lewcow, as a new muslim, please be careful when studying ahadith. Throughout our history, muslims dedicate years of study before they were able to gain the knowledge make rulings and determine if hadith were applicable to certain situations or not. There are so many out there, and a person of knowledge should know more than just their sources to see if they apply.
At this point in your studies, find a good scholar (or 2 or 3 or 12, lol) and find out their opinions on matters. inshaAllah later you can delve deeper into hadith sources, if something is saheeh or not, and whether or not it's applicable to your situation.
If you're looking for a neutral website that provides rulings with their reasoning and sources, I like
http://www.islamonline.net.
There are
two basic opinions on missed prayers - you can make them up, or you can't. The majority of scholars hold to the first opinion. Scholars such as ibn Taymiyyah and ibn Hazm believe that you cannot. How is it that they come to a different opinion? They're all working from the same sources. It's because of how they interpret the sources they have, based on their intellect, knowledge and experience.
What's my point? Umm, lol, I kinda rambled on, but in the end - the greatest scholars of our ummah had a great deal more training and knowledge then we do. Until we attain their level of knowledge, we should be very wary about creating rulings for ourselves without the guidance of someone with knowledge, especially when we're new to Islam. And even when we do have knowledge, scholars differ in their opinions.