The whirlwind that is my life

Phew! I've been so busy lately I haven't even looked at Blogger in I-don't-know-how-long. Here are all the things I can remember that have made me say, "I should put that in my blog."

The day I left for Stacee's funeral, Mike took Rebecca for her 5-year-old check-up. It's the first of any of my kids check-ups that I've missed! She still has her heart murmur (which the cardiologist said is "innocent"), she needs to have her eyes checked, and didn't pass the tee-tee test--had to take it again this past Friday, and still didn't pass. Has to do it again this coming Monday--she still has too much protein in there and they want to double (triple?) check it. But said not to worry. Yeah. First thing I did was google "protein in urine" to see what I should be worrying about. She also got her 4 shots on Friday--that always breaks my heart. She cried, but not too bad, and we got a snow cone afterwards. She's such a sweetie. When she touches something hot she says, "Hot-e-lula!" And I was showing her doll clothes for Rosie, and when she really liked one she'd say, "Oh. My. Darlin'." Cracked me up. She also still calls marshmallows "smarshmallows." Do I have to teach her the right way to say it?

Stacee's funeral really impacted me, and on my way home I kept hearing this song that talks about "going through the motions," and it really convicted me to want to live life to the fullest, and not go through the motions. Then I wondered what I'm supposed to be doing that I'm not, and how I could possibly do one thing more, when I realized that I don't need to do one thing more...I need to do what God has given me. Love my husband...raise my kids...lead children's sermon...teach Cubbies...be a friend...sing in the choir...with all my heart, not holding anything back. It was both an inspiration and a relief at the same time.

I bought a new shower curtain over Spring Break! Finally got rid of the rubber ducky theme. Isn't it fun!

And look at my beautiful baby dogwood tree:

The Monday after I got back Jessica and Mikayla had to take standardized tests with the other home schoolers--seemed to go fine. We had an Easter party afterward, and I did a little activity with them, telling the Easter story. We had about 30 kids there, which was great! But the one family I was hoping would be there to hear it wasn't. Oh well.

The week before Easter was full of rehearsals for our church's annual presentation of the "Living Last Supper." It's a drama/musical of the life of Christ, but the actor's freeze at the last supper in the pose from Da Vinci's famous painting. I really enjoyed watching it last year, and it was even more fun being in it this year, but it literally took up 5 of 7 nights Easter week. All 3 girls were in it, too, and the kids are just so sweet I got teary-eyed every time! It was hard not to crane my head around to see them and take pictures. We even forgot to give Mike the camera the night he came! I copied some pictures off some friends on facebook, but look how teeny they are--no way you can see my kiddos! Unless you go to my profile and look there...

I love being back in choir! I am getting to know some ladies I wouldn't have otherwise, and just losing myself in the music is good for me, with all that's been going on. There are times I find myself going up on my toes when I'm singing, a habit I picked up from my friend Sydney, and it makes me grin and miss her at the same time.

Easter was a great day. Jessica made a public profession of faith in church that morning! And so did a friend of Mikayla's and a teenage girl who's a foreign exchange student from Argentina who had gone to Miami with Mike on their Spring Break trip, as an interpreter. So exciting! They're all getting baptized tomorrow.
We had hoped my Mom could come, but her sister had surgery and needed help, so we were disappointed in that. We invited our new youth minister and his family instead, and one of our college students. They all asked for my potato casserole recipe. Hee-hee. It really is the best! We missed Matt and Jackie, as usual, and talked about them. Mostly good. Matt's a little bitter about a certain missing hat...

This week has been the first week since I had the flu that I've had both energy and time to get my house back in order, so that's what I've been doing. We've got a vegetable garden planted, and a salsa garden, and I hope this rain that WON'T STOP doesn't flood them out. As long as it's not a tornado, I'll try not to complain. We also had crazy hair night at AWANA--see:

That's all the random thoughts I can think of right now. I know there were more! But I need to iron clothes and sweep and mop the kitchen floor. We woke up to ANTS in there this morning (grrrr) and the bug guy's closed on Saturday. Anyway, I'll hopefully get all that done and then see what all of y'all have been up to!