The Sunday Before Christmas

Since our kiddos were all gussied up in their Christmas church clothes this morning (i.e., Tess had a new dress and the boys had red or Christmas ties because I have discovered that buying boys new Christmas clothes is a waste of money) I decided we should take a few pictures.  Dreams of adorable poses in front of the tree danced in my head.

While we were waiting for everyone to come upstairs I snagged a photo of Spencer and Josh.  Hey!  Not bad!  Things were going to go well!

While Lance was dragging Cole up the stairs I got this picture of Miss Tess.  I realize that it is blurry, but it seems to be the only photo of the day where she is actually smiling.  Please note that Tess chose all of her accessories this morning.

We took several shots in front of the tree.  This one, sadly, turned out to be the best.  Dang, Tess!  Why'd you have to close your eyes?!

So I tried a different tactic.  Perhaps they would behave better on the couch?  Well, the boys did... kinda mostly...

Okay, yes, you may make silly faces.  Cole took this to be "Yes, you may run away".

"Please!  Just one normal shot!"  After this I gave up.  Blasted children.

Tess did not like the idea of me taking my her necklace away.

At all.

Sad girl.   She really knows how to use that bottom lip to her advantage.

So what do you do with a sad little girl who needs a distraction?  You take a picture with her!

Whatever happened to self-portrait Tuesdays?  I have no idea.

Our ward is awesome because we only had Sacrament meeting today, probably making us the only congregation in the world to actually have less church for Christmas.

However, as Lance so aptly put it on the drive home, it still felt like we were there for the full 3 hour block.  Our kids were So. Rotten.

Cole has figured out that if he's loud enough he will be taken out of the chapel.  When we do this we do not let him run around and have fun.  We make him stand by a wall or sit on a chair or something equally boring and un-fun. 

He does not care.  For some bizarre reason, he would rather be bored out of his skull in an empty classroom instead of in the chapel quietly coloring or playing with cars.

So Cole hollered and yelled and fake-cried for a majority of the meeting, which we tried to ignore because we did not want to reward him by taking him out.  (Our apologies to the rest of the congregation.)  Tess was just ill-tempered and tantrumy.  Spencer and Josh were okay, but they weren't angels by any means.  And for whatever reason, each child felt a special to need to lift my skirt and/or pull my neckline down at least once during the meeting.  It was like I was fighting a constant battle to stay decent and not flash anybody.  Now that would have been a Christmas gift for everyone.  Oy.

Needless to say, no one was in a very Christmassy mood at the end of the meeting. 

Oh wait - there was one good thing.  All of the Primary kids went up to sing a couple of Christmas songs.  For whatever reason, Cole decided he needed to go up, too. He kinda zipped up there before we could stop him, and we figured it'd create more of a fuss if we fought him to come down.  Miraculously, he stayed by Spencer and Josh and behaved himself the entire time.  He even sang one of the songs!!  (True story: later in the day when we asked why he didn't sing the second song, Josh said it was because Cole didn't know it.  Spencer was adamant that Cole did, in fact, know the song.  In order to keep the peace I interjected that perhaps Cole didn't sing the song because he didn't want to sing the song.  Was there a song Cole would have rather sung?  "Perry", Cole immediately replied.  I am completely and totally in favor of the Primary kiddos singing "Perry the Platypus" for Christmas next year!  Which is probably while I'll not have any sway in that matter whatsoever.)

Anywho, we all survived and made it home.  We even started to like each other enough again to make some Christmas cookies.  The boys were all too eager to help unwrap each Hershey kiss we needed.  And no one ate a single Kiss during the unwrapping process. Will wonders never cease?

Mmmm... chocolate cookies with Candy Cake Kisses.  Yes, my kisses are a little melty.  But I like them that way - much easier to eat.

Lest you think our Sunday adventures end here, think again.  While I was putting Tess to bed this evening, Cole snuck into my room and used a pair of scissors from my bedside table to snip a lovely hole into our brand new sheets.  He also came close to destroying a very intricate felt flower I've been working on. I came very close to throwing him out the door and into the snow.  Okay, sure, I probably shouldn't have left the scissors there.  But in my defense, he had been playing downstairs for a while and I had no idea he'd be coming up and wreaking havoc.

