The Hits (and Misses) of Christmas 2011

PRESENTING....THE HITS!

Yay!  Lots of hits this Christmas!  Let's do those first.

I love Christmas pajamas and Christmas shirts!  Although Connor has deemed himself too mature to wear Christmas shirts OR pajamas, I DID talk him into at least putting on his Christmas pajama top (because, NO, Connor, even though your skull pajamas are red and white they do NOT count as Christmas pajamas!).

Having fondue is our loooooooong-standing Christmas tradition, going back to my childhood and my German mom making fabulous Swiss Cheese fondue on every Christmas Eve.  However, in this photo, Mark looks like he DRANK the wine instead of using it in the fondue, and Noah is nursing a wounded hand from stabbing himself with his fondue fork.  But the fondue was excellent, I was happy, and so I count this as a Christmas HIT!  Cha-ching!

I love our yearly Christmas Eve tradition of Mark playing his guitar and singing by candle and tree light.  Fortunately the dim light hides the RUDE fact that Connor is laying on the couch covering his ears.  TURKEY!  Also, how do you like our Fireplace DVD?  Pretty spiffy, eh?  Of course, only AFTER I bought it did I discover there's actually a free channel here playing fireplace scenes.  And only AFTER I bought it did I realize it would cause fights among the kids getting to pick out which fireplace they wanted playing.

The cutest thing was Shelby and Noah, arm in arm, swaying to the sound of the music.  I DID NOT fake this, people, I promise.  I don't know what I did to deserve this special little Christmas treat, but I'm TAKING it!

I love taking photos of my little cherubs sleeping the night before Christmas - Shelby surrounded by 9 thousand horses and out of her covers as usual, Connor with his ever-present and beloved Birthday dolphin, and Noah actually looking quite normal (we have some, as we've dubbed them, "frat-boy" Noah sleeping photos that are pretty darn funny, here's the best!):

 

 

And, as promised earlier, from June this year:  Noah the future frat-boy after a hard day of driving his teacher crazy at school and then coming home to torment Connor, and maybe conquering a couple of Wii game zombies or other bad guys.






















Noah's Christmas gift last year was a bust (Bigfoot Robot was a SUCH a bust that I couldn't even blog about it), and was played with only once.  Well, this year it looks like we got it right!  Cheers for a new 3D DS! (of course, he decided he didn't like the 3D feature and turned it off.  OF COURSE.)















Grandma also called it right for Noah, sending him this stuffed monkey.  Welcome to the family, Dookie (Noah named it, obviously).  You're stuffed animal number 234,934,342 to enter our household, but who's counting?



















And oh look, it's another stuffed horse!  You'd think from her face, it's Shelby's first stuffed horse ever.  But no, this is stuffed animal 234,934,343 to enter our household.










Here's Daddy playing "Castle" with Shelby and her new castle set, definitely a hit!  And some may think Shelby's plumber's bum would count as a Christmas miss, but I LOVE her little sweet cheeks.  But yes, I think next year it's time for larger Christmas pajamas for her!

Connor FINALLY got a skateboard, which he's been begging for since he was about 4.  The first photo was seriously taken one nanosecond before he hit the wall and wiped out. 

He was then ordered to get dressed and take it outside (yes, that's Shelby following him - everywhere Connor skateboarded, Shelby followed).

I thought FOR SURE that getting Connor a skateboard, namely an OUTDOOR toy, would guarantee us a white Christmas (because our winter here is NONexistent and I am quite upset by it) because then he couldn't use his skateboard right away (aside from skateboarding in the kitchen into walls).  But it DIDN'T WORK!!!  Bah humbug.  Oh well, a happy Connor is better than a crabby Mommy.  Well, depending on who you ask.  (Mark, do you want to comment on this one?  Oh NO???  I didn't THINK so!!!!)






Yay for another fancy-pants pan for Chef Mark.  We ALL benefit from gifts like this one!  First food made in the Christmas saucepot - Country gravy for omelets!  Yippee!

Of COURSE we always get presents for our pets - they're family members, too!  Don't you wish YOU had received this fabulous bone?  Tiki is very happy dog today with her Christmas bone.








I love this photo of Mark holding Shelby while I'm taking photos of our beautiful house on Christmas Eve.  I'd love it more if there was at least a foot of snow (Shelby's wearing FLIPFLOPS!), BUT I already grouched about that, so I'll let it go this time.

