Christmas 2007

Santa made a hawl this year...not knowing it! Santa needs to slow down for next year and not get started so early :) Colt's favorite gift from Santa! Now he needs to learn to walk before my surgery in February!

Troy with his loot!

Christmas hooded towels from Nana in Houma!

Christmas jammies with little pugs on them! I couldn't resist!

I have to catch up with all of my friends that are on the ball and already have their Christmas pictures posted! We had a great Christmas here at home! It was so fun to kinda do our own thing even though we spent some time on Christmas Day with Kevin's family. When Troy came out and saw what Santa brought, he kept saying over and over, "Oh my GOSH! You gotta be KIDDING me!" You have to hear it in his voice to get the full effect! The most memorable part of Christmas Day was Troy singing "Happy Birthday" to Jesus all on his own.
He is such a special kid!

Trip to New Mexico!

Having fun in the hotel room-we had adjoining rooms which meant lots of fun for the boys!

The reason for the trip, to cheer on #36! Uncle Brett!

Saying our goodbyes :( We will miss you, Cookie & Papa! Thank you for a great weekend!

Old Town

Charming Papa's camera like always!

At the Natural History & Museum of Art-it had an amazing dinosaur exibit that we all loved!

The weekend before Christmas, we were able to meet my parents in Alburqurque (Brett has lived there for 2 years and I still can't spell it right!) Brett and the New Mexico Lobos had a bowl game on Saturday and we went to cheer them on. We met my parents there on Thursday night and left on Sunday. We had a great weekend! We got to go walk around Old Town, visit the dinosaur exibit at the museum, eat out at lots of fun restaurants (Troy even ate alligator!) and of course did some shopping. My mom and I left with some really fun slippers that looked like cowboy boots! The highlight of the trip was watching Brett's game! He had an amazing game...5 solo tackles, 3 for loss of yards & 2 sacks! He got the Defense player MVP award and got to make a speech down on the feild in front of the whole stadium! Kev & Troy rushed the field and were down there next to him the whole time. It brought everyone to tears! He is such a hard worker and no one deserves to have more success than Brett. And I can brag a little more and say that Brett & Jenna are expecting a little baby this summer! We are all thrilled! Troy is crossing his fingers for a little boy to hang out on the farm with!

TAGGED!

I got tagged by my sister!

(If you haven’t been tagged yet and you have a blog, copy and paste my answers into a post, erase my answers and put your own and then post it on your blog. This is fun!

Five Things I was doing 10 years ago:
1. I was a sophmore in high school in Carrollton, Texas
2. Best friends with Nicky Hendershot who ended up getting pregnant the next year.
3. Just got my drivers lisence and was driving the red Ford Taurus around
4. Had the biggest crushes on several guys in my Coppell Ward. #1 being Jarren Taylor!
5. Even though I was just "officially" starting to date, I had already had 2 serious boyfriends, one of them was definetly my "first" young love.

Five Things I was doing 5 years ago:
1. Had been married for 6 weeks!
2. About to spend my first Christmas away from home.
3. Working as a nanny for Stephen R. Covey's grandchildren.
4. Living in the smallest apartment in Provo, Utah and paying $700 a month in rent!
5. A junior at BYU studying Advertising

Five Things I was doing 1 year ago:
1. 7 months pregnant with Colt
2. In OKC with my family celebrating Christmas
3. Had recently quit working for DCWV (horray)
4. Had recently been released from being a Cub Scout Leader (horray!)
5. Chasing a 2 year old Troy around Walmart on a regular basis!

Things on my to-do list today:
1. Laundry for trip to New Mexico
2. Packing for trip to New Mexico
3. Lunch with girlfriends at McDonalds playgound
4. Drop treats off to visiting teaching ladies
5. Pick up my site to store order from Walmart (a bedside table for our almost done guestroom)

Five Snacks I enjoy:
1. Lofthouse frosted sugar cookies
2. Almonds
3. Popcorn
4. Cherry Ice Cups from Schwans
5. Diet Coke

Things I would do if I were a Billionaire:
1. Have Barbie clean my house twice a week
2. Buy a big piece of property with horses and pay someone else to take care of them.
3. Go on vacation with my family every month
4. Buy a timeshare at a Disneyland resort
5. Build a big, beautiful house with a pool

Three of my bad habits:
1. Being impatient
2. Spending too much time on the internet poking around and shopping
3. Not keeping up with my housework

Five places I have lived:
1. Ephraim, UT
2. Coralville, IA
3. Provo, UT
4. Carrollton, TX
5. Coppell, TX

Five Jobs I’ve had:
1. Retail sales at The Buckle
2. EFY Counselor (best job ever!)
3. Bank Teller
4. Nanny
5. Waitress

5 Things people probably don’t know about me:
1. The only way I can swim is doggy pattle.
2. I hold my nose every time I walk down the bread asile at Walmart, it is disgusting and makes me sick!
3. I really don't like my calling, being a Nursery Leader.
4. I have no plans to have more than 3 children.
5. As soon as I have those 3 children, I am definetly getting a boob job by Dr. Crofts in Orem.

