Teague's 9 Month Professional Pictures

Here are just 3 of the professional pictures we had taken of Teague for his 9 month bday. He did so well, smiled and laughed every time the flash went off! The lady commented that usually the babies/toddlers will cry because the flash scares them. Not my kid, he apparently thinks the world is hilarious. I was a little skeptical of how he would do with pictures - I thought he would crawl all over like a monkey and try to tear up the place, but he was really good and very fascinated by the whole process! So these pictures were taken about 3 weeks ago. Oh, at his 9 month check up he was 30.5" (off the charts) and 24 pounds (90th percentile). So he continues to grow and amaze us! We about peed our pants laughing when Grandma (Esther) said Teague is already almost half of her height!

"Vegas, Baby!": Prom 2008

Yes, it's true - the students still think we are the coolest teachers at Melrose HS, so we were once again the prom advisors this year. Okay, so truthfully they don't have a decision in whether we are the advisors or not, but it makes us sound really important. This is my fifth year doing it. It's pretty fun, but it's a lot of work for one evening. This year it should have been called winter formal instead of prom as we had a blizzard going on Saturday morning and afternoon. People were calling asking if we were going to cancel prom. Ryan's response (to me - not to the callers): "...last time I checked prom was an inside, optional event. We could get 10 more inches of snow and we STILL would not call it off." The reason for the sarcasm: we seriously are given about 5 hours to set up in the elementary gym and cafeteria. If we had to go and tear down all those quality cardboard structures, we would have to re-order everything (thus costing us a ton more) and then set it all up again on a weekend that worked for everyone. Not going to happen. So luckily the snow tapered off and the roads were good enough and everyone made it! Teague stayed home on Saturday night with Nana and Papa. Many of the girls were asking if they could take Teague as their prom date, but I said he is MUCH too young to date. The only girl he cares most about right now is his mama and I am going to keep it that way for as long as I can because I know there will come a day when I just don't rate anymore. The kids picked "Las Vegas" for decorations and we needed to come up with a theme and Ryan gave them the grand idea of "Vegas, Baby!" and it stuck! Ryan was dealing blackjack, which was a hit - with no real gambling going on of course. He complained that his shoulder and "rotater cuff" hurt afterwards. At least I don't have to worry about him quitting his job to go work on the reservation as a blackjack dealer. So all in all it was a great evening and the kids really seemed to enjoy themselves. I forgot to take some pictures of the cafeteria, only the gym. Here are some pictures...

Progressive Dinner

We had a great weekend. The weather was semi-decent and we had a good time with some of our closest friends! We had a progressive dinner. We started at our house with appetizers, moved onto Sartell to the Wahlin's for dinner, moved to the Woods' for dessert and ended at the Sand's for after dinner cocktails and entertainment. Unfortunately our friends the Dukowitz's were supposed to join us and bring their Rockband with (the only reason we invited them - no just kidding Jaci/Cory; kind of). Anyway, it was a good time with lots of wine, beer and champagne enjoyed by everyone. It was kind of nice to do something different than meet up at a restaurant. And it gave them all an excuse to come "all the way" to Melrose!!

Teague went to Grandma and Grandpa's and we joined him in an overnight visit there. He was great. I always get a little nervous when we sleep somewhere else because he can be a pain, but he did awesome.

Here we are (towards the end of the night!):

Teague is "So Big"!

Well my baby is 9 months old! Here he is showing off his early morning smile on his 9 month birthday- laughing everytime the camera flashed!



Here he is demonstrating that he is "SOOOOO BIG"!!





"I am going to grab that camera away from you mama"!

Not the greatest way to start a weekend...

Well I got news at work on Thursday that they will be making budget cuts (what else is new, this happens every year). One of the proposed cuts is to cut our middle school social worker. Well that really stinks because when I started there were 5 of us total in the department and now we are down to 3 after all the cuts for the past 6 years. So this means my caseload would just increase even more - which stinks. Well then I find out that the person being cut has went to the teacher's union to request that they look into the legalities of her being able to have my job since she has more seniority than I do. So legally, they (the union) have to determine if she has the right to take over my position. The whole thing is completely dumb considering she is a licensed social worker and I am a licensed guidance counselor. However, when one of the social workers was cut 2 years ago, she and the union feel that I had to take over some of the social work duties, therefore I am doing part of a social worker's job - and therefore she thinks she has rights to my position. So it is a yucky and cruddy situation. It's not fun to think after building our new home and thinking we were established that I may be uprooted to looking for a new job. Yikes. Ryan and I always said that if one of us was cut, we would have to be open to both of us leaving. I don't think we are to that point right now as Ryan has told me not to apply for a new job, yet. He thinks it is all so outrageous, so I think he just thinks we should sit tight. Patience has never been a strong virtue of mine!!!

On a brighter note - even though we just had a blizzard, school was closed yesterday so we were able to enjoy a longer weekend with Teague. He is so fun right now and soooo busy getting into EVERYTHING! He no longer will eat baby food, so we will be donating the rest of our baby food. He wants whatever we eat. He has 4 teeth up top now and 2 on the bottom, so hopefully we are done cutting teeth for another couple of months. These last 4 were tough!

Last night my parents came over because they missed Teague so much. Ryan and I took advantage of that and went out for a date. We had a great meal and went to a really dumb movie. Today I had to administer the ACT at school and then we visited our friends Jean and Ben in the hospital - they just had a little boy! Tomorrow we are getting his 9 month pictures - because, can you believe my baby is 9 months old on Monday already?! Crazy.

Hope your weekend is going well.