Stocking Up

So apparently there's a big monster winter storm heading our way.  Up to a foot of snow and and inch of ice over the course of tonight and tomorrow.  Those two alone seem a bit much, but combined?  That's a bit excessive, Mother Nature.

Anywho, I usually do my grocery shopping for the week on Tuesdays while Josh is in preschool, but I decided to go today so as not to deal with the storm.  I debated this plan for a while since it meant I would have to deal with Joshie at the grocery store, but in the end my dread of running around in the storm outweighed dealing with Josh at the store.  (But only slightly.)  Plus, I thought it'd be a good idea to stock up on a few things before the storm.

We got to Wal-Mart around 10am and it was already packed.  I guess everyone else had the same idea I did.  That's where the similarities ended, though.  See, when I think of stocking up for a storm I first think of diapers.  Because you can get by for a few days without enough food or toilet paper or things like that.  But diapers?  No dice.  I don't EVER want to be stuck at home during a blizzard with no diapers.  So, diapers, milk, eggs, snacks, and mostly normal, every week type purchases were on my list. 

On everyone elses?  Ice melt and beer.  Seriously, I would bet a good 75% of all the carts I saw were full of ice melt and beer.  Gotta make sure your bloodstream is just as ice-free as your sidewalks.

I realize that Super Bowl weekend is coming up as well.  Heaven forbid you get stuck over Super Bowl weekend with no booze.  It's all about priorities, people.

I found myself checking out every cart I passed.  My absolute favorite?  A big, burly man of a man (complete with full beard, flannel shirt, and big work boots) passed by with a cart full of two 50lb bags of ice melt, four cases of beer, two large cans of formula and a package of diapers. 

Awesomeness.  Now there's a man who's prepared for the storm!

Unfair!

Poor Spencer.  His life is so unfair lately.  How do I know?  Because he reminds me of this on a daily basis.  Thirty to forty times a day.

Seriously, every other exclamation out of his mouth is "Unfair!" or "That's not fair!" or some other variation on that theme.

Being the good mother that I am, I have sat him down and tried to explain to him how most of the things he's complaining about are quite fair.  Being the mean mother that I am, I have also told him, on several occasions, that's he right: life's not fair, it's never gonna be fair, and he might as well get used to it.

He hated both of those lines of logic.

The thing is, Spencer complains about the unfairness of a lot of things that don't really have anything to do with fairness.  Like him having to do homework.  Or clear his plate after a meal.  Or go to bed. 

This evening he and his brothers were in the big tub in my bathroom (a rare treat!), creating tsunamis and having a grand time.  But soon I heard squawking and fighting and Josh, dripping and naked as a little boy can be, came running up to me, complaining that Spencer wasn't sharing any of the cups.  There were seven cups in the tub and Spencer wouldn't share a single one.  I told Spencer he had to share at least two cups with Josh and two cups with Cole.

"No", Spencer said.

"Alright, then I guess you're ready to get out of the tub.  Right. Now," I replied.

"UNFAIR!" Spencer shouted, as he gave up the precious cups.

I admit, it's a bit hard to have patience with a child going through this phase.  Especially when there are so many things that are going on around him that are most certainly not fair.

Such as Cole coming down with an ear infection today, despite having tubes.  It's not an especially bad ear infection because we caught it early, but he has goop coming out of his eyes, which is weird and gross.  And I now have to fight him several times a day for the next week when I put in his ear and eye drops.  That seems pretty unfair.

And take poor Josh.  He waits all day for his big brother to come home to play, only be ignored and pushed aside as his big brother's friend comes over and hogs all the attention.  That doesn't seem very fair.

Or my sciatica.  I could barely walk today, not that any of my children even noticed or cared.  With sciatica there's a fine line between being on your feet too much or sitting down too much.  I crossed that line on both accounts today and paid dearly for it.  In fact, I am sitting on a heating pad as I type this, yelling at you from my room to get back into bed because I can hear you sneaking around but it just hurts too darn much to get up and physically escort you back to prison bed.  And the only reason I have this sciatica is so that I can bring another tiny human into the world who will one day accuse me of treating her unfairly.

Talk about unfair.

And so, Spencer, I can only say this: You're right.  Sometimes life really isn't fair.  It even sucks sometimes.  But I find consolation in the knowledge that someday a child of yours will go through this very same phase and test your patience to its limits.

