A few little Bits

I will eventually do a year in review but today I am cleaning my desk while my kids are totally immersed in technology, so reviewing will have to wait- again. Anyway, I just found some little bits of paper on my desk I have been holding on to and now I want to throw them away, but I have to record them somewhere. They are just little conversations I have heard the boys have over the last 5 years and I want to remember them.

Tyse's Prayer at about age 3-

Mom, I love to help you wash dishes.
Dad, I love to help you water plants.
I love to read stories and I love to sing songs.
I love Emitt
I love Red (the dog) and Dad and I love You.
I like to find bats and drink water from waterfalls.
In the name of Jesus Christ, Amen.

He has since learned how to pray, but this little "conversation" with the Lord is one of my favorites.

Mom and Tyse, also at about age 3-
Mom- "What is a missionary?"
Tyse- "Someone who TRIES to eat dinner with us!"

A brotherly "one up-ing"
Emitt (to Tyse)- "You Princess!"
Tyse (responding)- "You Ballerina!"
and the ultimate insult a boy can dish?
Emitt- "You put MAKEUP on you!!!!"

Just in case you didn't get a card from the Madsen's...

You are in the same boat with EVERYONE ELSE! My beautiful cards are complete- the pics are actually in the house- the envelopes are all addressed- so you may ask why they never made it from my bedroom?
Well, we are blaming it on the printer. I spent an evening writing a letter, and then Kent spent an evening re-writing our letter just to have our printer break and we never got it fixed to print. Thus- no cards.
The bright side?
Next year's cards are up and ready- and hopefully a new printer will be gracing our desk soon!
So for those of you that felt like something was missing in your celebration this year, here is our christmas letter- complete with post christmas commentary found in RED.

Merry Christmas everyone! Hope your holidays have been filled with joy. We are grateful to have such great family and friends such as you. This year was memory-filled as our family continues to grow.
Ollie is 2 and going on 8 in his eyes! He loves to pretend to boss around his brothers, play with Hot Wheels and construction toys, and say whatever his brothers tell him to say. One of his recent favorite phrases to say whenever he is asked to do something is, “Kayh! whatEVah”- spoken phonetically. He has also mastered the art of plugging his hears when he doesn’t want to hear what we have to tell him. We think he aspires to be a sanitation engineer because he loves everything that has to do with garbage. He is happy as a clam as long as mom is in arms reach. He has taken to fixing things with dad when he or his brothers break something- he loves being a "worker guy." Santa brought him a big boy bed and he loves it- even that inch long gash from falling out of it!

Emitt turned 4 this year. He started preschool and is working hard on writing his name and rhyming. He loves riding his scooter (and not letting Ollie ride his), Halloween, and anything Cat in the Hat. He also believes he is a great impressionist and has started quoting movies. He has mastered the art of turning a knock-knock joke into a 2-part why did the chicken… type joke. (eg. "Knock Knock? Who's there? An elephant. Elephant who? Why did the elephant cross the road?...) If the two parts ever coincide, we might be tempted to pursue a stand-up-comic career.
He decided to add a new christmas eve tradition to our family- spending the day in the ER. More on that story later, but lets just say a lot of blood, a major course of sedatives and a healthy amount of stitches were involved.

Tyse just turned 7. He started first grade at a new school this year as part of the school district’s accelerated learning program. He really loves math and spelling and has also developed an affinity for drawing. He seems to have inherited an interesting Mortensen trait . . . he LOVES to watch the weather! He had yet another big year of sports- soccer 3 days a week, is about to earn his green belt in Karate (check) , played his first season of indoor soccer, has just started his 2nd season of Junior Jazz basketball, and can’t wait for nice weather so he can play golf and mountain bike (just got one for his birthday). With all these activities he has also really started to EAT!

Kent is in his 4th year of work at Okland Construction. He completed his first project as the manager on a chapel in Colorado Springs, CO before trying his hand at estimating and bidding. His first bid win came on a chapel in Austin, TX and hopefully there will be many more in the future. He found out after Christmas that he has been given the management position on that texas job! Hooray! He is also serving as the Young Men’s president in our ward and he really enjoys working with the boys. In his spare time he learned how to change transmission fluid on the cars AND on the washing machine (who knew?), he worked hard on our family and ward gardens this summer and finally finished our little side yard by laying a stone paver patio and building two more planter boxes in the side yard out of the un-HOA-approved one from our front yard (Yes, the HOA made us tear it out). He also took a long weekend trip and successfully climbed Mt. Whitney (the highest peak in lower 48). He is also an assistant coach on Tyse’s soccer team and continues to be reminded about how hard it is to be employed as a manual laborer for his wife!

