Lessons learned from Dunkin Donuts

So here's what I'm talking about when I say that my kids are each totally different from the other, especially Connor and Noah. A recent outing to Dunkin Donuts provided a perfect opportunity for my little gang to showcase their funny differences (and to add a new word to my vocabulary).

Shelby: -no words- She just digs in and really doesn’t waste time with needless chatter. She loves sweets and nothing will stop her from savoring every bite.

Noah’s experience: “Oh boy! My doughnut looks just like a BRAIN!”

More from Noah, cackling LOUDLY: “Look! My brain has gooey stuff in the middle!!! I’m EATING my brain!!! HA HA HA HA!!”

Meanwhile, Connor's observation: “Wow! Look, the bag has a rebus on it!”

Mommy: “What the heck is a rebus?!?!?”

Connor: “Mommy! DUH! It’s when pictures are substituted for words to make a sentence or tell a story.”

Okay, don't sit there and pretend like YOU know what a rebus is. Mark claims that he knew what it meant. Whatevs.

Anyway, just another day in our household where Mark and I look at each other and shake our heads and wonder, how the heck are we going to keep up with Connor’s brain? I do take a little comfort in knowing that at least Connor still (inexplicably) finds humor in Noah's endless jokes and stories about poopies - rampaging poopies, talking poopies, singing poopies, etc.

Happy Halloween!!

September 30 is one of the BEST days of the year! It’s the day our Halloween decorations come out! And Connor and Noah love it as much as I do – yay!!

Here’s Connor welcoming our beloved and favorite and first Halloween decoration, Ghosty, back and out of the box where he lives 11 months of the year (Ghosty, that is, NOT Connor!):

Noah giving his greetings hug to Ghosty. Cute, right? What you don’t see is in these photos was the boys later discovering Ghosty was an excellent karate punching and kicking bag! I had to wipe Ghosty down to remove the footprints from his stomach and backside.

Connor also contributed to our Halloween decorating efforts by making a diagram of where all of our decorations go, so we could remember for next year. He also added warning signs of “Boo” and “Beware.”

Noah drew…..uh…..a bunch of triangles.

***And, VOILA, we present to you the Ritchie 2010 Halloween house!***

It may appear that we are the only house on our street, but what you don’t see are our twenty-plus BORING neighbor houses.

We did add to our Halloween decorations this year (as we do every year) by adding a phantom ghost to our back yard. I thought a spooky figure in our back forest would be kinda cool and I really wanted a Frankenstein or something like that, but all that Lowes had left in mid-October was this phantom ghost. So, Phantom Ghosty came home with me and was set up. How awesome and creepy does he look in those trees ???

The kids refused to have their photo taken with Phantom Ghosty, unless they were “protected” by me, so here we are…..look at Noah & Shelby’s faces! Those were two very nervous little skeletons.

And now we need to take a solemn moment: Ghosty, whom you saw in the above photos (but who did NOT make it into the final photos – darn), died a sudden death on October 23, 2010. Whether it was the appearance of Phantom Ghosty in the backyard (who was NOT brought home to replace you, Ghosty – no one could do that!!) or the severe karate beatings he sustained from the boys, we will never know. Mark threw him unceremoniously in our trash can before an autopsy could be performed. Ghosty was our first Halloween decoration and the one that the kids LOVED to see come out every year. RIP beloved Ghosty. We will never forget you.

I just had to throw this photo in because it’s so stinkin’ cute – after a full afternoon and evening of Halloween decorating, the boys did a sleepover in Noah’s room and I caught ‘em like this:

I also usually decorate inside of our house, even moreso than the outside, but this year kept it just to the front foyer. It’s very tame (although half of these are talking devices and make a HECK of a lot of noise), but here ya go:

Another Halloween tradition of ours is to drive around and look at decorated Halloween houses. We’ve driven through nearly EVERY neighborhood in Syracuse and its suburbs, I KID YOU NOT, and ours is still probably the best, although this year the number of spectacular houses has noticeably dwindled. WHAT UP FUDDY DUDDY PEOPLE?!?!? Now, our Halloween tour takes us to only about 6-7 reliably decorated houses every year. And yes, the boys get to ride unleashed (as it were) in the back of the SUV with their stuffed animal friends. We’ve trained them to duck quickly and hide if a car comes up behind us and discovers our illegal child (and stuffed animal?) endangerment.

And no, the big huge car emergency kit separating them from touching each other does NOT last for more than 4 minutes or so. It never fails that someone’s head hits the roof or a leg gets caught in a blanket or some other equally horrible thing happens and one of them must finish the Halloween tour back in their seat with their seatbelt on, screaming about how unfair their life has become.

