Ramona and Beezus

I'm just gonna say, as far as kid movies go, this one was super duper. It was cute, clever, witty, entertaining, creative and not at all cheesy. I watched it while on the outs and obviously I liked it enough to post about it. That says something, you know.

Scott Pilgrim Vs The World

This is, quite simply, the most AWESOME movie ever!!! (in this genre) That is of course, if you can appreciate imagination, creativity and video gaming. I don't believe that even 99% of people I know would think this movie as great as I, but there it is nonetheless. I LOVE THIS MOVIE!!!!

Crescendo

Yay for the sequel to Hush Hush!! Just as I had hoped for, the sequel was far better than the first. The main character still made me a little mad. You get pulled right into this book and I felt like I was back in high school with all the jealous horrible teenage feelings that go with boyfriends and break-ups and all the not so fun stuff. I rushed right through this book and I am very excited for the third to come and join my ever-expanding book shelf :)

Uglies

Uglies was the last book of this the year 2010 for BBCE. It is part of a four book series. It's pretty interested, although it can take you awhile to get truly interested. Some people had that problem but I didn't so much. It takes place in the future, where they make everyone on even ground by giving them an operation to make them Pretties at the age 16. Until then they are Uglies. They reference the Rusties a lot, the Rusties being us in this day and age with our metal buildings, wasteful paper books and tires on wheels. I am interested in reading the entire series but don't think I will get to it right away. Not a bad pick :)

Annual Pie Night

Every year, the night before Thanksgiving, it's tradition for us Madsen women to gather and bake on onslaught of pies. The girl time and the holiday weekend couldn't have come at a better time. I needed some serious stress relief and a LOOOONG break from work which caused (still causing) so much stress.

I started my night off with a hardcore run, got my endorphins and my mood up, and then we dived right into pies and crazy laughs!

This is my finished pie: The Apple Cranberry. I put a stick figure turkey on it this year. They said it couldn't be done.....FACE!!! My sister-in-law looks forward to my pie every year now. I dare say it is specatular.

Xannie doesn't cook, or bake. She HATES pumpkin pie but it just so happens to be Gaven's favorite. Of course we made it mandatory for her to make the pumpkins so that she knew how to cook and satisfy her man :) This is her first pie bake. See the look of apprehension on her face? So funny:

We ended up with two pumpkin, two pecan, an apple cranberry, a cherry and a banana cream (which I just became my husband's favorite).

One More Ride

I think it was the weekend before Thanksgiving that I headed out to the desert with my sister and dad for one last ride before the winter really kicked in.

It was FREEZING cold. The wind was blowing super hard and made it, in a word, miserable. The wind was so hard that it was freaking out the horses and they were skiddish. Amanda was bucked clean off and landed hard and that was only about fifty feet from the trailer! Not a good start.

However, we still managed to have some fun. I bundled up and had my beanie, sweatshirt hood and coat hood on and I was all cacooned in and happy as can be. We stopped for lunch a little lower down than normal to avoid the wind but it still sucked. I don't eat pork but I do have a hotdog up there because nothing tastes as good as it does when you're out on the mountain. Add some homegrown red onion and relish and it's nearly the best damn thing on the planet.

After my sister and I made such a cutsie pose, Matt wanted in on the action, too:

And Ope (on the right) always comes up with the greatest culinary ideas for desert dining and now his kick is those frozen applie pie things from the gas station. He heats them up in tin foil and has 'Hot Apple Pie'. It was tasty.

We made it back in one piece, albeit a frozen piece, and Amanda couldn't even sit on the hour long drive home. She had to kneel on the back floor and lean forward on the console. She messed her butt up pretty bad. Poor girl. We can't all be pro like Maghann ;)

Playin' In My Pod

Music Playlist at MixPod.com
Okay. I had enough of looking at the Harry Potter poster first thing on my blog, but I keep forgetting to upload pictures to blog about Thanksgiving soooooooooo....I bring you the music of Leona Naess. My favorite song of hers is Swing Gently. Love it. I don't listen to much of her but I like her so I tacked on a couple other songs, too. Yay.

