Madsens in the Motherland! (Part 2)

After a fun weekend here in Tempe, a few members of our family had to head back home to rejoin the working world. Namely my dad, Melissa and Mike. It was sad to see them leave, but we were lucky to have my mom, Steven and Julia for a whole week longer.

Matt took our three visitors to the last Suns home game of the season. It was fan appreciation night, so everyone came home a winner. My family won two T-shirts, an autographed Matt Barnes jersey, and two tickets to a WNBA game. This made me even more jealous that I missed the game -- I had a stake girls camp meeting that night.

Here is Josh just chillin' on a stack of books at Costco. Watching people shop. That's how he rolls.

I couldn't let my family leave without showing them our amazing zoo. Josh and I have a membership this year and he loves it more every time we go.

Josh loves his Uncle Steven so much. They were buddies all day. Steven even let Josh wear his crazy expensive sunglasses.

Julia got to ride a camel! Can you believe she actually asked me if she could take Josh on her lap??!

Here is Josh snuggling with Grandma, pretending to be shy for the camera. What a pretty Grandma he has.

My mom rented this little buggy for an hour thinking it would give us a break from walking. Not so. There are lots of hills at this zoo and the pedaling was killer! Still, it was a lot of fun for the kids.

Here is my little brother...I mean sister... Julia "petting" an enormous tortoise. (Not to worry -- she doesn't always dress like a boy.)

My family is pretty good at making funny faces. It just comes naturally.

How did these two get to be such big boys?!

Tired from a long day of walking and ready for a nap. All of us!

The next day we went in to Phoenix to the federal courthouse where Matt's dad Murray works as a judge. He was so nice to give us the grand tour. We saw part of a naturalization ceremony, walked through the cell block where all the inmates were kept, and saw Murray's fancy chambers. I asked the marshall to lock Steven up so we could see how they treat the prisoners. It was really tempting to just leave him like that.

We also got to sit in and watch a short proceeding in Murray's courtroom. This is how Josh entertained himself while court was in session. "Seafood! Get it? See food!"

Steven and Julia loved the rock gym. They were dang good at climbing too.

And a couple of days later, they were gone. Family, thank you so much for spending your spring break with us! Ten days of awesomeness were exactly what I needed. Love you to pieces!

Madsens in the Motherland! (Part 1)

April has been an absolutely glorious month! My younger siblings had a long spring break, so the whole family decided to come down to Arizona for a visit. For ten wonderful days we had different parts of my family in and out of our house. (Sorry, some pictures are out of order, but you'll figure it out.)

Josh was a little overwhelmed by all the new people and excitement around here, but he's never gotten more attention in his life!

My big sister Melissa and her husband Mike came down from San Jose. She's a natural with babies.

Julia, Melissa and I got matching $6 baseball shirts to wear to the Diamondbacks game on Saturday. Growing up in Redding, we lived hours away from any professional sports teams, so it was fun to take my family into the "big city" for a game.

Matt's mom bought Josh this adorable outfit for Easter Sunday. He looks like such a little man!

Next time Josh wears this I'm going to make Matt dress the same as him so they can be twins. No Matt, it's not sissy. It's cute. Get over it.

We took everyone to the batting cages by our house the first day they were here. My little brother and sister loved it! They could walk right out our back gate and entertain themselves all week. This is my dad showing off his skills in his sweet sandals.

We have TONS of grapefruits and lemons in our backyard, literally falling off the trees faster than we can use them. Fortunately, my family loves fresh-squeezed grapefruit juice. I taught Julia how to make it and she was our little juice girl every morning.

Here we are at the baseball game, way up in the nosebleed section so we could all sit together.

Josh makes this funny face a lot in pictures -- he can't handle the flash, but he loves the camera anyway.

This is one of the few pictures we have of our whole three-person family that's not taken from an arms-length away. Thanks Steven for being our cameraman.

Doesn't she look like a mommy already?? Come on Melissa, Josh needs a cousin!

After a delicious Easter dinner, we got the whole family involved in a game of Knock-out at Matt's parents' house. (Yes, that silly lady in the blue is my beautiful mother.)

The best part about this game was that as the line got moving fast, we just passed the baby from person to person until someone got out. Like hot potato.

Melissa and her Mikey-poo playing "fat dog" on the grass after pie and lemon bars.

One day we took a walk over to the pond behind our house. Julia and Steven started feeding Cheeze-Its to some of the ducks, and all of the sudden a zillion birds came over to us and started begging! Josh absolutely loved it.

Yes, his shirt says "I'm a really big deal." Thanks Grandma.

