The Book Thief

The Book Thief by Markus Zusak is, in a word, brilliant. I just wrote that and then realized it's also on the front cover of my copy. I guess it must be true then.

Until I bought my copy, I thought this book might be about some guy who's a thief for a living or what not. Not so at all. This book is a story told by Death and his story is about the story of a little German girl named Liesel Meminger during World War II.

The Book Thief does not center around the Jews in concentration camps or soldiers in War, but of course they are mentioned and are important to the story because of certain characters. The focus is on this little girl and how she came to be where she was & how she learned the power of words.

The writing is different than anything else I have ever read and I loved every minute of it. I loved the peculiarness and the choice of words and the way this story was told. It's the best fictional book based around true events that I ever remember reading and it's at the top of my list for the best books that I've ever read. I find it a real treat to find books that are written by talented authors who have a serious gift with words and telling stories. It's refreshing from the hundreds of authors who have an idea like everyone else's and somehow get published for works that are less than stellar.

You should read this. It's super duper worth the time.

It's A Boy!!

Many of you already know, but here is my official announcement. It #1 has a penis:

Shocked a little?? Yes. I'd always wanted a boy first...but then my mind was completely and totally centered around all things girl the entire pregnancy - actually, it was longer than that. I kept finding all these cute decals that I was going to put in 'her' room and I had all these fantastic, chicy outfits all picked out for pictures and the blessing...all things that will have to go on hold. I didn't know what to think when I saw that picture pop up on the screen! It was a really weird feeling for some dumb reason. Before the ultrasound, everytime I had tried to think of boy names I liked or how I would decorate the room, my mind went completely blank. So I would go right back to picking out the letters that would go on the wall above the crib and the little bee's and flowers and fairies.

In hindsight, I remember one of those times spent browsing the web for such fancy girl things and a brief feeling came to me that it was going to be a boy. It was so brief, however, and my mind was still stuck in fairy fairy land that I didn't pay much attention to it and forgot all about it. Out loud I would say: It'll be what it'll be. And inside I would say: But most likely it will be a girl. Oh, Maghann....ha ha ha. You silly girl.

Anyhooslebees, I love this picture alot:

Here's his footie:

And this, ladies and gents, is Asher Madsen Budd, no longer It#1:

I spent three hours browsing the web for a name, ended up hating them all, brainstormed with my hubbie and dwelled on a name that we had previously liked, tweaked it a little and voi la!!! I was seriously worried that I wouldn't find a name that I would love my boy to have. But now It is a He and He is a Asher and I even have room ideas and the PERFECT picture for it, thanks to my friend's fabulous eye, and I am five months and feeling him kick and get stronger every day and this is beginning to be seriously cool :)

Get On, Li'l Pony

I don't have very many days ahead of me left where I can ride until after my baby comes, so on this rare day of no rain and minimal wind, Bronsynn, Fajjjer and I headed out to the desert with the ponies. My dad recently sold his gelding and so we are down to only two horses that were home and able to go out to the desert. We had to borrow a little pokey pony of my dad's friend that goes with us. In the goodness of my heart I rode the little midget so that Bronsynn could be on B.J. who she is most comfortable on. Not my most favorite ride. The things I do for that child.

This is us when we arrived at 'The Kitchen' for the best hotdogs in the world. I don't touch hotdogs anymore but I won't pass one up when I am the mountain. I brought sauerkraut and my dad put a can of chili on the fire and we had some damn fine dogs. Yum. This is the kitchen table with our game:

This is me and my doggie. I am not above physically forcing my dog to pose with me. He loves it on the inside:

Bronsynn atop the horse I trained...lucky for her:

The view from where we sat...prettier in person:

The ride back to the trailer was a thousand years. I didn't expect to feel any different when riding a horse while pregnant. I never get sore - not even when I got back on a horse after being away at college for two years. I was most apalled to find out that not only was I sore, I was sore in places that you don't realize exist. My stomach hurt, my back throbbed and I couldn't cross my legs for days. W.T.H. One of many things to cause me distress about this sitch-iation.

Also, the drive home took a thousand years. An extremely slow moving train decided to stop on the tracks for ohhhhh about 40 minutes. There is no other road to get home. yay. On the plus side I put my camera to use.....

...and had a photo shoot with myself. Your welcome for my artistic abilities.

I also included Bronsynn:

And my pops. He takes a really good pic:

Finally back on the road I turned around after some time and found this:

Oh a close up you say?? Why, of course!!