Contest Winner!

Back in July I won a contest that I submitted among Stampin' Up! Demonstrators and I won! I won 3 free stamp sets out of the catalog and got my project and picture in a magazine that is mailed to demonstrators all around the world. It was a big accomplishment for me! I love scrapbooking and stamping and selling Stampin' Up! products has turned my passion into a small business. If anyone is interested in starting up scrapbooking of stamping, just call me and I will get you converted! It's so fun!

The Erins

Danny (3), Rachel (1), Troy (3) & Colt (10 mo)

Last week we go the chance to see one of my best friends in the WORLD!!! Erin and her little famiy live in Switzerland so we are lucky to see them once or twice a year when they come to the states to see family. I live an hour from her sisters house so that is usually where we just hang out and let the kids play. Erin and I met in 2002 in a sign language class at UVSC. We just happened to sit by each other and really hit it off. It turned out we lived in apartment complexes that were right next to each other so we'd get together to study and watch "Real World Las Vegas" :) Usually in my friendships, my friends and I share differences that I respect and really enjoy, but with Erin it's different. In my eyes, we are literally the same person! We have the same likes in food (buttermilk pie from Maglebys Fresh!), clothes, TV shows, views of parenting, marriage, family issues...we just seem to think alike. We got married at the same time, had each of our kids at the same time...We have a very special relationship. She was the first person I called when my water broke and I was on my way to the hospital with Colt because it was the middle of the night and I knew she's be awake half way across the globe! I can't wait to hopefully go see them in Switzerland before they move back. I love you Erin!!!

Surgery Update...

Well as a lot of you know, I went and saw the back surgeon yesterday to go over the results of my MRI. I had to wait 4 months to even get into him so I was very anxious to see what he had to say. I went in thinking in my head that I would do ANYTHING to avoid having this surgery, even if it meant that I couldn't be pregnant again. When Dr. Reichman saw my xrays, he could see exactly what was wrong...a disc has slipped and has hit 2 different nerves causing pain on both sides of my back and down my legs. He said it wasn't a matter of IF I needed to have the surgery, it was WHEN I needed to have it. I would keep having the pain until it was bad enough to do the surgery. So basically after 6 years of this pain, I have accepted the fact that I need to just do it. The chances of having a full recovery are 90% and since I am so young and have a otherwise healthy spine, my chances look really good for that. So on February 18th (2 days after we get home from our Mexican cruise!) I will go under the knife! I am terrified! I have a friend who had the exact same surgery a year ago so she has helped answer a lot of questions. (The worst answer being that I will have a 10 inch scar on my lower back! Yuck!) Basically, I am looking at 3 days in the hospital, 2 weeks of total bedrest and 1 month of not doing any lifting, especially lifting my kids. The total recovery time is 6 months which means I can be pregnant 6 months after the surgery. (A big concern of mine also) This will be the hardest thing I have ever gone though! What mom feels good about taking a month of from being a mom??? I know that I will be well taken care of by Kev, my mom and other family and amazing friends. So now I have 2 months to get LOTS of stuff off my to do list around the house!

A Future Chef???

Just a typical Wednesday morning at the Madsen house...no preschool to get ready for so we are pretty lazy! Troy wanted to make his own soup....so he came up with scrambled eggs, fruit punch gaterade and one marshmellow. He wouldn't eat it though, thank goodness! I asked if he wanted to be a chef when he grew up and he said, "No, I still want to be an astronaunt." We got a new Usbourne book recently called, "On the Moon" and now he is obsessed with space & astronaunts. I love my little OCD boy :)

Limbo Baby!

I still can't figure out how Colt got under this chair without getting on his tummy! Since he has started crawling, he is entertained a lot easier! I love how he flashes his shinny 2 teeth. Troy loves to help me brush them! Don't look at my floors, they are disgusting.

Luckily, Barbie comes tomorrow :)

Snow!

Just has to share some pictures of our beautiful snow! I make Troy play in the front yard so our backyard will stay nice and pretty :) I love white snow but hate brown & yellow snow (thanks to Jack) so you can guess why I didn't take any pictures of the ugly snow in the front!

Two of a Kind!

So one day, Troy decided that the laundry basket was a boat and that Jack and Colt needed to ride with him. It was a heck of a time trying to get everyone in the boat and looking in the camera! We make our own fun at our house!

The King of Camo

Living down here in a small town, it is not abnormal to see people sporting Camo gear all year round, no matter where you are! At Walmart, the gas station or even out to eat at the Mexican restaurant! We decided that Troy needed his own gear to fit in! We couldn't resist this jacket on our last trip to Cabella's and he decided he needed the hat too!