And Hello Again...

and how are you, and how was yours... I am fine, mine was great. The last of our holiday guests left this afternoon, Jeff having driven them up to Maine himself. (He'll be back tomorrow.) So now it's just me and the kids sort of enjoying the quiet but missing the hubub all at the same time. This christmas was definitely one to remember, having Grammi and Papa here was really special. And I'm so glad lanie and cassidy and nora were able to stay as long as they did, we all had a great time.

Here are a few christmas pictures. My picture taking was spotty this year. I didn't get any pictures of henry, or me or jeff, or grammi, or even lanie! not off my camera anyway. Cassidy took lots with her camera, she agreed to put them on flickr or something for me. I'll share that link as it becomes available...



This is a special something Maggie got from her Grammi and Papa. Apparently she spied it upon entering a gift shop and was so drawn to it Grammi had to get it for her. She sure loves this aquarium. The fish 'swim' by on a neverending roll of clear plastic behind a glass front, complete with backlight and air filter bubble sounds.


This is a collection of body armor Henry got from our good friend Jon. Jon really knows how to please Henry in the gift department, and he is so thrilled to have all this great stuff to dress up in. Jon sent him a junior football chest pad thingie, something called a waist protector, shin guards, knee pads and ice hockey gloves. Henry added his own light saber and night vision dart shooting goggles and a superhero was born!

as you can see, Henry wore his gear straight through breakfast...

and lunch!



Here's Phil and Nora, look especially cute...


We decorated cookies on Christmas Eve... Jeff made the "I love Susie" one, I made the santa face, and Maggie did the more abstract one...


Maggie got a little Hello Kitty lip balm and mirror compact from Santa. Here she is applying her lipstick.


and here is one I took of Nora the other day. I think the light makes her skin look gorgeous...


that's all for now! we'll try to get back to a more regular posting schedule now that the holidays are behind us, mm'kay? and now a special shout out to my momma: I updated mine, now you update yours!

xxx ooo

The view from my kitchen

Another thing that's peaceful to look at. I love the center hallway transition from my kitchen to my living room.

Maggie Napping

Maggie has been crashing where she falls lately. I think she looks especially peaceful here.

Own Self Do-ee

Here is my little shadow, fixing herself a peanut butter and jelly. But only after insisting on deciding exactly what she wanted to wear for the 'at home' portion of her day. Cute, huh?


Here is the christmas gift I made for my brother in law Phil. I really like how it turned out. It's a corkboard! I've had these animal lotto cards for some time now and have gradually been figuring out what to do with them. I've almost used them all up now! To make this I trimmed the pictures and rubber cemeted them to the corkboard in the pattern you see. Then I glued navy blue ribbon down at the edges of the cards, and a strip of ivory ribbon at the top. I like to whip up handmade things for Phil because he's so talented and crafty himself. Last year he made us this gorgeous birdfeeder:

O Christmas Tree

Here's our tree, got it put up over the weekend. I just love trees that we cut down ourselves, something about the shape of them and the droop of the branches seems so gorgeous and colonial to me. And I am also appreciating how our christmas tree looks pretty much the same each year, although our tree looks like no one elses I know. Here are some other pictures of trees past...

What's in Your Bag

This is another of those photo groups over at flickr.com that always interest me. I don't think I'll add my picture to the group, but I will tell YOU, dear reader, what's in my bag...


OK, so this green bag is one I get a lot of compliments on. I remember not being thrilled with the shade of green, but really loving the functionality of the interior. I like a colored lining, so my black wallet is easily spied. $12.99 at Marshalls.

