December Blurrrrrr

I made it through the Christmas season! This month has been a blur of work at MasterLab, photography, MasterLab, snow, cat issues, and MasterLab! I think I saw my family sometime during this last month.....Anyways, another Christmas down! Maybe tomorrow I'll have enough energy to take down the Christmas tree!

On Christmas eve, we went to my inlaws house, and had a crazy fun time. They had a video camera hooked up to the tv, so you could see yourself while it recorded. Kirby had a great time with this. Here's the video:

Yep, that kids got some moves! I thought it was so cute!

November in a Nutshell

It has been a crazy week and half! I went on a much needed mad cleaning spree of our house. You know you've been doing too much laundry when you start to find little urchins in your dryer!

I also decided to cook my very first turkey this year. We were only having a small group of relatives over, so I figured if I gave them salmonella, it wouldn't be that big of a deal! I was grossed out by the turkey innards, and just about got frost bite trying to remove stuff. Here's a picture...

I was going for the Mr. Bean look, but didn't quite make it! Thanks to Dottie's speacil recipe, the turkey turned out alright, and people actually ate it and said it was good! So far, no illnesses reported...

So I finally had a chance to relax today. I was quietly reading my book, when Kirby asked if he could take some pictures with the digital camera. I said sure, whatever it takes for me to be able to read in peace! I also thought, hmmm. what a great way to get him interested in art and photography, maybe someday he'll follow in my footsteps. I was so proud watching him, he took 112 pictures! Here's a few of them:

Then Murphy thought it would be fun to get in on the action. Well, one boy with a camera is ok, (in fact, I've let Murphy do this before) but two boys with a camera can become a problem!



See what I have to deal with???? Boys and their obsession with toilets and poo

I was appalled to see this last one. Unfortunately, I was laughing too hard to get the point across of how inappropriate this picture is, the lesson was lost on them! Jared was laughing so hard too, that he was no help either!

Here's hoping December is a little less crazy! (Yay right, it's the Christmas season!)

Lucky 7!

Murphy turned 7 years old a couple days ago! I would love to come up with something funny to write about, but my brain is fried and I have two boys behind me bouncing a basketball in the living room! So here's some photos....I spent a small fortune on cupcakes for the whole class

Murphy got two more Lego sets...That brings us up to about 1 billion Legos!

Here's my pyscho cat Dazey about 2 seconds before she tried to bite my mom.

2 Days later, we've built the Lego car!

Close up of the cool Lego car...he also got a Lego airplane.

We couldn't find the birthday candles, I think somebody must have broke into our house and stolen them all! Along with several spoons and the scissors! So, we had to improvise. It only took him 10 tries to blow them out!

Halloween throughout the Ricketty Ages

One of my friends did this on her blog, and I thought it was so cute, so I'm copying her! Here's some of our Halloween pictures throughout the years!

2002

Murphy's first Halloween

Yep, this is my hunky pumpkin head hubby!

2003
My sweet little lion

2004

I know this doesn't look like much of a costume, but Murphy was 2 (almost 3!) and he refused every costume I suggested. So I decided he would be a hippy protestor, (seeing as he was so good at protesting!). Ironically, this was his favorite shirt, and on Halloween, I had to beg and persaude him to wear it!

Kirby's first Halloween, there was a cute little hat that went with this bumble bee costume, but he wouldn't keep it on.

2005

I had better luck getting Murphy to wear a costume this year. He wanted to be Darth Vader because it was a "boy" costume.

Kirby was Cookie Monster!

2006

Darth Vader again, and no Kirby is not a bride, he is a ghost!

2007

Kirby's turn to be Darth Vader (yep that costume got used a lot!) and Murphy was a Ninja. He was originally wanted to be the "Scream" guy, but he didn't like how I did his make up, so we borrowed the Ninja costume

Here's my pimp!

2008

Costumes for the School Carnival

No, it's not the Jolley Green Giant, he's an alien! Yep, I had lots of fun painting my son green!

Kirby started out as a vampire, but the cape was too big, and he quickly got tired of the fangs. So, he is a pale faced, purple headed ghoul!

Easy!!!

Showing my mother in law how easy it is to do a blog

I'll love him, and hug him and call him George!

Jared found this huge spider in our window well, and he was all excited about it. It's the biggest spider he's seen in the wild! So, he pointed it out to me, and I caught it for him. How's that for true love? Of course once I caught it, I had to photograph it, (can't help myself!).

Here it is next to a quarter, for reference. Isn't it a beauty? Don't worry, we did a catch and release with this monster. After the photoshoot, I put him back outside! (Makes ya wanna come visit my house huh?)

While we're at it....

Here's a cockroach we found at Disneyland last year! Look at the size of that motha!

And here's our cat! Why, next to that quarter, he's huge!!!!!

World's Worst Aunt!!!

Ok, so it’s not bad enough that I’ve warped my own children, I have moved on to scaring other children! Yep, I will now have to add more money into the “therapy jar” for my poor niece, whom I gave a heart attack to tonight. I was walking into Wal-Mart (I know, what a sick and wrong way to spend a Saturday night, and yes I had the boys with me, see how warped their childhood is? Wal-Mart on a Saturday?!?) when I saw my niece and sister in law. For some strange reason I thought it would be fun to play on trick on the sweet little 6 year old girl, so I ran up behind her and grabbed her and started to walk away with her! Yah, she didn’t think it was very funny either….I did apologize repeatedly for freaking her out. Luckily her mother was able to make it into a learning experience, “what to do it somebody REALLY tries to kidnap you”. I owe her at least 4 or 5 therapy sessions….

On a brighter note, I found another self help book! Reading self help books is one of my hobbies. I now have a family motto with a “rallying cry” and a new “savings plan”. If I ever get to the point where I can control my impulses (or at least think jokes through first!) I’ll write a self help book on it, and the title will be “Putting the Reigns Back on Bozo: How to Tell What Jokes Really Are Funny!

Because I’m a photographer, and this is a blog, here is another random picture:
Murphy took this one, it's a marble run that he built. I couldn't resist, here's my brother in law's cat checking out our rat: