More cute quotes from the kids

I thought this was very funny!
Paul: "What are you going to name your dolly? How about Becky, Susan, (and on and on)" Courtney: Repeatedly says "no, no, no." to each suggestion. Finally, she blurted out: "Her name is Healthy."

Paul: "Please take a short shower. I want hot water when I get in. "
Rachel: "Okay"
Paul: "What's your definition of a short shower?"
Rachel: "Twelve minutes or less."
Kerri: "What? That's not short!"
Rachel: "Well, that's what Dad told me."
Kerri: "Well, for Dad that is a short shower."
Paul: "That's not true."
Rachel: "Yeah, right, Dad."

It's no wonder we run out of hot water on the weekends when people don't always comply with the short shower rule (and we have a 75 gallon water heater tank!)

What happened to the moon?

Caitlin and Courtney were outside on the deck last night looking at the crescent moon when they ran in with worried expressions and we had the following conversation:

Courtney and Caitlin: "Mommy, the moon is broken!"
Me: "What?"
Courtney: "Yeah, Mommy, it's broken. A piece of it fell into the river."
Me: "What is it supposed to look like?"
Courtney: "Round. . . like a circle." (With the "Duh, Mom!" tone of voice I sometimes hear from Rachel)

I love Courtney's explanation of where the rest of the moon went. I also think it's interesting that the twins have never noticed the changing shapes of the moon before. Now, that I think about it, I do often point out a full moon to the kids but don't ever mention it otherwise so it might be my fault.

Christmas Memories 2008

Spencer and Dad spent many hours Christmas morning building this rescue helicopter
Once there was a snowman. . .in the pouring rain he melted!

Christmas Day trampoline jump-Courtney wants to get cracked!

Not sure where Rachel's face is behind all that hair!

She's flipping out!

Caitlin's doing it, too!

Tangled feet leads to a trip!

But she's just fine!

Looking cool with her hoodie!

Woo hoo!

Jumping for joy!

We love the tramp!

Feeding the dollies

Caitlin, Rachel, Courtney, Spencer

Silly faces

There's my girls

Rachel loves her outfit from Grandma

The fun roller from Steve and Amber was a huge hit!They even had to take their dolls on a ride.

Static electricity--what fun!

Courtney with her presents

Legos, the gift that keeps on giving!

Courtney examines her stocking from Santa

Caitlin loves her Dora toy from Santa

Do you think he likes it? We'll see how long he gets to keep it.

Wearing their new pajamas (the present they get open Christmas Eve)

Oh, Holy Night! The kids and Paul performed the annual nativity play. Caitlin was an angel (in pink?!?), Rachel as Mary, Spencer as Joseph, Paul and Courtney as shepherds and Sugar as a sheep. I narrated and took pictures.

A Madsen Merry Christmas

Hello family and friends, it’s Christmas 2008.
As for the Madsens, we’re all doing great!
It’s been 18 years since we began wedded bliss. . .
And to think this crazy family started with one magical kiss!

Paul still does Strategic Human Resources at work.
We’re grateful for another good year at ol’ Merck.
At home, he’s the Dad with four kids to mold.
In his calling, he works with High Priests, so I guess we are old!

Kerri is the Mommy in the family, it is clear.
She’s the limo driver, chef, teacher, and domestic engineer.
She leads the church choir and is the ward music chair,
She also reminds the ward that they’d better prepare.

This year, Rachel, eleven, began middle school.
She plays basketball, soccer and races in the pool.
She sings, plays the piano and helps with the kids.
She loves violin. Academically, she’s a whiz!

Spencer, age six, is learning to read.
He knows karate and is a good swimmer, indeed.
He loves everything Star Wars, is a terrific artist, too.
He builds amazing Lego creations, it is true.

Caitlin, age three, is an active and coordinated girl.
She swims like a fish and does an outstanding twirl.
Flipping on the tramp and riding bikes are her thing.
She loves nursery school and flying high in a swing.

Courtney, our youngest, is also age three.
She loves dollies, purses, and is as sweet as can be.
She rides her bike and sings her ABCs,
Enjoys going to pre-school and is eager to please.

