Emitt now rebels...

against Ollie's name. He thinks it is hillarious. I guess because he doesn't really pay attention to Ollie unless I am changing his diaper- which is always dirty- that he now calls Ollie "poo poo". Yup- how's that for a nick name? I thought it was a fluke and that he would quickly forget, but it has been going for 3 days now. That's a long time to remember when you are 18 months!

On the Ollie front, he rolled over last night. From his belly to his back- and I wouldn't believe he did it unassisted (by his sweet, gentle brothers) except that they were both in bed and he was on my bed by himself. One minute I lay him down on his stomach, the next he is fussing- and then stops. I look in from the bathroom and he is on his back. Probably a fluke, but Emitt did it at 3 weeks, so maybe he is just trying to catch up already?

Ollie's mini photo shoot

The other day while I was giving Ollie a bath, I asked kent to come take some pictures. Little did I know I was going to get 247 of them! I am not even exaggerating! But they turned out SO GOOD! I am so glad we got a good camera and that Kent is figuring out all the settings and things!
Here are some of my favorites....

I finally get an approval...

This morning, as we were driving Tyse to preschool, he said to me, "MOM, I have some news."
My reply- "what is it?"
Tyse-"I like Ollie's name now. His name isn't Jack-o anymore. It was a joke, mom. I should have told you that. But I like my jokes. they are funny."
I guess a miracle has occurred.

Our new family!

Ollie is almost a week old now, and so I decided to post some more pictures of him. We haven't taken a single picture since we got home, but there are some cute ones from the hospital to share. He has been such a blessing to us already- a good excuse for mom to sleep in a little bit, for dad to take some time off work (kind of), for Grandpa to come visit, etc. The boys really love him, although Tyse "Hates that name." He has taken to calling him "Jacko". I swear- if he knew Michael Jackson's nickname, he would be even more for that one, but alas, it is his own creation that he likes to use. Every time we say Ollie, he mutters under his breath "I HATE that name."


The surgery went really well- We loved the hospital and the staff that helped us. My dr. is very laid back, so he let Kent wander around the operating room and take pictures of whatever he wanted. Thus we have some really interesting pictures- I have never seen my own insides before. Now I have pictures of them for eternity!Before we started, the anesthesiologist asked me what radio station I wanted to listen to, and the drs were joking with Kent that whoever was on the radio at the time the baby came out is what his name would be. We almost followed suit- It was Kenny Chesney and George Strait (lucky me! what a memory), and my whole family calls Kent "Kenny", and his middle name is Kent... I know it is a stretch, but it almost fits!
The boys loved visiting the hospital. I think that their favorite part was the jellybeans I had in the drawer and the chocolate cake from my dinner. The nurses loved how busy they were- luckily our room was pretty big, so we had a soccer game one evening. The hospital also has cable, so Tyse got to see some of his favorite shows he doesn't get to see at home. I was lucky enough to have it snow on saturday, so I could watch out the window as the snowflakes fell. I also did my best to get as caught up on LOST as I could. We have been borrowing the seasons on DVD from the library and we are just in the middle of season 2, but it has us hooked and we can't wait to get the next set of discs... what a great thing to pass time!
I know some of you don't care about these details, but we use this for a family journal, so bear with us...
Anyway here are a few more of my favorite pics. I love watching our family grow- both in number and in human size. What a blessing little boys are!

Our New Addition

Announcing...
Ollie Kent Madsen
He joined our family on thursday morning, after a lengthy 18 minutes in surgery. And we are so happy he is here! His stats:
6 lbs 8 oz.
19 in.
We would have posted earlier, but I couldn't log on to our account from the hospital for some reason...
We are both doing well. We are home and he is doing great. He is on the small side, so he has a little trouble keeping his body temperature up, so we watch him carefully and try to get him to eat as much as possible! He has lots of dark hair and seems to already have dark eyes. Maybe we broke the mold!
The C-section thing went a lot better for us than the last 2 deliveries. I feel much better this time around, although I am still very sore and it will be a while before I am up for much. He eats wonderfully and is absolutely ADORED by his brothers. Tyse loves to help out and hold him as much as possible. Emitt smothers him with love every time he is in reach, so Ollie is well loved. We are so blessed to have him in our family! I will share more tomorrow... tonight it is time to attempt to sleep!

Today we give thanks...

Do you all remember these pictures- taken almost 4 years ago when Kent returned from Iraq? It is very on my mind today because today Kent's old unit from the National Guard shipped out again to serve a year in Afghanistan. And I will have you all know- he is still home. What a blessing for our family at this point! Can you imagine having him ship today and then having our baby tomorrow? The second I heard the news, I burst into tears with so many emotions (remember, I am still pregnant- tears are pretty typical at this point) and memories that I wouldn't change for the world, but do not ever wish to have again.
What an answer we have had to prayer by being able to miss out on this one. Last year at this time we were weighing our options as to whether Kent should finish his last 2 years of service as an active soldier in his unit or brave the realms of the national pool of inactive but deployable soldiers. This kind of deployment was such a big concern for us and we were just playing a guessing game as to who would deploy him more quickly. I feel so blessed and watched over to have felt the spirit guide us to the decision we made, and with today's events I feel so much (guilty) relief. I know it doesn't mean that he isn't going to be deployed in the next year sometime (his time is up NEXT april), but at least we have him here for now. I feel so grateful to have a husband willing and trained to serve his country. We were blessed in so many ways during his Iraq deployment. I have no doubt that he would do a great job in whatever they decided to have him do, but I feel blessed that he is able to be home with us right now. I don't know what I would do without him!

The Name Game

I know that Tyse is the main event in this blog, but he comes up with the craziest things....
we are really into this name thing right now for a couple reasons- one, he is VERY concerned about the baby not having a name as of yet. Everyone keeps asking him what his name will be and so he is a little edgy about it. Two, they had a lesson about names and the birth of christ in primary- not sure how those go together, but I had to explain to him how he got his name and then they talked about the birth of Christ... anyway, this was our recent name conversation.
Tyse: Mom, do you know how Heavenly Father got his name? He got his differently than the rest of us.
Mom: No, Tyse, I don't know how Heavenly Father got his name.
Tyse: HE ACTUALLY GOT TO GIVE IT TO HIMSELF! BECAUSE HE IS THE HEAVENLY FATHER!

On the baby name front, there are no longer front runners- we have amassed a new list that has about 30 names on it that we actually both consider options. What happened to us? Are we getting agreeable or what? Not that there will be one picked before he comes, but we are on the right track...
And unfortunately Tyse thinks his opinion is as important as ours is. Just as unfortunately, he doesn't like ANY of the options we are actually considering. He likes all the crazy names Kent comes up with. Needless to say we are going to have to let it sink in once the baby is here and has a name deemed unacceptable by the 4 year old name nazi.