She'll be getting tagged on Facebook :)

Celebration....Of Me!!

Okay so many know that I have the #1 husband in the world. It's not bragging if it's true. ;)

I woke up on my birthday, having forgotten that it was my birthday, to the smell of sizzling bacon, eggs and fluffy waffles. Yes you can smell fluffly. Actually, my husband woke me up with a kiss and I said "why does it smell like bacon?" It's because he's so stinkin' awesome he woke up extra early and made me breakfast! We walked downstairs and I saw this:

My cute husband gifted me back with a Happy 2nd Birthday ballooon and the 8 balloon - for 28, just like I accidentally did for him three weeks before.

He is seriously so great and cute I love him to pieces. I was very much looking forward to my day because I had the entire office to myself at work so I didn't have to deal with ANYONE!!, but mostly I wanted that part over because Paul was taking me to Mazza that night, a Middle-Eastern restaurant that I have really wanted to try. It was delicious food and I know it would have been even better if I wasn't upchucking and trying to get my stomach to stop. hurting. already. Geerrr!! We had a good laugh at the fact that we were the only youngsters in there - we must have not been on the list to receive the memo that it was Senior Night. It wasn't really but it may as well have been because everywhere we looked were white-haired people.

Anyway....back home I was looking forward to relaxation! And I got it. We also got a visit from Paul and Teresa, in which we shared many good laughs as always. She brought me some fantastic presents that I must share. She knew of this really awesome website called Deviant Art, where there are thousands of different pieces of art done by anyone and everyone. There is so many that I couldn't possibly go through them all! She wanted me to pick something out for myself, and I kept looking for fairy pictures because 1) I really love fairy/pixie creatures and 2) I was going to put them in my babies room if I ended up having a girl because that is what I am going to do my girls room in. I think the pictures are so pretty:

Now....my baby had to go and turn into a boy so I will find another place to put these pictures and put my fairy room on hold for awhile :)

My second present:

So awesome!! I busted up laughing when I opened this up. Such humor, that gal. This book is full of fun recipes with clever titles like Edward's Sparkle Cake, Chopped to Bits Salad, Bloody Joes, Sliced-Open Face Grilled Panini w/ Pears, & Fang-Banger Ribs! The first on my list to make is the Passion Pudding and the Vulgar Bulgar Salad and that pear panini!! Yum!!!

Speaking of recipes, my mother-in-law bought me a membership to Barnes & Noble with a gift card for my birthday!!! Yay!! I had my eye on this Simple Salads book that has the most delicious looking salads so I went and used my gift card on that and enjoyed it at a lower cost :)

And of course I had to shake my booty as I was serenaded the way only Madsen's can do:

Spells

Yay!!! I just finished Spells by Aprilynne Pike. Do you remember Wings? Well this sequel is really good. Aprilynne is one of the better YA writers, in my opinion. After I read Wings I decided to wait until Spells was released in paperback to buy it and read it. But then time passed and I think I lost my desire to read it. But my mom picked it up from the library because she really wanted to finish it and so of course, I stole it and I'm glad I did.

'Member how very sick I am of all the YA books that have these impossible love triangles?? I still am very sick of them but this one does have a pretty decent triangle. Usually I can easily pick the one I'm rooting for. Not so much this time. Both David and Tamani are swoon-worthy hotties and neither seem to have their bad points. Oh what to do? What to do?

I thought this was going to be a trilogy but there will be four books and lucky for me I don't have to wait long for number 3, Illusions, to get released this May! Yay! Also getting released this next month....Where She Went, the sequel to If I Stay. CAN'T. WAIT.

Playin' In My Pod

I love these songs. Lykke Li (a swedish indie singer) has several really contagious songs and these two are my favorite. Some of her songs are way out there (and videos, too). She is very creative though. After 'discovering' her, I was browsing some music and realized that she sings that really annoying song Possibilty on the New Moon soundtrack - you know that song that plays while poor picked-on Bella zones out zombie-style in front of her window while the seasons change? It has it's pretty parts but the pretty parts aren't worth me wading through the rest of it.

Anyhooslebees, I love these songs. Can't get enough!

Homemade Potstickers

I made these last night! I wasn't about to take pictures and the write her recipe down when she already does it so magnificently...I could never hope to compare! And her picture is so pretty because she's a pro. But I like it a lot. As a warning, the preparation isn't that bad but combining prep, with the small amount of cook time plus the stuffing and crimping of the potsticker...it can take a bit of time. It did for me since I am a virgin potsticker maker (until last night he he he). The only thing I would change is the amount of fresh ginger. It calls for 1 Tablespoon and I didn't even do close to that much and the ginger was still very strong and overpowered other flavors in my opinion. It was super fun though! My husband enjoyed them....at 11 o'clock at night :)

The Maze Runner

I thought I blogged about this book, too, but I must have some serious pregnant brain going on. Boo hoo.

Okay, so this book happens to be yet another trilogy. Which would be fantastic if it was any good. It starts out really good, capturing your attention, making you think, etc. But, seriously, it spends way too much time on things that nobody cares about, frustrates you entirely the entire time and then at the end, everything just happens really fast, too fast, and when it's all said and done you think: " What was the point of any of that?" Oh it's a fantastic idea for a story line but it needed a better reason behind it all.

The jist: Teenage boys one day find themselves in The Maze, their memories completely wiped out. They are added one by one and all have a role in keeping order in their little community while The Runners go out everyday, facing dangers and trying to find a way out of The Maze so they can all find The Creators and kill em for what they've done.

I usually like to finish trilogies, but I am pretty sure this one is going on the burner. Most of the Best Book Club Ever had a similar feeling. Apparently there is a movie being made from it, directed by Catherine Hardwicke (Twilight, Lords of Dogtown) and I have to wonder if it will be any good at all for two reasons: The book (if they follow it, it will most likely bomb) and the director (she's good, but she blew Twilight hardcore and I have a hard time disassociating her with that)

Catherine has also directed Red Riding Hood, which hopefully won't be lame. If it is I will probably steer clear of anything she ever directs. Possibly even One For the Money: which is a shame because I love those books and Katherine Heigl is set to play Stephanie Plum.

The Thirteenth Tale

I really thought I already blogged about this book. I checked and I can't find it anywhere on my blog so I guess I didn't. Weird.

This book is pretty dang good. It's full of twists and turns and really makes you put your thinking cap on when you are trying to figure out how it all ends. It's written so well, too. It's refreshing to read a book written so well cuz I feel that so many books I read have potential to be great and the writing makes it blow. When reading this book you almost feel like you're in some quaint little village, talking proper English in the days before electricity. :) And she has an amazing way of painting a picture. I love it.

It's about a famous author who tracks down this girl to write her biography. Doesn't sound too interesting. But it is! You will get ensared from the very beginning :)

It's My Fault

I'm so sorry for the snow dump we had yesterday!! You see...I am CRAAAAVING the sun and warmth and the smell of fresh cut grass and planting soil - basically I have Spring Fever. Over the weekend, I bought me some super duper cute flippie floppies, some shorts and some springy lookin' shirts. I should have known Mother Nature would have laughed evilly and then bashed my hopes of seeing permanent warmer temps and saying goodbye to pasty white legs. What does a girl have to do around here to get a little bit of Vitamin D??!!!! Hellooooo????

Re-Motivation

I am getting re-motivated...on my food storage :) I need to get my butt back in gear and put the finishing touches on my 3 month supply recipes and charts. But I've also decided to really focus on finally getting my 72-hour kits done as well as work harder on my water supply. I have ideas floating around my head such as going to the DI for packs, hitting up the dollar stores, and putting together a binder of all instructions and how-to's that I might need during disaster (since this is typically stuff I wouldn't do on a day-to-day basis). Learning how to make bread from scratch - as in grind your own wheat scratch - is still something I have yet to accomplish. I have tonz of organizing I have to get done in the next few months and I've been brainstorming on where to put everything I have (both food storage related and non) and things I still need to acquire. I start feeling pretty overwhelmed with it all BUT!! never fear....I like lists and I am going to make me a MOTHER list and I will get things accomplished one tiny little step at a time. GO ME!!

Go to Safely Gathered In and click on resources at the top for some free printouts. Click on Emergency Preparedness for lists for car kits (done!!) and 72-hour kits. I even gathered supplies for a cardboard oven (so proud of myself!!). Here are some other websites I browsed today:

Safely Gathered In: Water Series

Provident Living: Drinking Water

FEMA: Water Guidlines

EPA

It's Official

• My pants are getting too snug
• My shirts don't stay down and I'm constantly arranging them
• I HATE wearing tank tops under shirts as of now
• I feel like a hippo and I'm not even showing much at all
• AND my husband constantly looks at my tummy and then starts smiling and LAUGHING at me!! Partly because I'm prego with his baby and partly because my middle is pudgy and he knows I HATE IT!!! Gerg. Can I please fast forward two months so I have a reason to feel like a cow??? Because of the fact that I will be a cow!!!