At which point life will seem just a wee bit fairer in the eyes of a certain mother of yours.

Self-portrait Day: Week 28 - For Realsies

So apparently pregnancy totally destroys the math section of my brain.  I cannot count to save my life.  No, really.  Besides this obvious blunder, I have had many counting mishaps over the last few months.  More than I can count.  Accurately, that is.

I've miscounted measurements while cooking.  I've totally screwed up time schedules for church.  Paying bills is treacherous.  Spencer had to count out 100 Skittles for his 100th day of school; I had to take his word for it.

So anywho, I've been going through life the last three or four weeks thinking I was further along in my pregnancy than I really am.  Two weeks ago when I said I was 28 weeks?  Wrong.  Very wrong.

But I've double and triple checked and now I know that I really and truly am 28 weeks now.

Not that it really matters in the long run, because my mythical due date (April 20th) is still the same, and that's the goal I'm really working towards, right?

In the meantime, don't send any math problems my way, okay?

Cole the Destructor

Our 'Unexpected Expenses' slush fund has taken quite a hit this month.  And Cole is mostly to blame.

First, we had to buy Lance plane tickets to and from Utah.  Okay, this one was not at all Cole's fault.  But it was quite the unexpected expense.

Second, my watch died.  It was a good Fossil watch.  I had had it for ten years.  But all of a sudden it stopped working, and the cost the repair shop quoted me was more than the watch was worth.  So now I'm in the market for a new watch.  (Any suggestions for where to look?)  Apparently I am pretty picky when it comes to watches, because I haven't found anything that I like in my price range.  So, as of now I'm watchless and constantly wondering what time it is.  I guess this doesn't really count against our slush fund since I haven't spent any money yet, but it's gonna happen sooner rather than later. 

How does this relate to Cole?  I'm pretty sure he had a hand in breaking it.  He really liked to play with it and chew on it and drop it.  I know, it sounds crazy that I let him do this, but I had let Spencer and Josh do the same thing.  And if that watch survived Josh I figured it could survive the apocalypse, let alone Cole.  Guess I was wrong.

Third, our printer gave up the ghost.  Well, it's not completely dead.  But it's in its death throes.  Maybe it knew we were planning on doing our taxes soon.  I kid you not, we've had three different printers die on us the very night we did taxes.  THREE.  Despite my husband's computer genius, we have had very bad luck with printers.  But not with this last one - I think we've had it for almost four years.  That's a new record in the Madsen household.

Cole's role?  He discovered the printer lately and has taken to pressing all it's buttons and turning it on and off and doing all sorts of whatnot to it.  I can't prove that this is a direct link to its early demise.  But I can't disprove it either.

RIP, good buddy.

Fourth (and most tragically), Cole broke my phone today.  I am most sad.  I really liked my phone.  It was a Motorolla Backflip and my first Smartphone.  (Well, the first that I used to its full capabilities.)  We were at Sam's Club and Cole was being super fussy.  I think he's teething again.  Anyway, I have a toddler app on the phone that makes noise and shapes and you can draw on the screen and such without messing up the rest of the phone.  Cole lurves this app.  So I let him play with it.  It's totally my fault for not paying closer attention, because of course he dropped it.  On the concrete floor.  In my defense, this phone has been dropped more times than I care to mention, but this time did the trick.  My poor phone keeps restarting itself every five minutes, inbetween black screens of death.  And I'm starting to go through phone withdrawals.  (We don't have a land line phone.)

I know I shouldn't complain too much; I feel very blessed that we can handle these expenses.  But I'm glad this month is almost over.  In the meantime, Cole is banned from touching the TV, either of the cars, the computers, my laptop, any major appliances, and pretty much everything else in the house except his toys.

p.s.  Our new printer came today.  With it came a free label maker.  Hurrah!  Of course we had to play with it a little and make name tags for everyone.  Here's the first label I printed:

And here's the second:

Office Organization

We've been in this house for six months now and there are still some rooms that I feel like we're still moving in to.  Today I finally got the office to where I want it to be.  It's not perfect, but it's certainly a lot better than what it was!

I love having all the stuff up on shelves instead of on the floor and scattered throughout the storage room.  I really wish we had cabinets, but those are really expensive and I'd rather have a new living room set than cabinets.  (Yes, my living room is still barren.  Except for the high chair that currently resides there.)

Now I actually have a specific place for sewing and crafting, which I've always wanted!  Now I just need to energy and time to do so... well, I'm feeling pretty immobile lately, so perhaps sewing and crafting will be all I'll be able to do!

Lance's side looks pretty sparse, but I'm sure I'll be able to fill it up eventually. :) 

I asked Josh what he thought of it all.  He replied (and I'm not making this up), "I hate it.  I want it to be the old way!"  Well, what do you say to that, other than, "Well, then don't come in here."  To which he responded, "I won't.  I won't ever come in here again!" 

Guess he liked the magenta paint and zero storage better.

Flowers

Last week was ornery in our house.  (A side effect of growing tiny humans.)  (And, apparently, of having a seven-year-old boy.)

Dad and Susie were sweet enough to send these flowers to help brighten our day and our moods.

It worked.

Thank you so much, Dad and Susie!

Booster Seat

So I finally decided today that Cole needed to move from a high chair into a booster seat.

Yeah, we were kinda behind the curve on that one.  I know, he's 20 months old and probably shoulda moved a while ago.  But I was busy... or something.  I dunno, he seemed fine in the high chair.  But then the high chair kept getting in my way today and it was all crusty and crumby and gross, so I decided enough was enough.

Cole was pretty excited from the beginning.  I made a big deal about what a big boy he is.  At dinner (his first real meal with the entire family while he was in his booster) he was extremely pleased with himself.  And he did a great job - I think he's the first child we've had where the first night in a chair a plate didn't end up on the floor. Heck, he ate more tonight and behaved better than his monkey brothers siblings.  (Josh and Spencer apparently turn into Neanderthals at dinner time.  It drives me bonkers.  I wish Lance and I could just eat dinner later, but family dinner is too important in my book to do something like that.)

Anywho, Cole even helped me clean his high chair to get it ready for storage.  And by help I mean use a spray bottle full of water to get everything (including himself) within a five foot radius wet.  Except the high chair.  I scrubbed and cleaned and even used a tooth brush, but it still seems a little gummy to me.  As far as I'm concerned, the only and best way to completely clean a high chair is to stick it outside during a good rainstorm.  An hour or so in the sprinklers will also work.  I'm completely serious.  It's the best and most efficient method I've found in my 7+ years of parenting.  So I guess we'll just have to wait until Spring to really get it clean.

Lance (bless his heart) worked all afternoon on getting shelves up in the office.  They're not completely done, but almost, so pictures in a couple of days.  As a reward, and because I really wanted them, and because I needed a way to distract Josh for a while, and because I felt like my pregnant self should be doing something while Lance labored down in the office, I decided to make No-Bake Reese's Peanut Butter Bars.  (Recipe here.)  (Thank you, Heidi, for introducing me to these!) 

I'm sorry, but anything with melted milk chocolate on top is bound to be a winner.

That, plus the fact that they were super easy to make and super yummy.  Don't you wish we were neighbors so you could come have some?  We have plenty.

Fun fact: these pictures were taken out on my porch just off of the kitchen.  My fridge was a little full and I didn't feel like rearranging everything to set these in there to set.  Since it was all of something like 10 degrees today I figured the porch would be just fine.  Plus, with all the snow the lighting was great.  I woulda stuck my kids out there for a photo shoot, but didn't think the effort of bundling them up would have been worth it.  Plus, they probably would have tried to eat the dessert.  Not that I blame them.

Lost In Translation

Lance and I are convinced that our children speak a different language when they're born.  Spencer spoke Mandarin for quite a while, while Josh seemed to be Japanese.  Cole currently speaks some ancient Eastern-Slavic blended with Norwegian. We're not sure how that came about, but there you go. (It must be his blond hair.)

Oh sure, they eventually learn English.  But speaking that as a second language obviously leads to some parent/child translation problems.  For example...

Bedtime
What the parent says: It's time for bed!  Please put on your jammies and brush your teeth.

What Cole hears: It's time to run around like a crazy lunatic!  Race race race around the race track that is the living room and kitchen!

What Spencer & Josh hear: Whine and cry and fuss!  Act as if you have never heard of such atrocities as jammies and brushing teeth, even though we've been through this same routine practically every single day of your life.  Oh, and whine some more.  And fight.  It's not bedtime unless there's a fight.

Going Out
What the parent says: Time to go!  Let's all put on our coats.

