Let's go swimming!

Woo hoo! We have a pool and the weather sucks! It sure will be nice to look at since it will never be warm enough to actually swim in. Ryan reminds me that it's a good thing he wanted to order that heater for the pool. Whatever, I guess he can be right about one thing - but that's it for the year. Here it is going in and getting filled (apparently it will take about 2 days to fill up) - these are taken from the upstairs of our house and you can even see the new garage in the back. The grass - the poor poor grass that took 2 years to grow - we have some work to do on repairing that. The decking and fence around the pool are going up on Monday.

BEFORE:

DURING:

AFTER:

Yo, like my Caddy?

Teague got this baby Cadillac Escalade from his Auntie before he was ever born. He has taken quite an interest in it, however he can't quite get his legs up and on it without some help from mama or daddy. He particularly seems to enjoy pushing the music button and dancing (read: bobbing) to the techno music!

While we had our Rockband party Teague went to Nana and Papa's for the night. It was my first night OVERNIGHT without him, ever! It seemed a bit weird being home without him. My mom said he was so good she almost feels bad for him that he's such a good boy! He just played in their crib for awhile, then went to sleep for the night and didn't make a peep until 11 hours later at 7am! What a good boy. We sure did miss him and rushed (okay, we didn't get out of bed until 10 am) to Morris to see him. While he was there he learned to "talk" on the cell phone:

He is definitely busy and is ready to walk. On Thursday he took one step to me! I thought he would surely be walking by the end of the weekend, but no - not yet.

We have just two weeks left of school. I can't wait to be home with Teague again. I was out of work sick two days last week with an awful cold, fever and chills. It sucked. Poor little Teague has had a runny nose for a month now - hopefully it's not allergies and just the joys of being a daycare baby!

Next weekend we have Uncle Bolla's 55th birthday and celebration of his last round of radiation. The party will be at my parents.

Hope you had a good Memorial weekend!

Rockband Party, Part I

This weekend we hosted a Rockband Party at our house. Well, the Dukowitz's were nice enough to bring the Rockband - we just provided the vincinity for the party. It was a great time. Nirvana's "In Bloom" has been in my head ALL weekend. I believe that song was sung/played towards the end of the party. The Duke's were obviously the best - but they were pretty good at understanding that the rest of us were amateurs -either that or Cory just continued to drink the way he did because he was annoyed at the rest of us?? Ian went through the majority of our rags with all the soaking up his spilled drinks on the floor - you apparently can't drink and play Rockband when you are just an amateur. We started the night guys vs. girls - but it quickly became clear that the girls were just not hitting it right - as you can tell by a few pictures at the bottom, the boys kept rocking and the girls started fading - hence the laying on the couch! However, we did make it until 2 am! I do hope to post that there will be a Rockband Party, Part II in the Future. Stay tuned.

Weekend Fun.

We had a good weekend. Friday night we went to Ridgewater College with my family to celebrate my sister's graduation from nursing school. We are all so proud of her. She worked so hard for the past couple of years. She was a full time mom, wife, worked two jobs - one in her former field as an Occupational Therapist, and one as an LPN while she earned her RN - all while attending college and doing clinicals. So she did all of that and still graduated with honors. I think I speak for most of the family when I say that we are also glad that she is done. She has worked so hard and now it is time to just enjoy three full time jobs instead of six (wife, mom and nurse)! So Teague had a long evening that night, but he was good and just went with the flow of it all.

The rest of the weekend we worked on the lawn. It's all coming together nicely. The new garage is completed and the pool is scheduled to go in a week from Thursday (weather permitting)! We are excited to spend some time in the pool!

Teague is doing well. He is climbing like a monkey on any and everything. He has a few bumps and bruises - which are just a few of many to come I am sure. He also "found" his tongue yesterday. He loves to grab it and try to grab mine too. He is still a TOTAL daddy's boy. He wakes up and right away it is "dada? dada? dada?" until he sees Ryan. I know Ryan loves it. I am still jealous that the words mama are nowhere near coming out of his mouth!

We hope your week is great!

My Big 10 Month Old BABY!

10 months old, already?! See how my big boy can stand and clap by himself (picture on the side bar). Baby Teague is almost a toddler. Will I always call him baby Teague?? It's like my nephew Chase, we called him Chasey Babes forever. He started introducing himself to people as Chasey Babes. So we may have a Chasey Babes and a Baby Teague on our hands! He is busy learning to walk, I am sure that is right around the corner. My friend Amber's little boy, Mikey - he is 7 weeks older than Teague. Every milestone that he has hit, Teague hits around the same time! It's nice to have someone else to say "watch out, this is going to happen" and sure enough - almost like clockwork. However, Mikey was walking BY 10 months, so I am still buying some time!

He is such a great little boy. Sleeps like a dream, is the happiest little boy - just very content! He has changed our lives for the best. We are so fortunate. I love being a mom! Thanks Teague.

My 1st Mother's Day!

It's corny and cliché, but every day is a "mother's day" for me with Teague. He is an absolute treasure in my life! He has changed my life completely - and it is all for the better that I am changed. I feel a completeness in where I am in life. I have a wonderful husband, a beautiful home and a delightful child. Life cannot be any better right now! I am very fortunate!

We spent Mother's Day morning with my family. We all went to church and then to brunch. That afternoon we did a little work around the outside of the house, but mostly we just relaxed. It was a great weekend all together.

Teague is getting very clever and is very curious. He is standing a lot on his own without holding onto things and then stands there and claps for himself. He is very proud! He crawls so fast, I can't believe it. He still does his monkey crawl on the hard floors and I really need to get a better video of that before he starts walking because it is so funny to watch! He is a really good eater. Tonight I gave him scalloped potatoes and ham and he was shoveling it in his mouth so fast. He just couldn't get enough of it! I also gave him a fresh chocolate chip cookie, which he ate very quickly as well. Any other child and you would say "growth spurt", but Teague eats like this everyday. He is all boy I guess!

