Christmas Un-wrapped: 2010

This year’s gifts for Little Guy included some Scooby Doo items, as previously mentioned. He was thrilled to get an actual Scooby Doo stuffed toy, which he got to open Christmas Eve. Christmas morning he found Santa had left him a Scooby Doo Mystery Machine by the fireplace. He later told us he was happy with his Mystery Machine but had told Santa he wanted a big one. His daddy replied; “You got a big one; see it fits all the characters inside and had the ghost computer, ghost trapping net, and all kinds of things in it!” To this little guy replied; “No, I meant a big one, that our whole family can drive around in!” Of course.
Little guy also got camera suited for his age. So far, we have about 100+ pictures of Scooby Doo, the Mystery Machine, and some unfortunate photos of family members who would rather have not had their picture taken.
The teenager got some technical gadgets and gizmos and so far his favorite appears to be a version of the old fashioned erector sets where you can make a vehicle of some sort complete with a motor. He’s kept himself pretty busy with that as well as playing “Scooby Doo” with his brother.
The hubby seems happy with his mundane gifts. I kept it simple this year and bought him some shirts in basic colors so as to avoid prior year’s catastrophes with oddly colored periwinkle pants and other such atrocities.
Perhaps the best gift of all was the gift the hubby gave me. When I opened the box, this is what I found inside:

I laughed hysterically thinking he’d fashioned a redneck iPhone case! He said actually it was just an “IOU” for getting me an iphone case. Still hilarious, nonetheless.
Here’s a little slide show of some of our family’s holiday festivities.

Slide Album: Christmas 2010

 
I hope you all had a very Merry Christmas. I’m looking forward to a brand new year and have planned some creative and intriguing posts in the upcoming months.

Un-Recommendations & Funny Bathrooms

Since we have an Internet presence and have recently been on the receiving end of some very poor customer service the hubby and I thought this would be a good place to share and vent. Kind of like when Heather Armstrong of Dooce went postal on the Maytag folks. But not quite.

So, let me tell the back story of our products. A while back we decided to research bidet attachments for standard home toilets. I’ve always wanted an actual bidet and frankly am surprised they aren’t more prevalent here like they are in Europe. But the awesomeness of bidets is not what this post is about. Real bidets require extra bathroom space to install them and even bidet toilet seats require electricity, something not available in the water closet areas of either of our bathrooms. So our research led us to a product that attached to the toilet, had its own water hose and required no electricity. At an affordable $100 price tag, we bought them for each bathroom. The hubby was able to quickly and easily install them and they worked great. Then as time went on, specifically about a month or so after the warranty ran out, we had problems. One of the units had the “arm” that attached it to the toilet break. Sadly, that part is plastic and not replaceable. We asked. The other unit in the hall bathroom had another problem. The spring that is supposed to retract the nozzle back underneath the rim of the toilet stopped automatically doing its job. This meant that when anyone bumped into the lever (which is positioned right outside the toilet seat) it would remain in that position; a position that caused it to shoot water into the air. This event occurred whenever we’d brush by the side of the toilet to start the water for the little guy’s bath. It also occurred when other toddlers were visiting for playgroups resulting in some serious flooding. And perhaps most amusing of all, it occurred whenever Daddy was in the bathroom giving little guy his bath and little guy thought it would be loads of fun to squirt Daddy. Good times, my friends, good times.

But the bottom line here (pun shamelessly intended) is that we have two malfunctioning bidet attachments that are not repairable. Apparently the company must have determined that making an all plastic unit that’s not repairable is not a great idea and recently started making all metal units. Of course these units cost nearly twice the price of the older models. When we contacted the company about our problem the most they were willing to do for us was to give us a $20 discount of the cost of the new metal units. After further conversations with the company pointing out that would mean our spending an additional $300 over and above the $200 we’d already spent with them they basically said “too bad.” Naturally, we’re not willing to spend that kind of money nor would we consider doing business with a company that does not stand behind their products or make any reasonable compensation towards customers who’ve spent a significant amount on now faulty products.  The offending company is called The American Biffy Company at www.biffy.com. Again, this is very much an un-recommendation to do business with these people. As far as bidet attachments themselves go (when operating properly) I cannot recommend them enough! We’re currently researching new options for replacing these units so if any readers out there know of any good options for us to try, feel free to share them with us! In the meantime, we’ll just be trying not to flood our bathroom.

A Very Scooby Christmas

As my blog readers and Twitter followers are aware, little guy has a Scooby Doo obsession.

I think it all started back when we all suddenly saw Teenager’s startling resemblance to Shaggy. Things took off because of course Teenager had to introduce his little brother to the classic Scooby Doo shows which are available thanks to On Demand TV viewing. Since little guy is rarely afraid of anything and loves Halloween with all the monsters, ghosts and “scary guys” he is enthralled with the shows.

Things progressed from there to the point that he now refers to both the family car and Daddy’s car as the “Mystery Machine”, the latter being especially hilarious since, as the hubs puts it; “It’s a mystery whether or not it will start.” Then he insisted upon calling his parents Fred and Daphne, although it’s hard to complain about that one since for a while I was Velma.

So, after hearing him call his little stuffed puppy Scooby Doo for the last few months we decided it might be time to get the kid an actual Scooby Doo for Christmas. Along with this, I hear Santa may be bringing him a complete set of figures of all the Scooby gang along with a Mystery Machine. We are really hoping this will mean we can go back to being Mommy and Daddy.