**Alright. Scratch that. For whatever reason the stupid songs won't show up once pasted into Blogger. Effin Cuss. Go check her out yourself. **

'Arry Potta?? Don't Mind If I Do!!

WARNING! GLOATAGE AHEAD!!

HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA!!!

I saw it, I saw it!! YOU didn't!! neener neener neener! :)

GREAT MOVIE!!!!

Funny, Sad, Intense, Scary (I almost gave myself a hernia at one point).

I went with my entire family, minus Amber and her boys. Amber has gone back to school so it was a school night for her and the boys were with the biological sperm donor. The only one who gave it a thumbs down was my brother, Morgan. But you have to know this guy. He is extremely critical about everything! However, he did read the books which I have not. We don't really pay attention to his rants and raves :)

So there you go.

(neener neener)

Artistic Artists :)

One of my favorite bloggers is super rad Stephanie at What the Jump? She and I have such similar tastes in music that it's kinda scary. She posted about a great artist, Jack Peñate, that I just love now and I wanted to share the video for Torn on the Platform. It is so dang artistic and creative and fun and I absolutely love great finds like that. This video reminded me of Do You Love Me by Guster. So I have posted both for your enlightenment. It blows me away how people pull something so unique out their minds...thank goodness they share!!

(The guitarist is really hot :) ha ha...hands off he's mine)

Trick Or Treat

I was officially pissed off on Halloween night at about six o'clock when it became apparent that my favorite holiday of the year was going to be ruined by Mother Nature. No haunted graveyard, no fog and flashing lights and scary sounds, no Tombstone Lifter - my newest addition, and no scaring the little trick or treaters. BAHUMBUG!!!! Isn't it convenient thought that on the actual day of Halloween, the weather was just fine. GRRRRRRR!!!!

I was also pissed to realize after everyone left that I didn't get pictures with Becky OR Amanda in our costumes. Lame I am.

But Becky and Judd looked awesome and scary enough that I didn't want to mess with them ;)

Judd even shaved his head for this so he would be the perfect skinhead!:

See?? Don't mess with her:

I made some garlic bread pizza for dinner and we scarfed down fondue all night. So yummy! I made a Snickers chocolate fondue and the one here on fire is the Smores chocolate fondue!

We had it with green apples, strawberries, bananas, marshmallows and cheesecake! mmmmm:

Paul and I - can you see a little picture stow-away??

Lou and me:

And the Skeleton family!!! They look dang cute, right?? Manda's shirt is the bomb.com! And only four days later, that cute little skeleton baby made its debut!!

You play the part really well, Judd. Are you sure this isn't the real you??

And what white trash, bad-a chic wouldn't be getting plowed on Halloween night?

And for all those who wanted to see our costumes but didn't - here is Paul demonstrating. We were stick people. Our costumes were meant for the dar because they are glow in the dark, and when the lights go off they really are quite awesome. However, you can't really see how cool it is with the lights off so this will have to do:

Dal's 4th Birthday

On Friday, October 29th, our family met up for two things. Celebrating Dallin turning four years old was first on the agenda. He always gets a super cute Halloween cake! This year was the fuzzy spider!:

And he wanted so badly to do a pinata for his birthday so he and Aiden took turns beating the snot out of Lightning McQueen:

Dallin has the biggest cheeser smile. He just squints his eyes shut and opens his mouth wide while he says Cheese and waits for the camera to flash:

We watching How to Train a Dragon, too. Double the Fun.

And Dallin blowing out his 4 candles!! I can't believe how much time has passed. This little guy used to be so quiet and hardly ever talked and only ever wanted to be with his mom. Then one day he wouldn't shut up! But it never gets old when I come over and I hear "Maghann I missed you!!!" So, I'm kinda glad he found his voice :)

The Great Pumpkin Carve 2010

That same night after the celebration, we kicked off our annual Pumpkin Carve.

