this picture lol! don't worry, I wasn't using it...)

 See, there it is. 

 Our cute claw-foot tub

 Annnnd...another bathroom picture. 

 Moving on to the kitchen. This is from the top of the stairs. 

 From over by the fridge, see the bathroom door open over there?

 From by the oven/sink, there's bedroom 1 door, stairs down, and bathroom door.

 Last kitchen picture: that's the "hallway" to the living room and bedroom 2.

 Bedroom 1 from doorway

 Other side of bedroom 1, including closet.

 Doorway back to kitchen.

 Living room. Gas fireplace (that I can't figure out how to open for the life of me to turn off the pilot light)

 Other side of living room with storage closet.

 Back toward bedroom 2 and kitchen.

 Storage closet close up.

 Last corner of living room.

 Bedroom 2 from doorway to living room.

 Other side of bedroom 2 including closet.

 Back toward the doorway to living room.

 Close-up of closet.

And the rest of bedroom 2.

And if you made it this far, here's a picture I took looking out bedroom 2 window to our backyard: