Power[ade] to the People

When it comes to Powerade and bottled waters, Troy is a heavy drinker. On hot days, his blood-powerade levels reach dangerous levels, and I would not be surprised to see him sweating lemon-lime flavored droplets like in the commercials. So when Smiths put Powerade on sale for $0.25 a bottle, they might as well have been offering to hook him up intravenously. It was like that Ikea commercial where the mom plows onto the lawn with an Ikea semi (to the astonishment of her husband and son) and says "They're having a sale! .......I'm going back for more!" 16 cases later, we now have Powerade food storage. All in all, we spent $65.40 for $291.00 of Powerade. Not a bad deal. The next day Troy was bragging about his stockpile to a co-worker, to which she replied "16 cases? That's nothing. We got 64!" What the?!

Physics

Newton's Third Law of Motion states:

"For every action there is an equal and opposite reaction"

Apparently there are no physicists that live at our house, because if there had been, we might have been properly warned. Make sure and watch all the way to the end of this video, and in our defense, we had no idea how equal and opposite a reaction could be. Really. (Miraculously, no children were harmed in the making of this film, only moderately freaked out :) )



For the record, Gavin took a few minutes to collect himself and then was right back in the game, asking to be bounced. Troy curbed his enthusiasm and no further near-death experiences occurred- at least for tonight.....

Not Your Average Family Photo

Troy and I took a big step in our relationship this year. We reached a compromise on the dreadful topic of........ Family Photos (duh duh duh duuuuum). In a nutshell, I love them, Troy hates everything about them. So after 8 years, we finally compromised: We will alternate every other year with serious and silly family phots. Troy's dream is to photograph our family in full get-up for every major holiday, then move on to lesser holidays when we run out of the big ones. (He got his inspiration from the Ramptons awesome St. Patricks day family newsletter) So, thus began year 1 of silly family photos, and I must admit......I'm sold. This was waaaaaay more fun than traditional photos, and I can't wait to see what we're gonna do in 2011! My amazing and wonderful sis-in-law Angie braved the cold and took our pictures, then I spiffed them up in photoshop. Whattaya think?

Mine and Aliyah's costumes were from Walmart, Troy's was already in his closet, and I made Gavin's. FYI: Not only did Troy do his own makeup, but he even went as far to super-glue the earplugs-turned-neck-bolts to his neck. Thats dedication.

Halloween: Richardson Style

I love Halloween, and my husband who can turn an innocent batch of cookies into such a culinary blood-bath. I have never had so much fun decorating cookies! The only thing more fun than making them, was delivering them!

Ariel & MIA

The last few weeks, Aliyah's personality has been on the rise (if that's even possible) and every time I turn around she is doing something to make me laugh. The other day she found the old Mermaid halloween costume I made for her when she was a baby, and insisted I cut a hole in it for her legs so she could be Ariel. After I gave in, she put on her new/old costume and BECAME Ariel. Not only would she only answer to Ariel, but she called "herself" on the cellphone and had this conversation:

Hi Ariel, this is Ariel
Whatcha doin?
Oh, you sitting down?
Where’s your crown?
Oh, On ya head?

Are you playing with prince eric ?
Oh you’re tired?
It’s your nap time?
Go tell your dad it’s nap time.
He’s tired too?
It’s everybody’s nap time.
Oh, your dad is mad?
My mom will talk to him.
“mom, you talk to Ariel’s dad he’s so mad” ( I convince triton not to be mad)
Ariel where are you?
At your house?
There’s water in there?
Oh.
Wait, Ariel, I can’t hear you. Hold on, let me come over here (walks across room to get better cell phone reception)
Can you hear me now?
Ok......

As you can tell, she has perfected the art of immitation. While I was away in New York she and Troy had a blast being silly all day every day. They made this video for me to watch when i got back and I laughed so hard when I saw it. I especially love Aliyah's inside-out pajamas, the breakfast on her shirt, and the way she copies everything Troy does. They are quite the pair, don't you think?

Seriously Blown Away!

Ok so this cruise was amazing! Troy's mom treated us to 8 days of incredible fun in honor of Grandpa Moss and to celebrate what a fantastic family he and Grandma Moss have created! We had so much fun and were blown away in more ways than one. I'll spare you the details to avoid incurring unnecessary jealousy :) and say that the ship was awesome, the islands were beautiful, and the food waaay waaay too delicious.

Our most memorable adventure was on St Maarten, where we rented scooters with Angie and James and rode around the island. We stopped at the famous Airport Beach to watch the planes fly in ridiculously close to the shore and have a dip in the ocean. We enjoyed ourselves immensly......until we got caught in the jet stream of a 747 taking off a stone's throw from where we were sitting on the beach. Angie literally lost some of the skin off her back from the sand pelting us at a few hundred miles per hour. Aparently we missed the 10 foot signs warning of injury or death from the jetstream. Now we know. I found some videos on youtube that are not us, but gives a good demonstration of our predicament. It was also on St. Maarten that we ran into a highschool friend we havent seen in about 10 years! What a small world!


Landing:



Takeoff:

Puerto Rico was historic and gorgeous, Haiti was breathtaking and we had more fun than we could have imagined. What a trip!

The Wonder of Discovery

We took the kids to Discovery Gateway this last weekend for the first time. It was such a fantastic place and I really think we enjoyed ourselves as much as the kids. At least I know Troy did . . .

I Love This Man

Allow me to introduce you to at least a few of the many million reasons why I love my husband, and why life with the man I love will be an eternity of wild entertainment:

Troy found this little bike at DI for $3 and had to get it for Aliyah. He bought some training wheels and totally pimped it out Princess style for her. He spent hours cleaning and fixing it and woke her up early the next day to show it to her. She can't pedal it yet, but enjoys sitting on it while it is safely parked on the grass and admires the stickers on her "daddy bike" :)

Can you guess what is happening here? (The answer is not Painting)


The answer is Quarantine. This would be the result of Gavin getting the stomach flu, Aliyah getting Croupe and me arriving at the end of my rope trying to keep them apart so they wouldn't get each others sicknesses. Troy quickly analyzed the problem and went to work dividing our apartment into separate quarantine chambers. Brilliant! I laughed the whole time he put it up, but you know what? It worked! I love that Troy never wastes time complaining, he just looks for a solution and gets to work.

Like, for example the other night I looked up from the computer to see a cute little mouse literally tapping at our window to come in. Troy quickly rigged up a contraption using painters tape, a tupperware and the end of a broomstick to catch the mouse so he could show Aliyah before releasing it back into the wild. Needless to say, Dad is her constant Hero.



Have I mentioned he can cook?



And wow, can he cook (you 147th warders know this from activities we were in charge of)! The same day as our quarantine experience he disappeared into the kitchen for an hour or two and emerged with this mouthwatering Thai dish. His other specialties are Venezuelan arepas & empanadas, and cream cheese Chicken Rolls. Yum!

And to top it all off, he is a great teacher. Granted, I may want to wait a few more years (14 maybe....) before teaching Aliyah to drive, but this video goes to show that Troy can teach anyone to do just about anything. (watch the video until she makes the second loop around the driveway, it's so cute the way she watches her turn). Most of all, he loves me and cares for me and supports all my dreams and ambitions. I couldn't have married a better man

No Lack of Personality....

These days, any which way I turn Aliyah is doing something spontaneous and hilarious to spice up my life. She just has so much energy for one little girl, I don't know how she's going to make it to adulthood without an energy-induced self combustion. If only we could figure out where she gets it from . . . ?