Happy Halloween 2012!

I was smart this year and got individual costume pics of my kids before all of the festivities.  This doesn't mean they were all great pictures, but I got some nonetheless.  Okay, I got a lot.  Because my kids are cute.  But I never got a good picture of all four of them.  Oh well.

First we start with Tess.  She's a bee - can't you tell?  Okay, first she wanted to model the new trick-or-treat bag I made for her.

There's the bee!

I bought this costume way back in 2004 for Spencer's first Halloween.  We were very poor grad students and I think I paid something along the lines of $20 for it.  This seemed exorbitant at the time, but now that all four of my kids have worn it I now feel justified in its purchase.

Here's Cole - I mean Pikachu.  Pikachu was not so excited about getting his picture taken.  He had to be bribed with mini Kit Kats.

I made this whole costume without any pattern, which was quite scary for me!  But I think it turned out pretty well.

He's been wearing this costume off and on for a couple of weeks, but as soon as I want to take pictures he wants no part of it.  Classic Cole.

Oh hey - the candy is open!  Now I'll cooperate.

 

So, in case you're not as involved in the world of Pokemon, here's what Pikachu actually looks like.

And here's an almost cooperative Cole Pikachu.

 

 

  

Do you like the tail?  I think it's super cute.

 

Back to bee Tess.  Or "Bee-chu" as we like to call her.  (Since her brothers were all Pokemon characters.)

Cole - stuck while trying to get his costume off.

 

 

 

Total cuteness.

 

Finally, here's Josh - I mean, Raichu.  I couldn't get him to stop smiling and posing all weird.

 

Here are the ears that gave me such grief while I was making them.  That boy better appreciate all the work I put into them!

 

I told him I wanted a picture of his tail, so he kept bending over.  Good enough.

Here's the original Raichu (who is the evolved form of Pikachu, in case you didn't know) ((and if you didn't know I'm totally embarrassed for you) (((not really))):

And here's my little Joshie Raichu:

Finally, here's our own Ash Ketchum Spencer.

I told him to pose like Ash... um, okay.  I was quite pleased with Spencer's costume because it was so easy.  We already had the jeans and the white shirt.  I made the vest out of the shirt he got at the family reunion this summer and found the hat on ebay for only $5 total.  The Pokeball was a toy we already had and we already had the gloves.  Awesomesauce.

 

When the hat came I was informed that this was not the hat Ash wore in the cartoons they want.  I was also informed that he wears green gloves, definitely not black.

 

Too bad, I said, because this was the hat I saw all over the interwebs. And there's nowhere in Lafayette that sells cheap green knit gloves, so black will have to do.

Spencer wisely dropped these issues and made a great-looking Ash!

We were lucky enough to have the South and the Ream families join us for Halloween dinner. (Pretzel dogs, grapes, and a veggie tray.  So fancy!)

Before we started trick-or-treating we tried to get a picture of all the kids.  You can imagine the slight chaos that comes when trying to photograph nine very excited children.

 

I love Logan's (I mean, Superman's) poses!

 

As you can see from the coats, it was pretty chilly tonight.

 

 

Tessie and I only stopped at about 5 houses, then headed home with Misty and Addy to pass out candy.  Tess was in heaven the whole evening - she didn't care a thing about the candy, but loved seeing all the kids in costume.

 

Towards the end of the evening Cole got home and watched the trick-or-treaters from his bedroom window.  He's kinda creepy...

 

Gigi took Logan and Spencer to a bunch more houses.  While they were doing that, Bergen and Tess helped pass out the candy.  Bergen is so cute with Tess!

Finally, our jack-o-lanterns.  You can tell I like the traditional faces. 

I take pride in the fact that my scary pumpkin scared a toddler trick-or-treater.

Happy Halloween!

How Cole Prefers to Eat His Breakfast

Au naturel.

Rocks, Homework, and Spitting Toilets

What do those three things have in common?  Nothing, other than I'm too lazy to write three separate posts for the three separate stories that go with them.

Yesterday Josh decided to start a business selling rocks to the neighborhood children.  You wouldn't think there'd be much of a customer base for this sort of thing, but you'd be wrong.  Apparently the rocks used in our landscaping are highly prized among the kiddos of our street.  I mean, they are pretty cool... rocks.  Some are black with shiny flecks, and some are smooth and brown... and... hard... and...