Then we have my phone, complete with a MacGyvered wrist strap that only serves to freak me out when it brushes against my neck while I'm on the phone. My wallet, with the same dollar bill that's been in there all week. Hand lotion (although I miss last years hand lotion that went with me in my bag. Body Butter from The Body Shop. Shea flavor. Yum! An emergency diaper, a random grocery list, breath mints, my keys, my travel bottle of pills, lipstick, my preferred tooth picks, a post it note with an address on where to ship something I sold on craigslist last week, and, lastly, a pen from the Side Trax, my favorite place to eat in the world, located in Greefield, NH. Have I taken you there before? :-)

PEACE Quote

To shut your mind, heart, imagination to the sufferings of others is to begin slowly but inexorably to die. It is to cease by inches from being human, to become in the end capable of nothing generous or unselfish, or sometimes capable of anything, however terrible.
- John Austin Baker, Bishop of Salisbury

Cassidy and Maggie

OMG look at this picture I just dug up. This picture was apparently taken on our wedding anniversary back in 2004! May 15.

Weekend Update

This is a little something I made this weekend. Lascia gave me a ton of sparkly beads and they are so yummy to look at, I had to do something with them. It’s a spider, in case you hadn’t figured it out yet. The black blob is supposed to be a mouth, but I nudged it befor it dried and now it’s more of a black blob. Oh well.

This weekend was pretty good! On Saturday Lascia and her daughter Emily came over for some ornament making, and then Jeff and Henry went to a Manchester Monarchs ice hockey game on Saturday night. At first Henry didn’t want to go. He can be like a dog who hates to take a bath when it’s time to leave the house. A real homebody, he. But they went and had fun.

I asked Sean and Christine from down the road to watch Maggie for me on Saturday night and went out for a drink with Lascia and Bob and some friends of theirs. For Lascia’s 30th birthday celebration. Very good times. Lots of laughing and growing closer. So good to make new friends! I love it.

Sunday morning, we went to cut down our Christmas tree. We go every year with Matt and Nicole. Nicole’s belly is really growing! She’s either further along than she thinks, grows huge babies right from the start, or has more than one in there. My goodness! What a gorgeous pregnant woman she is. My camera was dead, so no pictures. boo...

The hard drive on Jeff's laptop died, so he and Maggie headed out to Nashua to get another one yesterday. When they got home, Henry and I gave her the kind of warm welcome she gives any of us when we come home. Lots of celebrating and hugs and kisses and cheers, etc. She loved it. At one point she looked up at Jeff as if to say, "are you seeing this?!" That girl is super cute.

Okedoke, I have a gazillion things to do so I'd better run. I need to carve out a specific time of day when I work on entries for this blog, because believe it or not, I have a lot to say, if given the chance! I think about all the topics I'd like to pontificate on, and then when I actually get a minute to post, I invariably end up coughing out a giant wad of "did this, plan to do that, here's a pic of this, hope that happens, oop, gotta go!" and leave it at that.

one other pic. Lascia gave me a bookcase they don't need anymore, so after I painted up the downstairs hallway last week, I incorporated it into the area opposite the former birdcage. I really like the idea of a table and a lamp and a mirror in that room, but I want to ultimately upgrade everything you see in this picture. But I like what I've got going as far as a proof of concept, you know? And I was able to get halfway to the goal without spending any money, just pulling pieces from here and there. So that's good.

Finally some snow!

Ah, Wednesday.

I am usually quite bored on Wednesdays. Mondays I usually get started on laundry right away, and then pull the house together and potentially begin to tackle some sort of project. This Monday it was painting the downstairs hallway area where the stairs are. Yesterday I felt like I'd worked hard the day before, plus the dump was open and I picked up a ton of old magazines, plus jeff was due home late from work. So the day yawned in front of me and I ended up not doing much of anything except plowing through the magazines. And today....! Today I'm sick of it all. Nothing to get inspired about, nothing to "do" besides more housework, more laundry, etc. The only thing to do is to distract and/or scold maggie from her current obsession of dispensing any and every cream/gel/soap hand pump that she can get her hands on. Right now in fact she's at my side, demanding, "LOTION! LOTION! LOTION!"

I think what I'll do is, I'll go play with maggie. That's important work, too. I get so used to working around her that I often forget to work WITH her. the laundry can still get done, the house will only get slightly messier, and it'll help her to stay out of trouble.

