Super Jammies

The Easter Bunny's most excellent helpers (Grandpa ElRay and Grandma Susie) sent some super jammies for the baskets this year.

Joshie jumped for joy over his Super Mario pajamas.


And Spencer was soaring with his Batman (cape included!) jammies. (I love the faux muscle details. :)


It was a super way to end the day. (Any day is more fun with new and super-cool jammies.)


Thanks again, grandpa and grandma!

Easter Bunny Morning

Lance and I woke up this morning to the sound of Spencer exclaiming "What the heck?! The Easter Bunny came with eggs!"

Yes, it was a grand and glorious morning in the Madsen household.

Baskets were emptied. (Leap Pad Games! Batman and Super Mario Jammies! Masks! Fans!)


Eggs were hunted.


Candy was eaten. Lots of precious, precious candy. (Myyyy preeccciiiooouuuuusssss...)


Fans were played with.


Sub-woofers were almost broken. (I love how they both say "uh-oh" at the same time.)

Make an on-line slide show at www.OneTrueMedia.com

Chicken and dinosaur masks were tried on.


Porcupines were disguised as bunnies. Oh man - that Easter Bunny is hilarious! (Well, in the eyes of a little boy...)


And breakfast was eaten. Well... Spencer chose to eat cereal. Josh went for the chocolate bunny. (Why did I let him eat chocolate for breakfast? In the 2.5 years I've known the kid, I've learned that it's best just to let him eat all the candy he can until it's either all gone or I throw it away. Lots less tantrums and the candy is just over and done with faster.)


Apparently he's an 'ears first' kind of guy.


Happy Easter Bunny morning, everyone!

I'm Not Martha

In the past I have gone all Martha on my Easter Egg decorating. Some methods have worked well. Some... not so much.

This year I decided to scale back. Actually, I was just lazy. Pregnant, swollen, water-retaining lazy. We went with old $1-pack-from-the-Wal-Mart-and-whatever-we-could-find-around-the-house method.

You know what? I think it worked out just fine.

The boys had fun. (And made a huge mess.)


And some of the eggs even turned out pretty cool. It's amazing what a few rubber bands, pieces of tape, and stickers can do.


There's something I love about the vibrant colors of dyed Easter Eggs. Don't give me those mellow, pale, naturally-dyed eggs - I want the bright unnatural hues I grew up with.


Done and done.

Now we just have to get ready for the Easter Bunny's visit. Remember? He comes to our house on Saturday mornings because we're cool like that. (You could be cool like that, too, you know.)

I'd love to fill the eggs, hide them, get the baskets out, and then fall into bed. Because momma is tired.

But the boys are roaring and awake, extra-hyper with Bunny-excitement. And Lance and his friend Tad are building computers in the office. And my living room is a disaster area that I don't want to clean up by myself because that would require a lot of bending. And bending is just something I try to avoid at all costs lately.

Martha might have a crazy busy life what with her shows and websites and magazines and all. But sometimes I think being the Easter Bunny and a mom is even harder.

I Have Time

I am the world's meanest mom since I still won't fill the water table for the boys to play with. Never mind the fact that it's barely 60 degrees on warm days around here and that we haven't even gotten the hoses out of storage yet because it still freezes at night - Josh is obsessed with getting water in that table!

Well, today he decided to take matters into his own hands. He was going to fill that water table no matter what! And he was going to fill it with this:


Yes, that is a measuring cup in his hands. 1/3 cup, actually. He decided to fill it up in the kid's bathroom, march down the hall, out the back door, and then put it in the water table.


I let him do this for several reasons:

1. He was really tired and I was willing to try anything to keep him awake since it was four in the afternoon.
2. He was really tired and it's a million times harder to reason with a tired toddler than with a non-tired toddler.
3. I wanted to see how long he would keep it up and how much he could get done before dinner. Hey, a little curiosity never hurt anyone.

Thus his project started. He had made a few trips when I said "That will take a lot of trips to fill, won't it?" to which he replied without skipping a beat (and I'm not making this up), "I have time."

Bwaaahhaaahaa! Man, I love that kid. Seriously.

He made about six trips with the measuring cup. Of course, half of those times he got distracted and poured the water on the patio instead - apparently there were some bugs who wanted to go swimming.

Then he discovered an empty bubble bottle, which was a little bigger and easier to carry. So he started to use that, but, much to my amusement, he would only fill it about a 1/3 of the way.


He didn't get anywhere close to filling the water table, of course. But it sure kept him busy while I was making dinner.


What more could the world's meanest mom ask for?

Joshie Chaplin

Let the Wild Rumpus Start!

The baby/guest room has always been that room in the house that I've neglected. It was a lot easier to just close the door rather than redecorate. I'd work on small projects here and there, like making pillows for the bed or cleaning the closet, but nothing major.

But it's time. Our guests deserve better. As does bebe #3. Plus, the ugliness of the room was really starting to get to me.

Now I'm not the type to spend a lot of money on a baby nursery. Mainly because babies have the tendency to grow up into little kids who won't necessarily think your choice of decor fits them. Plus, they like to destroy. So I wasn't willing to spend a lot of money on this. Luckily, I haven't really needed to so far.

There have been three phases to re-doing this room:

Phase #1: The paint. While we were in UT Lance painted the room, and it looks great. (Thank you, Lance!) He used paint we already had; specifically, the bluish-greyish paint from our master bathroom. Bathroom paint on bedroom walls?! you exclaim? Well, you have obviously never had a baby boy. Specifically, you have obviously never had to clean the wall next to the changing table of a little boy. Let's just say that the AWFUL flat paint the builder used did not stand a chance against Joshie. Hopefully this new paint will hold up better.

Phase #2: The rocker. A few months back I bought a glider/rocker from someone for $25. (A great bargain!) I have recovered the cushions in a really cute fabric, and am in the process of painting the rocker. If it ever warms up again I will finish it. (It's too cold to paint out in the garage right now. Plus, I am discovering that I really hate priming and painting chairs. I should've just used spray paint. Oh well.) More on this later, I'm sure.

Phase #3: The pictures. One of my favorite children's books ever is "Where the Wild Things Are" by Maurice Sendak. And it just so happens that the illustrations in this book perfectly complement not only the new paint but also the guest bed spread and the new fabric on my rocker cushions. Miracle! Coincidence! Black magic! Or maybe I just really like all of those colors.

Anyways.

I bought a gently used copy of the book for $1 from Half.com. Then I bought six $3 frames from Wal-Mart. Sure, I could have spent a lot more money on nicer, non-plasticky frames, but why? I think these look great - you can't even tell they're plastic unless you're really looking for that.

I cut out my favorite pictures from the book, mounted them on white paper (because the book was kind of an odd size) and framed them. Voila!


My absolute favorite line is "And now," cried Max, "let the wild rumpus start!"


That should be my family's motto.

Let's be honest - it is my family's motto.

Here's what they look like over the bed.


And here's where the crib will be. (It's currently up in the attic.)


Why yes, that is Rojo over there, showing me last night's episode of Chuck. Muy bien, Rojo! Te amo!

And here are my two little wild things. I'm not sure why, but the whole process of hanging up pictures really wound them up. I had to kick them out of the room just to get anything done. I let them back in when I had finished, and they proceeded to rush around and climb on anything in the room at lightening speed. Then they bounced on the bed until I told them that the wild rumpus had ended - and that if they didn't stop there would be time-outs for all naughty little boys. Why? Because I'm queen of all wild things.

Self-Portrait Tuesday: Week 31

Here I am in my cleanin' house duds, which are apparently becoming too short in the belly region. I guess that means no more house cleaning for me, right?!

I find that I get twice as much done if I wear tennis shoes while cleaning. Does anybody else do that, too?