Our Christmas card....Deciphered. Explained. Discontinued.

So, to those of you who received our Christmas card this year, perhaps you are wondering why we sent the insert printed in a tiny, indecipherable and mostly unrecognizable hieroglyphic text?

Can you read this??

Ummmm, well, that would be my mistake, resulting from my inability to edit myself when writing.  Mark kept telling me it was too small, but I WOULD. NOT. EDIT.  I had no idea it would be so small when I ordered the inserts.  Ooopsie.  I apologize!  And yes, Mark, YOU were right (oh soooo painful to see that in print).  But you were WRONG about the teal color.  UGH.


DECIPHERED

Anyway, here is the translation for you, in plain and huge easy-to-read English:

2011 brought us our first broken bone - Shelby fell off a couch while goofing off with her bad example big brothers and broke her wrist!  Eeek!  But she weathered it like a trooper, showing off her bright red arm cast in her dance classes and preschool.  Shelby is a cute little girly girl who loves her "outfits" and nail polish but who also carries Hot Wheels cars and dinosaur toys in her fluffy pink purse.

Connor's 2011 big news was skipping to the 4th grade after only one month in 3rd grade!  He's a brainy happy camper, keeping busy with his newfound academic loves of physics and history and, as always, his beloved geometry, languages and hieroglyphics.  However, Connor tempers his "heavy studies" with an equal love for reading (over and over) the Diary of A Wimpy Kid book series with much "LOLing" and "ROFLing" (his words).

First-grader Noah is still working on his unique Noahness - regular trips to the school nurses office from wild recess antics, hiding his un-done homework from his teacher, taking gymnastics classes (after being politely requested to NOT return to karate, please), and continuing to entertain us all, especially with his dream of being the King Noah of the world, and of being famous among the "China people," for whom he has an affinity, even telling his classmates that he'd visited China this past summer.  Ummmm, which he did NOT!

Mark is still doing his SU Biology professor gig and getting his African carbon credit business nearing fruition (aka income!).  Hallelujah!  Maybe our 2012 Christmas card will bring you photos of us lounging on our new yacht in the Mediterrean.  Just kidding!  But maybe we'll finally be able to replace our 1996 TV!  :)

Estelle (me) continues to TRY to keep control of the chaos, which this year consisted of more kid room remodeling (monsters & Egyptians!), lots of time picking out (and photographing) matching family shirts - haha!, and organizing our annual family Halloween costumes and Trunk or Treat show.  I document our shenanigans somewhat regularly at our family's online blog at http://markandestelle.blogspot.com.

Hmmmm.  It just occurred to me that if you received the insert, which gave you the web address of our blog, that it would have been TOO small for you to actually see that we have a blog website.  I didn't think this through entirely, did I?




EXPLAINED

Oh, and the tiny text is NOT where the problems with this year's batch of Christmas cards started.  It started with even trying to get a decent photo (doesn't it always?).  You see, the photo on the back of the insert was the very FIRST of over 150 failed Christmas photos, and it was just supposed to be a test shot with the kids holding their letters.

But it was the ONLY one that looked halfway decent.  At least the living room was clean, except for Tiki's fugly dog toy by Connor's foot and the dirty spot on the camera lens.  Observe our....attempts...., come on now, share in the joy with us, won't you?

Blinded by the sun. Or blinded by the sun coming OFF of Mark's head?

Naughty, face-making kids!

Moved inside, but still no JOY to be found in this photo.

Another day, trying out pajamas instead of uncomfortable church clothes.
But SHELBY!?!?!?!

Noah pulling Shelby's hair.  And who plugged Connor in??

This one could have worked, but I like getting Christmas photos of the
GROWNUPS that I know, not just their kids that I probably DON'T know.

Our professional photographer was Grandma, who did the best she could with the amazingly UN-photogenic subjects she had.  And no, I don't think hiring a real photographer would have better results.  It would be the same results but then I'd actually be PAYING for this torture.  NO way, uh uh.