Yeah, I don't know the draw, either.  But it's obviously there, because he "sold" enough of them to create a few bare patches in a few of our flowerbeds. 

As I was making dinner yesterday Spencer came in and said "Is Josh allowed to sell rocks?  Because he's selling rocks."

What?

After getting the truth out of Josh, I forced him (and Spencer) to go down the street and get our rocks back.  NOW.  Fortunately, no money had exchanged hands yet (apparently Josh sells on credit) so we didn't have to deal with refunds.  I suspect the neighbor kids knew this was probably a bad idea, because they were very sheepish about putting the rocks back.

And lest you think it was just a few handfuls, the rocks were drug back from down the street in a rather large football gear bag.  It took nearly 10 minutes to put them all back.  It was A LOT of rocks.

Josh has now been informed that he is no longer allowed to "sell" anything. Ever. Especially parts of the house.

I found this all very amusing.  I'm interested to see what money making scheme the child comes up with next.  Do we have a future MBA on our hands?

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

Spencer has been especially punkish lately when it comes to school work.  Specifically, he hasn't been turning it in.  I have been working very closely with his teacher, and despite the fact that she reminds him daily of what specific work he needs complete and turn in, he is just not getting it done. 

Our school system now offers weekly emails that show the grades for all the assignments and tests your child has at school.  Spencer is not a fan of this email because I can now keep tabs on him at home.  However, he is still "forgetting" assignments.  (Read: being too lazy to complete them and turn them in.)  Not only that, but I've caught him lying about whether or not he's completed these assignments a couple of times as well.

Last week I got a detailed, personal email from the teacher about this from his teacher.  I was pretty ticked off at Spencer.  I made him work on all the missing work that night and the next morning.  I gave him a checklist of what he needed to turn in at school that day.  I warned him of what would happen if he didn't turn in his work.  I sent him to school.  All seemed well.  We enjoyed Fall Break.  We had a doughnut party.

And then this morning I discovered HE HADN'T TURNED IN ANY OF THAT WORK!!!!!!  Not only that, but he also hadn't finished some of the pages of a spelling words packet that he swore up and down that he had finished.  AND THERE WAS YET EVEN MORE WORK HE HAD NOT FINISHED.

YYEEEEAAAAAARRRRRGHGGHHHGGGHHHGGGHHH!!!   

MOM RAGE!!!!!

Things were not peaceful in the Madsen household this evening.  I decided that the sticker chart we had been using just wasn't working.  (It included rewards and consequences.)  No more nice mom.  No more rewarding him for something he should be doing anyway and that he had been doing before and that he is perfectly capable of accomplishing without basically being bribed.

I laid down the law.  From now on if he doesn't finish work and turn it in when he should, he will spend his afternoons finishing that work.  All of it.  And when he's done with that he will write a letter of apology to his teacher for it.  (This is especially cruel on my part because the child HATES writing anything.  Plus, writing a letter to your teacher?  Totally embarrassing.)  And to top it off, whatever time he has left between homework and bedtime will be filled with the household chores of my choosing.  (Honest Mom Moment: I was hoping he'd finish before Tess went to bed tonight because I really needed someone to vacuum.  No such luck.)

Weeping.  Wailing.  Gnashing of teeth.

Seriously, how many more years until this child graduates high school?  I don't want to think about it.

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

Today I got spit on by a toilet.

No, really.

I was in my bedroom folding clothes, when I heard the plumbing from our bathroom making really strange gurgling noises.  I went to investigate and discovered that it was coming from the toilet.  Of course I opened the lid. 

Strange things were happening.  The water (which was clean, by the way) ((well, as clean as toilet water can be)) was jumping and gurgling and - all of a sudden - spitting!

I'll admit it.  Some got in my mouth.

Erlack.

I rushed to the sink, grabbed my tooth brush, thought better of it, and instead took a rather large swig of Listerine and let that swish around for a while.

If I die from dysentery any time soon I guess we'll all know why.

By this time the toilet was louder.  So I did something that was either very wise or very foolish: I flushed it.

Turns out, it was wise, because all went back to normal.  I have no clue what was going on down there.  Maybe Josh is flushing contraband rocks?  Or perhaps Spencer is flushing homework he doesn't want to do?  Whatever it was, I'm sure at some rather unfortunate time this will cost us a lot of money, because that's how we roll around here.