I continue to try to control the chaos (as well as any women can with 4 active boys). My health has finally taken a turn for the better this fall after a rocky winter and spring. Spoke too soon! Med change to come and hopefully I will be back on track in a month or so. I serve as the Compassionate Service Leader in our ward which has welcomed 20 babies since I was called in mid-July. I have started crafting quite a bit and have sold my handmade crafts at a couple craft fairs with good success – much thanks to Kent for his grunt work! I also have recovered enough energy to play volleyball a couple days a week and in doing so quickly realized how much I have missed being in the gym. I continue to cook – well, mostly bake – as much as our bodies can tolerate and was able to take a lot of the produce from our garden and get it canned. Other than that, keeping everyone clean, dressed, and fed is a more than a full time job!
We sincerely hope this season finds everyone happy and healthy and that we can remember the blessings that come to us through the wonders of the Christmas season.
With Love,
The Madsen’s

June 2010

The biggest event of june at our house was Kindergarten graduation. For their final project they had to dress up as two different animals from two different animal classes. Tyse chose to be a jelly whale (a jellyfish-whale) combo, despite Kent's desperate pleas for him to dress up as Octo-mom. That would have been a hit in Kindergarten. As usual, I put it off much too late and I had a grand vision- that didn't come to fruition. But he has his own ideas on how to do it so I let him say how he wanted to put it together. As you can see, he had a bunch of "jellyfish tentacles" tied around his waist from ribbons he thought would work best. He also wanted to be a breaching whale, so that necessitated some blue waves around his shoulders. and then he needed no hair, and I wasn't about to completely shave it (though kent did a pretty close job), and the head needed to be gray. Therefore, the swim cap with a round foam for a blowhole and water shooting out of it (pipe cleaners). This boy is very creative and doesn't want any help! This is him with his best buddy, GianLuca, who was a dragon-something? They sure loved kindergarten, but they were ready to move on to 1st grade!

We also did the annual ladybug release, although it wasn't nearly as cool as in years past, darn it! The boys had a great time until Tyse got a sliver about 2 inches in length and was pretty hysterical. That ended the evening very quickly. Of course Kent was out of town, so I was on my own to keep him calm AND perform the removal surgery. It took forever and there were a lot of tears shed, but we survived! I even had to keep the sliver for Kent to see when he got home. It may as well been a 2x4.

Tyse finished his 2nd year of soccer and had another successful season. His team was sure cute but they didn't share the competitive edge Tyse did, so we moved on for this season to a group a little more his speed. The rest of the team was staying together for this year as well, and so the coach said, "We'll see everyone back next year except Tyse." He totally panicked and thought he was never going to play soccer again- it was a really sad moment for him! Not to worry- there was plenty of soccer to play!About a week later he played in a 3v3 soccer tournament with some boys that share his passion for soccer and they did pretty well. They played 4 games in one day- the first 95 degree day of the year- and they were the youngest team there. They ended up in 3rd place out of 5 teams after losing in a shootout to an 8 year old girls team.

The coach had Tyse kick one of the shootout goals and he missed. He was really sad! But- he didn't even know what a shootout was or what exactly he was suppposed to be doing. Now he knows really well and has vowed never to miss a shootout goal again...

On a sidenote, he LOVES those yellow socks from that jersey. He wants to wear them to every practice! It makes me laugh, but it also makes him easy to spot in the sea of 6 year olds!

This is the month Soccer began dominating our lives. He has been playing a developmental league all summer long and then joined with some of the boys from that league to form a team this fall. They chose to play a year up and have totally dominated some teams, but have also been beaten pretty badly as well. He is learning so much about ball control and teamwork and how to space and position himself on the field. He also got his first opportunity to play goalie yesterday. He thought it was great.

May 2010

May brought a lot more fun to our house. We started with Mother's day. The boys did a great job making my day special. I got a flower pot, some new shampoo and conditioner, some shoes, a great little book that Tyse made at school, and a cute card that Emitt made at playgroup. After church we headed down to Grandma's for dinner. I made her a cute wreath...

and the kids enjoyed spending time with grandmas and things. I love this picture of Grandma Ruth and Ollie...This month we were also able to keep Mallory for a few days while her mom attended a conference. She and Ollie had a great time together.Our last snowstorm of the year came at the end of may and it was so awesome! The boys were ecstatic to build a snowman and I love that my boys were still totally happy for snow- even in may!The boys and our neighbor built a one armed snowman. It was very cool. Ha ha.