I joined a photo group at flickr.com called "Corners of My Home". There are over 1,600 people signed up and everyone posts photos of a corner in their house. I have seen this on a few of the blogs I read and really enjoy it. Then I saw a picture I took of my kitchen sink a couple years ago and decided I should add that feature to my blog, too. so look for it soon!

POKE!

this was forwarded it me via email, I don't actually know the person who owns this tattoo. funny though, huh?

My first cake!

Well here it is. Nothing too fancy, but it was pretty. I like the pink color of the cake, but I wish I'd stuck to just white icing. that was my plan, but henry was looking for something to do, so I let him add color. and I got the D in Happy Birthday backwards. did you know that cake decorators have a scrabble tile holder like contraption that you can slide raised letters on to? Then you stamp the top of the cake with the letters and pipe icing over it. the goopy bow at the top of the cake is from where I dragged my sleeve across the top of the cake. I didn't get a picture of the side of the cake, but it has a swag design going around the top and vertical stripes where the swag meets the top. Red Hot Imperials complete the design.

This is a favorite christmas decoration of Maggies

Henry's Dental Appointment

Earlier this week Henry had an appointment with our dental hygenist, Carrie. Earlier this year, when we were in Seattle for three weeks this summer, Henry's cousin Brooke took x-rays of his teeth as part of her training to be a dental hygenist, and so we brought those with us to show Carrie and Dr. Wilson, our family dentist.





Apparently Henry has big teeth and we should expect "some crowding" and a need for othodontics with him. This is no surprise! Carrie also thought she saw an "extra tooth" visible in his x-ray, near the bottom left of his nose or something. She wanted to hang on to the x-ray so that dr. wilson could take it to some orthodontics conference he's going to soon so he could get some second opinions. Not out of any concern, more of a 'do you see what I see?' kind of thing. Carrie told Henry is was called a "Supernumery" and he caught my eye, obviously pleased. like he'd been given a super power or something. "Super!" he said, giving me a thumbs up. too cute.

Books: Down Came the Rain

I'm reading "Down Came the Rain - My Journey Through Postpartum Depression" by Brooke Shields. Picked it up at the library. Whoo, can this girl tell it like it IS. This book will help many many women. I'm so lucky I didn't suffer too much from ppd with either of my kids. I cried here and there, and definitely felt overwhelmed after the birth of number one, but when the girl came along, I felt terrific and bounded out of bed every morning with hope and purpose for months afterward. And I got to have the birth experience I wanted (exit via the usual route, no surprises, wonderful nurses, my mom was there, etc) both times. So. Very grateful, to say the least.

I am also really hearing what Brooke Shields has to say about her experience. If I haven't felt everything she felt, I know some woman who did, you know? She's also very revealing, and lays it all out there for dear reader:

I kept leaning over and smelling her to see if I could recognize her scent or anything familiar about her. In a strange way, she seemed to know me muuch better than I did her. She was able to look directly at me, as if she had everything all figured out. I felt self-conscious when alone with her. She seemed pure and honest and raw, and it unsettled me. I tried to talk to her when we were alone.
"Baby girl, please be patient with me. I think I'm having a hard time here, and I don't want you to be sad because of it. please love me. I promise I'll try to ge tbetter."

I'm also halfway through "We Were the Mulvaneys" by Joyce Carol Oates. And I got the book written by that woman who has autism and works on desinging more humane ways to manage cattle bound for slaughter or something? I like to be in the middle of something large, and also have a couple of smaller books to power through on the side.

Anyway, time to go. I work hard on the house all day and yet come Friday, it's all gone to hell again. My bedroom is a mess, my sheets have sand in them somehow, laundry laundry laundry, and I need to be ready to lay all the christmas decorations over the top of everything. oh yes, and hang out and take care of margie. and go to the vet and go to the drugstore to pick of my dog's xanax (yes that's right). So you see. To do to do to do.

A big shout out to our much loved Auntie Ro as she recovers from surgery with her big sis by her side. Go go Auntie Ro! And hooray for my dad who gets to take the next four weeks off from chemo!

GOOD HEALTH TO YOU AND YOURS, HUH? have a good day