Listen!

Mustachioed Villain

A mustachioed villain blew into town today.

No really - blew.  We're feeling the effects of hurricane Sandy even all the way out here in Indiana, in the form of some pretty mighty wind gusts.

Today is the last day of Fall Break, and this little villain is taking full advantage of having her biggest brothers home with her.  She's been stealing toys, pressing power buttons on computers, yelling and dancing with them, and napping for only one hour because she's pretty sure she'll miss something important otherwise.  This makes for a pretty darn grouchy/whiny/irritable villain.

I won't be too sad when this little villain's life gets back to the normal routine tomorrow.  Hopefully she'll be less villainous and more of the happy Tess we all know and love.

Otherwise, another villain might have to make an appearance!

Eighth Annual Madsen Halloween Doughnut Party!

Yesterday was our Eighth Annual Halloween Doughnut Party.  As per usual: mass quantities of doughnuts were consumed, kids ran around like crazy hoodlums, and I forgot to take many pictures.

But I'm getting ahead of myself.  First, the invite.

It's come to my attention that people didn't realize that I always base the invite design around that year's theme.  And I always try to hide a doughnut in there somewhere.  So now you know.  Something to look forward to next year. :)

This year the doughnut making was make especially easy because of my newer, bigger KitchenAid mixer.  A whole batch fit into the bowl with room to spare!  (A special thanks to Dad - again! I thought of you the whole time.)

True story: earlier this week our server crashed and Lance was having issues bringing it back to life.  (Yes, we have a server.  Don't you?  Weird.)  On Wednesday I realized something rather terrifying: the only copy of my famous spudnut recipe was on the the server.  No, I do not keep a printed copy around the house.  No, I do not have it memorized.  Why not?  Because it's always been on the server!  For a moment there was the slightest possibility that I wouldn't have my recipe. But don't worry, Lance fixed the server and there is now a printed copy of the recipe in a very good hiding spot in the house.

Another true story: It's no secret that I keep the recipe a secret.  Every girl needs a secret recipe.  But to ease the sting of when I tell people that they can't have the recipe, I also explain that it's not just the recipe that makes the doughnuts - you have to really learn how to make them, and that means practice.  Well, just for fun last night I searched spudnut recipes online, and not a single one I found came close to mine.  Awesome.

Anywho, the doughnuts were made and we got ready for our guests.  By putting a brain in the punch bowl. 

I like to make ice out of milk to keep the milk we serve nice and cold and not watered down.   Plus, a brain in the punch bowl is always a nice touch.

Now for a few random pictures during the 10 minutes I actually remembered to get the camera out.  First, Ryan Cramer in his awesome costume. His buddy, Bolton Polmoteer, had one in red, which happened to FREAK poor little three-year-old Dallin Easton out.  Like, seriously freaked him out to the point of hysterical tears.  Which was both funny and sad at the same time!

Our two token teenagers, Breanna and Austin.  (Sorry for the bad pic, Austin, but Breanna looks great!)

Tess actually let Don hold her quite a bit.  This surprised everyone, and we figured it must be the goatee.  Daddy has a goatee, so any man with a goatee must be trustworthy, right?

Okay, this is a pretty bad picture, too.  Sorry, Lance. But it's the only picture I have of doughnuts!  Aren't they golden and delicious?

True story: we kept a tally of the number of doughnuts we made this year.  I think the counts a little low, but Lance thinks it's pretty close.  Anywho, by our count we made 178 doughnuts and 206 doughnut holes.  (That's just shy of 15 dozen doughnuts and 17 dozen holes.) And every single one of those was eaten.

Anywho, here's a random shot of the Hartwells and the Hendersons.

And the awesome Smiths!  Love the costumes, guys. :)

We had our usual games in the basement as well.  We had Spider Trivia, Name That Spider, Guess the Number Of Spider Rings in the Jar, and, my personal favorite, Jumping Spider Pong.  All winners won fabulous (Dollar Store) prizes, plus fame and honor (for the duration of the evening).

It was a great evening.  No matter how much work goes into putting it on (and there's a bit), it's always worth it.

True story: I turned our family picture a bit "spidery", but no one seemed to notice.  Too subtle, I guess.