What Cole hears: Time to head butt your brothers and wind them up!

What Josh hears: Time to put on my coat.  But don't bother even trying to zip it - that's what mom's are for.

What Spencer hears: Whine.  And cry.  And whine some more.  Don't bother putting your coat on until mom has just about lost all patience and sanity.  And then complain about how you can't zip your coat even though you're seven years old.

Mealtime Prayers
What the parent says: Please fold your arms and close your eyes for the prayer.

What Cole hears: (50% of the time) Please fold your arms and close your eyes for the prayer.  (The other 50% of the time) Sit in your high chair, stare at everyone, but stay quiet and look pretty dang cute.

What Josh hears: Pick up your plate, try tossing it around, and wonder why mom and dad freak out about that.  Act picked on when they take it away.  Eventually make a show at folding arms.

What Spencer hears: It's time to whine and cry and try to play with Cole.  Even though you know better, act extremely put out when mom and dad get after you.  Eventually fold your arms, but only after you've cried a few crocodile tears.

Computer Time
What the parent says: Okay, boys!  It's time to get off of the computer!  Please turn it off and come upstairs.

What Cole hears: Bang on the computer keyboard - hard - and then use the Jell-o Bones Maneuver when mom or dad tries to pick you up.

What Josh hears: Turn off the computer please!  It's time for a snack.  (Notice above that no snacks are ever mentioned.)

What Spencer hears: I'm pretty sure he hears that weird trumpety sound the Charlie Brown kids hear whenever an adult speaks to them.  At least until the parent has reached their patience limit and is about to lose it.  Then he hears "I'm making you get off of the computer because I'm mean and never ever ever want you to have any fun even though you've been on here for an hour.  Bwahahaha!  Why yes, I am related to the Wicked Witch of the West.  Why do you ask?"

Getting in the Car
What the parent says: Okay, time to sit down and put your seat belt on.

What Cole hears: Okay, time to wiggle while I strap you in.  Also, please whine and cry unless I give you your car computer toy RIGHT NOW.  There's no earthly reason why you should have to wait any length of time for that.

What Josh hears: Stand right in front of your booster seat.  But for heaven's sake, don't bother sitting down and buckling up until mom or dad has asked you at least four times.

What Spencer hears: Yes, you're the only child in the world who has to wear a seat belt.  It's terribly unfair, but we're terribly unfair parents who like to treat you terribly unfairly.  We just like to see you cry.  Now sit down, put your seat belt on, and then pout and scowl for the next 15 minutes.

I can't wait for the day when our whole family speaks the same language.  That'll eventually happen, right?

Decorating

Check out the sweet little plate I won at Bunco last night:

Yes, I won it for getting the lowest score.  But at least I won something.  Plus I got several cute little baby girl outfits from Heidi (thanks, Heidi!), who originally got most of them from Gigi (thanks, Gigi!).  And now Mystery Madsen Baby will get to wear them.  I'm thinking I should make a special bunco onesie that could be passed around from bunco baby to bunco baby.  Something pink, with dice... Hmmm...

Well, the plate got me in the Valentine's Day decorating mood.  That, and my barren living room, which is still void of furniture and looking pretty plain now that the Christmas tree and other decorations are gone.  Of course, my Valentine's decorations are pretty sparse, so the mantel holds them all.

But I like it.  Cole likes it.  Josh said it needed more candy.  (He could be right.)  Spencer couldn't be bothered, because he's recently turned into the orneriest cuss you ever did meet.  Anyone want to buy a seven year old?  I'm willing to bargain.  Heck, this afternoon I was just about willing to pay someone else to deal with him, because I certainly didn't want to.  Sheesh.

Back on topic.  I feel especially clever about my jar full of ribbon bits and gold tissue paper.  Does this count as crafting?  (Christy, I leave that for you to judge.)  I haven't crafted in forever, so I'm saying yes, yes it does count.

In the bleakness that is an Indiana winter, it's nice to have a bit of color back in the house.

Painting Surprise

Whenever I go to Utah with the boys Lance paints a room of the house.  So last week when Lance was in Utah I decided we should paint something to surprise him.

Fortunately, my dad was in town and more than willing to paint.  In fact, he took on the entire project and did a fantastic job!

