Missed Moments

Every time I start a new year of blogging, I look back at my notes and pictures and realize that I missed some things from last year. So, here are a few more pictures from December that I thought should see the light of day as well as some quips and stories from my notes.

My first majorly overlooked event from last year is Marc's birthday. I hang my head in shame as a spouse. The problem is, Marc's birthday is on December 24th. So, he's competing with this Jesus guy whose birthday is celebrated on the 25th. It's a rough spot to be in. Rest assured, we did celebrate on his birthday I just failed to write about it. Here's the picture proof:

These Christmas socks were part of a birthday gift from my Mom and Dad. He loved wearing them to work.

Tobias tried to make his Star Wars shirt look like Daddy's by wearing it over a yellow shirt.

The boys are hard at work making decorations for Dad's birthday. They love using Art Hub for Kids on Youtube for drawing tutorials. 

Gabe made this awesome Happy Birthday banner.

Tobias is holding a picture up so Benjamin can tape it.

A picture done by David John. Daddy was only turning 37, not 375. For the record.

This is a picture of Tobias and Daddy and Tobias' teacher Ms. Nikki going sledding for Daddy's birthday. They are all smoking pipes like Frosty the Snowman.

This is a picture of Daddy by Benjamin. The caption reads, "I love Daddy because he is really nice and he lets us stay up late and plays with us."

Birthday Cupcake. 37 candles wouldn't fit so we had to do 3 and then 7.

The highlight of the evening was a roughhousing session with Dad. These boys sure love him. Happy Birthday honey.

Next, we have two Christmas pictures that didn't make it into my Christmas post.

I forgot to post this picture of the awesome gingerbread men in disguise Elijah and David John made for our tree. Elijah's is a ninja and David John's is a pirate. Somewhere we also had a bear gingerbread man.

Marc got these awesome Star Trek jammies so I wanted a picture of all the boys in their new jammies. This was the best we could do. David John was in a super good mood. I was pretty excited when I found those Star Trek pjs. I could have gotten the red commander uniform, but I figured Marc is more of an engineering guy. He does not love management roles. Besides, I think Jordy was his favorite growing up. I love the boys' jammies too. They are covered in bison and say "Stampeding Off to Bed" which is about right in our house.

I also wanted to post some pictures from post Christmas. We got presents from Aunts and Uncles in the mail which was delightful and spread out the fun. It helped our time out of school before the New Year go a lot faster.

Benjamin and David John LOVE the guinea pig shirts they got for Christmas. David John's is especially cool because it's a DJ Guinea Pig, get it? That also happens to be his user name on some of the games he plays.

When I tucked Tobias in with his new Yoda doll one night, he informed me that he can make himself look like Yoda. "See Mom?" I had to get a picture.

Joe and Dominika sent Marc these awesome t-shirts. He loves them.

And they sent me this beautiful Swarovski crystal necklace. Makes me want to go put it on right now.

They also sent some fun Christmas poppers that had gold crowns and little toys inside when they exploded. Gabe is photobombing, as usual. The boys had a blast with those, no pun intended, and they also had fun with the little metal puzzles they sent.

Matt and Gina's box arrived with each gift wrapped, personally labeled with little extra hidden drawings and messages on the wrapping and then completely covered in packing tape. These were manly presents. The boys carefully inspected them and exclaimed every time they found something new on their wrapping paper. It was so fun. Well done, Matt.

They liked what was inside too. Books and Star Wars pencils. Awesome!

And now, here are a handful of missed quotes from last year that just never quite made it to the blog:

Benjamin was doing some dangerous looking ninja moves that involved jumping off of furniture. I heard him exclaim as he flew through the air- "My middle name is... caution!" Hmm, not quite buddy. Not quite.

One evening, Marc and I had a "heated discussion" in which we both went to bed feeling a little upset. The next morning, he had to leave for work really early so I sent him a message asking how he was doing. He answered back that he was "Okay, just a little SOB." This was shocking because I have never heard Marc swear- ever- and because I didn't feel that our discussion had been THAT bad. Besides, even if he was feeling like he had been a jerk, it wasn't complementary to his mother to use that term. I was trying to figure out how to answer when I remembered that Marc had a little bit of a cold and that SOB probably stood for Short Of Breath. I reminded him that I am not a doctor so he might want to go easy on the medical acronyms in the future.

David John sometimes goes into modes in which he only speaks in pig latin, or he only uses opposites or he talks like Jarjar Binks. This can lead to some frustration for Gabriel when trying to communicate with David John. One day, after asking David John a question multiple times and getting a series of unusual answers Gabriel finally shouted,"Just say 'yes' like a civilized person!" Poor Gabe. I got a good laugh out of it though.

During one of David John's strange moods I asked him why he was talking that way. He responded, "I'm just being a weird-alec."

Tobias, sitting at the table to eat breakfast one morning said wistfully, "Mom, I wish God would give me Pop Tarts." He will son. When you get a job and buy them for yourself. Or next time your Opa visits.

Elijah was telling me about a friend who has TV and who wants to watch a show that comes on a certain time. Elijah was incredulous that you would have to plan your life around a TV schedule like that. He wasn't sure his friend's story was true. He said, "It would be weird to have a show you could only get at a certain time!" Oh son, you will just never know what it was like growing up and knowing that if you missed the show you loved you would either have to wait for a rerun or rely on someone to tape it for you. Thank goodness you will never know life without Netflix.

And now, onward and upward for another year at the Ricks' house.