They Say it's Your Birthday...

Well, it's my birthday, too, yeah!

'Just wanted to wish two of my dearest friends the very happiest of birthdays this weekend. I love you both, and my life has been so richly blessed because of your presence in it!


Happy Birthday Friend...two days late!
(B-day Girl in the middle just before her wedding)



And Happy Birthday Mom! Thanks for sharing your birthday dinner. My tummy is still full and happy. (This is Charlie helping Mom and Livy plant some flowers. By drinking the water from the watering can.)

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.

It was FREEZING and drizzling rain! I think we found all the eggs and were back inside within 3.7 minutes.

Aunt Jaime and Olivia share a close bond. Is it their mutual love for the dramatic? Or princesses? Or musicals, like The Little Mermaid?


Or CHOCOLATE?!

Please pray!

To all my praying friends and family, please pray for my dear friend Beth. She was diagnosed with a glioblastoma about two and a half years ago. Every day since then has been a blessing from God for her, her husband, and their four BEAUTIFUL little girls, one of whom I had the privilege of teaching. They are in Kindergarten, 1st, 4th, and 5th grades, and being back at my old school has allowed me to see them all often.

Beth's health despite the tumor has been uncharacteristic for her diagnosis but is no real surprise to her. Her faith in God is so deep and evident. She even told me a couple months back that she wouldn't change anything. She accepts the situation she's in and uses it to glorify God.

This last week, her scan showed the tumor had grown about a cm in a three-week span, as opposed to the typical mm or so. Please keep her, her family, and her doctors in your prayers as they plan the next course of action. Pray for a miracle, and for strength and peace for each family member through their storm. Thanks!


Full of joy, the sense of humor is intact! Hat says, "No Hair Day."


The girls at the school talent show last year - so sweet!

I'm not convincing

The other night, Livy asked Aaron if she could watch Monsters, Inc., her current favorite movie. He thanked her for asking so nicely and said that we couldn't watch it at that time, so she folding her hands in the begging position (Where'd she learn that?!) and asked if she could "puhweese watch Monsers."

He said, "We can't watch it right now, but you are very convincing."

To that she replied, "I'm not Convincing; I'm Olivia!"


This afternoon in the Kindergarten class, one sweet girl made a little craft for me and told me I could put anything in it I wanted. When I asked her for a suggestion, she said I could put a dog in it. I drew a puppy and said her name is Gracie, like my dog. Her jaw dropped, and she told me, "I have a dog named Gracie. I used to have a dog named Muffin, but she died and is in heaven now."

I went along with the whole pets-go-to-heaven-thing (because they do) and said, "Oh, wow. So now she's healthy and happy."

Sweet Girl said, "Well...God IS pretty nice."

Cute. And from the heart.

About a million pics

We've had lots of fun lately. I took Livy and Samantha (our precious weekend friend) roller skating for Valentine's Day. My parents always made it a point to do something sweet and special for us on Valentine's Day when we were growing up, and I want to pass on the tradition. Taking Olivia to the skating rink I used to skate at when I was a preschooler seemed like a fun way to do that.

It was SO fun teaching her something new, and she tried to skate like the girl on Ice Princess and would dramatically fall down and hold her ankle when she did. So funny, that girl.

Samantha the Love Bug loved holding my hand and skating with me. Did Olivia? Of course not! "'Scuse me, Momma," she would say as she gently pushed my hand away. She didn't even want me close to her once she got the hang of it. It was such a blast!

We followed that up with meeting up with Daddy to go to a Valentine's Party at the library. Our friend Cutter (one of the boys I nannyed for last year) met up with us just befor we left the rink and partied with us as well. It was fun, but too chaotic to get many pics there. Here are some photos and a video clip of the Chicken Dance (ignore the wobbliness on the video and the "I'm GAY" on the carpeted wall behind Livy in one pic):

God is so Good

I didn't catch it all - she's less interested in singing when the camera is out - but this warms my heart!



And, like the doof I can be, I don't know how to edit the video, and rather than figure it out, I am posting it as is. It give a glimpse of the whole boundary-testing thing.

What you mean to me - from your husband.

Jenny,

Often, your family and friends don't get to see what you mean to me because I'm a bit of a different person when I'm in public than when I'm in private. So I thought I would tell them all what you mean to me on your BlogSpot.

We have come a long way in twelve years together. In our youth, we were much more open with our affection towards each other. Now, I'm a lot more private with all my feelings and even I sometimes don't open up in private to you either. For whatever reason, I've tightened up my personal feelings and haven't really allowed them to come out.

Looking back when we were young, I thought of you all day long, literally. I'd write love notes in class to you. For every major holiday, I'd go all out for you, especially on Valentine's Day. We would even surprise each other with things on non-holidays. We never lacked passion when we were young.

Over time, our passion turned into what I feel was true love for each other. We respected each other more and at the same time we reserved the lovy dovy stuff for when we were alone together (I imagine this made it much easier for people to be around us). Because we have been together since high school, we have grown into adults together. We have seen every imaginable phase of love with each other only, which I see as something very special. Not many people get to experience that.

We are different any many ways. You yearn and reminisce about the days when we were more openly in love, whereas I am now a love hermit. I only show my love for you at home in private and I am a little embarrassed when I think about how we made out in public. Why this is, I don't know, maybe it's just the natural progression of things for men and women. Despite this, I feel that I love you more now, and in many more ways, than I did eleven or twelve years ago. Now that Olivia is in the picture, life with you is so different. I see things daily that make me love you more. When Olivia learns something new because you were doing an activity with her, it's just an example of how my love for you grows daily. You do things to help the family; make sacrifices that show your care and devotion to us. These things mean the world to me.

Our lives, the way that our day flows, is all based on you. You dictate the mood and the experience of our daily lives. When you're having a bad day so am I. When your spirits are through the roof, so are mine. That is such a wonderful thing to me, that the order of our lives depends on you. It shows just what a special person you are. If you were taken from my life, then it would crumble.

Everything in this post, you already knew. So why did I write it? Because I want friends and family to know what you mean to me. Perhaps next time one of your friends or family sees us together, instead of seeing a bickering couple, seemingly on the edge with each other, maybe they will see a raging inferno of love that forms new experiences every day. That's the way I see things.



Above is one of my favorite pictures. It shows us exhausted after the birth of Olivia. It seems like we go through this very same emotion every day together. Exhausted, but in love.