Well anyway, THEN, it turned out these inserts were too big to fit in the envelopes that came with the actual card.  DRAT again.  So, I had to cut them all down to size, and that's why the edges are all raggedy and the text doesn't have enough space around it to look good.  Did you notice that?  Sooo embarrassed (says the graphic designer, to whom YES, enough surrounding space is a VERY big deal).

But HEY, to make up for it, I DID put little bows on the cards, which I was NOT going to do, since it was sooo tedious and time-consuming and cost an extra 20 cents in postage.  But it wasn't so bad, given that I did it while watching the latest Tori & Dean episode.  Ummmm, I mean while watching...The History Channel.  Yep.  And don't they look pretty?  Albeit flattened once you received them, I imagine.  (Does that nail polish make me look jaundiced?  Or golden & festive?)

NEXT, I could NOT get my addresses to print on labels from my computer.  I remember last year that I figured it out easily, and I distinctly remember thinking "Gosh, I should make a note of how I did this so I remember how to do it next year."  But did I do that?  NO.  Because I also remember thinking, Well geez if it was so easy I'll surely be able to figure it out next year again.  NOW here is where I present to you scientific proof that aging and kids RUIN your brain.  In the past 12 months my brain has deteriorated at an alarming rate.  I spent 3 hours trying to figure out this stupid label problem.  Let's not forget that I possess a Bachelors degree in Information Systems (ie, I am *supposed* to be highly proficient in software operation).  Of course, that was a loooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooong time ago.  And obviously, since your card was addressed by HAND, I never did figure it out.  You know how long it takes to hand-write addresses on envelopes?  FOUR AND A HALF episodes of The Good Wife, that's how long (which fortunately I had stacked up on the DVR).  And because my handwriting is so atrocious, some of you may never have even received our Christmas card since the Post Office couldn't read it!

And finally, I apologize for not including a personal note on the cards.  Usually I find it a bit rude to get a "form letter" with no personal note (It makes me feel like you're just not that into me if you don't write me a personal note!) and I really hated having to do that myself this year, but I seriously could not hand write my name to save my life at this point.  You wouldn't have been able to read my note anyway, and you were already still trying to read the unreadable printed insert.  See, I did you a favor.  I assure each of you, I really AM that into you.  But alas, my crippled and cramping hand prevented me from expressing my personal love notes.


DISCONTINUED UNTIL FURTHER NOTICE

In summary, regarding the discontinuation of our Christmas card, I think next year it would perhaps be easier to just pack our family up, drive around to each individual potential Christmas card recipient (from Frankfurt, Germany to San Antonio to Seattle) and give you all a living Christmas card of our family in person, wishing you a Merry Christmas.  Yes, that WOULD absolutely be easier than all of this photographing, and writing, and editing (or lack of), and ordering, and cutting, and tying, and hand addressing, and stamping and mailing, and then the subsequent translating and explaining and blogging.

Or maybe, if I'm really lucky, as Connor pointed out on the card itself, perhaps the Mayans were right and the world will end in December 2012, and goshdarnit, it won't matter anymore and I will mercifully have been put out of my annual Christmas card ordeal.

Holding on to my tushie, 2012 could be a bumpy ride.

And if anyone is reading this who did NOT receive our card, it was probably because I developed carpal tunnel syndrome from too much cutting and hand writing and bow tying and simply could NOT finish - I am sorry.  And yet, thankfully, I am now miraculously recovered enough to type another blog novella.

Thankfulness-Inducing Bad Events

So, my last blog entry was all happy and smiles, but we did have a couple of……events…..occur right around Thanksgiving, that made me REALLY appreciate my family's blessings.

THANKFULNESS-INDUCING EVENT NUMBER ONE.

You remember our fun Thanksgiving Annual Ritchie Family Retreat Getaway (or whatever the heck I called it) to the Roxbury, right?  Well, what I didn't mention was that when we returned home, our basement had flooded.  Flooded a LOT.

Our sump pump on/off switch was broken in that once it was on, it never turned off!  And we hadn't gotten around to replacing the sump pump yet.  So, at the time, we had it turned off, BUT forgot to turn it back on before we went on our trip.  And, of course, it rained.  Hence, FLOOD.  Three inches of standing water everywhere, all over.   So, our Thanksgiving evening was spent sloshing around the basement and up and down the stairs moving things into the garage to start the cleaning and drying process.  However - and here's the weird part - Our family retreat must have done me an AMAZING amount of good because not ONCE was I irritated about any of this, NOR was I irritated at Mark for forgetting to turn the sump pump on, which would have prevented all of this.  REPEAT, I did NOT get irritated (well, irritated is too gentle of a word, normally I would have been raging furious), but I did NOT.  I still can't figure that out.  I should add that Mark is probably extremely thankful for THAT.

Anyway, I am…

• Thankful that with three prior basement floods in the past 9 years, we were (mostly) prepared, with everything off the floor or in plastic bins, and we keep virtually no wood items/products in our basement anymore at all.

• Thankful that I still have intuition/the Spirit working within me - for about a month before this happened, I kept thinking (at least once a day) that I needed to get those recently-put-in-the-basement cardboard boxes of old family photos OFF of the basement floor and into a plastic bin.  I did NOT do this, so one box of photos is pretty much ruined, but I'm still grateful that I was warned (by SOMETHING) and I have no one to blame but my lazy bum self.

• Kinda thankful that one less box of family photos means less scrapbooking and work later.  Is that bad??

• Thankful for our dehumidifier (purchased after a previous flood) that works amazingly well and is keeping it from getting too stinky and moldy down there!

 (I know, I know, but I needed a photo of SOMETHING up here. 
All hail to the dehumidifier!)

• Thankful that in the process of moving stuff up out of the basement and into the garage so we could clean, that we decided half of the stuff we could get rid of and give away.  Yay!  More simplification is always good.

• Thankful to get rid of more towels - our upstairs linen closet is overflowing and I've been meaning to clean out the towels and give them away to a pet shelter, BUT our kitchen was a sloppy mess from our wet and muddy books and it was sooo nice to be able to use a few old towels, clean up the crud, and then toss 'em.  MORE simplification.  Yup, still always good.

• THANKFUL that our basement floor is sooooooo clean!  I still can't believe how clean it looks.  We'd been meaning to clean up down there so we could put together our kids' winter playground (basketball, hockey, tricycle and scooter racing), but hadn't yet, so the flood kicked our tushies into gear and the basement is much cleaner that it would have been had there been NO flood.  Weird how things work sometimes.

• And finally, thankful that, for whatever strange reason, our sump pump has mysteriously begun to work again and we do NOT have to replace it just yet.  Woohoo!  I know that replacing a sump pump is, for most people, not a big deal, but for my woefully-impractical and woefully-unhandy husband (though brilliant) even changing a light bulb can become a big deal.  I love you, Markli, but well, you know it's true.

THANKFULNESS-INDUCING EVENT NUMBER TWO.

Fast forward about 5 days AFTER the flood from which we were finally recovering, around 11:00pm our downstairs carbon monoxide detector alarmed.  HOLY CRAPPIE!  I am terrified of carbon monoxide gas, terrified that something so invisible is so deadly.  I mean, dying by C02 poisoning certainly beats dying by shark attack (a great fear of mine. because I'm in the ocean so much, ya know), but anyway.  We've had CO2 detectors as long as we've had houses and I test and replace them religiously.  Anyway, Mark and I flurried around (we were still awake watching TV and catching up on Terra Nova and Castle) immediately finding owners manuals, opening windows, checking on kids.  We weren't sure what to do, 911 seemed too extreme and we couldn't call a furnace repair guy until the morning.  Mark thought we should just open windows and wait until morning.  But I KNEW that even with every window open I would NOT get a wink of sleep that night, worrying obsessively about my kids (and about Mark, too, a little).  So, we woke up all the kidlets and went to a hotel, everyone in their pajamas (including me).

