.:Meet the Ritchies:.

I came across this in an email forward from my wonderful Mom-in-law, and it’s quite special so I’m passing it along.  I hope it can be your mantra this week, and next and the next.  Coincidentally, we caught the last half of the movie Penelope on TV yesterday evening, and it goes right along with this message.  She had the power to chnage herself all along, all she needed to do was accept the way she was.  I think we all lose track of that sometimes, and wish we were someone different.  But we are who we are for a reason, or many reasons.  It’s up to you to decide your own happiness, you cannot be loved until you love yourself.  There was definitely a time in my life where I didn’t love myself, shoot I didn’t even like myself even a little bit.  But thankfully I pushed through, no doubt with the help of my adoring family.  You would be amazed at how much people are willing to help if you just take a moment to ask for it.  There is love all around us, it’s time to let it in.

With love, please enjoy!

May today there be peace within. May you trust that you are exactly where you are meant to be. May you not forget the infinite possibilities that are born of faith in yourself and others. May you use the gifts that you have received, and pass on the love that has been given to you. May you be content with yourself just the way you are. Let this knowledge settle into your bones, and allow your soul the freedom to sing, dance, praise and love. It is there for each and every one of us.

(after a Google search, I learned this came from a prayer by St. Theresa, this is a more secular version)

xoxo

blooms in our backyard last Spring (photo by George Brian Ritchie)

• Today is a very special day, because on this day a few years ago (a little more than a few, but it would be impolite to reveal a lady’s age) my mother-in-law Betty was born! I am so very thankful for this day, because if that would not have happened then I would not have my amazing husband. I can’t imagine my life without him, so THANK YOU and HAPPY BIRTHDAY Betty! We love you so much!!

Christmas 2009

* Here are a couple pictures from our Game Night last Friday, I really wasn’t focused on taking pictures that night so I’m sorry if you aren’t pictured. I am in the beginning stages of planning the next one, and I will do better with pictures then! I believe it’s going to be at a park, in the daytime, with kids and pets and friends and family all included, a potluck style picnic lunch, kickball, bocce ball, frisbee and whatever else people want to do!

Travis, Mark, Eddie and Sara

Perry, Drew & Josh

even Rudy got in on the action!

• On Tuesday my Aunt Nancy, Grandma Wilson, her friend Betty Lou and my cousin Brian’s wife Aimee with her 2 year old son Nolan came to town. Phew, that was a long sentence, sorry. I could have spaced all those people out in a couple sentences I guess, but really, why not just get it all out in one. The purpose of their visit was to go to see the show Cats at the Keller Auditorium downtown. What they needed was a babysitter for Nolan, and my Aunt Nancy chose us! I was so excited and happy because I knew that Claire would be here to help entertain, and she loves babies, so it was going to be lots of fun! But then Claire made the plan to go to her Dad’s for Spring Break. And Veda was with her Mom. So that meant that it was just Mark and I. No big deal, he’ll love us and Mark will have fun hanging out with a boy for a change, instead of all his girls . Little did we know, we were about to meet the most adorable, easy-going, awesome 2 year old ever. Nolan. And he loved Mark! I wasn’t really that much use to him, except to make him a peanut butter sandwich while we watched The Incredibles. I don’t know that I’ve ever met a 2 year old that was so good natured. He is calm and loving, giving hugs all the time. When he and Mark were playing Wii baseball (at the advice of his super funny mother Aimee) Mark said “oh, I struck out” and Nolan walked over and patted him on the back and put his head on his shoulder, as if to say “it’s okay, better luck next time”. I know, right! A D O R A B L E .

yes, my heart was melting with these two.

He had fun throwing the dogs toys and watching them chase after them. He laughed hysterically, full belly laugh, throw himself forward and bend over laugh. It was pretty funny. Mark had him outside dribbling the basketball, and he exclaimed “Woah” when Mark brought out his guitar and started strumming an original tune appropriately named “Nolan”. Then it was time to quiet down and he got a diaper change and jammies on, footie jammies I might add, who doesn’t love footie jammies? But he wasn’t quite done playing, so we brought out the tinker toys that we got the girls one Christmas. I believe they’ve played with them once or twice. Nolan kept asking me to make a “truck” and was pointing at the instructions where it showed a picture of a vehicle made from them. I did my best, but I only had two wheels instead of four, so it didn’t really work. He was busy having fun anyway, giving hugs, even Big Ears got some sweet head butts. She’s pretty tolerant of things, which was good because he liked giving her hugs too.

