The Week: Ricks Edition

Our Top Stories of the Week

Toy Story 3 Arrives at Dollar Theaters- Smallest Critics Applaud
Last Wednesday, Marc and I took the boys to see Toy Story 3 at our local "dollar theater" (it deserves quotation marks because the price is actually $1.50). Marc invited several colleagues and their families so we ended up with 19 people planning to come. Since it is a popular movie and we had such a large group we took the precaution of driving out to the box office early in the day and purchasing all of the tickets. We are not in Utah anymore, Toto. In Utah, this movie would certainly have been sold out. In Utah, sometimes you have to purchase tickets days in advance for the dollar theater and/or wait in really long lines. In Cleveland, we needn't have bothered. Number of other families who showed up at the theater for the movie: 1.
We all had a really great time. Gabriel and Elijah were completely engrossed although they asked far too many questions. Anytime a main character was off-screen we heard "Where's Woody?" "Where's Buzz?" or just random other questions "Where's Woody hat go?" "What that guy doing?" "Is Woody sad?"
David John was content to sit on a booster seat and eat sickening amounts of theater popcorn for the first hour before he became wiggly and fussy. No one minded, we were in a room full of pediatricians, and a binky fixed the problem. It really was a great evening. If only they had slept in the next day after getting home at 10 PM.... I guess we can't have everything.

Blue Man Group Comes to Cleveland: Marc and Sarah Leave House
Thursday, Marc and I got to go on a rare date to see the Blue Man Group at playhouse square. Fellow resident Stephen Mac watched our boys for us and by all accounts they all had a great time. We really enjoyed the drumming, black light effects, humor and total randomness of the show. It was highly entertaining and we definitely recommend it with only a small disclaimer: Some of the humor is definitely aimed at boys in the 10-14 age range. There was an entire song devoted to the various names for "bottom". Also- do not come late. You may be spotlighted and mocked. You've been warned.

Twins Discover Tether Ball
We walked to the playground after school on Friday to discover that someone had left the tether balls out on their posts. The boys were all fascinated by the concept and enjoyed hitting the ball back and forth. Some unusual moves were tried including hanging on the ball and swinging around the pole like Tarzan and walking the ball around the pole while holding onto it. I even played a game with my little brother Sam. It was very nostalgic including the part where I lost in spectacular fashion.



Doctor to Balloon Man, "Yous Gots Skills"
Our Library (the charming brick building in the background of Gabe's picture) held a family fall fest on Saturday. This included a maze, a beanbag toss with prizes, a puppet show, cookie decorating and the most amazing balloon artist I've ever seen. This guy could make anything. Pictured is Elijah with his dinosaur, Gabriel with Thomas the train complete with three train cars, a simple balloon toy made for David John and three other creations I snapped pictures of- Tinker Bell, Sponge Bob and a horse. When Marc saw the balloons (he was on call during the festival) he immediately said "I need an apprenticeship with this guy!" We'll keep you posted on Marc's possible midlife crisis and career change.







Primped Progeny Pose with Pumpkins
The boys got haircuts on Saturday, so I wanted to have a little photo shoot with their new hairdos, the pumpkins they chose earlier in the week and the pretty fall leaves. As evidenced here, it did not go well. I was unable to get all three of them sitting at the same time much less looking at the camera simultaneously. None of the pictures really turned out great but I thought these three examples of my efforts were pretty amusing.