The Sunday regulars

This makes the third Sunday in a row. Apparently we are developing a habit.

Luke got bounced off the side of the slide in the first five minutes, when Levi took him out at the knees, and got his first shiner. Just a little one, and he was fine a few seconds later.

He then spent a good portion afternoon drinking from the slip-n-slide. Apparently we need to water that boy more.

Not all of us had a great time though. Poor Noah was already exhausted from a big yesterday swimming at Uncle Tim and Aunt Gina's. Then he was the first one out of bed this morning, waaaay too early. And his courage quarters failed him today, and he had to be dragged into Sunday school. Thus missing out on picking a donut after church. So by the time we got to playing in the back yard, he was already not a happy camper. Then he splashed water on the camera, seconds after I told him not to. Not a good idea.

Time-out was "uncomfortable," he said...

Mother's Day

My mom came over earlier in the week help the kids make their mom a little gift...

They all presented them to Paige this morning.

And then I think she got the best Mother's Day gift of all... they all walked nicely into Sunday school. No fussing, no crying, no running, no hiding. Gave her a kiss and walked right in.

Our newest strategy was to give them each three quarters, and put them in their pocket so they jingled. Then told them they were their "Quarters of Courage." When they heard them jingle, it was to remind them to have courage going to Sunday school. And if they did, we would stop at a store on the way home and they could use the quarters to buy a donut. Levi thought the donut sounded good, but still wasn't convinced about Sunday school. "I will have courage, but I still won't have fun at church" he grumped.

Call it bribing if you want. I prefer "classical conditioning." Pavlov trained dogs to salivate at the sound of a bell. If we can train our three year olds to salivate at jingle of some "courage quarters"... well, let's just say it makes Sunday mornings vastly more pleasant for all of us.

And come to think of it, Levi didn't actually walk into Sunday school. He ran. He had to back up, get a running start, and then stop right at the door to see if he could hear his quarters jingle.

And when we picked him up? "I did have fun in church mom!!!"

So how did we celebrate Mother's Day? How else?

Happy Mother's Day, to the best wife I could ever have... ;)

Just because...

Levi thought this strawberry was pretty much the greatest discovery thus far in his short life...

The good, the bad, and the ugly

I ran across this video a few weeks ago. And loved it. So I am posting it, so that you all can enjoy some ukulele goodness.

I was so excited the first day I saw it, I made Paige sit down and watch it. As I hummed along, her jaw dropped agape. Although I would like to believe it was because of amazing ukuleles, I suspect it was actually in sheer horror at the unadulterated nerdiness of the man she married.

She stated, as it finished, that she would rather watch a hamster run in a wok...

I'm afraid her sense of high culture is not as finely honed as her husband's... ;)

Speaking of growing...

Luke had his one year checkup the other day. Other than being low in iron (again) everything checked out fine. The iron level meant he got to go and have blood drawn today for a more detailed check. After three pokes, they finally got it. From the phone call I got afterwards, it appears I will be the one taking him in if that ever needs to happen again. Paige doesn't handle inflicting pain on our kids well, even when it is for their own good.

So here are the plots. Looks like he is right on track with his brothers, maybe even on a trend to outpace them. Which wouldn't hurt, since they've got him outnumbered...


I also just noticed that at two years old, I was heavier than anyone else in our family... and shorter (yes, even shorter than Paige!) Apparently I was a, ummmmm, "big boned" little kid. Yeah, let's go with "big boned." Not much has changed, I guess...

The first tooth

So after a week of wiggling, tugging, and playing, Ella finally got her first tooth out. Almost the day after we discovered her shark teeth, one of her babies started wiggling. She was obsessed with that thing for a full week. Any time we looked at her, she was lost deep in a haze of tooth wiggl'n. But in no way, shape, or form did she want any assistance with it. She wanted it to fall out "by itself."

Even though her mean ol' dad kept saying she should just give it a yank. Or let me help. Or even tie a string around it (that instantly reduced her to tears. Whoops...)

But then at preschool on Tuesday, it just popped right out while she was playing in the classroom. She slipped it into her pocket without even saying a word (although she did show it to her friends later on the carpet.) When she got home, she broke the big news!

The gross missing tooth shot...

Luckily I had gone to the bank a few days before and picked up a few gold dollars. I asked Ella what she thought the tooth fairy would exchange for her tooth. "Maybe a dime!" she said excitedly. "I should ask [a friend a preschool] what she got for hers, and maybe I would get the same thing!"

I could have gotten off a lot cheaper, I guess. But when she woke up the next morning, she found three gold dollars where her tooth had been. You could hear her feet thumping the floor from her room to ours to come tell us what she discovered. Too cute, and so worth three bucks...

Now I am just trying to get her to work on that next one... ;)

Because Sarah Madderom (the married one) didn't like paisleys...

Ok, so the new blog format was not a hit. See what too much caffeine late at night will do to you? Try to follow your wife's directions to make the blog more "girly," and everybody freaks out about the paisleys. I had 3 votes to 1 (sorry Whizzy Wizzy.)

I'm not even sure I dare ask for feedback on the new look. But I am sure you will give it too me anyways. But Paige approved this background, so none of your votes really count anyways.

Plus, she didn't like the paisleys either.

PS. Sarah, I think you should go by an abbreviation, like Prince. Or the artist formerly known as Prince. So maybe TSMFKAB (The Sarah Madderom formerly known as Bakker.) Because Sarah (the married one) is just kind of weird...

Water slide Sunday

Without further comment...

He's officially one

We had Luke's birthday party at my mom's today. The first item on the agenda was to take the older three to see Earth in the movie theater. We have the DVD's, which they love, and we thought they would really like to see it on the big screen. After a huge fight to get the boys to each eat one (one!) McDonald's chicken nugget (which they usually inhale) we headed to the theater.