Playing with some girly tinker toys we have, he didn't seem to mind...

tinker toys also work as alien antennae. true story.

hugs.

He even played a little more Wii baseball, check out his wind up! Pretty darn cute.

hey batter batter, sah-wing batter!

Getting kisses from Rudy Fernandez...

More hugs.

there's that laugh.. it was awesome...

More laughter...

trying to get Rudy to let go of the toy so he could throw it for him, why do dogs always hold on when they really want you to throw it?

Then it was time to actually settle in for the evening. So Mark chose a couple books from the girls room, Dr. Seuss and a sweet book I got Veda after we first started dating one day when she was home not feeling good, called Snug as a Bug. Nolan climbed up into Mark’s lap with his blanket and his stuffed horsey and story time began.

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and it didn’t take long…til sleep set in…

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We had a blast hanging out with little Nolan. And it was also wonderful to see my other family, and Aimee’s account of what she thought of Cats was hilarious. She is a sweet and funny girl. I hope they move closer to Portland, it would be really fun to see them on a regular basis And of course, we’d always be up for babysitting!

* Have a great weekend, I’ll post again soon!  I hope to do some sewing so maybe i’ll be posting about a project, woooooah, that’d be sweet!  xoxo

Since my last confession?  Just kidding…. but seriously, I can’t believe I haven’t posted in a week.  Let’s just say that work has suddenly become a game of “go, go, go!” and I barely know if I’m coming or going these days.  Lesson learned, just when I was wishing I had a lot more work to do – I got exactly that.  And while I’m very happy to be busy again, because the alternative was dreadful – it’s a bit much!  I am currently taking a break from said work.  Just a quick one.  Just enough time to write a little note to our readers, so you didn’t think I had fallen in a hole in our backyard or something.  Oh!  Speaking of backyards, Mark and his totally amazing buddy Andrew are building the shed!  After it did not survive the windstorm last fall, it has been sitting in a pile, under a blue tarp just as a painful reminder to all the hard work my husband put into it, only to watch it give way one blustery night.  On the shed’s defense, even I was afraid of the wind that night it was so strong.  I literally thought trees were going to come down too, I didn’t sleep too well those couple nights.  Luckily, we haven’t seen wind like that since (knock on wood!).  And with this beautiful spring weather we’ve been blessed with lately, it inspired the boys to get out their hammers and skillsaws and do it up right!  Woop woop!  I got my workspace, now he gets his!  I will definitely be posting pictures of that project, don’t worry!

We had such a fun weekend with game night on Friday.  We have got the most fantastic friends and they are so good at making us laugh and just making our lives better!   I took a couple pictures and I will post those another day.  Thanks again to everyone who turned out!  And next time, it’s going to be a picnic at the park, with children and pets if you want, and a rousing game of kickball!  Who’s IN?!?  Watch for the evite, and if you have a preference of weekend, let me know!  I’m thinking sometime in late May.

Okay…break’s up, I have to get back to working (at least I’m at home so I can eat as many chocolate chip cookies as I need to, and nobody is the wiser).  I will leave you with a picture from Claire’s childhood…this one is for my amazing Grandma Brooks who turns 82 tomorrow.  I LOVE YOU GRANDMA! Thank you for making my middle school years memorable with hours of 4-H, where I honed my secretary skills and had lessons on how to show a rabbit.   And trying to inspire the green thumb in me with your wonderful and award-winning gardens.  I’m sorry that it skipped my generation.  I hope you have a fun birthday!