The office used to be this really dark, man-caveish magenta.  It is now a nice greyish-blue which I love.  Much lighter, much friendlier, much better.  Lance claims it's a girly color, but that's too bad.  (I don't think he really cares all that much; he just had to complain about something since he missed all the painting fun.)

I only have this one picture showing before and after.  But I think you can tell it's a much needed improvement.

Now we just need to get some shelves up on the wall so we can organize and we'll be all set.  Hooray!  Between this room and the pictures I'm finally getting up on the wall this house is finally starting to feel like home.

All In Ten Minutes

This morning was the usual busy chaos of trying to get three little boys ready for church all by myself.  We have a pretty good system down, but Cole decided to kick things up a notch.  Within the space of 10 minutes the child had:

• Thrown cereal all over the floor
• Stepped on and crushed the cereal
• Knocked over the humidifier in my room, causing water to go everywhere
• Played in the water, getting himself and his freshly-put-on church clothes wet
• Wiped toothpaste all over a wall
• Flushed a toilet 4 times in a row
• Thrown everything on my nightstand off of my nightstand - including my Kindle (grrrr...)
• I went to clean up the nightstand mess, only to not see my glasses on the floor and stepped on them (hopefully I can get the lens popped back in)

Looks like we might have a new Dr. Destructo in the family.  (Sorry, Josh, your reign is over.)  Perhaps I can convince Lance to build a holding cell in the storage room...

A GIANT Thank You

Cole was less than thrilled about taking a picture.

Thanks so much, Dad, for coming out this week.  Thank you for:

• shoveling and snow blowing the snow
• aking out the garbage
• basically doing all the work for super-secret project (which shall be revealed on Sunday)
• dealing with really whiny grandchildren
• buying lunch
• buying dinner
• playing Wii
• chasing Cole down when I couldn't
• reading bedtime stories every night

I really appreciate it.  Hopefully I can repay you in some way some day, or at least pay it forward to my kids.  (Unless they're still super-whiny as adults.  Then forget it.)

Self-portrait Day: Week 28

Here we are.  Week 28.

This evening my dad jokingly asked if my stomach could get much bigger.  Sadly, I know that it can.  Much bigger.  Oy.

Let's see, 28 weeks down.  That's four more months to go. Or rather, 12 weeks.  Or 84 days.  Or only 6 more self-portraits like this.  Yikes, I'd better start getting ready for this baby.

Absolute Math, Coconuts, Droopy Drawers, and Large Carnivores

Apparently it's hard, even when you're seven years old (especially you're seven years old), to admit that your mother just might know something a little more than you do about certain things.

Like how to do first grade math word problems.  And the fact that 5+4 most certainly does NOT equal 12, no matter how much you want it to so that you can go downstairs and play on Grandpa's iPad.

This resulted in a 20 minute tantrum over math homework today.  About 10 minutes in I finally told him that if he wanted to get it wrong, that was fine, I was done arguing. 

Apparently it's hard, even when you're seven years old and really want to play on Grandpa's iPad, to leave an incorrect answer on your math homework.  Even if you won't ever admit in a million years that it's wrong.  Not that you'll fix it right then.  No, first you have to cry and whine for another 10 minutes and then fix the math problem and then give your mother the cold shoulder and the evil eye as you put all your schoolwork away.

Sometimes it's really hard to be the mother of a seven year old.

***********

This week I've been experimenting with Alton Brown recipes.  I love Alton Brown and Good Eats.  They are most awesome.

Tonight I decided to make his Coconut Shrimp with Peanut Sauce.  I even bought a real coconut!  (Tres exciting.)  My dad offered to open it for me.

But once we opened it we realized it had gone bad.  (Tres disappointing.)

Fortunately, I've been having pregnancy brain lately and keep buying shredded coconut at the store. (Why?  I keep thinking we've run out.  Not that we use it a lot, but whatever.) I have three bags of it in the freezer.  When I was pregnant with Cole I did the same thing with cornstarch.  With Josh it was canned tomatoes.  I don't remember what it was with Spencer, but I'm sure I did it.

Anywho, we still had some coconut and the shrimp still turned out to be pretty darn good eats.

************

I have decided there's no such thing as maternity pants that actually stay up.  Well, maternity pants that are okay to wear out of the house.  I have some pajamas and yoga pants that actually stay up, but other to Wal-Mart I'm not wearing them in public.