Santa had better get here fast; all our good behavior is slowing ebbing away and being overtaken by sheer naughtiness.

Tessie Likes Smoothies

A lot.

However, she apparently no longer likes to smile for the camera.

Hot Tamales and Oatmeal Cake!

While the rest of the MidWest was bracing itself for a big ol' winter storm, my friend Misty and I were making tamales.  Because we've both lived here long enough to not let something like a little blizzard worry us.  Also, because Lafayette is only supposed to get 1-2" of accumulation.  That's nothin'.

Also, because tamales are good.  For a while I always associated tamales with Christmas because my mom made them at Christmas time while we lived in California.  I totally thought it was some sort of tradition she had. And then, the more I thought about it, I could really only remember her making tamales just a couple of times; not really much of a tradition.  This made me realize that this is exactly how my kids think: we do something once or twice for a certain holiday and then all of a sudden it's a tradition we HAVE to do.  I'm not saying it's bad; it's just a kid thing.

Anywho, I decided it was time to have a tamale Christmas.  They aren't hard to make, but they take a lot of time.  So I enlisted Misty's help with promises of a tamale lunch and plenty to take home.  (Both promises fulfilled.)

We made chicken tamales and pork tamales.  I'm very proud of how they turned out because I kinda made my own recipes for them out of a conglomeration of ones I found in my cookbooks and online.

So I had this whole plan of documenting the entire process to show how easy they are to make.  And then Misty came over and we started chatting and working and one thing led to another, and well, the number of pictures I took is fairly pathetic.  But I do have a few!

First, my make-shift steamer.  Tamales take a while to steam, and I only had one steamer basket.  But no worries, because I had an aluminum pie plate and a large nail.  Viola!

I put the pie plate on top of the foil balls and had an excellent steamer.

See?  There they are, steaming away.

So I took those pictures and then I thought "Oh wait - they'll probably want to see what the tamales look like."  So here you go.  Aren't they cute?  They're like little Christmas packages of taste bud joy to open.

So then I thought "Oh hey, they'll probably want to see how to actually make a tamale."  So here's a shot of some masa dough on a corn husk.  It really needs to be spread out a bit more.

And then I got distracted and thought "Oh hey, maybe they'll want to see a picture of the masa dough (on the left) and the pulled pork (on the right)".

And then I didn't take anymore pictures of the tamales.  At all.

But I had the sister missionaries over for dinner tonight and they loved them.  And Spencer and Tess ate theirs.  And Cole and Josh didn't.  So there you go.

But hey, there's more! My cousin Jen has a cooking blog called Jen's Favorite Cookies, and the other day she posted a recipe for Oatmeal Chocolate Chip Cake which sounded pretty awesome.  And since it's pretty mandatory to have dessert when the missionaries are over for dinner, I decided to make this cake.  However, since we had JUST had a huge cake for Spencer's birthday (of which we only ate half), I decided to make just half of the cake. 

I was a little concerned about how halving the recipe would work.  But I turned out just great!  (FYI, Jen, I had to bake it for a full 30 minutes, despite its smaller size.)  Also FYI, I didn't use nuts in my cake because I don't likes nuts in cakes.  I just added a few more chocolate chips, because that is always a good idea.  ALWAYS.


Cole decided I needed some help to frost the cake.  He was right, I totally did.  I totally needed help from a three year old to frost and put sprinkles on a cake 30 minutes before the missionaries come to dinner.  You can probably imagine how... clean... this turned out to be. *sigh*

This shot is also for Jen.  Because in her post the other day she mentioned not having any red sprinkles.  But look!   You can make your own sprinkles!  We did this the other night at Young Women's (because making reindeer cupcakes only takes so much time).  You put 3/4 C granulated sugar and 10-15 drops of food coloring in a jar and you SHAKE.  The longer you shake the better.  Then you dry the sugar on a cookie sheet over night.  So easy, and it looks great, too!  Okay, so my red is more of a pink.  It was darker when it was moist, but oh well.  I guess I could add more food coloring, but really, how much colored sugar does a girl need?  Anywho, the cake needed sprinkles and sprinkles were something I had a lot of.

