Giving Thanks

I am so excited for Thanksgiving! I love the warm, fuzzy feeling brought on by the beginning of the holiday season when we look forward to good times, laughter, and excellent food shared with family and friends. There are also special traditions to honor and new ones to create. I am reminded of all the joys of the past year and am thanking God for the blessings of having a beautiful, healthy son, a loving and sensible husband, a warm home, and an extremely hyperactive puppy. :) I am also grateful for all of you, for your love and kindness, whether we are near or far. I am lucky to have so many wonderful people in my life. I especially remember Grandma Beaudoin, who we lost last year around this time. We had many fun times and I have only the happiest memories of her. We miss you, Grandma...

At a time of year that can be difficult for some people, I hope you are all able to share some warmth with your loved ones and give thanks. I wish you all the happiest of Thanksgivings and the fullest of bellies!

Strength in Numbers

The gals at work occasionally give me a hard time for being somewhat aggressive and not afraid to say things that may upset others. If an issue arises that turns into a gossipy mess, I am usually the one to nip it in the bud. For those who know me well, this comes as no surprise; I get my no-nonsense ability to tell it like it is from my father.

Yesterday while at a work meeting I was part of something that really made me feel like an adult. We teachers were discussing some of our on-the-job stresses, the biggest of which is that we end up volunteering many hours three times a year because we have no time to prepare for conferences when we are teaching children all day and have desks that are overflowing with lesson plans, prep, and other paperwork, not to mention a myriad of other less-than-glamorous job duties to be done. At my suggestion, a group of co-workers and I presented some issues to our boss, with me as spokesperson. I was a little bit nervous about this, as she sometimes doesn't take me seriously and brushes off our complaints with excuses about having no budget. Furthermore, I sometimes ask stupid questions that, had I taken the time to really think about it, either I already knew the answers to or were not very tactful, (which is unlike me... not sure why I do it!) and I end up regretting ever bringing them up. In fact, if I had to guess, I would say that I think my boss liked me more when I was just a temporary employee who didn't know anything!

Anyway, back to my story. As this was an impromptu meeting-after-a-meeting, I think we may have caught our boss off-guard, but it ended up being to our advantage. Surprisingly, she took our comments quite well and was willing to work with us on suggestions as to how to improve our situation. We were even able to share a few laughs, and I know all of us left feeling re-energized about finishing out the rest of this busy month at work. We were all grateful for her feedback and suggestions, and I was glad to have begun the discussion that got the ball rolling. It may seem like a minor thing to some of you readers, especially those who have had more experience in the world of work than I have, but I was proud of my professionalism for a change, and it was so refreshing to feel validated.

There: I am done tooting my own horn! (That reminds me of a corny joke Phil said on the show Kath & Kim the other night... hilarious! Does anyone else watch?)

Side note: As a federally funded program, the agency I work for does not allow overtime pay or comp time outside of the same week. Ridiculous! Let's hope President-elect Obama lives up to his promises for teachers and for early childhood education!

9 Months

Happy nine month birthday, Jackson! It is crazy to think that my little baby will be a big, one-year-old boy in just three short months. Curt and I were commenting the other night that he is starting to look different to us for the first time. Obviously he has looked very different over the past nine months as he's grown, but now our eyes can see that he is really beginning to lose those sweet baby qualities in his face. Makes a mama sad.

Speaking of being a big boy, Jackson is working on many new moves, in addition to perfecting his crawling skills. He is getting faster and faster at moving around the house, exploring everything and getting into things he shouldn't, thereby hearing the word "no," which he really doesn't like. Suddenly all those boring adult objects at floor level of the house are simply fascinating. Especially the recycling, cords, and power strips. Last week I said no to him when he was trying to go for the power strip on the computer, and he started to cry and put his head down onto his hand, which was resting on the floor. It was the funniest thing I've seen him do yet! Heartbreaking - which was surely the intention - but hilarious.

He is also getting really good at pulling himself up onto things and has even been cruising along the coffee table and the couches. He seems to be very proud of himself upon reaching his destination, which is terribly cute. Furthermore, he has scaled at least three of the steps in the basement! Jackson is developing rapidly, and we are just in awe as we take it all in. At this rate my guess is that he'll be cruising faster by Thanksgiving and walking at Christmastime!

Deer Camp

While Daddy was at the opening weekend of Deer Camp '08, Jackson and I enjoyed a lovely weekend with my mom, my sister, my aunt, and friends. Mom and Bre came up Friday night to stay with us and then helped me get ready for the Tastefully Simple party - delicousness! - that I hosted on Saturday with my aunt (she's a rep). It was a very nice party, with friends from my work and Curt's work, as well as 4 babies! We enjoyed listening to all the squealing and babbling. :) Bre and I had fun watching Tommy Boy that night and playing cards the next day, not to mention doing what we're best at: eating! Jackson had a cold over the weekend but did fine while the guests were here and, despite the sometimes deep hacking, he wasn't super bothered by it.

