Well, technically it’s Spring…but we are still buried here in Francestown, NH. Here are some shots of my family making the best of it!
And finally, Isabel and Abe had just had it with everything and decided to run away….luckily, they only made it to the end of the driveway.
I’m sure that’s the main question on the minds of all of Wonder Blog’s faithful readers…..all 3 of them! It’s been over 3 months since my last post and those of you who know me know why. If you don’t know me…I have a really good excuse. In May I was diagnosed with breast cancer and my world has been spinning ever since. BUT, things seem to be under control now…just the occasional inconvenience of chemotherapy. AND, we’ve done tons of photo shoots and I can’t wait to post them all here. I’m so backlogged on fun shots of adorable kids that they’re coming out of my ears. So…at some point I’ll write more about the cancer thing, but for now, stay tuned for photos, photos, photos…..and more photos!
Yep – red Mary Janes…and they look soooooo cute on me! I am not bragging. You must understand that my cross to bear is life is HUGE feet. I was teased as a child, called Bigfoot, the whole works. But I rose above it as an adult and made peace with my size 10 and a half feet. I could still find cute shoes in size 10.5 or 11. THEN I had 3 kids and it’s TRUE that your feet grow half a size with each child.
SO now, I wear a size 12 women’s and the only shoes I can find in my size and price range are nursing loafers or disgusting men’s sneakers.
My solution is European shoes. They make really great shoes, in bigger sizes..and they cost a fortune!! No joke – those adorable Mary Janes set me back over $100. But I don’t care…I may have the feet of an Amazon woman, but my shoes are cute!!!!!!!!
Me: What color should we paint the new playroom? I’m thinking lime green and chocolate brown.
Abe: Mama….I’d be delighted if we painted it purple.
My sweet middle boy. He is my heart and soul, my challenge, my love. He is such a boy’s boy. Yet on Sunday, he took his doll Superstar to church, dressed in a baby blue fairy costume. I love him so much, my heart aches…………………..
It finally warmed up a bit last weekend and we took a very long walk with the kids and my gorgeous nieces and nephews. It was so fun to take photos outside and not have to dodge the rain or freeze my tail off!
I am so excited about our Wonder Blink schedule this spring and summer and were are booking up pretty quickly!
Here are a whole slew of shots from our walk:
These cousins LOVE each other so much – we are truly lucky that they are so close.
Isn’t she beautiful? Claire will one day be a performer or on stage in some capacity…mark my words!
Love my dad….love my gummyworm.
Writing in the sand…
Miss Sassy Pants
Jake….or one of the Beatles???
My little girl is getting some recognition for doing her own thing….I wrote a blog post a few months ago about her collage work and Marty Weil, is a blogger, writer, and ephemera researcher, contacted me to see if he could write about her and her art on his blog, Ephemera: Exploring the World of Old Paper.
Check out his post about Isabel here – examples of her collages are below (his post links back to them.)
Wonder Blink set up at a fantastic event last weekend in Milford NH. It was held at the Souhegan Valley Boys and Girls Club – an event that was all about women called Diva Day. Every vendor offered something great for women, from cosmetics and kid stuff, to health care and clothing. We met so many wonderful women in the community who were interested in having portraits of their family OR wanted to advertise our photos in their places of business!
Anyway, I also spent some money..and bought these GREAT new hats for my kids!! Gus’s was hand knit by Nadia. Check out her great stuff!!
Don’t you just want to EAT THEM UP????
In other news…I am honored to have just done a portrait shoot for the fabulous magazine Monadnock Living. This magazine ROCKS and I had such fun on the photo shoot……more later with sample shots! Goodnight for now..my lovely mother is visiting from MN and is giving Steve and I a night away tomorrow….I have to rest up so that I can wake up and micromanage my house and kids before we leave…………
Ok…well, maybe Seven on Sunday was too ambitious for me….I know that I haven’t posted in nearly a week and I have a lot to post – but once again, I’ve over-extended myself and I’m WAAAAAAAY behind in all areas of my life. Here’s the short version: Flu bug hit my family, needed to find a new car in 3 days, new dog is depressed and needs TLC, PTO obligations, 546 other community events that I’ve VOLUNTEERED for, BIG Wonder Blink event last Sat (more later), mother coming to visit tomorrow and my house is in a scary state of squalor…….do you feel sorry for me????!!!! 
Man…..it’s time for my Seven on Sunday again and I only posted once this week! Steve and the kids have been on vacation all week, so we’ve been doing fun stuff like going to the Children’s Museum, skiing, trashing the house, and driving mom crazy…………:)
So here goes – just to balance last week, I’d better list 7 things that I don’t love. 7 things that I really don’t like at all. I could even say, 7 things that I hate, but we’re not allowed to use that word in my house.
I completely dislike:
1. Braggarts.
You know what? If you have to brag to everybody about your accomplishments to make yourself feel good….something is wrong. It’s like that old saying….”If you have to tell people that you’re a lady, chances are………you’re NOT.”
2. Commercial TV
I can’t help it – it’s just such TRASH! We’ve never had cable, but network television is bad enough. It just feels like such a waste of time to sit on my rear end and stare at a screen, having to endure crappy commercials. I do love a good movie, but again, it has to be REALLY good for me to justify sitting there for 2 hours when I could be reading, editing photos, talking to my husband etc….
3. Water chestnuts
They have no taste, and the texture is DISGUSTING!!
4. Televised sports
THANK GOD I didn’t marry a man who has to watch ESPN all weekend!! One of the very first indicators to me that Steve could be “the one” was when I discovered that he didn’t watch sports on TV. We like sports, our kids play sports, etc…But this year, when the Patriots were in the Superbowl, we didn’t even know it until after the fact. BIG faux pas to my brother-in-law who is a coach and athletic director…he was so disappointed in us! I think “losers” was the term he used…:)
5. Bratz dolls
WHY would someone buy a doll who is dressed like a street walker, with hordes of make-up on and give it their 6 year old daughter? What kind of message does this send? “Here honey – let’s see what kind of pretend play you and your imagination can create with your new prostitute doll!” So sorry to sound harsh…but it’s how I FEEL!
6. George Bush
Does this really need an explanation?
7. Judgers
All I have to say about this is – just don’t judge someone until you’ve walked in their shoes. It’s simple, really.
Now, I’m sure many of you think this post is SO SELF-CONGRATULATORY – me acting like I’m SO perfect. I’m really so imperfect, that it scares me. I judge people. I watch TV sometimes when I should be reading to my kids. I’m sure I’ve bragged in the last week. But I try really hard not to do these things….and that’s all any of us can do -right? Just try to be a kinder, nicer person.
Now, I don’t have a lot of recent pictures because my camera is broken..(I don’t want to talk about it….) But the following photos are from last weekend. Our dear friends from Maryland visited and their three kids were totally charmed by the amount of snow in NH. I, on the other hand, am not so charmed……we’ve had a foot of new snow in the last week……………
