May has been a busy month. The mosaic above is only a small sample of what we were doing between the 2nd and 11th. That doesn’t even cover the time we spent at my sister- and brother-in-law’s farm with Troy’s mom and stepdad, or having dinner with Jenn and her boys, or Annalie’s zoo birthday party or painting pottery or toasting marshmallows with Katrina & her family and Joe & Kassie.

Or the fact that Sonja and Noah are here now for a two-week visit!

I have tons I want to tell you about. I have photos that I need to edit and Flickr, and blog posts I want to write. I am kind of resigned about the fact that mostly I won’t get to write them, though. I’ll be too busy feeding the baby and teaching Annalie and doing laundry and entertaining our guests and meeting up with friends and taking a quick trip to New York to meet Sarah and Suzy. I’ll do my best though, because I want to be able to read those posts in a year or two and remember this jam-packed, crazy fun month.

How’s your May going so far?

Perhaps you’ve noticed the excellent banners this blog has been sporting for the past couple of years? Brenda designed them, of course, just like she designs monthly banners for her own blog. One of the reasons it’s awesome to have a talented graphic illustrator as one of my best friends is because sometimes she gives me banners as gifts and lets me trade baking and crocheting and popsicle makers for them. Now, she wants to share the banner love with my readers too!

Brenda is offering a super-secret special for my readers and friends only. Banners at the low rate of $50. That might not seem low, but usually banners take her between one and four hours each, and I personally can vouch for how hard she works on them because I’ve watched her do it!

WordPress is being weird and not emailing my comments to me right now. (That’s why, if you’ve commented with a question, I have probably not replied to you because for some reason I suck at remembering to check the comments on my WordPress dashboard.) So if you would like the super-secret code, email me—bethanyactually@gmail.com—and I will email it back to you. And then you can talk to Brenda about getting a snazzy blog banner of your very own!

And where she lost her first baby tooth, right next to the new gap, the new adult tooth is coming in. This tooth just fell right out as Annalie was wiggling it. She and Elliora and I were just lounging around on the bed, hanging out, and suddenly Annalie said, “Hey, my tooth just fell out!” She actually had to search for it on the bed because it fell right out of her mouth.

In other news, we have not dropped off the face of the earth. We’re still here, still chugging along. How about a list?

• Elliora is growing and changing every day—she will play happily in the exersaucer long enough for me to get Annalie’s lunch made, and she flips herself over like it’s nothing and can almost hold herself upright in a sitting position.
• Annalie is extremely glad spring is here at last and tells me at least once a day that spring is her FAVORITE season. She spends a lot of time outside these days, wearing whatever she wants.
• Troy is still working crazy hours and getting home just in time to put Annalie to bed most nights. When he isn’t working he’s awesomely doing all the laundry in the house or unloading the dishwasher or doing our taxes.
• I am spending lots of time reminding myself that I am not just spending hours nursing and holding a baby when I could be doing something “more useful,” I’m preparing Elliora to meet the world as a secure, confident person, and even managing to get a bit of crocheting done occasionally. I’m also trying to figure out how to parent two kids without losing it or driving one of them to a life of crime. So far so good, mostly.
• Troy and I have gotten about halfway through Season 1 of Fringe—a show I’ve been meaning to watch since it premiered—thanks to Carrie lending us her DVDs! We are quite enjoying it. I actually know some of the stuff that’s coming down the road because I’ve watched a couple of random episodes at my parents’ house, and it’s interesting watching these early episodes knowing about the weird stuff to come.
• I really do intend to care about blogging again someday; it’s on my long-term to-do list. For now, though, eh. It’s just on the back burner. I think about things I want to blog every day, I just don’t quite get around to it. I miss it though. If you miss hearing from me feel free to check on my Flickr, which gets updated a bit more regularly.

Wow, this post was all over the place. Sorry about that. I’m also sorry if you’ve commented on this site recently and not gotten any reply from me even if you asked me a direct question. WordPress has decided to stop emailing my comments to me again. Probably I need to update to a newer version. Who knows.

What’s new with you?