We have computers the size of a deck of cards, we've walked on the moon, and awesome shows like Big Band Theory.  And yet no one has invented maternity pants that I don't have to hike up every time I move. Something's wrong here.

************

Cole decided it would be a good idea to pour his juice into the hood of my coat today while shopping at Target.  (My coat was on the side of the cart.)  I was not pleased with the punk.

However, I was pleased with scoring a rather large Dinosaur Train T-Rex toy for only $8.50 in the clearance aisle.  I think he will make his appearance around the time this baby girl does.

Also, ask Josh about carnivores, herbivores, and omnivores.  You'll be in for a very interesting and cute conversation.

Blessing Dress

My dad is visiting for the week.  (He's attending the Purdue 75th Annual Pest Management Conference - excitement!)  His visits are always a good thing, but especially good this week since Lance is out of town and Cole is especially good at running away from me at bedtime, knowing full well that I can't run around and catch him.

Anywho, my dad brought the blessing dress that I wore when I was a baby.  Even though it's vintage 1978, I still think it's a really cute dress!  (Ginger: whenever I hear the word 'vintage' I think of you because I agree with you - it's just another word for 'old'.  But in this case it's okay because it's vintage Maren. :)

(Side note: that's the Irish linen table cloth I bought on my cruise in the background.  What, you don't go to Grand Cayman to buy your Irish linens?  Huh...)

My Mother's mother, Regina Burgoyne, bought this dress for my mom for me.  Apparently my parents were appalled at the exorbitant amount she spent - somewhere around $25-$30.  (Keep in mind that this was 1978 and my parents were dirt poor students.)  This makes me like it even more.

I really like the little pink roses on the material.  I'm not a big fan of the big, white, billowy and satiny gowns that most babies are blessed in.  I don't know... it's just not my style.

There's a little bonnet that goes with it as well.

It's cute, but I think I might try to make a headband with little pink roses on it instead.  I'm not a big fan of bonnets.  (And most babies I know aren't either...)  We'll see.

The dress is just a little yellowed in a few places.  Anyone have any surefire methods of getting it white again?

M-A-D-S-E-N Wall

I'm finally getting around to decorating our basement.  (The plethora of school artwork above Spencer and Josh's desk doesn't really count in my book.)  For Christmas Lance bought me these really neat photos that spell out our last name.  Then last week I found a really great deal on a set of black frames.

Thus the M-A-D-S-E-N wall was born.

I'm considering collecting more black frames and putting those around as well.  Maybe add a black wooden "M" in there somewhere as well.  What do you think?  Would it be too much?

2010 Time Capsule Debut

Every new year I put together a 'time capsule' of all our family photos and videos from the previous year.  I set it to fun music and the boys LURVE watching it.  (When you're the star of the show of course it's fun to watch!)

Tonight we debuted the 2010 capsule for Family Home Evening.  The boys were completely excited.  The fact that we had Muddy Buddies for dessert only sweetened (haha!) the deal.

Cole took his usual spot right in front of the TV, totally absorbed.  (Well, for a few minutes at least.  The boy has an attention span of a chihuahua on Ritalin toddler.)

The boys sacked on the couch - for about 20 minutes.  Then the sugar kicked in and they spent the next hour bouncing off the walls and dancing to the music.

Despite the wildness, a good time was had by all.

His Po-po-po-po-po-ker Face

Spencer tried to get out of going to school today for the first time.

Spencer: Mommy, I feel sick.  I think I should stay home from school.

Me: Oh really.  How do you feel sick?

Spencer: (In a very business-like tone) *cough*cough* I really think I should stay home. *cough*cough*

(In all fairness, we all have colds around here.  But Spencer's definitely not sick enough to stay home from school.)

Me: I think you're probably okay.  Besides, what would you do if you stayed home all day?

Spencer (without missing a beat): I'd play Wii!

Me: Let me see if you have a fever.

Spencer: Yeah!  I have a fever!

(I check him.  He's fine.)

Me: No fever.

Spencer (forcefully): *cough*cough*

Me: I think you're fine.  I think you're just trying to pretend to be sick so you can stay home and play Wii all day.

Spencer: How did you know?!

Me: Mom's just know.  Go get ready for school.

That boy needs to work on his poker face.  To his credit, he is still sweet and innocent enough not to hold a grudge or pout the rest of the morning.  I can only imagine what theatrics the upcoming school years will bring.