I think Claire is four in this picture, it's at the Gilliam County Rodeo in Condon, not far from my hometown of Arlington.

xoxo

Turns out, my husband IS a carpenter., and he didn’t even know it.  And as the song goes, I most certainly would follow him anywhere.  This weekend we tackled the renovation of the sewing room/workspace/studio/the-room-that-shall-not-be-named.  Which brings up the issue, we really don’t have a set name we call this room.  It started out as a workspace because it housed both my sewing stuff and Mark’s desk w/ computer.  So we would go out to the workspace in the evenings when we both had something to work on.  But then a few months ago, we decided to move his desk w/ computer into the spare room (which also doesn’t have a proper name because it has had it’s own set of morphs).  So that left just my stuff in the workspace, so I started referring to it as a sewing room.  Although whenever I say the name “sewing room” it conjures up a vision in my head of  an old lady, surrounded by a bunch of cats, handstitching something whilst sitting in a rocking chair.  If I am in the company of someone who is a professional (such as the flooring guy from Empire that we had here to get a quote on for doing said renovation, which was a ridiculous number), I will call it a Studio, because my doesn’t that sound fancy!  But plainly speaking, it is the room in our house where I keep all of my sewing/crafting/gift wrapping supplies.

That, was a tangent!  Phewwwwwww… and I’m back.

Okay, on with the original intent of this post – Friday evening after putting the girls to bed, Mark and I started to paint the room a deep teal color called “Vintage Chic”.  Have you ever went shopping for a color of paint, and ended up purchasing one based solely on it’s name?  That is exactly what I did.  It is by complete coincidence, or the work of fate, that it turned out to be almost the exact color I had in mind!  Mark discovered that the floor of the room, which is concrete, was bordered by a carpet that hadn’t been completely torn out.  So after having to clean the perimeter of carpet yarns and staples, oh joy, he painted the bottom edge, (did I mention it’s concrete?) a brown color titled “Bear Rug”.  We also painted the trim above this color.  We ended the evening at around 12:30am, with having only painted one coat so far.  The next morning, it was up early again but we decided to make a big yummy breakfast before starting to work.  I am pretty sure the girls were very happy with this decision!  With our bellies full, we tackled coat #2 of the painting.

THEN!  This is my favorite part.  We put down the plastic barrier called “underlayment” and started on the floors!  It turned out quite beautifully, Mark did 95% of the work I was just there to help draw a cute little pencil line every time he had to cut one of the boards.  I was reeeeeeeeeally good at it.  Only drew it on the wrong end twice!  Or maybe three times?  It doesn’t matter, they look amazing and I can hardly believe that’s the same room.  I’ll be happy to get in there and create my heart out!!!  The girls christened it today by hand painting wooden switchplates (haha, I just had to ask Mark what the name of those were, because I couldn’t remember, sad).  Beautiful stuff!  Now all the room needs is a NAME!  Any suggestions?

Enjoy the view!

Here is Mark tearing away the leftover bits of carpet, which earned him a few blisters on his poor hands..

Vintage Chic & supplies

Cruising along with the first coat of color..already an improvement...

..first two rows done…Claire took this picture, and from that angle it looks like a bowling alley… Which isn’t a bad thing, I mean, who wouldn’t love a bowling alley in their house? Shhhduh.

see, that's me drawing my cute pencil line, oh my gosh what would he have done without me?!

...almost done, Veda gave it two thumbs up!

She also tried out a few dance moves, here...

and here.

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Hmmm..so perhaps it should be called the Sewing Room since who is that mister to the right there? oh... hi Napoleon, glad you approve.

xoxo

So it has come to my attention as of late that people think I change my hair frequently.  Frequently meaning “every couple months”.

Probably because I do.

I have always liked messing with my hair, either by cutting it in short styles or changing up the color.  I go back and forth between bangs or no bangs (the eternal quest for satisfaction still goes unsatisfied).  When Mark and I met, I had really short hair with a patch bleached white in the back.  You know when you see those people who have a patch of hair in the back that doesn’t have any pigment?  Well, that’s who I was trying to copy.  I thought it was cool.

I have had all shades of brown, all shades of blonde, streaks of pink, gothed out black with red highlights, and most recently red with a splash of teal green on the side!

When someone is meeting me for the second time and they are trying to remember me from the first time we met, I sometimes have to say “Oh, I could have had different hair” because chances are pretty good that I did.  The security guy at work always says to me, “You changed your hair since the last time”, (meaning the last time I left my badge and he had to check me in at the front desk).  He thinks he remembers me, but then gives me that one-eyebrow-higher-than-the-other skeptical look and repeats that same statement. Every. Time.

