Wayne and Rebecca Madsen

It snowed. And snowed. While I may have experienced more snow than this in my life, I don't remember it. It was much more than predicted and the commonwealth of Massachusetts was put under a state of emergency. Somewhere between 18 - 24 inches fell, making the snow drifts close to three feet tall. The snow plows built a wall blocking us in our driveway, which took us most of the day to dig out of. I had hoped that Paela would enjoy the snow -- because she did in Michigan -- but it proved to be too overwhelming for her.  read more »

Let's keep this short.

We got home from Michigan on Monday. Nice quick travel, though Aderyn didn't like having to nap in our arms on one leg. Paela is a super traveling buddy. Everyone (especially Aderyn) was thankful to see all the usual toys and Star cats and things. Home was all in order (Thanks to the Jones family!). We got home early in the evening, but getting used to our own beds again was a trick. Aderyn was crying off and on all night. Paela got moved to the couch, waking a couple of times herself. Thankfully sleep has been looking up every night since.

I ordered new glasses three and a half weeks ago. They were not in on Tuesday as expected. They arrived Saturday, but we had plans so I wasn't able to get them. Maybe tomorrow.

Wayne set up a show at Axiom Art. It took a few emails and several trips, and one more is in order before the reception on Friday, but things are mostly in place.  read more »

The girls enjoyed Christmas at their grandparent's house, but this might be the last Christmas we travel. We left Boston before a major blizzard hit, dumping close to two feet of snow. Lucky for us, we were safe before that hit. The night we left, a miracle happened: Aderyn slept through the night for the first time in her life. Of course, we had to leave at 4am, so we messed that up. [hopefully she didn't take that message the wrong way! -reb]  read more »

It was the Christmas lesson for my Primary class this week. Next week we don't have Primary -- just Sacrament meeting. And so I talked to my class about Santa. I mean, Christmas. They all turned seven this year, so I actually was surprised that they believe. Especially since I already knew they don't believe in the big old bunny. I guess just because learned about all the big magical stories at once (my brothers, cough, cough), doesn't mean everyone did.

I enjoyed hearing about their traditions. One family exchanges gifts, and Santa is just in charge of the stockings (and a small gift in there). Another does one big Santa gift to the family. Another draws a name of a family member and does secret things for them all month long. Another opens presents today because they are traveling for the holidays.

So why are we bringing all of ours with us to Michigan?  read more »

St. Nick's day was nice. We've been trying to do a better job at creating new family traditions, so we are following our advent calendar and doing crafts with the kids and making cookies as well.

Most things ran a little too late for our girls this week. For example, we showed up to the ward Christmas party in our pajamas and left shortly after it started.

All our packages are in the mail. All should arrive before the big day. Keep an eye open for them.

We've started sleep training on Aderyn. So you know what that means... it's time to end this email and get some much needed rest. 

Normally when we leave our front closet door open, Aderyn will bring us shoes in the hopes that we will wise up and take her outside. This particular morning, however, while I was lying on the couch pretending we weren't really awake yet, Aderyn brought me one of the pump pieces from my work bag. I made a mental note to put it away before leaving for work, otherwise I'd be in trouble once I got to work. Fortunately, I did remember the pump piece.

Imagine my surprise, however, when I opened my bag at work. She hadn't just taken my pump piece -- she had made an exchange! Her left shoe was waiting for me. Perhaps by bringing me my pump piece, she had hoped I would trade her back for the shoe she dropped in my bag. Unfortunately, I did not wise up to her ways this time.

I hope she didn't need to go anywhere outside today!

Tooth number two broke through for Aderyn. With no fanfare. Not even the (joyous) biting we went through with the first one. But she does chew on her shirt sleeves now.

She also had a healthy check up with her Doctor this week. Growing well, and all that entails. The spit-up thing is definitely not normal, but at least the medicine helps, mostly. The not-sleeping-all-night thing is also decidely not normal. But our Doctor has no plans of action for either. Unless we can somehow show that they are related. But really...who knows? At least the daytime is fun and games. She is running everywhere and climbing all sorts of things and playing fetch for us. What, don't you play fetch with your one-year old?  read more »

The house required several days worth of cleaning to prepare for my parents' visit. I'm amazed at the dirt that two little girls can spread all over the house. My parents arrived on Wednesday afternoon and Camilla and Victor and Cameron came to have a sleep-over that evening. They decided to come spend the night in order to get an earlier start on preparing Thanksgiving the next morning.

So we were all up by 7am and getting things ready for the day. We made lots of food, three loads of dishwasher dishes and tired ourselves out. We opened birthday presents for Aderyn all day long and I feel we did a good balance of Thanksgiving events mingled with birthday events. She loves her presents and a special thank you to everyone. She would carry around her birthday cards and show them to everyone.  read more »

It was a calm week. We're planning the fun for this week, I suppose. All we talked about all this week was what we want to do next week! 

The only other things of note are that we all got sick. Okay, everyone but Wayne. Not that it's slowed the girls down. I stayed home with the girls today, because we didn't want them coughing all over the other kids at Church. Paela's voice is a whole octave lower than normal.

Camilla had the great idea to go swimming yesterday. We attempted to fit in between all the naps. It turns out one-a-day nappers and two-a-day nappers are kind of tricky to coordinate. But we found a 45 minute chunk of the day to go swimming. And everyone loved it! The water could have been maybe a teeny bit warmer for the kids' sake, but you know, they didn't seem to mind their lips turning blue and such. Aderyn and Paela can't wait for someone to suggest swimming again.  read more »

Sorry it has taken us so long to write everyone. We took a week off because we had a late night with Halloween and then we were in Austin last week with family. Our adventures have been fun, as have the attempts to return to a normal daily pattern of events.

We tried to take the girls to a trunk or treat Saturday before Halloween, but someone at church seriously didn't think through their activity plans and did the group activity from 6 until 8:30. Our girls -- and most every other family with kids the same age -- left at 8 PM after a few meltdowns. But on the whole, it was lots of fun for both. Aderyn chased balloons and people liked her monkey costume. Paela has been going through an obsession with the color red lately, so we helped her get dressed up as Santa Claus. That made her happy. As did the donuts.

But sadly, no candy this year. Whatever. They didn't really need it anyway.  read more »