Moving on, I finally convinced Noah that he had the perfect forehead for tattoos. Hey, when I'm right, I'm right, am I right?

Call us nerds if you will (though keep in mind we teach our kids that being nerds means you’re cool and unique and smart and if you’re called a nerd it means people are actually jealous of you), we do a family theme every year. This year it was Connor’s turn to pick, and we ended up being an archaeology team. Mark, Connor and I were dressing like Indiana Jones, and Noah and Shelby were our amazing and stupendous fossil finds in their skeleton costumes. Shelby was tagged as "Humanus Pinkus" and Noah was tagged as "Skeletorus."

Editors note: I just re-read our Halloween 2009 entry and saw that Connor had wanted us to dress up in Greek costumes for this year - thank goodness he opted for archaeologists instead. You don't want to see us in togas in late October in New York. You really don't.

Shelby’s “costume” is actually pajamas (hey, SOMEtimes I can be thrifty), and she wore them for three straight days. When I finally peeled them off of her (indeed, they were nearly fossilized to her body) and tossed ‘em in the washing machine, she CRIED and wailed for her beloved pink “skellie” pajamas.

The larger fossil is now unmasked, and none too happy at his being discovered, even if it was by the notorious Indiana Jones:

And what can I say? Sometimes good fossils go bad and turn on their own kind….

Next year is Noah’s turn to pick our family theme, and he’s already decided we’ll all be ninjas! Whoopee! Can you imagine the fun we’ll have with that theme???!?! Of course, Noah will be only 6 next Halloween, and that means there’s a high probability we could actually be dressed next year as Mario and Luigi, or Scooby Doo, or whatever other video game characters dominate Noah’s goofy mind. But I’m gonna work on the ninja angle. I know I’ve only got a couple more years before they start rebelling against the nerdy family theme, so while I’m still bigger and bossier than them, I’ll work it!

Oh, and Connor informed me that our Halloween decorations are too childish. He says he’s ready for the scary stuff. OH YOU JUST WAIT LITTLE BOY. You just wait. I’ll give ya a scary Halloween smackdown. Tune in here next year - same time, same blogspot - for some of THAT action.

Surprise! Mark says ALOHA to another decade gone...

*Editor’s Note: Yes, I’m a wordy blogger, but since I only blog every couple of months, I want our devoted readers to get their money’s worth, so pop yourself some popcorn, grab a Diet Coke (oh wait, that’s MY preferred snack, yes PLEASE get me some, too!), and prepare to sit and read for a while. And as an extra-special treat, I’ve also included a record-breaking number of amazing photos for your gawking pleasure.*

So, in August, Mark celebrated QUITE a landmark birthday – the BIG one, if you know what I mean. Out of consideration for Mark and the spry & youthful reputation he must maintain, I won’t name any incriminating and potentially embarrassing numbers.

I was able to successfully pull off a surprise luau party for Mark’s birthday this year, due to two VERY important factors – I happen to be a fantastic, poker-faced liar, and Mark happens to be extremely gullible and trusting. Oh yes, we make an excellent pair.

Our fellow party-loving friends, Rich and Angie, volunteered their crib for the festivities and we had it decked out with awesome tiki torches (that were later used by kids to toast their crackers – uhhhh, okay, yeah, that must have tasted good), Tiki bubble blowers and glowing lanterns, the world’s worst & cheapest piñata, and ALL manner of tacky Party Store Hawaiian decorations! Then we invited just a few close friend families to Mark, and okay, NOW it’s a party!

{Read this next part as a rhyme, prepare to be amazed at my talent}

Cake and kebabs and pineapples, oh my!

And the final treat – the kids banished outside to eat!

We had some serious limbo competitions going on. Wha??? Really? Okay, well, no, not really. But it was still pretty darn funny!

I think as Eric went under, the limbo-stick-holders lowered the limbo stick onto Eric’s throat thereby cutting off air circulation, resulting in this most hilarious photo (you’ll want to enlarge this one):

Angie came through the limbo gauntlet doing more of a cha-cha rather than a limbo? I dunno, you take and look and decide:

Though he put up a good fight and went through 2 or 3 rounds, eventually Alan succumbed to the worthy opponent of the limbo stick:

I didn’t include this next photo to show off Mark’s stellar limbo skills, since obviously he’s totally cheating (or else too old to limbo!!!) – look closely at this photo – what is Alan doing to his baby?? This cracks me up.

Patricia was quite the game limbo queen, only narrowly losing the adult champion title:

And our adult limbo champion title went tooooo….Melissa! That chica can BEND! Is that NORMAL? Goodness gracious.