Yesterday as I was backing up all my photos from the laptop onto my external hard drive, I was going through old pictures and saw that, as a matter of fact, I have had a lot of different hairstyles over the past 8 years (longer than that, but that’s all my picture history dates back to).  So I thought it would be fun to put together a collage to illustrate this.  It was fun, but mostly it just made me want to chop off my hair short again.  But no, I am not going to do that.  This is the longest my hair has been since I was a senior in high school and it’s taken me a lot of patience to get this far.  I am not giving up now.

These pictures go chronologically (pretty much) from left to right, and start in 2001 (those are my 24th birthday balloons I am holding in the first pic)…

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Which hairstyle is your favorite?

xoxo

But not necessarily in that order…

On Saturday this last weekend, we joined my Mom, sister & nephews at Saturday Market downtown. It was opening weekend so the place was super crowded. Not to mention it was the most beautiful day we’ve had thus far (and we’ve had some good ones!). The sun was out, the people were happy and life was good. While at the market, we came upon one of my favorite booths where this woman makes pillows filled with cat nip for your feline’s enjoyment. And let me tell you, our felines were in for a treat! We purchased a pillow for our three furry four-legged friends at home, wondering how they would share it. Napoleon is our big orange fella, who has a seroius attitude problem. He thinks that he runs the place, but that is so not the case. Big Ears is the real cat in charge, mainly because she is the only female in the bunch and doesn’t take crap from anyone. Little Big Man is a special case, having fallen from a tree about two years ago on one of the hottest days of the summer, plunging 50 feet to the ground and landing flat on his belly. Luckily, he lived to tell the tale, albeit a little bit slower than before. He’s a big softy. As soon as I took the pillow out of the bag (and locked the dogs outside) all three of the cats came wandering in. They say the catnip has no scent, but I don’t know how else to explain them all knowing there was something happening in the living room. Napoleon was the first to get his paws on it…

Good thing it's made of pretty durable fabric...

All of his senses were heightened, notice the curl in his tail...

Then Big Man decided to make his move...

Napoleon gave up rather easily, he's not one for sharing...

...

Enter Big Ears…

I love this look on her face, like "what? I'm just laying here...not inching my way towards the pillow, really..."

...then Big Ears threw on the charm, rolling on her back...

oh, she was working it...

..and her spell was cast...

...and then Napoleon came back on the scene and suddenly Big Ears was no longer that interested...

I guess Little Big Man didn't realize the playing had stopped...there's that slowness coming through...*sigh*

Clearly, we have too many cats.. anybody want one?

Did you catch the weird weather this afternoon here in Portland? It was a sunny morning, cold but not freezing with a fair amount of clouds in the sky. On my way home from work around 3pm it was starting to get a little dark up above, the clouds were resembling “the nothing”, but there were still bits of blue sky. Then about 4pm it started to rain, which quickly turned to little bits of ice, which prompted Claire to throw on her shoes and run outside to enjoy it!

Hail piling up on the Scion..

not quite like catching snow on your tongue...they kind of hurt when they ping you in the eye...

Smiles on a Monday, that's a pretty good thing...

Have a wonderful Tuesday everyone!

xoxo

I was trying to muster up the energy to recount our trip to Seattle last weekend, and then I realized that Claire had written it all down, as we did it, in her diary. So with her permission, here is a recap of our weekend through the eyes and literary goodness of Claire:

(Saturday, written as it happened)

Today we have driven for about 3 hours to get to Seattle, Washington. When we finally got to our hotel Annalisa was awaiting us at the front of it! The guy took our car to Valet park it. then we went to an Indian Vegetarian restaurant. After that, we went to a vintage store that had a french-fries sculpture eating one of his own kind!

the fry guy

vintage goodness

We also went to Cupcake Royale, I got a lemon drop cupcake, Veda got a peppermint party, a mini red velvet for Annalisa, Mark got a mocha and a coconut bunny for Melissa (mom)!

Cupcake Royale

Then to Clover! a cute toy store in Ballard!

Annalisa in a frog hat!

We finally headed home, or, make that the Seattle Aquarium to see rainbow fish, seahorses, seals, otters, eels, an octopus ate pollock, and we pet sea-stars!

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the girls were copying the zen-like pose of a bird behind them...

Can you spot the fish in this picture?

i love my little family!

As Mom and Annalisa went off to to H & M, Veda Mark and I came here to the hotel. Now we have about 10 minutes to get ready to go. I’ll write more at (or after) dinner! P.S. since our room is next to the one the Beatles stayed in, Veda and I (plus Mark’s photography) recreated their picture…

…we also watched the ferry’s come to the dock, the birds dive into the water, and the Olympic (snowy) Mountains. So far I love this city!!! Now we’re at Pike’s brewery having dinner and our huuuuuuge booth! It has a bar for our feet to rest on, that’s how tall it is! I am having a Root beer to drink! And a chicken little to eat!! There is a purple tulip in a beer bottle on the table, haha!

Pike's Brewery

(Written on Sunday, early in the morning – I mean EARLY! she was up and writing at 6:30am)

Last night we stopped at the caramel apple shop! (Rocky Mountain Chocolate Factory) Mark got some english toffee and all of us girls shared a caramel Reese’s pieces covered apple!

Annalisa's treat!

Yum!

Claire is a wee bit of excited, eh?

(She jumps around here a bit, hopefully you can follow) Walking back to the car, we stopped at a wall chair! Oh my gosh, you should see the sunrise on the mountains! I have to take a picture, hold on!

sunrise on the Olympic mountains

Okay, I took about 5, I’m good. Anyways, a wall chair… it was a 2 seated chair with a big bar hitched to the side of a house, building type place!

Claire thought this was pretty amazing (pic taken by Annalisa)..

Totally off subject again, a huuuuuge barge is just departing and there are two little boats leading it out! Cool! When we got hom we sat around and watched the Olympics. Now there is a voice telling people to “please board the Clipper to Vancouver B.C.” or something! Me and V took our showers and went on a self-tour of the hotel. It was fun! Soon we will be on our way to having some coffee, hot cocoa and croissants! Yum. So far today we have watched people on a boat go out to sea, a huuuge barge sit in the bay and do nothing, and a flock of seagulls play around with our country’s bird, the bald eagle! Now we are waiting on Pike St. at the market for Annalisa! Me and Veda had hot cocoa to drink and I had a ham & cheese croissant. Mom had coffee and a poppy seed muffin. Mark shared Veda’s almond croissant and Annalisa is having exactly what Mom is.

Awww, aren't they beautiful?

Now we are going to explore the market. TTYL! We went to the market and got samples of chocolate covered cherries, chocolate noodles, dried apples and bought a cup of strawberries and some huuuuge carrots!

Mel and Annalisa

Pike's Market

see... huuuuge carrots.

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Then we walked all the way to the Ye Olde Curiosity Shoppe on the waterfront and I got a mood monkey necklace and Veda got a butterfly mood necklace. Then we rode the carousel! It was fast and so fun!

in front of the Seattle Aquarium

Annalisa and Veda being super silly!

these girls are all kinds of fun!

the Carousel

After dropping Annalisa off at her car she gave us some bags from her art show. They are super awesome! Seattle rocks. I wish I lived there so that I could just explore like this every single day! It’s amazing to me how we did so much in just 2 days! Plus 1 night of not-so-great sleep. I don’t remember writing about the troll. I don’t think I did, let me check. BRB. Oh my gosh! I didn’t, okay well here it goes:

We were walking up to Fremont St. after lunch Saturday and Annalisa said we should visit the Fremont Troll. He is under a bridge, he’s hairy and he’s eating a VW beetle, and his nose is huuuuge! He is in the world record book, Veda had read about him before but hadn’t seen him. Cool!

the famous troll

And here are some random but fun pictures that were taken over the weekend… (did I mention we took a lot of pictures!?)…and I borrowed a couple from Annalisa (thanks sweetie pie!)…

...playing in the cherry blossoms...

family time!

look at those sillies on the left!

love.

Veda gets a bear hug? hilarious!

they were having a blast!

funny faces..

the ultimate hostess, love you Annalisa!!

xoxo