jennypen: Update, Part One

I used to blog.

Since then, I've:
-gone back to work as a long-term sub
(read- full-time teacher, no benefits, sub pay)
-taken my ESL cert exam
-had Strep
-given my daughter Strep
-spent a day at the Spring Fair with the girls
-attended an Irish Festival with the hubs, girl, and parents-in-law
-traveled to Nashville to see Aunt Jaime (Livy's aunt, my sista)
-hosted a dinner for 11 people (my biggest, yet)
-reestablished The Bunny Cake party with the fam (with the help of my grandparents, aunt, parents, sister, and cousins)
-spent time with dear friends and their dears
-become an aunt (to Jake the dog, he-he)
-suprise-showered my sis-in-law-to-be
-taken blue-bonnet pics
-graded a few papers
-applied for (QUITE) a few teaching positions for next year
-visited some child care centers
-baby-sat each weekend day
-celebrated a dear friend's wedding (despite Strep) and cried at the father-daughter dance
AND
-FALLEN BEHIND AT EVERYTHING!!!

I'm really trying to figure out how to juggle working, parenting, wife-ing, and everything else. I dropped my Women's Bible Study in the midst of this craziness, which is probably not the thing to be dropping. Blogging has conveniently been ignored so I don't have to log these deficiencies, but it's where I am. It's a great release, and people who care about me probably want to know what's really going on in MY life as I want to know what is going on in THEIRS.

One important update is that Beth's neurosurgery went very well. They were able to get everything they were hoping to, I was told, and she was home less than a week after surgery. I no longer see her and her girls daily, as I'm at a different school for my long-term job, so I miss that! They absolutely continue to need prayers, though!

That's all I got. Except that Livy sang Happy Birthday to my mom on the phone today and, upon finishing, said, "Let's blow," and jumped off the couch and took a bow. Oh, and the other day, she did her dramatic sob, called Daddy into her room and said, "I miss my bed," while looking at a picture of herself in her crib and pointing toward the storage shed in our backyard. She hasn't slept in that in almost a year, so we were surprised by that.

And here are some pics from our sweet busy lives. I think I'll start with the Nashville trip and try to post pics from other event in the near future.

Thank goodness our GPS has an icon to show us when it's raining! How else would we know? It rained for almost the entire drive there and much of the drive back. While we were there Saturday, we were out running around when the tornado sirens went off. Crazy road trip weather!

Olivia drove. Of course, she couldn't quite reach the pedals, so Grandma Mollie helped with that part.

The book Olivia tells about a pig named Olivia who wakes up in the morning and "moves the cat" - so this really tickled me. Kramer probably weighs almost as much as the kid and was a WONDERFUL sport. His brother Cosmo stayed up in the window above the kitchen sink most of the time we were there. I wonder why.

My Girl loves to help in the kitchen and feel like a big girl, so she really got a kick out of measuring the water and vinegar for the egg dyes. We hunted eggs early so Aunt Jaime could get in on the fun.