Wait, what am I saying???!? That’s just freakin’ FREAKY! Melissa, you EARNED your Dora The Explorer bubble blower prize, that’s for sure!

Our youth limbo champion title was claimed by Nathan (thanks for the correct twin ID, Kelsey!). Indeed, he even dressed for success in a shirt with “AWESOME ends with ME” – how could he NOT win?

And amongst the festivities, a poignant photo of starcrossed love was captured. It goes like this….Shelby R. and Blake M. were born only 3 weeks apart . Their mothers, Estelle and Marci, are good friends and immediately arranged the future marriage of this cutest little girl and grooviest little boy. Over the past nearly 3 years, Shelby and Blake have been thrust together numerous times in order to foster their eternal partnership. Blake has been cooperative and even quite charming and knows that he must cough up some SERIOUS bling in order to win fair (and shallow and jewelry-obsessed) Shelby, but Shelby still has not accepted this future. Doesn’t this photo say it all? Look at Blakey gazing wistfully as Shelby tosses her hair and refuses to have her photo taken with him:

Shelby, you can play hard-to-get for only so long, because look - Brooke was willing to play hula hoops with Blake, and Brooke is awfully cute, too, and MUCH friendlier!

Oh well, if Shelby turns out half as gorgeous as her favorite babysitter, Jamie, she’ll be able to gracefully attend Blake and Brooke’s wedding with Justin Bieber on her arm (or some other kid celebrity, like that kid in the denim Huggies commercials) and grant B&B well and happy wishes.

Oh, but Blakey, look at Shelby’s hula moves!!! OMGoodness, is she a DOLL or what?!?!?? These photos make me melt.

And check out that grass skirt - Angie and I purchased different grass skirts at different times from different places, and these skirts were supposed to fit 14+ and “all sizes”. After we SPECTACULARLY unsuccessfully attempted to try these ridiculous skirts on (NO, there are no photos of this!), we (Rich and Angie and Jordan and I) decided to hang the stupid things on the wall (and around the toilet, in an inspired decorating moment for Rich) for decorations. (I likes me some parentheses, eh?)

Speaking of hula hoops, yeah yeah, I made our guests play that lame hula hoop game where you have to hold hands and get the hoop through and around everyone – needless to say when it was grownups vs. kids, the kids trounced us. HOWEVER, the silver lining….when I first saw this photo below and blew it up, I COULD. NOT. STOP. LAUGHING. Okay, go now, blow it up and look.!! LOOK at Angie and Alan (NOT Angie’s husband) holding hands and GUFFAWING, like they have an illicit secret, with sweet and unsuspecting Rich (Angie’s husband) in the foreground, totally clueless to Angie and Alan’s devious mocking of him. Is this hilarious or what? Is that what you see in this photo, too? Or it really just an innocent, stupid hula-hoop game? Or am I a raving X-rated, dirty-minded lunatic?

All good parties get crashed, right? This party was crashed in AWESOME style, quite literally. Thank you, Aiden, for the party-stopping and jaw-dropping run RIGHT. THROUGH. THE. SCREEN. DOOR. Toppling toddlers, spilling Tiki bubble blowers, crushing tomato plants…. (thankfully this was not MY screen door – VERY smart of me to do this party at someone else’s house, eh?)

Aiden, here comes your mom! Dude! You are SOOOO in trouble!!!

Okay, so you remember (3 hours ago and 10 pages ago) my mention of the world’s cheapest and worst piñata? The stupid thing kept coming detached from its hanging-thingy-thing. Here’s Eric trying to fix it, and look at his kids faces in the background (blow it up) – Rachel looks mad enough to......well, mad enough to beat the heck out of a stupid, cheap-a$$ piñata! Bwa ha ha!!

We finally had to poke the stupid piñata through its eye on a tree branch to get it to stay up!

Jordan put this sorry excuse for a piñata out of its misery by knocking not only the piñata, but ALSO the branch through its eye holding it up, right off the tree! Revenge (especially if it involves hitting something) is schweet.

Check this out, Rich can do quite the rockin’ Maori dance! Or maybe it was just the high derived from piñata candies that got into Rich? And uhhh, Connor was the nearest bystander…

Connor doesn’t know what’s more embarrassing – Rich’s moves or the fact that his mommy made him wear a grass skirt and then took photos to immortalize and preserve this future-therapy-inducing experience.

Happy large-number birthday Mark! And you’d better REMEMBER, for my next “landmark” birthday (yes, that would be 30), *I* do NOT like surprise parties (unless it’s a surprise party happening in Tahiti).

Peace out from the groovy and remarkably photogenic (and yes somewhat nerdy since I dressed us all up in matching Black Dog tie-dye shirts) Ritchie fam: