So Wrong...

Brokaw has been shivering in the cold. He is a little dramatic... no idea where he gets that from! :)
So, I dug out his little sweater. It's a little, um, how you say??? Snug. Haha. So, I got Princess's sweater, too.

B was not amused.

Laundry Man

I wouldn't say the household chores are evenly divided around here. But when you consider the circumstances, and the time and effort involved, they kind of are. Michael folds (pretty much) all of the laundry. It's not perfect. It's not exactly how I would do it. Although he has gotten better and faster in the year that he's been folding laundry! But, I'm thankful to come home to a basket full of folded laundry that's sorted his and hers and is ready to put away. Because I know he does it because he loves me and wants to contribute. And it's good enough to be stuffed into drawers and closets, for sure!

I love you, babe. Thanks for being the laundry man.

I secretly shot this video of M folding laundry one night while we were watching 24. Don't mind the TV in the background, it does sound like some love-making is going on, haha!

Baking Day!

Saturday, my good friend Jessi came over and we had a bake-a-thon!
We made pumpkin bread...
Mini-loaves of chocolate chip banana bread...
Peanut butter toffee bars...
With Jessi's homemade brown sugar!
Look at that action shot, not bad for my iPhone camera!
Magic cookie bars (my favorite!!!) and sugar cookies with Jessi's antique cookie press. Fun, fun, fun!!!
Too bad Sunday after church I got all sneezy and yucky sick :( Because I was planning to mail all this stuff off to our families Monday. Guess my co-workers will be loving me tomorrow!!! And, I'll be back at the mass-baking THIS weekend. Phew! I love this stuff, though.

I have some sad news to report...

in the plant life department. Remember those fresh, organic herbs I got at the cooking show? Yeah... I watered them, from the bottom, like I was supposed to... and yet... they still died. What can I say? Unless you bark, meow, or just plain ask for food and/or water, I cannot help you!

Scared of my Cooking!

Remember the star of the Thundershirt video??? Mr Anxiety, Brokaw Brown?
He does NOT like when I cook! Our old apartment had this really sensitive smoke alarm that would go off every time I used the stove, so he's still conditioned to think that's going to happen again. So, when the vent fan is on, he freaks out, runs and hides.

We got video of it the other morning.

White House Christmas Decorations

Our apartment isn't the only place that has a pretty Christmas tree right now, I get that.
Last week, for work, I got a little sneak peek of the Christmas Decorations at the White House! It's one of my favorite things to cover every year.
I made this little flip-cam video for work. Check it out!

Oh, Christmas Tree...

Last Sunday, after church, we were planning to deal with the Christmas Tree situation. We were still up in the air on whether we were going to get a real tree or a fake one. Both options had pluses and minuses.

The major minus for getting a real tree being that all 5 feet of me was going to have to get a tree up on top of our SUV, drive it home, get it down, and set it up.

The major minus for getting a fake tree being we have not one inch of storage space in this apartment for a big fat Christmas tree box!

So, we were coming home from church, which went very well last weekend :) And we were talking about it. As usual, M was of sound mind, laying out the options, and I was immediately shooting them down, finding something wrong with each option. Then, we decided to drive to Home Depot. We saw they had 7 foot trees for just $35! Knowing fake trees were at least $100 or so (because now's the worst time to buy one, sale wise) this was looking good!

But, I was a little sad because getting the tree up on the car and off and what not is a man's job. Grr. I hate situations like this!! I was totally intimidated by this whole transporting the tree home situation (even though it is literally across the street). Well.... the guy from Home Depot tied it to the top of the SUV.

I was fighting off a little bit of sadness because it wasn't my man who did the tying, but I got over that the second we pulled into the Target parking lot to buy ornaments for OUR tree. (Last year's Christmas bush was a hodge podge, it's so much better this year putting our heads together and making everything OURS vs. mine or his).

We bought a cart full of blue and silver ornaments and garland and sparkling snowflakes. I knew it was going to be perfect and beautiful.... as long as we could figure out how to get it into the apartment...
This is the tree on top of the SUV, through the sunroof. On our way home from Target, I was literally holding on to the tree!! Mr. Home Depot only tied the bottom down. Thank God we only had to go like a block!

M came up with a strategy so that he could help me get this monster inside. I cut the strings and just let it fall off the car. Then I muscle-manned the heavy bottom onto his lap. I picked up the top and walked backwards as M pushed forwards and we brought that sucker into our living room like a couple of lumber jacks!! I muscle-manned it upright and got it (pretty much/good enough) straight, and we had a Christmas Tree in our living room!!!

Victory!!! It feels SO GOOD when we work together to do something that we technically should not be able to do. Nothing is better, I tell you!
Here I am with my lumberjack gloves :)
Getting lights on the tree. This picture is in major violation of a long standing photo rule we have around here which M knows very well... that anything below my waist is off limits, but I'm making an exception for this pic because it does tell the story :)
I worked my way up the tree...
Then finally, I busted one of 3 step ladders I have in our apartment out and put the star on!!
Michael helped out with the garland. I tried explaining to him that this was NOT Mardi Gras and the usual agreements regarding beads did NOT apply...
He did an excellent job.

He's much more of a perfectionist than me! I'm like, get it up, decorated, and stand back and admire it. It's a Christmas tree, it's a beautiful thing in and of itself. He's more like, move this exact ornament to the left of this particular light by 1/2 of an inch.... grr!!!! I do not like to take orders :) Hee hee...
Look at our pretty, pretty ornaments!
All done! I love waking up and seeing this each morning!

In the end we had OUR tree up and decorated and it was a sweet feeling of victory! I'm already trying not to stress out about taking it down the day after Christmas... :) I am my mother's daughter, what can I say?

Thanksgiving 2010

Thanksgiving is my ultimate favorite holiday. Plus, road trips with Mr. Ritter are usually grand (as long as he doesn't get uncomfortable in the car, which unusually turns ME into a brat....) At any rate, that's where we start.
See how tall he is in the car! For long trips, M sits on his cushion and it makes him a giant. But I don't mind feeling small, so it's all good. We drove about 5 hours SW to Michael's Aunt Tonja and family's house, where we met up with his Papa, Miss Jean and his brother Jarred and his family. Good get together.

Theme #1 from this Thanksgiving. Greyson and McGregor.
Buds. G was following McG all over the place!
Theme #2. Aunt Tonja the couch hopper. Here she is with baby girl Marissa, and Papa.
Tonja on couch #2 with Miss Jean and Marissa.
Brody was so excited when we got there. He's at such a fun age where he wants to play with everyone! He is a cute kid and I can't believe how big he's getting!
Michael has this thing about biting children. I don't really get it, but I guess he doesn't hurt them because they always seem to come back for more! Brody knows the deal with his Uncle Mike.
G stopped following McGregor for a nano second to play the part of little drummer boy!
Then, the real rockers came in the room...

This is my incredibly smokin' hot sister-in-law, Crystal. So good to see her! Love this girl!!!
Michael and I both have little brothers who, without even trying, can make us feel like the most un-cool nerds on the planet. Why do little brothers do that so easily? Not fair! I can only hope that we bring on some sort of inferior complex too... like maybe we seem wise to them or something? Haha, I don't know. But, that's what's happening in this picture....
Jarred is explaining to us what cool jeans are. We are paying attention, while at the same time realizing, we will never be cool. Oh well.
Speaking of cool... Papa was explaining to Jarred here that he's ditched his landline and now you can only reach him via cell phone... just so you know.

The day after Thanksgiving, McGregor was getting some love from somebody else!
And Chef Caitlin put me to work in her Italian kitchen!!
She made an amazing meal!!!
Look at her in action! I wish I had these skillz when I was 14 years old!!!
Tonja's on couch #3 if you're still counting..
And, my sister says this should be an Apple commercial. I think it's more like Michael and me in 50 years :)
I love Papa and Miss Jean. They are soooo sweet together!
M and I (unsuccessfully) tried taking some self portraits...
Horrible, right? This is better, haha --
Even though it's out of focus.... we had a perfect Thanksgiving. Love food. Love family. Yeah!

Catching Up...

Okay, I'm giving myself an hour (well, just under an hour) and I'm going to try to catch you up on our life for the past eh, week and a half, I guess. It will be a lot of pictures, because well, photos tell good stories, right? And, they tell stories faster than me writing a lot of words.

So here goes...

Oh, Blog...

I have not forgotten about you. I'm sorry it's been more than a week since I've posted. It's been a very, very busy week! We had the most perfect Thanksgiving and weekend after Thanksgiving.

We successfully brought home, put up and decorated a real Christmas tree! We transitioned back to getting up at 3:30am so we could take care of M's personal care. (No more home health lady for a while). I had a quick, successful and hilarious trip to traffic court (everything was thrown out, yay!), and a super busy week at work, which included one of my favorite things of the year, the White House Christmas decorations!

(I put together this little FlipCam video for work)

I'm sitting in on a heating pad in my white chair with a sleeping puggle at my feet, looking at the most beautiful 7 foot tall Christmas tree in the corner. Sipping some Christmas Blend topped with whipped cream and cinnamon. I've just received an amazing massage from my husband which completely relieved my aching back. (He can rock a massage with those pointy little elbows and warm palms, haha!) There's a frozen lasagna in the oven for the next hour. I'm watching the local news and cracking up at one of my favorite reporters who blows every live shot and standup way out of proportion and always makes me laugh, and cringing at upcoming temperatures in the 20s!

More, including pictures, soon! Tomorrow, my bud Jessi is coming over and we are going to have a Holiday Baking Day!