My three kids were AMAZING.  Of course, it probably helped that we were going to a hotel with a swimming pool.  Because everyone with kids probably knows that the MOST FUN thing in life to do is going to a hotel to swim in the indoor pool and watch TV in bed, right?  It was another vacation for them, two in one week!  Woot woot!  We kept them home from school the following day, letting them swim for 2 hours in the morning and then going to a family breakfast at Dennys.  And THEN, because Connor and Noah were sooooo good at the hotel, I took them to Target and let them pick out new Wii games to play - since they had the day off from school, we turned it into a full-out kid goof-off day!

Anyway, I am…

• Thankful that Mark was NOT in Africa.  He'd been planning to go the previous Friday (day after Thanksgiving) but delayed until the following Wednesday.  Usually all of the BAD stuff happens when he goes to Africa (I KID YOU NOT - record breaking snowstorms, air conditioner breaking, Shelby breaking her wrist, the furnace going out, our first super-bad basement flood - ALL when Mark was conveniently ON ANOTHER CONTINENT!), so having him around to help me deal with this latest little….adventure….was, as American Express says so eloquently, PRICELESS.

• Thankful for CO2 detectors.

• Thankful that we live in such a safe neighborhood that we could leave every window open and not lose one second of sleep worrying about intruders or burglars.

• Thankful that our pets were healthy and safe. 

• Thankful that the weather was unusually mild enough that if the CO2 gas didn't get our pets, the usual freezing cold would have!, especially our poor little tropical lovebirds.

• Thankful that we had enough money to be able to flee to a nearby hotel immediately and not have to worry about it impacting our budget too badly.  

• Thankful that the hotel night manager took pity on our little temporarily homeless family and upgraded us to a nice suite, free of charge.

• Thankful that our swimming lessons bag is always packed and ready to go and it was easy to toss in the car quickly.

• Thankful that Connor and Noah were soooooooooo amazing with Shelby in the pool (since Mark and I's swimsuits were NOT in our swimming lessons bag), each taking turns carrying her around. I love Shelby's little swimsuit wedgie here in this first photo.  Hee hee!

• Thankful for Connor and Noah's amazing water dancing skills.  But yeah, Connor, keep up your plans to become a quantum physicist, okay?  And Noah, even driving a garbage truck (Noah's current life ambition) will pay better than water dancing.  Mmmkay?

• Thankful for Dennys.  Kind of.  Why do kids like Dennys so much???  Eww.

• Thankful for good friends (Gerri, Patricia, Angie, Tammy, Deutschmans) who offered their help to us upon finding out about our predicament (since I whined about it on Facebook).

• Thankful for an efficient local Fire Department who arrived the next morning within mere minutes of our phone call.  Sure, two fire trucks and a squad car, meaning 10 huge fire-uniformed men tromping around in my house, was probably overkill.  But they took it absolutely seriously and even chided us for NOT calling them the previous night!  As they pointed out, "We're open 24 hours, you know!"

• Thankful that it was just a faulty C02 detector (it went off exactly in the pattern of a real CO2 leak and NOT the pattern of an error, which is why I basically freaked out) and NOT a faulty furnace!  I don't even want to know how much replacing a furnace would cost, especially at Christmastime.

• Thankful that I now know how to light the pilot light on our water heater (since the Fire Dept forgot to re-light it and I didn't know it was out until after Mark was gone to Africa) and it was easy.  I need to learn more life skills like this!

• Thankful that Connor is seemingly over his autism stage of going into full-alert meltdown with any sudden change to his schedule and/or life.

• Thankful that Shelby and Noah are so easy-going and up for anything at any time!  :)

Thankful that we're all (including our pet family members)
alive and healthy and happy and BLESSED.

(even though we take horrible Christmas family photos)

Thanksgiving, Ritchie Style!

With the advent of Thanksgiving 2011, we started a new Ritchie family tradition - an annual quickie family getaway retreat.  And where else would we do our first Ritchie Family Annual Quickie Thanksgiving Getaway Retreat (we'll have to think of a shorter name for that, eh?) but our FAVORITE regional hotel, the ROXBURY!!!  I've documented a couple of our stays here before (see here and here), though we've been many more times than just these three.  Anyway, it's a fabulous little hotel in the Catskills and each room is a theme from the '60s and '70s era of TV & movies, but not in a tacky way.  Some of the rooms are definitely over the top (over the top AMAZINGNESS!!), but you won't find a cleaner or more luxuriously appointed hotel (in terms of textiles, bedding, bathroom amenities) anywhere.  It's owned, operated and decorated by former Broadway set artists, so there ya go.  Awesomeness.

Here's their new addition - isn't it great?

 

More cuteness.  I could NOT love this limey-apple-green and black and white color combination MORE.  As a matter of fact, I'm going to paint our front door this same color come spring, I love it so much.  Fortunately, the rest of our house is already black and white.  Yes!!

Gloriousness!

So, here we are in the Genie's Bottle room.  Helloooooo color!  (and Mark)

Other side of the front area (notice Shelby & Noah already on the couch waiting to watch TV - little junkies):

And look at this - flowers that Mark had ordered ahead of time to be waiting in the room for me.  Cue the "awwwwwwwwwws" now.  Yep, gotta be thankful for my Markli.  :)

Bedroom one, invaded.  (note to self: clean your camera lens!!! Sheesh!)  Ordinarily I don't EVER stay in a hotel unless it has white bed covers (you know what stains hide on those colored ones, right???  ewwwwww), but the Roxbury is my ONLY exception because they're fabulous and I trust them to be clean.

Bedroom two, which is where the kids were transferred after I decided I wanted bedroom one.  And here my little kid gang is, doing what they love most in hotels (aside from jumping on the beds, which they are NOT supposed to be doing) - watching TV in bed, the ultimate luxury, since we don't allow TVs in bedrooms.

Back to bedroom one, with ME enjoying watching TV in bed.  Gosh, that IS a nice luxury.  We'll need to rethink that no-TVs-in-bedrooms-rule, Mark.

The glorious bathroom, shaped round like you're INSIDE a bottle!  (Genie's Bottle, remember?)

I must admit, this was my first encounter with a tub like this.  Have you ever seen one of these?

ALERT!  ALERT!  A BLOG FIRST:  Me in the bathtub!!!!  Yessirree!  See my hand in the mirror waving?  So, I just sat perfectly upright in this strange little tub and read a book.  I'm not sure what else to say, other than it was...different.  And the kids refused to go near it, fearing it was too deep for them.  Which, of course, it wasn't, but I suspect they just didn't want to waste their valuable and rare watching-TV-in-bed-in-a-hotel-time with something as mundane as a bath.

And here's the cool thing - the bathroom was a pass-through bathroom, connecting both bedrooms, so I could hang out in MY room but still keep an eye on the kid gang.  VERY convenient.

This whole trip was Mark's idea (another FIRST!) and he wanted us to decide on three goals each (or as we called them in the Genie room, wishes) for 2012.  Each of us had time in the "throne" seat while Mark wrote down our goals, since HE is supposed to keep track of them and make sure we're doing something about them in 2012.  I'm not sure how that will turn out, so if you see Mark around, ASK HIM and REMIND him that he's supposed to be doing this!

Noah's turn:

1. Go to China  (Noah is obsessed with China, we have no idea why)
2. Go to Africa  (that's reasonable)
3. Play baseball  (the first we've heard of this, it came out of left field.  BWA HA HA, pun intended!!!)

Here's Connor usurping the throne from King Noah:

Now it's Connor's turn:

1. Learn French (because dabbling in 15 other languages isn't enough for him!)
2. Go to Seaworld  (works for me)
3. Go to another country, even it's just Canada (again, works for me, especially if we can go to the rumored hotel made of ice in Toronto??)

Shelby's turn (photobombed by King Noah, hoping to return to his rule soon), even though she didn't have to specify any goals.  Her only job is to be cute.  :)

Queen Mommy (with assistance from Princess Shelby):

1. Get the house completely simplified and organized.  (Hey, it *could* happen. But I'll have to go back on caffeine in a big way.  And get a couple of nannies.  And get a $5,000 gift card to The Container Store - my mother ship, my Mecca)
2. Get in shape and get healthy (yawn, I know)
3. Get a bigger vehicle (keep in mind we were fresh off a 3.5 hour drive with 3 kids smashed all together in the back seat of a small SUV - my main thoughts during that time were ^#^!&#@&^ WHY DIDN'T WE GET A @#@&#*($&*@(&$ BIGGER CAR??!?!??)