Lost and Found

Last Wednesday I came home and had a heart attack. Or maybe something very similar. But this annoying little stinky dog....

...went missing for the first time EVER!!

I realized something was wrong before I knew it was wrong and then I had a small freak out session, and then, like a light switch, my freak out ended and I was calm. I couldn't figure out why I suddenly stopped freaking out but I was leaning towards the hope that deep down I knew it would be okay. We drove around and the whole time I felt that it was pointless. I kept thinking that somebody had him. I decided to go back home and look up numbers for the local shelters and while I was at it, I had the thought to post my little lost doggie on Facebook. So many of my neighbors are friends with me on Facebook and I figured if he was in this area, that it would be a good chance that somebody I know had seen him.

I spent the rest of the night worrying and then calming down, and then worrying, and then calming down. It was storming pretty badly (which played a roll in how he got out in the first place). I'm so used to my dog just being around and several times I would expect to see him laying on my stairs or come running when he heard the fridge open. Let me tell you it SUCKS when you think things will never be the same.

The next morning, as soon as I arrived at work, I received a phone call from an unknown number. I KNEW that whoever this was, they were calling about my dog and I KNEW it would be good news! It was Cytel, a neighbor of mine. She had taken Bacardi in before the storm and fed him and took care of him all night! And then she graciously took care of him all day until I got off work to go and relieve her of him. But apparently is was a good thing for their two dogs because Bacardi kept them both busy and tuckered them out so she was pretty happy about that.

I was right about the Facebook. I had friends who saw him and let me know, so we had an idea at least of where to look. But somebody I don't know ended up taking him door to door to see who this dog belonged to so that's how one of my FB friends and several of my neighbors put together who the little pooch belonged to and am I EVER grateful to all of them :)

We also had friends who went out looking for him theirselves!! I feel so lucky to have friends that would help us look for our dog, knowing how much he means to us. It is truly aweomse to feel a part of a community family :) I was so happy to see my dog. Paul didn't get home til after midnight. He went straight to Bacardi's 'room' to see him before coming to bed.

And Saturday night, when we came home from The Melting Pot, Bacardi got a lot of attention from Beej and made us laugh so hard:

Mmmmmm....Fonduuuuuuuue

It's that time of year again!!! Every February, Paul and I stuff our faces at The Melting Pot - our #1 favorite place to blow our money. We celebrate both of our birthdays and Valentines. We used to love to go all out for each other on Valentines...when we were dating. But now we see Valentines day for the retail-driven, retarded 'holiday' that it is and we don't like to spend money on stupid little gifts, especially with our birthdays so close. Besides, we can, and do, do cute romantic things for each other all year long and feel that that's the way it supposed to be :) Anyhooselbees, we go out to dinner AFTER the Valentine feeding frenzy is over!

This year we invited B.J. and Hilary to join us:

We enjoyed the Big Night Out flavors of France! However, we had to substitute a very tasty looking French cheese fondue for the Wisconsin (which is still AMAZING!) because Beej is cheese picky - Beej and Paul have some weird food ticks...jus' sayin'. Our entree meat were fab and our White Chocolate Creme Brulee was freaking awe.some.

The waiter brought out our dessert tray with a candle in our cheesecake, again!! I love it :) I love our tradition and I love that Paul and I are exactly 3 weeks apart. It's so fun AND 3 is my lucky number! We were simply meant to be....

PS - did anybody catch that I said do-do up at the top? ha ha ha.

Bowling Madsen Style

Okay....more birthday shinanagins for my hubby!! But on the Madsen side, we were also celebrating this dude's 23rd birthday:

I still can't get over that Gaven, the baby of the family, is that old and is now married. It really sucks to get old. But at the same time, my family is having the best times ever together and we are loving it.

We went to Sandy All Star, where sadly my dad was missing and Morgan and Sam were sick. We ordered up three pizzas and drinks and had an uber good time.

My favorite little boys in the whole wide world:

Gaven and Bronsynn:

Bronsynn had spent the night at my house and we ended up making Snickerdoodles and Coconut Macaroons out of boredom. Since I hate sweets at the moment, I snuck a gallon size ziploc into the bowling alley to share amongst everyone. Since I'm pregnant, I didn't think it would hurt to pretend I'm a liiiiiitle bit further along:

Ashleeeeeeeyyyyyy!! There's my favorite pose just for you!!!