Let's just say that was the longest 90 minute movie Paige ever saw. The kids did not want to sit still. Apparently there were not enough nuggets in their stomach to dilute the entire glass of Sprite that they each did drink. She chased them all over that theater the entire time. So if you were in the 1:00 showing of Earth at Bell and 32nd, we apologize.

When we asked the kids if they liked the movie, Noah replied "No, I did not enjoy it." Yeah, he won't be seeing a movie in the theater again until he is about 16.

Then back to Grandma's, out for dinner at Valle Luna, and then Luke got to dig into his cake. Paige has made each of our kids their first birthday cake. Luke got a caterpillar.

And he got one whole bug segment to himself...



Then a quick bath in the sink...



And a few presents...



Happy Birthday "Sweet Baby Wuke!!" (as the other three call him.)

The "girly" look

Paige made a comment the other day that our black blog was too plain. Not "girly" enough, or something like that.

There are two girls in this house... and four boys. Why exactly does the blog need to be "girly?"

So I revamped it tonight, with a more "sophisticated" background. Let me know what you think. Better? Worse? Go back to the black?

The birthday boy

in his birthday suit...


One year old tomorrow. Hard to believe that we brought the little duffer home that long ago.

Paige left her birthday preparation tasks and came upstairs to help put the kids in bed. When she returned, she found this...


Yes, there was originally frosting in that big bare spot.

The culprit was fairly easy to spot, with her tail tucked between her legs...


Paige was not pleased...


I told her to just frost right back over that part, and we will just make sure we don't eat it. Hopefully no one else coming to the party will read this before tomorrow afternoon...

Standing tall

He's just figuring how how to stand. And climb. Pretty soon it will be running, jumping, throwing, and crashing...


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Is it a good or bad thing that his older brothers are making muzzleloaders from their pop guns and AA batteries?

Load 'er up...




Tamp 'er down...


And fire away (directly at dad's noggin, of course.)


I did not teach them any of this. Totally figured it out on their own. Took their flashlight apart to get the batteries. Next thing I know, a AA goes zinging across the playroom.

(And yes, once again they are barely clothed. That's just how we roll around here...)

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At dinner tonight, Noah refused to eat his fish sticks. He's never once tasted one, but he was convinced...

"Fish sticks taste awwwful!"

"Noah, you've never even had one, so how would you know? Now eat one bite."

He eats one "bite," in reality a small nibble, consisting almost entirely of the breaded coating. Miliseconds after it touches his lips...

"Ugghhhhh, tastes awwwful!"

"Noah, the taste hasn't even made it from your tongue to your brain to tell you if it tastes good!"

Approximately 60 seconds pass, with him making goofy faces...


"Wait a second.... this tastes delicious!!"

Levi, from the peanut gallery... "Why would anyone want to eat a fish anyways?"



It's a good thing I like Calvin and Hobbes when I was younger. Only then, I identified with Calvin... not his poor parents...

Bryan Loritts

EVBC had a Men's Conference on Saturday. Bryan Loritts was the speaker, and he was excellent. If you want to get a sense of what he talked about, his first session was basically this sermon, on Coram Deo.

He also preached in church on Sunday... where he was also excellent. And incredibly convicting. Give it a listen...

Audio from EVBC

Bryan's church, Fellowship Memphis. If we ever make it to Memphis, we are going here on Sunday.

Bryan's blog

Our little great white shark

Notice any thing unusual?

Look a little closer...

The kid has shark teeth! We noticed the other day that her permanent teeth were coming in... behind her baby teeth! Luckily, Levi and Noah had a dentist appointment the next day, so Ella tagged along. The dentist said she can wait 6 months and see if the baby teeth fall out naturally. They usually do. But if not, she will have to get the baby teeth pulled.

Poor kid. She got her dad's giant beaver teeth genes, I think. She will spend her entire childhood terrified of going to the dentist, because every time she does he will be pulling teeth to make room for the new ones (ask me how I know this...)

I can't stand going to the dentist to this day...

Oklahoma! Where the wind comes...

...sweeping down the plain!

Seriously. It was like living in a hurricane there!

Friday I jumped on a Southwest (love them!) flight to the OKC to visit Angie.


She took me to the memorial for the OKC bombing. It happened to be one day before the 14th anniversary. These were the only photos I took the whole trip...

I must have done something, since I am getting that "my brother is nuts" look...


She told me that hundreds of government agents would swarm out of the building and waterboard me if I even pointed my camera in the direction of the Oklahoma City Federal Building.


Ok, ok. So she only told me that one of her fellow photography classmates took a picture of it, and some guys came out and made her erase the pictures. I told her I wanted to see if that was true. Apparently not, since I just published the picture on the internet.

This is a really old tree that was across the street from the bombed building. That is about all I know about it.


The reflecting pool... reflecting...


Angie went to the bathroom, and I got bored and started to pretend I was a photography student. How'm I doin' Ange?


Photographic evidence of Angie in front of the non-photographable federal building. For any super secret gov't internet monitoring programs, that is Angela. Spelled A-N-G-E-L-A...


It was nice to see Angie's house, her school, and the booming metropolis of Norman (got the scenic tour at 1 AM the night I got there, only because I got totally lost.) I also got to experience the amazing diversity of the population of Oklahoma. Some veeeeeery interesting folks live out there, let me tell you. Jumped on a flight home Monday morning to get back to work!

Meanwhile, back at the ranch, there was a sleepover going on in the top bunk.


And Paige found Levi curled up on his windowsill, wrapped in his drapes, taking a nap like a little cat in a sunbeam. Too funny...