We hope to hear from you sometime in ’08 or ’09.
Please call us, e-mail or drop us a line!

What a weekend!

Spencer, Caitlin, Courtney and Rachel with Santa Claus

Whew--what a weekend! Friday night, after spending the day enjoying the snowy weather with the kids, I took Rachel to the Civic Theatre to see "A Christmas Carol." One of Rachel's friends had a part and we enjoyed knowing someone in the play. I must have been tired, though, because I actually fell asleep during the performance! It was odd because I normally need perfect conditions to fall asleep but not Friday night. I had to keep waking myself up during the last act. The acting was excellent so I'm not sure exactly what my problem was! Rachel said my head was leaning backwards a couple of times.

Saturday morning, we took the kids to see Santa and eat breakfast with the ward. They had some fun performances, a live nativity and delicious food so it was a great morning. Afterwards, we had a string quartet practice. I spent the rest of the day shopping! I think I'm about done so it's a good feeling! We watched the BYU game--ARGH! I left during the third quarter to go to bed and I'm glad I did considering the outcome. Good grief. . .could their season have ended any worse? I don't think so!

Today was the big day: the annual Christmas Choir Presentation. This morning, we had an ice/freezing rain storm. The Bishopric called this morning to tell me we were going to delay sacrament meeting until 11:30 a.m. So I began calling the choir to tell them our practice time would be delayed a couple of hours and when I spoke to my accompanist, Cheri, she informed me that she had to leave to travel to the mission home and wouldn't be able to play for us (her husband is in the mission presidency.) I didn't feel panic but I wasn't quite sure what to do because the music is difficult to play, even for a seasoned accompanist. Almost immediately after I hung up with her, one of the choir members called to see what time choir was and I shared my predicament. He then told me his wife could play for us. Even though she's an extremely talented pianist, I wouldn't dream of asking her because her son just had a kidney transplant a week ago (a real Christmas miracle I'll have to share another day.) Anyway, she got on the phone and told me she was planning to go to sacrament meeting anyway and would be happy to do it. But then Cheri called me back to tell me she had changed her mind and she would play for us. What a crazy morning! Oh, another little snafu happened regarding the program this weekend--the narrator backed out at the last minute because he had to go out of town so I also had to find a replacement for him as well.

The side roads in town were very icy this morning. On the way to church, I started sliding down a hill heading right toward a parked car. As I slid, I prayed, "please don't let me hit the car" over and over again. Just as I felt a collision was inevitable, my car stopped. I was about 2 inches away from the other car. What a blessing!

So I arrived at church, feeling like all was well. After all, I had an accompanist and a narrator and the choir was ready to sing. However, when I got there, I was informed that one of our soloists was sick and couldn't sing. I wondered if I should ask someone else to do it, but because no one else knew the music well enough, I took her solo and did it myself. It wasn't the best performance but at least it was done.

The program flowed nicely and the music turned out very well. Our little string ensemble played prelude and I had them accompany a couple of songs during the program. We also had a harpist play with us during "It Came Upon a Midnight Clear." My favorite part was the primary and choir singing "Tiny King" together. The children sang so beautifully and the joy on their faces as they sang touched me. I really felt the spirit during our final song, "Silent Night." I hope it helped people remember the reason for the season and get them into a Christmas mood.

I better hit the hay! The kids have a two hour delay in the morning (so the roads can be cleared of ice) but there will be school so it's time to say goodbye.

I feel so blessed today! Even though there were a few challenges this morning, the Lord helped resolve them. I am so grateful for his constant care.

Snow Day!

Rachel's tiny snow girl

Spencer's snow man

Courtney with a big grin while snowflakes are falling all around

The excitement in Spencer's face says it all! We love snow days

Rachel and her friend, Lauren: best friends!

Caitlin loves the snow!

Purple and Pink Princess

Today, the kids were out of school because of a snow and freezing rain storm. We are so blessed to have a yard with two little sledding hills and lots of room to run and frolic in the snow. They made snow men, went sledding, threw snowballs and caught snowflakes on their tongues. We made a small batch of big soft ginger cookies (thanks Katherine for the yummy recipe) and watched movies. It was a wonderful silly, snowy day!

