.:Meet the Ritchies:.

A week and a half ago we made the difficult decision to find a new home for Linus the beagle.  This was something we thought about over a few months, as he got older and bigger and was showing signs of needing more from us than we could give right now.  He loves to play, and run, and bark, and be a happy funny dog.  And our home and neighborhood and life schedule was just not working to his favor.  Linus is a great dog who has so much love for anyone who is nice to him.  We knew it wouldn’t be hard for him to adjust to a new family, but we were sad that we had let him down as owners.  I found a couple that I work with who were excited to bring him into their cat/dog/human family and so now Linus is thriving, on a farm, in Tillamook, near a creek, with many doggie friends including a Goldendoodle named Daisy Mae and a cat named Krusty.  He gets walks daily and plays for hours with his new mates.  And we can check in with him any time we want to.  It’s a good ending for his life with us and a promising beginning for his new life with a wonderful family.  Live long and prosper Linus!

But where does that leave us?  We were still determined to find a second dog, one that was smaller and needed less room to run and play.  One that could fit well with Charlie and the cats and wouldn’t outgrow the doggy door (Linus was getting close!).  A dog that would stay smaller than Charlie so he could still be the “top dog” of the house, because he is.  Claire and I had fallen in love with a little Yorkie dog that we pass by on Sandy, she sits in a window of a business and teases us almost everyday.  I started to search for a Yorkie mix, feeling like that would be the perfect dog to pair with Charlie, since he himself is a Terrier mix – they would have things in common!

And here, is what I found.  His name is Rudy Fernandez Ritchie, he is an 8 week old Chorkie (chihuahua mixed with a Yorkie), he probably won’t get any bigger than 7-8 pounds.  Welcome our new baby, isn’t he a doll!

xoxo

my sincerest apologies for being away so long, I will be back on the blog train very soon – in the meantime, here’s a little ear candy for your listening pleasure, my new favorite song…

I and Love and You

xoxo

Every day Claire has a question of the day as part of her homework, where she has to write a paragraph answer.  Today’s question was “If you could suddenly give yourself a talent that you don’t presently have, what would it be?”  I read it over her shoulder and said “ooh, that’s a great question!  Do you know what my answer would be?”  Claire looked at me with a confused look on her face so I thought perhaps she needed a hint, so I said “You know, what’s something I love to do but I’m not very good at?” … and she looked up at me and said … “cook?”

No. That wasn’t it.  But thanks Claire for adding to my huge ego that I have about my talents in the kitchen.     (the answer was SING! for those of you who were wondering).

Oh kids, they say the darndest things…

Claire - 18 months old

Mark had the wonderful idea to make our own personal pizzas for dinner tonite, so while the Beavers were effortlessly kicking some Stanford blankety blank, I went to the grocery store for toppings!   Veda and Claire each put sauce, cheese and olives on theirs and Claire added some canadian bacon to her half.  I love how they both put all the stuff towards the center of their pizza squares.

Claire is not pictured because she is nursing her index finger after touching the pan, five seconds after I said for the fourth time to NOT TOUCH THE PAN

I topped my personal pizza with pesto sauce, a sprinkle of mozzarella cheese, canadian bacon, gala apple slices and some yummy feta cheese.  It was soooooooooooooooooooo good!

and Mark topped his with all of the above, minus the apples and the pesto… he didn’t really want me to take a picture of his, but I wanted to because it was cute… he’s getting used to me taking pictures of everything, just in case I make a blog out of it, though tonite when I asked him if he thought it was weird that I was taking pictures of everything and he answered, ” (long pause)…no”… which I took to mean “yes, but what can I do about it?”  He’s so good at humoring me… I love him more than sugar!  (and for those of you who know me well, you know that’s huge)

Claire’s volleyball team – the Madeleine Magic – won 1 of 3 games today, improving 200% from two weeks ago!  Thank you to all of you who came out to watch her play!

Yes!  I have changed our artwork above for the new month, and I was only 10 days LATE!  Yay me!  No seriously, my ultimate goal is to have my incredibly handsome and beautiful and amazing web designer (who doubles as my just as incredibly handsome and beautiful and amazing husband) upload a new cartoon of us on the 1st of every month, however that did not happen this time.  But here it is, and yes folks – that is a beard on Mark’s face (or the best that I could do to imply a beard) because he has officially declared it “beard weather”!  Did I mention how much I love this season?    Mmmm hmmm…

Claire learned of a website from her poetry teacher today, it’s called wordle.net and it’s so much fun!  check it out!  we typed in our blog site address and made a word cloud out of my applie pie post!  How fun!

Happy October everyone!  It’s my favorite time of year so get ready for lots of posting about Halloween and boots and sweaters and leaves and rain!  All things fall!

xoxo

The tables are done and in use – I am so glad that project is finished! It was a lot of work but I think they turned out beautifully. The girls were amazing at helping with each step. Now I need to start sewing some halloween costumes! Yay October!

P.S. Our floors are on our “to do” list of projects, anyone have any suggestions? I think right now we are leaning towards putting the click flooring over the top of our hardwoods, unless someone knows of a good deal on re-finishing them!

Yummy Apple Pie Recipe:

4 cups sliced delicious from-the-tree apples gifted by loving in-laws (or if you don’t have in-laws who gift you with apples then you can get yours somewhere else!)

1 cup sugar

1 Tbsp flour

1 Tbsp cinnamon

Pillsburry Double pie crust

Slice up your apples, mix with flour, sugar and cinnamon.  Place one pie crust in a glass pie baking dish, add filling.  Lay second crust over the filling and crimp the edges, trimming excess as needed.  Cut slits in the top of the pie crust and then brush with milk and sprinkle generously with sugar.  Bake as directed on the Pillsbury crust box.  Mmmmm…perfection.

P.S.  thanks Bill & Betty for the apples!!  They were scrumdiliumptious!

We received this in the mail yesterday from Claire’s school…