Mother's Day - me with my boys
Mama and Teague on Mother's Day
The Mohr girls on Mother's Day
Teague the Monkey (aka: Dunstan)
"Mmmmmm, I love chocolate chip cookies!"

Drama.

Sheesh. Let me tell you, if you are here reading this - it's hopefully because you CARE about my family and want to see new pictures of my kid. If that is the reason you are here, cool - thanks for visiting! Please continue to visit and try not to let my rant below to nosy co-workers affect your feelings about visiting here. I just had to put the word out there to these snoopy people about what I really feel.

If you are here because you "heard" about our blog from someone at work and you just want to read and gossip about what I write about my job (and the chance that I may lose my position and how I "feel" about the union) - go away and get a life. This blog was created for those that care about my family, plain and simple. I don't password protect my blog because it would be too time consuming and confusing for my friends and family who really care. Eventually they would stop visiting this blog because they can't or don't care to remember another password. So if this is you, please stop reading and gossiping about the newest blog entry and passing the news around work and then act all normal and friendly to my family. I am saddened about this and yes - you know who you are and if you really care.

Spurs, thistles and cockelburrs (sp?)????

Gosh, I suck as a mom when it comes to choking hazards. I really don't freak out too much about what Teague eats or puts in his mouth. Like dirt, he eats it a lot. Seriously, unless we have just used "round up" or some other weed killer on the ground, does it really matter if Teague eats the dirt? I mean dirt really never killed anyone, right???!!! Well last night my parents stopped over on their way home after their trip to Ireland. Teague was so freakin' happy to see them. He was just hamming it up for them. Well as they are getting ready to leave Teague is just drooling and crying (and he is not the type of baby to cry unless he is TIRED and ready for bed). He kept chewing on something and then crying - like BAWLING. We were all relatively concerned, but like most things in his mouth I just kept saying "ah, he will chew it up and swallow whatever is bothering him". Well after 15 minutes of this nonsense Ryan finally sees something in his mouth and after wrestling him down and putting him in a choke hold he scoops out a spur/thistle/cockelburr from his mouth!!! Those suckers hurt when I get one on my sock and it barely touches my skin and now my kid was chewing on one! No wonder he was carrying on like death! As soon as we got it out, he acted like normal - like nothing ever happened. What a weird-o. I do feel bad telling everyone - "oh he will be fine. Just let him be." Can you imagine that thing going through his tiny little butt?! Okay, I know - you really didn't want to picture that. But still!

The weather is amazing!! YIPPEE!! FINALLY. It is my first official Mother's Day. We aren't planning to do much. Church, brunch and relaxing. I already know what I will get from Ryan/Teague and I already bought some flowers and planters for them - and spent a lot of money. But I am such a good mom (aside from the semi-choking incident) that I deserve it. At least that is what I tell myself.

Have a great weekend!

Happy Birthday to Dada!

Ryan is still such a young pup, not even 30 yet. We had a low key evening on Friday to celebrate his birthday and just had the Bayer's over for dinner. Teague and I gave Ryan a couple of gifts - I won't mention what they were here because I don't want to embarrass him and have you question his masculinity. You will have to ask him if you want to know.

Mmmmm, yummy! Daddy's Birthday Cake!

Here is Chase making his best "scary" face for the camera. Yikes, don't strangle poor Teague!

Teague is becoming a total Daddy's boy. He only says dada constantly. It's almost annoying. Okay, well truly I am just jealous. We say to him "Ma ma ma ma ma ma ma" and he smiles and says "dada". Even when I mouth "mama" he outright says to me "dada" and laughs. I told Ryan all I wanted for mother's day was for him to say mama. So we practice and practice and he still says every babble word possible, but when prompted it's always "dada". (I put a short video clip of this on the side bar - it's not as clearly stated as he usually says it, but you will get the picture)! He can just keep it up as far as I am concerned and so when he wants something he will just scream for dada and Ryan can go runnin'. Even today when Ryan's parents were over helping us with some spring projects (i.e. transplanting those 500 trees we planted when we bought the land - what a job); Teague stood at the screen door, banging on it yelling "dada dada dada" and then smiling if Ryan turned around to look at him. What a stinker!

Things on the job front continue to get interesting. I am surprisingly really at peace with whatever happens. I think part of it for me is just that I know I have no say in it and it is a fight between the administration (who wants to keep me 1.0 FTE and the union who is battling for a social worker with more seniority to take over my position - LUDACRIS!). Anyway, the union representative came to see me on Friday and said that with my current license I can do special education testing. So what the union is planning to do is if the social worker who was placed on leave asks for a hearing to take my job - then an arbitrator would hear both sides (the administration and the union). The union will present that I am a Guidance Counselor .4 FTE per day and a special education tester .6 per day and the social worker will take the .6 guidance position and it will be named a social work position. This all leads to the question of will I have two different offices then? I mean seriously, so when I am working as a special education tester and a kid comes to my office with a question on financial aid, credits, classes, etc. - do I have to have a sign on the door that says "Guidance Counselor not in, Special Education tester in"?! As if I can only be a Guidance Counselor .4 FTE per day?! Oh well, the saga continues.

Well the good news is that the weather seems to finally be in our favor. The cement slab was laid last week and tomorrow they will start construction on the new garage! Hooray! Now if we can just get a consistent amount of warm weather, maybe we will actually get the swimming pool in this spring/summer!

Have a good week.