The Wonder of the Wizard

Today my boys watched The Wizard of Oz for the first time. I wasn't sure how they'd like it, considering how old the movie is compared to what they're used to watching.

How would flying monkies...

a scarecrow, tinman, and cowardly lion...

a horse of a different color...

an Emerald City...

magical ruby slippers...

funny munchkins...

and a wicked witch who melts with water...

compare with the likes of Cars or Bolt?

No competition whatsoever.

The boys sat like this during the entire film, completely entranced.


Which just goes to show that some things are timeless. Even 70 year old magical movies.

First vs. Third Pregnancy

On the way to church today I had a couple of big, strong contractions. They hurt. I almost had to pull the car over.

Now if this were my first pregnancy I would have freaked out a bit, called Lance, (who was already in meetings at church) and gotten really worked up and excited at the prospect of finally going into labor. (!)

But this is my third pregnancy and a whole different ball game. I found myself silently telling my body "No way! The baby CANNOT come today. I am teaching Sharing Time, my first counselor is home with a sick kid, and my 2nd counselor is teaching the Sunbeams. I refuse to go into labor now. KNOCK IT OFF!"

And for once my body listened.

*****Don't forget to guess my baby's birth weight and win fame and fortune. Someone already take your guess? Just guess half and ounce higher or lower! Go here to enter!*****

Little Zoo

Now that preschool is over the boys are feeling a bit of cabin fever because I just don't want to go anywhere or do anything. Oh sure, they can play outside all they would like, but I guess that doesn't always cut it.

So yesterday we ventured over to the Columbian Park zoo, which we call the 'little zoo' since it's tiny compared to the Indie zoo. (Or any other zoo, for that matter.)

The boys spent a good hour in playing in the water fountains and perhaps 10 minutes looking at the animals. About what I expected.


The most exciting part of the trip was the escaped chickens. About five of them somehow got out of the petting zoo and several teenagers were chasing them with large nets. You could hear their squawking and clucks of indignation everywhere. It was very entertaining.

The least exciting part of the trip was all of the comments on the size of my belly. It was apparently very intriguing to many of the zoo's patrons. People! I'm huge and I know it! Please don't remind me!

I'm just sayin'...

After a while I started to swell up quite a bit. Attractive, yes? (And this wasn't even at their worst.)


After I told the boys it was time to go home, this little exchange occurred:

Spencer: But why? Why do we have to go home?

Me: Because I am getting too hot and am swelling up. See my fingers and feet? Yuck.

Spencer: But why?

Me: Because it is too hot. When mommies who are going to have babies get too hot they swell up and it doesn't feel too good.

Spencer: Oh. I bet ice cream would make you cool and feel better!

Me: Absolute genius, Spencer!

Does Spencer know how to work the system or what?

So we walked across the street to Igloo and enjoyed some frozen custard cones. It was the perfect ending to the day.

Bread of the Month: The Bread

For this month I decided to go with a recipe just posted on The Pioneer Woman Cooks. Her friend, Pastor Ryan, made it for her. Apparently he just calls it "The Bread". Which is just fine, because this bread is fantastic enough to have a name like that. (Kinda like Cher or Madonna. This bread is just "Bread". Or "Mr. Bread" to you.)

Just as the recipe says, I dumped all of the ingredients in my Kitchenaid and let that wonderful machine do all the work. Oddly, the dough kept separating while it was kneaded. Weird.


I let it knead the dough for a long, long time. Long enough for me to surf the web for a while. And then realize that my two most favorite household items were together on the counter. I *heart* my laptop and Kitchenaid mixer!


Is that the pregnancy insanity kicking in? Whatever.

So I kept trying to knead it long enough for the "window pane" effect (see the recipe for an explanation), but even after 15 minutes it wasn't there.


Meh. Whatever.

I decided it was ready for a good, long raise. Oh, I could have made it all pretty, letting it raise on the counter covered with flour, just as Pastor Ryan did. But that makes a mess, which is something I do not need. So it went where all of my dough goes:


in the mixer bowl, on the stove, covered in an old (but clean!) dish towel.

