Nathan's Prayer

Our whole household has been sick the past few weeks. Somebody's daughter at church came in with a bad cough, leaky nose and leaky eyes. She then passed it on to Nathan, who ended up with the flu. Then Dan got an upper respiratory infection, then I got a cold. We've been so miserable and couped up in our house. We had to miss out on a Valentine's date night with free babysitting provided by our church, a close friend's son's birthday party, church, small group, etc. I even worked from home for 4 days to avoid infecting my co-workers. Nathan is all healed now and Dan and I are still recovering. This is the first time in our marriage that we've been sick together at the same time. Dan rarely gets sick...I think he's only been sick 4 times in the 7+ years we've been married. Note to the whole family to get the flu shot next year. I'm the only one who got it this year and who knows if it would have been effective this year if Dan and Nathan got it. I've read that it was only 40% effective.

So, Nathan has been speaking so well these days and praying for us. Here's a sample of his recent prayers before he goes to bed. Note how he recounts his day backwards in his prayers:

"Dear Jesus, please heal Mommy and Daddy. They're sick (as he's stroking my arm). And help them sleep through the night peacefully. And my big stomach...mommy's big stomach, help baby grow in mommy's stomach (as he's patting my stomach). Thank you for bath time, for "mae mae", obey Mommy and Daddy, eat good dinner, take nap, go to library and storytime, eat breakfast. Thank you for the food. In Jesus' name, Amen."

Funny Summer Pics

Ran across some old pics from this past summer and was cracking up! He's such a comedian like his daddy.

Cousin Priscilla tried to make him look pretty like a girl!

"Cheese!" He's going to kill me for posting this when he gets older!

"I'm too tired to eat!!"

1st Trip to Dentist

First Trip To The Dentist 1/18/08

Nathan did great on his first visit to the dentist. If anyone is looking for a good pediatric dentist, let me know and I'll give you the name. She's located in Blue Bell and is really great. Nathan loved it and is looking forward to his next visit. He now reminds me to floss his teeth everyday and doesn't complain. Everything has been so easy for him except for potty training....still working on that and hoping he's not in diapers by the time he's in college!

Click on the picture above...it'll take you to another page and then click on the picture again to view the video.

Annual Review

We had our annual reviews this year and I have to say this year is the most disappointing year in all my working career. Before this year, I always received a rating of a 4 or 5 on a 5 point scale (5 being the highest and 1 being the lowest). Well, this year I received a 3. I was shocked and really upset. What upset me was that the review was full of criticism and “areas of improvement” mixed in with praise. I’m totally fine with feedback, but what upset me was that my boss never gave me any feedback all year, even when I asked him in our monthly meetings. Very frustrating! I pretty much refuted every point and pointed out that he wasn’t a very good manager this year (this is his first year being a manager and he’s terrible at delegating and training). I’m sensitive to begin with, but these pregnancy hormones have made me even more sensitive, so I cried in front of him! So embarrassing! Well, he knew I would be upset so he explained to me that he pretty much had no choice but to write all my areas of improvement as his new boss told him to do that. He even admitted to me that he wasn’t a good manager to me and that he would spend more time with me this year. Also, I found out from him and other people in my department that everybody got a 3 rating in my dept...nobody gets a 4 or 5. Apparently this has been standard practice in our dept for years and that your rating will not affect your raise/bonus. That made me feel slightly better, but I was still upset. There’s just something not right with having somebody rate you and your work. How objective are they really going to be? And I know for a fact there’s so much political b.s. that managers are told what kind of rating to give their employees, no matter how great of a job you did. Well, I did end up getting a raise and a small bonus, so I’m thankful I got something (considering how badly our company did last year and the shape of the mortgage industry). We didn’t even get a bonus last year, which upset a lot of us….I lost out on getting 16% of my salary. They even cut our raises last year, but because so many people complained, they decided mid year to give everybody a 2 or 3% raise if you performed well the previous year. Luckily I got the 3%. Let's just hope this mortgage industry picks up soon! These measly 2-3% raises are not catching up with the yearly inflation rate. However, I am thankful for anything they give us....it's better than nothing.