Yay for Shelby's first Wii game (Nickelodeon Wii Dance)!  Welcome to the big boy brothers club!  She feels SOOOO big now.  We even had to put real batteries in Shelby's little bejeweled remote (that we always kept battery-less so she could THINK she was playing with Connor & Noah, even though she wasn't).  Noah, of course, hears the word "Wii" and is instantly on the scene.














 I love Christmas decorations for cars!   And you can't even see that the antlers are duct-taped on with at least a roll of tape each, after the unfortunate accident at the McDonalds drive-through a couple of weeks ago and having to backtrack my driving all the way back there only to find my antlers in the middle of a 4-lane road, run over and flattened (but still salvageable!).









And what would Christmas be without Merry Toes?  And it's so fun having a girlie now to join me in this tradition!


 

And the BEST news?  I loooooooooove my new Christmas camera.  Yes, Mark bought me a new camera last Christmas but it was a terrible awful horrible no-good camera and it's been the topic of much blog complaining over the past year.  Whatever will I complain about this year on my blog with my new fabulous camera and photos??  Anyway, look!, the Macro feature (totally broken on the last camera) works quite well!!!

Every Christmas morning Mark makes our fabulous Country Gravy omelets.  (photo taken with the "Food Photos" setting on my new camera!  Can't you just smell the fat and grease?!  Mmmm mmmmm.)  PARENT TIP HERE:  Want sedate kids on Christmas?  Heavy eggs + bacon + sausage + country gravy = comatose kids.  It's true!  Of course, these omelets also wipe out the grownups, too.  As a matter of fact, as I write this, I begged Mark to go out and find me some caffeine-LOADED Diet Coke on Christmas Day because I swore I wouldn't survive today without it.  NEXT year, we're going to add Diet Coke to the Country Gravy omelet tradition.  It'll be a nice balance, yes?

And HUGE YAY for a new Ticket to Ride, my favorite game on Earth!!!  After playing 7 million Euro & USA games, I am beyond excited for the new Asia expansion.  Oh, and this is what I'll be doing for the rest of the vacation week.  No callers, please.  :)  (Unless you want to play with me and give Mark a break!)







AND HERE COME THE MISSES!
Are you still with me?  Here are the misses (but still entertaining) of our little Ritchie 2011 Christmas.








Noah stabbing himself with his fondue fork.




















The Pink Panther Christmas toys that instantly became Ninja Panthers until Noah's Ninja Panther kicked Connor in the eye.  (The Ninja Panthers also later invaded Shelby's fairy tale castle, that didn't go over well, either.)














"Castle" being invaded by a huge, brown monstrous creature with human-killing bad breath.  (as if the Ninja Panthers weren't terrifying enough)










The glasses straws that I thought would be soooo cool but were sooooo disastrously UNcool (Connor's face says it ALL), not to mention made a complete mess.  Epic FAIL there, Mommy.

 

 

I TOLD you that present was for the pets, Shelby!!!

Bad cats collecting ornaments under the tree!  And look at Finneaus' face (orange cat on right) - caught red-handed with a poinsettia in her paws, and COMPLETELY unrepentant.  All December we found ornaments all over the house and some even upstairs?!?









Flipflops and sunglasses on December 25.  This is WRONG WRONG WRONG.  You may think I live in California.  Well, I most certainly do NOT, I proudly live in Syracuse, New York, the supposed #1 snowiest city (http://www.thedailybeast.com/galleries/2010/12/27/snowiest-cities.html).  I'm so grumpy right now about this.  If we're not going to get snow, then I might as well live in California.  Oh wait, I DO want to live in California again…. 

 

Okay, these last 2 tied for worst misses.  In other words, I'm not sure which is keeping me laughing the loudest and longest.

WORST RITCHIE 2011 CHRISTMAS MISS CONTENDER ONE: Zombie reindeer!!!
Noah brought home this little treat a few days ago.  Notice the "crazy eyes" and the teeth and protruding bones.  And then YES, that is supposed to be blood streaks on the BACK of the reindeer.

WORST RITCHIE 2011 CHRISTMAS MISS CONTENDER TWO:  Mark dancing!!!
Here's a glorious shot of Mark playing Shelby's new Nickelodeon Wii Dance game with Noah.  You should click on it to enlarge it to appreciate it fully.  Then again, maybe you shouldn't.  It's not pretty.  Mark, have you been drinking the fondue wine AGAIN??

Welp, we had many more hits than misses, so I believe our 2011 Christmas will go down as a good one!  Hope yours does, too!  xoxoxo

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)