Here's the cake.  It doesn't look so great, I know.  But it's hard to be a professional food photographer with a three year old assistant and a kitchen with little natural lighting at 5:30pm on the darkest day of the year.

Hardly matters, though, because this boy thought it looked great.

True story: I took this picture first and then took a picture of the cake.  While trying to get a good one of the cake Cole said "The cake says 'Cheese!"  Dang, he can be cute.

Another true story: the cake was awesome.  So moist and yummy.  Definitely a keeper.

Highlights of the Day

Cole running into the room and saying "Mommy!  Where are my Dingle bells?!?"

I couldn't bring myself to correct him, he's so dang cute.

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Tess is done with First Steps!  She had her very last session today.  She ran around and walked and climbed like a champ.  She also pouted, cried, freaked out, and acted like a little punk.

She is now a completely normal/mobile toddler.

It was kinda sad to see our therapist, Amy, go.  We've been seeing her once a week for several months, and Tess really likes her now.  It was extra sad because there's no real way I could make Tess understand that we won't see Amy anymore.

Big kudos to First Steps.  They were the perfect solution for our little girl.

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We had a pretty laid back Young Women's activity tonight.  We made darling reindeer cupcakes.  Not only did they look cute, but they tasted great, too.  We have some really talented young women!

It just occurred to me that I have a picture of a cupcake in this post, but none of my children.  Or me, for that matter.  Is that weird?

Cole Meets Santa

As I mentioned in Spencer's birthday post, the kids had the chance to meet Santa the other day.  Spencer and Josh were nonplussed by the situation.

Tess flipped out so much we didn't even bother trying to get a picture.

Cole had something of an existential crisis with ol' Saint Nick.  On the one hand, there was no way on God's green earth that he would be willing to sit on or even by Santa.  On the other hand, he knew he HAD to tell Santa what he had his heart set on getting for Christmas.  (A red scooter.)

The following occurred.

Okay, I might be a bit biased, but is that not darling?!  After Josh and Spencer had run to the other side of the stage to get their candy canes, Cole (wearing his rather ragged but oh-so-beloved "Thing 3 t-shirt) snuck back to Santa, step by hesitant step.  Santa, being the magical man that he is, knew this child needed to tell him something and held his hand up to his ear and gently asked what he wanted for Christmas.  Cole whispered "scooter" and ran away.

It's enough to to make a momma's heart melt.

Will Santa bring Cole his requested scooter?  I guess we'll have to wait a week and see.  (Fingers crossed, Cole!)

Cole the Drill Sargeant

I'm in the kitchen washing dishes and doing general clean up.

Cole comes marching in, stands by the table, and looks dead at me with serious little eyes.

"HEY!  WHAT'S GOING ON IN HERE?" he bellows.

"Um.  I'm cleaning the kitchen?"

"WELL DONE."

And with that he marches out, apparently on to his next inspection.

Happy 9th Birthday, Spencer!

This morning started in a mad rush.  I rolled over to look at the clock and freaked out to discover it was 8:13.  On any normal Saturday this would have been an AWESOME present from our children, who never let us sleep past 7am.  However, we had tithing settlement scheduled for this morning at 9am. 

Dang it.

Miraculously, we got ourselves and four kids fed and dressed and ready in time to pull into the church at exactly 9:00am.  Lance and I are pretty awesome.

But Spencer's birthday doesn't really start here.  It started yesterday, when my little chefs and I made his birthday cake.  It should be noted that pants are always optional in the Madsen kitchen.

Spencer wanted a chocolate cake, and I decided to take it up a notch.

Yes indeedy, that cake is covered from top to bottom with Whoppers.  Spencer likes Whoppers and they look really cool.

It was all I could do to get a few pictures of the cake.  Cole REALLY wanted to taste it!

There were a few small spots on the cake not covered, only because I ran out and wasn't willing to go to the store for a handful more.  Because I'm a lazy mom like that.

When Cole wants to do something he knows is naughty he says "Get out of here, Mommy.  Go out.  Now."  This is exactly what he said right before I took this picture.

Yeah, Cole.  Sure.  I'll leave the kitchen with you and this cake.  Alone.