Xannie and Mannie - ha!!! I just made that up...that's gonna be their new nickname:

My hot hubby and I:

My cr-AAAAAA-zy mom and I:

Amber being a redneck:

Amber and I pretended that we were the paparazzi and sang Lady Gaga's 'Paparazzi' while we paparazzi'd:

Dallin being silly:

And Gaven, who is always being tricksy, managed this spare in a way only he could do!:

After the bowling was done and over with, we had to go to the arcade. It's Aiden's favorite thing to do and he'll ask you every two minutes if bowling is over yet so he can go to the arcade. All Star really upgraded their arcarde and while it is very expensive (certainly not Nickelcade) it is very fun. We found this awesome punching game and everyone took turns seeing how hard they can hit. The high score was around 9200 or so. Well we finally convinced Xannie to take a turn. You get two tries and on her second hit, she barely hit it so it didn't register. When she did it again, she took the new high score. None of us could believe it!! The guys and Amanda were doing everything to beat the high score and Xannie takes it with one tiny little punch!! Hilarious:

This is one of the attempts to take high score:



All the tickets won by the entire group went to Aiden and Dallin who felt like they hit the lottery and came away with six or seven gadgets each:

Since we were bowling the Saturday after both birthdays, it happened to fall on two other birthdays: Judd (Happy Birthday!!!) and my close friend, Rachelle. Rachelle had a party herself - at the bowling alley. So after my family all went their separate ways at about 9, we headed over to the other All Star Lanes and went bowling again. While the friends and company was VERY fun, I've learned that poor pregnant Maghann can't stay up that late anymore.

Nickel Cade

Like I mentioned, Paul really wanted to do something different for a birthday shindig and he decided we were going to Nickelcade for some cheap fun. And it is very cheap...you're dollar can go a really long way there. It's also very grimy...so bring your hand wipes or use their hand sanitizer!!

Paul's favorite arcade game in the whole world is Ski Ball...probably followed by Hoops:

Playing air hockey with his mom, brother, and dad:

Zoyie at some mouse game:


Matt and Hilary at Guitar Hero:

Paul and his dad looked so funny riding these motorcycles. They looked like they were doing a little booty dance, which you can't see just from the picture...obviously:

Paul's mom got all tricked out on the skateboard:

I discovered how addicting those stupid games are that you have to keep dropping coins in and try to get other coins to drop off the edge....anyone know what I am talkin' 'bout?? Anyhooslebees...I won a BUTTLOAD of tickets off them and here I am with my loot...getting ready to go pillage and plunder:

(Please ignore how sickly I look)

To All My Blogger Friends...

....PLEASE POST!!

I TRIPLE DIPLE DOUBLEY WUBBLEY DOG DARE YOU!!

See, I am so very bored. And when I am bored at work I turn to the internet. Facebook is doesn't provide much entertainment because a lot of people are stupid. Yes I said that. But I do look forward to being updated on my friends lives, and seeing funny pictures and reading about your days or what have you. It seems that the blogger world has been so very slooooow for a long time. I was even slow. But now I expect better from all of you. BLOG!!! please??

Birthday Boy!!

My wonderfully athletic, dashingly handsome, stylishly attractive and downright SEXY stud of a husband turns 28 today :) I love this man more today than I did 8 of his birthdays ago and I find more reasons to love him everyday. Like reason #28: he can take such good care of me when I am puking my guts out everyday. He'll run to Walmart at midnight just to get something that 'might' help and he'll happily run to get me whatever food sounds like it 'might' stay down while I'm curled up in a ball on the couch.

I LOVE MY MAN!!

This year, since we are going to the arcade tonight with his family and I can't do much for him at home, I decided to be sneaky and I went to his work while a co-worker took him out to lunch. I tied balloons all over his truck and wrote all over his windows.

Then I decorated up his computer with kisses, spanks, more balloons and Snickers! I have been giving him 'spankings' throughout the day. He'll get 28 of them, of course :)

I thought it was funny that I grabbed this balloon:

It was supposed to be just a 2, like the balloon that was just an 8!!

I also taped more balloons to a heart-shaped, strawberry topped cheesecake and put it in the breakroom for him and his co-workers to enjoy...and gave him 3 more spankings with that!

I was in for a surprise though when I went into his office with a handful of cheesecake, snickers and balloons - HE WAS IN THE OFFICE!! They went to lunch earlier than they were supposed to and they got back too fast!! Lucky for me he was in the back with some guys so I was able to get everything done...but just as I was making an escape, he walked through the door and there I was! At least I got everything done before he found me :)