But what does this man mowing the lawn have to do with anything, you ask?? Nothing really. Just a snapshot of proof how much my dad loves his lawn. It gets mowed twice a week in the summer. And here he is finishing the mowing at 8 o'clock at night because it's supposed to rain the next day. What a goofball:

Paul and I always share the task of carving. He cleans out the guts and I carve it:

Bronsynn playing the part of a really cute nerd:

Kenny going to town on his punkin:

Amanda can't wait to eat her punkin guts:

Aiden carved his punkin on his very own this year! He was very proud of himself:

The birthday boy...still needed a bit of help:

So Mom is helping him:

There is quite a bit of chaos going on when you have ten or more pumpkins being carved. It's always a favorite for our family though:

And the line up. It's in a video cuz it shows up so much cooler that way:

Afterward, most of the family had gone home. Myself, Gav and Xanni were still around when this started happening:

The kids and Grandma started it, then it became an all out dance floor.

I find it funny that we always end up dancing, usually around the end of the year. It's a great way to work off your dinner! I highly recommend it!:

Aiden was having such a good time that he wanted to pimp himself out and he snuck downstairs and came back up with his black shirt on, sleeves rolled up and collar popped. He cracks me up!:

Birthday boy doing his best at break dancing. What a goon:

Sleepover At My House

The weekend before Halloween, I was super stoked to have both of my nephews over for a sleepover! Yay!! It's not a frequent occurence with their parents being divorced and all. My sister was on a week long cruise, and we were able to 'let' the ex have the brilliant idea of having the boys stay at my house Friday night since it was my sister's weekend anyway.

I walked into my parents house on Tuesday for lunch and saw this:

They were so excited to come to my house that they had their pillows, sleeping bags, and packed bags lined up and waiting by the front door 4 days early. Cracks me up. They asked me everyday if I was there to pick them up yet. On Friday I was finally able to say yes :)

After loading them up in my car, we went to the Riverton Library. My nephews LOVE big books with sharks and dinosaurs or spiders and snakes...they love to look and learn about all sorts of creatures. So we loaded up on fun books and a couple kids DVD's.

Then we stopped by the grocery store for a few things but mainly because I was out of brussel sprouts. Aiden and Dallin LOVE LOVE these. Since they are with my mom everyday when I am there for lunch, they will ask me everyday if I brought brussel sprouts. I always have to make sure I have enough to share with the two of 'em.

Finally home, the boys had a blast running through my kitchen and trying to jump as far as they could off the high step and into the living room. We cleared out all the stuff in my storage closet under the stairs so they could play in their 'fort'. They loved all my Halloween decorations and said I had the 'coolest stuff ever'.

They were extremely happy when Paul finally came home from a late night at work. They kept asking: "When is Paul coming home??" I love that they love him :)

After dinner, we got our jackets on and took a drive to the "Halloween House." This is a house where the guy puts all of these HOMEMADE mechanical decorations on his roof and lights it up for everyone to see. You can read all about the interesting facts and FAQ on a sign that he puts up on his lawn. The kids got a kick out of it.

Paul and I took this video of it when we discovered it the week before. It is so creative. Even the little mouse at the bottom of the witches pot sticks his little red tongue out to catch some spilled brew!:

Paul played tackle with the kids and had them laughing and rolling on the floor:

All Aiden wanted to do was MarioKart nearly the entire time:

We made Halloween cupcakes for them to take home. Here they helped roll marshmellows in green sugar to make Frankenstein heads.:

I used chocolate frosting to put faces on them and we topped cupcakes with them:

Our favories were the eyeballs. They were so excited for the cupcakes to be cooked so they could decorate and then they were so excited to be done decorating so they could eat them!:

Aiden dug right into his as soon as I was done with the picture:

We also made some hairy spiders:

Then the boys made some cards for their mom to give with the cupcakes because they missed her so much and couldn't wait for her to get back.

We pulled out the Nerf guns and had an all out war:

And we watched Avatar and then grabbed some Arby's on the way home that night. I'm not gonna lie - it was an exhausting day and a half! Going from no kids to two wired kids is hard! There is so much energy in these kids I felt drained! But I do love that I was able to have them over and was sad to see them go (and a little happy that I could give them back to my mom ;) .