Our new neighbors invited us to the grand opening of a new kids amusement type place called "Incredible Pizza." Their parents are the owners so we got to go and have dinner and then we were each given a $10 card to use on the amusement activities- we did bumper cars, inflatables, race car driving, glow in the dark mini golf, mini bowling, laser tag, and a ton of arcade games. They also got their faces painted and looked very intimidating. Except sweet June.Check out those sweet buzz cuts!
We started (and eventually finished) our patio. Hooray to have it finished- minus the plants. The boys were great slave labor and had a great time being pushed around in the wheelbarrow. We were also able to go to Discovery Gateway with our good friends, The Keenan's and the Maggiora's. Unfortunately both families have since moved away. Miss you guys! I am just going to add a bunch of pics from that trip with no extra commentary from me.

Lastly, my favorite pics of the month.

I love the wrestling shot- that is what my boys seem to do most days.I loved walking into the room and seeing this- Ollie is buttoning dad's sunday shirt while dad buttons Ollie's. This is Ollie to a T- much older than his 2 years give him.

The Rest of April 2010

The trip to AZ was our monthly highlight, but we did a few more fun things in the month.I turned 31! I had picked the cake I wanted about a month prior, so part of my present was being given the time to bake it! I discovered the cookbook section of the library one day and I have been wanting to learn to make artisan breads. Unfortunately I didn't find any cookbooks that only had breads in it- but I did find the Martha Stewart cookbook that I call "The Baking Bible." I borrowed it because it had a chapter on breads- but it also had a chapter on about every other pastry and bakery item. Somehow I never got around to making any bread, but I sure tried a lot of cookies, pies, tarts, and cakes....hmmm. Anyway, I made this mint chocolate ganache cake for my birthday. I ran out of time when making my ganache so it ended up a bit runny, but it sure tasted good! We also got to go to Zupa's for dinner (my family friendly fave) and spend the evening together.

This is one of my favorite pictures from the month. Tyse has started to like to read to Ollie. They have such a great time together! They are very similar to eachother and sometimes they struggle, but I think for the most part they are understanding kindred spirits. Not many would understand their drive and need for achievement. Certainly not Emitt.

Emitt entered an extra mischevious stage this month. There are many troublesome things he has discovered in the last 6 months, but this was one of the most problemesque-

he learned how to open nailpolish. It was unfortunate day- for his fingers, his clothes, the carpet, and the couch. Luckily it was just the underside.

Arizona Trip

April was a lot of fun at our house! We went to visit Grandma Paula and Grandpa Ted in Arizona for Easter weekend. What do you do in Winslow, AZ? Well, I guess you ride a lot of these. The boys had a great time riding ATV's with the Powell cousins and hanging out with G&G.

Kent had spent the previous week in Houston so he flew into Phoenix to spend the weekend and then help me drive back to UT. It worked out great because then we could visit Grandma Great. Tyse is the only one of our kids that had ever met her- and I think he was not 2 yet the last time we saw her. We visited for a bit on friday evening and they were brave enough to invite us back on Saturday morning. We watched conference with she and Bert and she treated us to a spectacular breakfast that may go down in Kent's "Best Breakfast Ever" list- Biscuits and Gravy with prickly pear jam. Then we went out in their backyard and picked grapefruits from their tree. I never realized how beautiful grapefruit tree leaves are! I need one just for garnishing purposes. We brought a bunch home with us, but I never got around to making the grapefruit jelly I was hoping to get done. We ended up giving the grapefruit to Aunt Andrea.

We were afraid we would wear those two out, so we headed down to the Phoenix zoo with Uncle Ron and Aunt Ginny. That is such a cool zoo! We took a bus tour around to see the large picture, then got to wander around a bit and see some different exhibits. They had a really cool open air monkey exhibit where we could walk into the exhibit and the monkeys ran around and swung on all these ropes right next to us and over our heads and what not.

They also had this great carousel, a ray petting exhibit, and it was a gorgeous day so the boys had a great time playing in the water. We were able to also meet EK and Tammy and their family there for the afternoon. It is so great to let the kids hang out with their extended family! We love that we all know eachother and are so happy to continue the relationships through the generations. For dinner we went with Ron and Ginny to a really great BBQ place and met Brad and Hillary and their kids. We had a great day in Phoenix.