Jackson was sleeping when Curt got home Sunday afternoon, and he was so excited to see Daddy when he woke up! He wouldn't stop smiling and staring at him for the longest time. Daddy was pretty glad to see his little boy, too. :)

I was also glad to see Curt again... at first. Little did I know that while I was having a good time with my family and friends, enjoying the thought of a nice family evening before starting another work week, Daddy was planning to bring a little piece of Deer Camp '08 back home...

That's right, I was held against my will in the basement and forced to cut up raw venison until my back was throbbing and my fingers ached. This went on for nearly 4 hours. 4 hours, people! UGH!!! And keep in mind that you are only seeing about 20% of the meat we cut. These trays kept getting re-loaded over and over and over. This is the way I felt when I was finished:

Okay, okay, so it wasn't really that bad, and I think I did pretty well for my first time, but let's just say that I hope this is a one-deer season. Sorry, Curt. Oh, and for those who need to know details, he shot a spike buck about 5 minutes after he got into his stand Saturday morning while it was still pretty dark. If he'd have known what it was, he says, he wouldn't have shot it. The men didn't see anything else the whole weekend. They are really looking forward to shooting some more deer next weekend. Looks like I'm doomed.

In Memory

Yesterday was marked with a sad loss for my mother-in-law's family: her sister, Karen, passed away after fighting a cancer that had been treated, returned, and spread in her body. Cancer is such a prevalent disease and it seems that no matter how healthy and active one tries to be, like Karen was, no one is immune. Times like these, although extremely difficult, often remind us not to take life for granted and to count our blessings. Be grateful for this day: read a long-sitting book, go for a walk in the beautiful weather, or relax with loved ones in honor of Karen. And if you are the type to do so, please pray for her soul and the grieving hearts of her family. Love to you all.

Happy Birthday, Madelyn! *updated*

Our sweet little niece and Goddaughter is one year old today! I am in absolute disbelief that it's been so long since she was just a tiny peanut of a newborn...

... and now she is such a big girl!


A beautiful butterfly for her first Halloween

Her mommy Sheila will be glad I couldn't find a cute pregnant picture of her to post. :0 I did look really hard for one, though. Darn.

We didn't make it over to see you on your birthday, Madelyn, but we hope you had a wonderful, fun, happy day! We can't wait to see you again soon and we love you so much!

Creeping, Crawling

Jackson has been crawling for the past two weeks! Curt and I have been busy warning him of dangers, trying to protect our stuff that's still in his arm's reach, and also trying to prevent booboos. :) A while after he had learned to roll onto his tummy, he learned how to get onto his hands and knees and he would rock back and forth and that was fun for a while. Pretty soon he was getting into that position and whining because he couldn't get anywhere. It wasn't long after that that he'd slowly do one hand and one leg at a time, and before we knew it, he was crawling! His first actual fluid crawling movements were at daycare, and when I saw him do it at home for the first time I cried (of course). It was so precious! Now it's old hat around here - but definitely still cute. I love watching his little tushie creep across the floor! As soon as I get the camcorder/computer hookup working, I promise to post video of it so you can see for yourselves how adorable it is. :)

Now that he seems to have mastered the huge milestone on the road towards big boy-hood that is crawling, he's learning those other Mommy-heartbreaking skills pretty fast. He can pull himself up to a full standing position; it went from knees to feet super quickly. He has even taken a couple steps while propped up on things! I'm gonna bet Curt a backrub that he'll be walking by 10 months, but I secretly hope he doesn't. I don't want my baby to be that big of a boy yet! I guess that's not really a secret, is it?!

And now, a special picture just for my "anonymous" commenter. A couple weeks ago I posted about all the fun "Anonymous" had playing with a remote-control truck - namely keeping it rudely just out of Jackson's reach. Last weekend Jackson had lots of fun playing with his cousin Gibson's big truck, and I thought you might be jealous, "Anonymous," so I figured I'd rub it in. :)

Trick or Treat

At first I thought I wouldn't get Jackson a costume for his first Halloween. I figured, he's a baby, he won't know the difference or he might not like wearing something strange, and we might not go anywhere anyway. But the more pictures and costumes I saw, I knew I couldn't resist! Target was the only place around here with infant costumes, but they were too small for him, so I ordered a cheap one online. Last weekend while on a trip toward P-town to pick up a used kennel for Sadie, we stopped to visit at my aunt Kristi's. The costume I had ordered for Jackson had not come in the mail yet, so we ended up borrowing this ladybug suit from cousin Olivia. While he did look pretty cute in it, the ladybug's not a very male-appropriate costume. Plus he doesn't have any black pants or shirts he could have worn with it. We went to see Great Grandma and Grandpa while he had it on and they thought it was pretty cute, too. However, I do like his actual costume much better:

Curt had to work Friday night, as he has the past two Halloweens, so Jackson didn't do any actual trick-or-treating. I didn't want to leave Sadie behind barking while we interrupted people's dinners to go during daylight so he crawled around here in it while I laughed instead. He did wear his costume to daycare, though, at Mommy's insistence (Daddy was embarrassed to be seen dropping him off in it). And one neighbor actually rang our doorbell this year, so at least his mom got to see Jackson in his costume. Hopefully next year the fam can trick or treat together around the neighborhood.