Miss Ruby

We got to babysit my new neice the other day and all the boys LOVED having her here. She is such a pretty little girl, and having a girl in our house with pink clothes and pretty ribbons and flowers on her head was such a novelty here! The boys were so cute with her. Kade and Ty were so sweet with her. They'd just lay by her on the bed and say how pretty she was and that they liked her flower headband.

Notice there are no pictures of Zack with Ruby. He LOVED her a little too much! :) He kept trying to give her smothering hugs when I was holding her and when I would pull him off of her he would get so mad he'd throw himself backwards on the couch and slap his legs and then come back again full force for more hugs. It was pretty cute - but he was relentless and wouldn't stop.

WARNING

For Valentine's Day and Pres. weekend we went down to Utah and partied with our friends. Friday evening all the husbands took the kids to the monster truck rally at the Enery Solutions Arena. This left me and my girl friends for a girls night out with the two youngest kids. We went to dinner and then went shopping for clothes to take on the cruise we are all going on together in 2 weeks.

We had a fun weekend shopping, sledding, playing games and eating a lot of food and snacks.

The boys loved sledding. Zack even went down a couple of times with Rich.


The chocolate fountain is always a big hit with our family - We love it! It seems like everyone else eats a few things and then walks away - but NOT the Madsen's! We are all huddled around the chocolate fountain until all the food is gone and the chocolate is licked clean :) My favorite dipped in the chocolate is fresh pineapple, strawberries and shortbread cookies.

On Valentine's Day we got a babysitter for all the kids and the adults went into Layton for a Valentine's lunch so we wouldn't have to deal with the evening crowds. We went to McGrath's in Layton and we were about the only people there. Our husbands all got the same gift for us to open all together at the restaurant. We were all excited and opened them up to find.... A SNUGGI. That's right - the one and only, AS SEEN ON TV - SNUGGI!
Rich and I have been making fun of these for months - but I guess he secretly LOVED them enough to buy me one. We have heard Jay Leno refer to them as the exact opposite of lingerie. And how giving them to the person you love is like saying - here, why don't you completely cover yourself up in the most unattractive way! I wasn't sure what to think of Rich giving this to me. We all got a good laugh out of the gift and all the workers at McGrath's had a good laugh over it and hearing our conversation about the Snuggi. We were there so long and very entertaining to them that they even offered us all FREE dessert! I guess the Snuggi was worth it - if only for the free dessert :)

Later that night I realized why the guys bought the Snuggi's - it was pure selfish reasons. All the husbands were wearing the snuggi's the rest of the night, and when they weren't the kids were. Ty asked me the other day if we get to keep the snuggi forever! I take back all the bad things I said about the Snuggi, they really all the greatest blanket/robe/NOT lingerie there is! I wear my snuggi every night to watch tv or a movie. But after an incident last night the Snuggi's should have come with a warning: RISK OF ELECTRIC SHOCK! After wearing the snuggi for a while I got up to go turn off the lights and go to bed. After walking over to the light switch while wearing the snuggi I got shocked when I went to turn off the light. Not just a little shock - I am sure there must have been some sparks flying. The only time I have been shocked more was from an electric fence. I walked down the hall and checked on the boys and went to turn off another light and got shocked again. I do love my new snuggi but need to wear with caution from now on!

Thanks for the greatest Valentine's gift ever Rich! Even though it almost killed me the other night :)

One Down

Kade's two bottom teeth have been loose for about a week and tonight one was so loose it could bend all the way forward and almost touch his gums in the front - gross, I know! But he got a piece of broccoli stuck in the hole under the tooth at dinner and was panicked about having the broccoli bit in there. He was continually wiggling his tooth trying to get the broccoli out. He kept getting out of bed to tell me about the progress and eventually to show off his victory of getting the broccoli out. I took a picture of the tooth dangling forward out of his mouth because it was so gross and turned the camera on video and told him to just pull it out. Much to my surprise - HE DID!!! I turned the video off just as he started yelling, "Ty, my tooth is out, my tooth is out!" It was a very exciting time here. Ty took the tooth and put it safely under Kade's pillow for the tooth fairy to find. The other tooth will probably come out in the next day or two. I couldn't convince him to pull it out tonight so the tooth fairy only had to make one trip. :)

Las Vegas

Rich had a conference to attend in Las Vegas last week and I got to go along for a little vacation since airline tickets from Idaho Falls to Vegas are pretty cheap. We flew out Mon. night and got back Fri. night. It was really nice to get away from mom duties for a few days and to enjoy the warm weather (70 degrees) and grass and flowers! The conference didn't start until Wednesday, so we had all day Tuesday to enjoy Vegas. Due to some unexpected charges to use the workout facility at our hotel we hit the streets of Vegas for a morning jog. It was so nice to run outside again. After our jog we hit up Denny's FREE Grand Slam breakfast. It was some sort of customer appreciation day.

We ate at RA Sushi for dinner one night. We were there during happy hour - which was from 3-7pm - that is a long happy hour. But in Vegas is seems like Happy Hour is 24 hours a day! Because it was happy hour a lot of there sushi rolls and appetizers were 1/2 off. We got a ton of sushi and appetizer for $20. It was SO good!

We got tickets to see the Cirque de Solei show KA. You can't take any pictures in the theatre - but it was amazing! It was so entertaining and fun to see. The stage would move around while they were performing and at times it would be completely vertical and the performers would be sliding down it face first and running up it. Crazy!!

We ate at the Paris buffet one night. They had a crepe station, where they would custom make crepes - I started and ended my meal with a crepe and ate a few during the meal. SO GOOD!

We watched the fountain show at the Bellagio a few times, that is so fun. On Thursday Rich's boss' wife and I went to a session at the Las Vegas Temple. I had never been to that temple and it was fun to go. It was a very small session - only 9 people. I LOVE black jack and when I found a black jack slot machine I was so excited. I convinced Rich to let me play - every hand I would win he'd tell me to cash out. After 15 min. I had turned $1 into $15 - Rich made me cash out and he quickly took the earnings. :) I convinced him later to let me play again and lost $10 pretty quickly. By the end of the week I think we walked away even. We had a fun trip and it was so uplifting to be in the warm sunshine for a few days.

Loose Teeth

Kade has been so anxious to lose a tooth.  He was very jealous of all the kids his age who have already started to lose their teeth.  But when he touched his tooth the other night and realized it was loose he panicked!    He was flossing his teeth and started screaming and crying - I had no idea what was wrong until he started yelling, "my tooth is loose!"  He was hysterical - he kept saying that he didn't want his baby teeth to fall out and that he wanted to keep them forever.  When we finally calmed him down enough for us to take a look - we saw that both bottom teeth are loose.  Which made him even more mad.  :)  The next day he told all his friends at church and after they all thought it was cool I think he has started to warm up to the idea of them falling out.  He told all his friends it was because he ate so many carrots that it made his teeth loose.  One of his friends went home and told him mom he wanted to eat more carrots so his teeth will get loose too!  

He will not let us touch it, but it is really close to just falling out on its own.