We spent easter morning back in Winslow with G&G. We watched conference and enjoyed the surprises brought by the easter bunny- all of Santa's forgotten leftovers. Tyse got a golf set and Emitt a scooter. Once we finished the morning session, we loaded up and headed back home. It takes a good 8-ish hours to get home, so we stopped a couple times to rest.

Our first stop was at Navajo Bridge. This place is so cool!

The boys had a great time running across the bridge and a couple California Condors came out and were flying just about 15 feet over our heads as we hung out. Those birds are HUGE-and UGLY! There were a couple hispanic grandmas on the bridge that kept begging me to carry Ollie because they thought the birds were going to come swoop him off the bridge and eat him. The boys also loved climbing on the rocks and figuring out what they looked like. This one they called Dino skull...

We stopped again in Cedar City for dinner. We hung out with the cousins for a while and had a nice break from the car before loading back up and finishing the drive home. We had a great time!

Yesterday's Antics

Our days are never boring! It just isn't meant to be...
Yesterday I got in on the excitement- we were headed down to Provo to pick up the new $5 cougar football tees, and I needed to stop by my mom's house to pick up something. I got there and left E&O in the car while I just ran in- my mom and grandma are both on vacation, so no need to drag them out. I ran it, thinking that my brother must have come and greased up the front lock because it unlocked so easily this time! I stepped in and saw a cute little pair of flip flops by the front door. The last people at my mom's house were my aunt and her grandkids who live in Canada, so it crossed my mind that maybe I should pick them up and mail them to her before winter comes. What a good gesture. I then start down the stairs, and when I get there, I can hear water running. The first thing I do is panic because my grandma has been out of town for 10 days by this time and if she left the bathroom water on, well, it wouldn't be good. So I run down the hallway towards the bathroom to be greeted by a topless woman! She totally scared me and I must have petrified her because she started screaming! Apparently the doorlock hadn't been fixed (it was unlocked), the shoes did indeed have an owner present, and grandma didn't leave the water on- the shower was in use! It happened that at that very moment, my cousins were headed through town and stopped to stay at the house for the night! Luckily I had met my cousin's wife once before (about 3 weeks ago), so I wasn't a complete stranger, and luckily she is pretty laid back. After calming down and figuring out who eachother was, she said, "ehhh, you have a set. Seen one set of boobs, seen 'em all." I'm just glad my male cousin wasn't out of the shower yet! That was a great start to the morning!
Next, we headed down to a friend's house for the day. We are driving there and get to a part where one road splits off from the main one and you go on a little overpass and then down a country(ish) road- you know, lined with only weeds and an occasional tractor and dairy farm. Well, at this moment, we see they are repaving the middle 2 lanes (one in each direction). We are driving down when Ollie starts panicking and saying, "shoe, window!!" Oh, it took a couple blocks for me to figure out that he was telling me he threw his shoe out the window, and then about 10 more before we got to a spot in the construction that I could actually turn around. I may have just kept driving if they weren't the only shoes the child will allow on his feet (and they were one of my few expensive kid buys), but I flipped around and drove back to try and find it. I think Heavenly Father knows I am running on max in every area of my life and that one little thing could be the breaking point because he made the find amazingly easy for me. We got back to the split in the road and turned back around to retrace. We got to the point in the road where the curb is about to be swallowed by weeds and tall grass and there the shoe is, just sitting in the gutter. And, as the moment comes, the construction crew had stopped the traffic going in our direction right next to the missing shoe. So I just had enough time to jump out of my car and grab the shoe before traffic started moving again. But you should have seen the look on the man's face in the truck behind me...
After that, Ollie needed a redeeming quality. I went to pick up the carpool from school. There is Tyse and then 2 other kids I pick up- one of whom is a 9 year old girl. She always likes to ask Ollie how old he is- because it always changes. This day she asked him and he answered, "six." Then he paused briefly and said, "no, seven," as if he had to briefly think about becoming another year older (and 5 years older than in real life). He is pretty sure he is the OLDEST brother, not the youngest. And at some point Emitt may just concede the older brother role- just so Ollie won't sit on him. You see, if Ollie sits on Emitt, Emitt can't get Ollie off. It is hysterical! We have been trying to teach Emitt how to escape, but he just can't seem to do it. One day we had Emitt try sitting on Ollie and Ollie was out from under him in just under 3 seconds. Poor little (and by that I mean LITTLE) Emitt. No almost 4 year old should have to hold his 18 mo. shorts up in the waist as he runs so he doesn't lose them!
What crazy and fun days boys bring. I am so happy to have boys!