And of course, what fun would a Ritchie family getaway be without playing our favorite family game, The Adventurers!   (sooo thankful my kids never liked Candyland)

Unfortunately, Noah's adventurer was smashed to death in the exit corridor by a rolling boulder.  Here's how he took that news:

And after that he continued to tantrum, and hit his chin on the edge of the table, thereby necessitating a chin Angry Birds bandaid:

And here's Connor in timeout for laughing at Noah dying and then cutting open his chin.  We found that doing timeouts outside in bare feet worked QUITE well - after all, no one likes cold, wet feet.  (another note to self: Move time-out chair to our front porch in the winter)

We didn't do our actual Thanksgiving dinner at the Roxbury, but came back to have dinner at home.  Here we are, and yes, we ARE still in our pajamas, thanks for noticing:

Oh, yes, you also noticed that our Thanksgiving table had no turkey, and are those…..chicken wings?!?!?  What kind of Thanksgiving is THAT!??!?  Well, a few years ago, Mark and I realized that no one really liked any of the traditional Thanksgiving foods (except Mark, who will eat anything except jalapenos), so why bother going to all that hassle?  So, instead, everyone chooses one or two favorite dishes for which we are VERY thankful, and we eat and share those. 

Here's thankful Mark with his pork ribs stew concoction (and he's thankful he didn't have to share because no one else wanted any of THAT!):

Connor is thankful for ravioli this year:

Shelby is thankful for macaroni and cheese (with a side of Honey Nut Cheerios) - AGAIN (same in 2010):

Noah is thankful for pizza (and has been every Thanksgiving of his life):

And it's no secret to anyone that knows me how thankful I am for Angie's famous hot wings!  Mark complained that this was the third year in a row that I wanted these for Thanksgiving.   He also has to make them for Mothers Day and my birthday.  And a few times inbetween.  But I really really love them and I am really and truly thankful for them.  And I'm thankful that I do NOT have to eat turkey or cranberries or sweet potatoes or pie - none of which I like.

To finish off our Thanksgiving 2011, after dinner we went to Lights on the Lake, Syracuse's annual 2-mile drive along Onondaga Lake with…well, lots of Christmas lights!  It's fabulous!  And yup, we STILL didn't change out of our pajamas (I specifically told Mark I wanted a Pajama Thanksgiving, meaning we didn't go anywhere that required real clothes, and darnit, I made it happen!).

We always let the kids sit in the back of car, free to roam (and fight). That's Noah getting comfortable here.

As they get bigger, it's getting too crowded back there.  YES, we definitely need a bigger car.

It didn't take long for the boys to remember our summer drives up the gravel roads to my parents house in the mountains of southern Idaho where I let them hang out the sunroof, and indeed, whaddya know - worked great for Lights on the Lake, too!  Of course, it's also been unseasonably warm here this fall.  Which I am EXTREMELY crabby about.  I am NOT thankful for this CRUMMY WARM weather.  Bah humbug!

Our Thanksgiving weekend grand finale was getting our tree up early (complete with bad cat on bottom who keeps batting ornaments off).  Joy to the world!  Something done EARLY.  I'm thankful for that, for sure. (Unless we put it up TOO early and it starts drying out and dropping needles everywhere.  Then I'll be grouchy about that, too, in addition to the lack of cold and snow.)

 

Footnote:  I know you're all ogling my BEAUTIFUL red sideboard table next to the tree.  As a matter of fact, if I saw it on YOUR blog I would immediately email you and ask where you bought it and/or BEG you to sell it to me.  Anyway, I am the supremely and eternally THANKFUL owner of an original Vintage Charm piece by the uber-talented Darice.  My sideboard's name is Olivia, and is she the very definition of *glorious* or what??  :)