Incoming! Yes, they got me!

I never realized her coat has glowing parts to it--cool!

Spencer lands at the bottom of the hill with Sugar close behind him

Oh, what fun it is to ride. . .down our little sledding hill!

Christmas Overload

I am so frustrated! After I spent three days calling about my missing Christmas cards, Walgreens essentially cancelled my Snapfish Christmas card order because of "technical difficulties." They did give me a 20% discount to make them at their store on their machine which was an excellent price. So I dragged the twins there to make the card, waited in line for at least a half an hour to use one of the two photo machines but they didn't have the card that I wanted or any card that I liked for that matter. The one from Snapfish was selected after much deliberation and looking at muliple sites because it looked the best with my photo. Not so with Walgreens. The choices were very limited. The twins were restless and beginning to touch things and climb out of the shopping cart and people were behind me in line looking as harried as I felt. So after waiting that long, I went ahead and picked the card that was sort-of-okay, I guess--you get the idea--cropped the picture and ordered the card. Well, I must not have saved my photo edit or something because when I got the cards, the picture wasn't cropped the right way! *#$*^*%!!! (*Insert your own LDS-approved curse word, i.e. snap, fetch, flip, etc.) But on the bright side, I stayed up late last night stuffing the envelopes and got them to the post office today.

I turned off the alarm this morning and slept until 7:10 a.m. OOPS! I must have been tired because I never get up that late. Rachel has to be at the bus stop by around 7:18. Guess what, she got ready, ate breakfast and we made it to the bus stop just in time for the bus to arrive. Normally it takes her a good hour to get ready so I hope this is a lesson to her that she can get ready quickly.

I must be having a bad day because I was leisurely getting the twins ready for school when suddenly I remembered at 8:38 (school starts at 9) that today is their school party and I had to send in two dozen cookies. I couldn't buy them because they have a peanut allergy in the class and almost every cookie at the store has been prepared where there are peanuts. Thank goodness for food storage! I got out an orange cake mix, (I checked the label about peanuts: okay!) some chocolate chips and had cookies made by 9:00. We were about five minutes late to school but I was there with warm cookies!

So despite all the chaos, it appeared like I was all together when I was really losing my mind. It's Christmas time and there's just so many things to think about and my mind is on overload and is about to blow any minute!

Christmas Cookies

One of the cookie plates we shared tonight

Pretty lights outside our house

Christmas traditions are so much fun! Tonight we resurrected a tradition that ended when I had the twins. I measure time BT and AT (before twins and after twins) because so much changed when I had them. Many of the things that I did BT had to be dropped because there were too many more important things to accomplish like nursing, feeding my older children, changing diapers, keeping the kids safe and just getting through the day. But now that Caitlin and Courtney are three, things are so much easier and I have been able to do much more.

Tonight we made Christmas cookies (which we have always done BT and AT) and took them to our neighbors (which we haven't done since BT.) I multi-tasked as I rolled the dough and supervised cookie cutting while quizzing Rachel for her science test. This a fairly accurate quote from this evening "Okay, yes, you can each have one cookie, but only one. These are for our neighbors. Rachel, remember we're studying here. Start at the negative end of a battery and descibe what happens to the electrons when a closed circuit turns on a light. Oh, this cookie dough is too sticky. Caitlin and Courtney you need to stop cutting out dough with the wrong side of the cookie cutters. Try the sharp side. What's the difference between a conductor and an insulator?" I'm glad it's Rachel that's taking the test tomorrow because I had a hard enough time fixing my sticky cookie dough and getting the kids to cut the cookies the right way. I don't think I could answer the questions she's going to be asked. But she answered me easily. I definitely think she's got her father's almost photographic memory.

It was snowing big beautiful snowflakes after we finished making the cookies so all the kids played outside in the dark for a while while I wrapped up the cookies and then Rachel and Spencer delivered the goodies while Caitlin, Courtney and I drove them around the neighborhood. I'm glad my kids had the opportunity to share a little Christmas cheer with our neighbors. I think everyone had a great night!

I made some very simple cookies that turned out yummy today! Here's the super easy recipe if you want something quick for the holidays:

Mint Chocolate Melt-in-Your Mouth Cookies

1 devil's food cake mix (I use generic brand. It actually turns out the best.)
1/3 c oil
2 eggs
Andes mints (mmmm)

Mix cake mix, oil and eggs. Roll into balls, place on cookie sheet. Cut Andes mints in half. Place 1/2 mint in the center of each ball. Bake at 375 for 8-10 minutes. This makes about 15 cookies so I usually double the recipe if I'm taking it anywhere. You can also put in peanut butter cups, peanut butter/chocolate chips (which is a big hit) or chocolate chips.

We also made our typical Christmas sugar cookies. I had to find the cookie recipe on the internet because the page was actually missing from my trusty Betty Crocker recipe book--it had ripped and then fallen out somewhere. I guess 18 years of use is finally getting to it.

My neighbor already called to get the icing recipe but I couldn't give her an accurate recipe. This is what I told her:

A stick of butter
Lots of powdered sugar
a little milk
some almond extract

Mix it up, add more powdered sugar and milk until it's perfect.

Sounds like a great recipe, right? It's hard to explain. You have to learn by doing when you're making frosting. Thanks, Mom, for teaching me how to do it. I always get lots of compliments.

Weekend Highlights

Some of the many attempts to get the ever elusive "Perfect Christmas Card Photo"

Not quite what I was looking for but pretty close!

Can you tell that they're freezing? The outside picture was not a good idea.

Spencer, are you going somewhere?

Yeah. Two out of four.

Rachel looks good. The other kids. . .not so much.

Courtney's really trying to smile. What's with the closed eyes, kids?

I will post the actual Christmas card picture after I get the Christmas cards in the mail. I went to pick them up today at Walgreens but they're having a problem downloading them from Snapfish. Just my luck!

Highlights from the weekend:

• Paul and Kerri actually went on a Friday night date to Rachel's winter chorus concert with ice cream afterward.
• Rachel played her very first basketball game on Saturday (they lost.) Rachel made a steal and a terrific assist. She didn't have much opportunity to play. Everyone else on her team has been playing together for three years so she has a steep learning curve and needs to gain confidence but she's doing really well, especially for her first year! She said, "It was so much harder than practice," a good thing to learn at the beginning of the season.
• I went to Rachel's Christmas piano recital (NOTICE: It was actually called a CHRISTMAS recital! Thank you to her teacher who remembers the reason for the season) Rachel played "Ding Dong Merrily on High" beautifully.
• Courtney developed strep and a double ear infection and had to be held by Mommy and only Mommy all day on Saturday. This made my planned Christmas shopping day go out the window but it was a blessing for me because I had a migraine. Now I'm getting stressed out. . . I'm sure I will get everything done before Christmas, right?!?!
• Spencer played with his long-lost friend Eric who was visiting from Brazil on Friday. They had a great time together! We just wish he didn't live on the other side of the world!
• Caitlin kept inventing fake illnesses because she wanted to have the grape flavored chewable Tylenol tablets just like Courtney. (examples: My eye hurts, my tummy hurts, my neck hurts, I think my ear might hurt.) She wasn't successful because she didn't act one bit sick!
• Rachel cracked us up the other night in this conversation with Paul about basketball: "Do you play quarters or halfs?" Rachel: "No, I play center." She wants you to know she actually played forward during the game.
• Rachel also made us laugh when she was carrying feverish Courtney and said, "Courtney's so heavy when she's hot." Apparently, when she's of normal temperature, Courtney's much lighter!
• Courtney snored very loudly on my lap during Relief Society. People kept turning around and looking at me funny. The lesson was excellent so I guarantee it wasn't me even though I didn't get any sleep Saturday night (or Sunday either.) Okay, I might have "rested my eyes" a few times but I definitely did not snore.
• We were very late to church because I was attempting to take our Christmas card photo. . . and, shockingly, it took longer than I expected. At least this year, everyone is smiling. Last year, I was satisfied when everyone looked at the camera, even if they were eating snow at the time (yes, I photo edited that out.)
• I held a very looooong choir rehearsal Sunday night in preparation for the Christmas presentation. Despite some aggravating hair-pulling moments, I think it's going to be beautiful.