After a couple of hours the dough had at least doubled in size. Pretty.


By the way, my fresh herbs of choice for the bread were thyme and rosemary. Mmm...

I don't have a fancy Le Creuset dutch oven like the Pioneer Woman. (But oh, how I wish I did. This one, in fact. Just in case you had an extra $200 you wanted to spend on me.)

But I do have this wonderful oven-proof casserole, which works just as well in this situation. So I slathered it in olive oil and plunked the dough in.


Then I sliced the dough to make it all pretty and drizzled it with more olive oil and sprinkled it with kosher salt to make it all yummy.


On a random note, look at this cute little pot I've started putting my kosher salt in. I rediscovered it the other day and am so pleased with myself. :) (I think my mom bought it in England at some point and I inherited it.)


Anywho, on went the lid and in went the dough into a 450 degree oven.


Around 45 minutes later this beautiful loaf came out.


Oh mercy, it smelled good. The fear of third degree burns on my tongue was all that kept me from tearing into that bad boy right then.

I let it cool on a wire rack and then sliced the loaf.


Soooo very good. Soooo very yummy. The flavor was fantastic, but what really got me was the crispy, salty crust. Man alive.


I decided to have an all Pioneer woman meal and served the bread with baked lemon pasta (heavenly!) and roasted ricotta tomatoes (oh baby!).


What a meal. I'm seriously considering this as my last meal before the baby comes. (More on that later.) The kids turned their noses up at everything but the bread, but they do that no matter what I make, so I'm not particularly offended.

But back to the bread. Oh, The Bread.

The verdict? This will definitely become a staple in the Madsen kitchen.

An Afternoon with Darth Sith Joshie

Joshie with a light saber.

May the force be with all of us...

Baby Weight GIVEAWAY!

No, we're not guessing how much weight I have gained with this baby.

That would be cruel.

Nope. Since we already know the gender (boy), the birth date (June 1st), and the name (well, Lance and I know the name!), I thought it would be fun to have a contest to see who can come closest to guessing the one remaining variable with this baby: his weight.

The prize? Something anybody can use: an Amazon.com gift card!

And here's the kicker: the amount will be the amount of the winning guess. In other words, if you guess 8 pounds 12 ounces, you'll get an $8.12 gift card from me. So it's in your best interest if the baby is nice and big, whereas it's in my best interest (both monetarily and physically!) if the baby is smaller. Ah, fun.

So...

1. Leave a comment on this post with your guess. (Remember, there are 16 ounces in a pound.)
2. The winner will be the guess closest to the actual birth weight without going over.
3. You can guess more than once - but I'll only accept your most recent guess. (So if you guess three times your third guess is the one that counts.)
4. You can guess from now until May 31st at midnight.

Wait... you want some hints? Okay. How about the weights of my other two kiddos.

Here's a picture of Spencer a day or two after he was born.


As you can see, he was a perfectly reasonable 7 lbs 12 oz.

And then here's a picture of Josh literally right after he was born. (See? He was born scowling!)


As you can see, he was a perfectly unreasonable 9 lbs 15 oz.

Yes. That's a 2 lb 3 oz difference. So that's probably not much help. How about this: my doctor has now said twice that he thinks this is going to be another 'big baby'. But then again, this same doctor dismissed my claims that Josh was going to be huge and we all know how that turned out.

Happy guessing!

Sponge Bombs

No, not the square pants type. Sponge bombs.


We needed a project today, and this one was right up our alley. (A friend of mine sent me the tutorial.) The boys helped me cut the sponges and tighten the zip ties. Making all four sponge bombs took all of 10 minutes, and that's only because each child was very particular about what color went where.


The boys have been playing with their sponge bombs non-stop for the past 30 minutes. Mainly throwing them at each other. And me. But at least they're entertained.


They're very excited about the prospect of using them in the bath tonight. I'm not sure how much actual washing will get done, but at least the parts the sponge bombs hit will be clean!


p.s. Yes, it was only 11am and I already had one child with no pants on. Welcome summer!