Steven is secretly a huge Mama's boy. I'm sure of it.

Psycho baby!!! Julia is really good at making Josh laugh -- even over the webcam.

One of the great things about having an eleven-year-old sister is that I had an excuse to go see the Hannah Montana movie. It was cute. When we came home, Julia went online and learned the whole "Hoedown Throwdown" dance. I'm not gonna lie...I tried a few moves myself.

More pictures to come!

Josh's First Camping Trip

Just to give it to you up front--this is Matt, not that you wouldn't be able to tell by the second word of the following paragraph.

I challenge any of you to think of any other baby that has more nicknames than Josh...or as I like to call him: Bjorn, Bear, Bubba, Bumpy, Cinnamon Bear, Dip Dip, Fathead, Jungle Bum, Monkey Face, Mr. T, Pedro, Thor, Zipper, and any other random collection of nonsense words that happen to stick together in my brain when I'm trying to get his attention. (And just for the record, they are all LOVING father-son pet names--nothing intended as an insult.)

All of the previous names are either currently in use, or have recently been used. I didn't make any of them up on the spot. That being said, before we get into the pictures of our recent exploits, I want to hear at least one of the following from anyone who would like to participate:

1.) Your favorite/oddest/most ridiculous nickname you ever had as a child.
2.) Your favorite/oddest/most ridiculous nickname you ever called your own child (minimum 2 weeks usage).
3.) Your favorite/oddest/most ridiculous nickname you ever wanted for yourself as a child. (Mimi insisted on being called Sally for a week at the age of 3.)

Now on to the reason that any of you actually look at this thing. This last weekend we took Mowgli out into the great outdoors with the Hawkes. It was great times up near Payson, AZ. Josh had a lot of fun doing the following things:

Sneaking out from behind things to scare people with his seriously awesome hat,

Stuffing enormous quantities of food into his mouth all at once (he is TRULY his father's son),

Looking SOOOOO good with his mom,

Spitting rhymes and hip-hop dancing,

Having an instinctual nose to find any chocolate in the vicinity (Part of his mother's gift to him)

Getting his snack on,

Flirting with the ladies,

But without losing the ability to still look completely innocent, like he really DIDN'T wake up a jillion times and fuss regardless of how warm he was, who was holding him, or how comfortable he might have been.

On another note, our son is turning orange. He loves carrots, sweet potatoes and squash, and while he also eats green beans and peas and such, he prefers cooked carrots to fruit (which he also eats). If you look at the pictures below, you'll notice that pieces of his face have an orange hue. Its not just the camera.


A final observation. I love my baby boy. I have always loved him, but every day that passes where we get to play, and he laughs at me, and crawls to me, and headbutts me in the face is another day I just love him that much more. I love being a dad.


In the end however, all you need to know is that with Josh's newfound forestry skills, when you least expect it...he is STILL watching you.

Bits and Pieces

I haven't been so great about keeping up our blog this year. Since Josh has become more mobile and I've been trying to speed through my school work, there hasn't been much free time around here. We've taken some pictures in the last few weeks that are just too cute not to share. So here's what we've been up to lately....

Josh likes to pull himself up on everything lately. My favorite is when I find him sneaking up to the piano to try out the keys. This is his "Am I in trouble?" face.

This boy loves music. One of his new things is dancing...sort of. When he hears music he bobs his body up and down, usually while he's sitting or being held. It's the cutest thing ever. I hope to catch it on video soon.

I know what you're thinking....This shirt is so awesome it deserves its own post. Matt secretly ordered this shirt on kosherham.com last weekend and it showed up in the mailbox on Wednesday. He was so excited for me to open it and I absolutely love it! I'm not ashamed of my love for the Disney Channel. It's hilarious, wholesome, and there are no commercials. Miley Cyrus is a crack-up and I definitely recommend her show to anyone who's looking for an excuse to admire Billy Ray's luscious locks for half an hour.

Josh makes the funniest face when we use our small camera. He's not camera-shy at all. He knows exactly when to look and smile. This camera, however, does a little flash before it takes the picture so almost every shot comes out with Josh squinting, yet trying so hard not to lose his charming smile. It turns out something like this.

Matt likes to teach Josh silly things like putting weird articles of clothing on his head. I'm just glad this time it was pajamas instead of underwear.

Matt really wanted me to take pictures so we could remember what our boy would look like as a Rastafari baby.

And this is what Josh will look like when he is finally able to grow facial hair which, if he takes after his daddy, will likely be never. Not that he would have any if he took after me, either. Poor boy.

That's not nearly a complete update, but hopefully I'll have time for more posts soon.