Accidental Twins

Josh and Cole were accidentally dressed in matching clothes today.  I thought it was kinda cute, but there was no way they were going to let me take a picture of them together.

Little punks.

These are the closest I got to having them in the same vincinity.

 

 

I like that I got a shot of Cole right before he fell on the floor.  Luckily, he's still pretty roley-poley, so the fall didn't hurt him at all.  (Although I'm pretty roley-poley right now, I'm pretty sure a fall like that would maim me.)

The boys were a bit grouchy today.  I was a bit grouchy today.  We were ALL a bit grouchy today - mainly because we all have these awful colds.  The kind where your nose runs all the time and you're all congested and can't breathe and you just feel gross.  It's pretty fun around here.  Wanna come visit?  We have lots of tissues and accidental twins!

Yummy Peach Dessert

I've been craving peach cobbler since before Christmas, but we always had so many other goodies around the house I couldn't justify making it.  But now the goodies are all gone and I was craving it even more and then I found an old recipe of my mom's last night and took it as a sign.

The recipe is called "Yummy Peach Dessert" in her cookbook, but I think it's also commonly called "Peach Dump Cake".  I think I like "Yummy Peach Dessert" better. :)  I now it's not cobbler, but it's just as good and twice as easy.

First, you dump a big can of peaches, juice and all, into a 9x13 pan. 

How big of a can?  Well, not the smallest can, but certainly not a #10 can.  You know... that big can in the middle. (I'm too lazy to get up and look, okay?)  I like to cut the peaches up a little - it makes them easier to eat.

Then you get out a yellow cake mix.

Side Note: I like Aldi cake mixes.  They're yummy and super cheap.  In fact, I think I prefer them over the big name brands.  I just love Aldi!  I spent $120 there today stocking up on stuff and you wouldn't believe how packed my cart was.  Very, very satisfying.  (Get over your fear, Misty, and try it some time!)

Anywho, sprinkle the cake mix over the peaches.

Now here's the good part: take a stick of butter and cut it into 16 squares.  (Or at least try to.  Apparently I am butter-cutting-impaired. Some of the pieces just would not cut the right way!)

The name of this is Yummy Peach Dessert, not Healthy Peach Dessert.

And now here's the great part: sprinkle about a cup of brown sugar on top.

Oh merciful heavens.

Then bake at 350 degrees for 40 minutes.

Mmmm...  I like to eat it piping hot with a big scoop of vanilla bean ice cream on top.  I would have a picture of this, but my family and I scarfed it down too quickly. 

But trust me.  It was heaven.  Heavenly.  Celestial.  Yum.

Of course that might just be the craving hormones talking.

But I don't think so.

Slow

Not much to blog about lately, mainly because life is moving so slowly.

And that's mainly because I'm moving so slowly. 

Each pregnancy seems to bring it's own set of torturous side effects joys:

• Spencer - really long-lasting morning-noon-and-night sickness.  Truly, compared to my other pregnancies it was the worst.  Which I guess is good since I didn't have any other kiddos around.
• Josh - I would get these really bad stabbing pains in my abdomen if I was on my feet for too long.  My doctor said they were from the scar tissue from my c-section stretching.  I'm pretty sure they were really from Josh stabbing me.  They were awful.
• Cole - I kind of got the stabbing pains but what really got me that time was my aching back and hips.  Oy, they hurt.  The heating pad became my best friend.
• Baby Girl Madsen - And now here we are.  A few weeks ago I realized I was finally all done with my morning-noon-and-night sickness.  (I wasn't throwing up anymore, but I still often felt nauseous for no reason.)  So I had one pretty good week where I felt pretty good.  And then the sciatica kicked it.

Oh man.  It hurts.  If I'm on my feet too long it hurts.  If I sit down for too long it hurts.  If I lie on my left side in bed for too long I can barely get up.  I hobble around like a 97 year old lady. 

Spencer and Josh have both become really good at picking things up for me.  Cole has sensed my weakness and uses it to his advantage whenever possible. (He runs away every time he knows I'm coming to pick him up or to stop him from doing something naughty.)  ((Pesky toddler.))

Ice kinda helps.  Heat kinda helps.  But not really, and not for long.  In fact, the only way to get rid of this symptom?  Having this baby.

Four months isn't really that far away, right?

Oh man... now time is moving slow...