Anywho, back to this morning.  After tithing settlement we headed down to Ivy Tech.  They and the YMCA were having a Christmas activity that we thought the kids would like.

Despite the look on Tess's face, they did.

Of course they did - free bouncy house!  They ran and jumped and yelled and played for a good 30 minutes.  Here's my great big 9 year old birthday boy!

None of the other pictures are very good since they wouldn't hold still.  But you get the idea.

 

After playing on the inflatable we went to see Santa.  As expected, Tess REFUSED to even get close to the big guy.  As in back arched, arms flailing, head pommeling anything in its path.  Cole was a bit more reserved but also wouldn't sit on Santa's lap.  Spencer and Josh did, but I got the feeling they thought they were too old for it.  Right as Josh and Spencer started leaving Cole stood by Santa.  You could tell he was really, truly conflicted about talking to him.  He REALLY wanted to tell Santa what he wanted for Christmas - a scooter.  But he was pretty wary of getting too close.  He snuck closer and closer and Santa leaned in to hear him talk.  It was darlingly, preciously cute.  They had a professional photographer there taking pictures - hopefully she got a good one.  (She said the shots would be up on her site in a few days.)

We went home and spent a typical Saturday - laundry, lesson planning, cleaning, homework.  That afternoon we let Spencer open a couple of gifts.  Including this gun pack I got at a ridiculously low price during pre-Christmas clearance sales. 

Nothing says love like automatic Nerf-like weapons.

Since this was an odd-year birthday, we celebrated with just a family party.  We told Spencer we could go anywhere in town - anywhere - but of course he chose Chuck-E-Cheese.  I had to keep reminding myself that although the Chuckster is not the most fun place for adults, it is a kid's paradise.  So off we went.

I didn't get too many pictures because I was too busy chasing this little girl around.  Tess is only 20 months old, but it didn't take her long at all to figure out that this place was FUN.  She toddled around and pressed buttons and threw skee balls with spectacularly bad aim.

She really liked the game where you pump the bone handle up and down to feed the dog.  The only reason her little hands aren't on it in this picture was because this was the fourth time in a row playing and I think her arms got tired.

I decided Tess might like to go on a little ride.

I was very, very wrong.  Oops.

 

Cole and Daddy challenged Spencer to a game of air hockey.

I don't know who won, but the birthday boy was having fun!

I have a picture like this with all of my kids. It's a tradition.  (And Tess loved it.  She also loved the one where  you get a picture of yourself on a card. She ooohed and aahhhd and cuddled that card so much!  Darlingness.

We got lots of tickets, which meant hours at the prize counter trying to decide what to get.  Lance and I hate the prize counter.  Spencer and Josh love it.

After Chuck-E-Cheese we went out to see the lights on Greenview Drive.  In case you don't know what that is, it's a house that sets up tens of thousands of lights and sets them to music, which you can listen to on the radio.  It's awesome and it has become a family tradition for us to go see them.

It was hard to get pictures or video of the kids, but at one point both Cole and Tess were dancing to the music.

I'll spare you a video of the light show.  But here's a picture to give you a little idea of what it looks like.

After a long, grouchy drive home, we put Tess to bed and then had cake and ice cream.

And, of course, presents!

I got a super-awesome deal on a pretty pricey necktie.  (A Christmas one - but subtle.)  He's smiling here, but he wasn't really all that impressed.  Not that I'm surprised.

Cole and Tess gave him Bop-It Slam.  I'm pretty sure this is gonna annoy the heck out of us for next few weeks.  Josh gave him the complete Pokemon handbook, which I am sure will be equally annoying.

Finally, a couple of Diary of a Wimpy kid books from Grandpa ElRay and Grandma Susie.  Spencer was SO excited about these!  He started reading them right then, and had to be told several times over the rest of the evening to put them away so he could: talk on the phone/eat his cake/get ready for bed/have family prayer/have family scripture study.  Oy.

Spencer was by far the easiest baby and toddler ever.  He is definitely making up for that now.  But despite all of that, he is a great kid.  He is so very friendly and he LOVES little kids and is great and helping to take care of them.  He is smart (when he wants to be) and talented (at unexpected times - hello, school concert!) and a wonderful part of our family.  We love him so much!