Baby Becker!

Yes, Jeff and I are expecting a BABY in mid-July!!!

Thanks for all your prayers/concerns/good thoughts for us over the past few years with all of my health issues. We are feeling very blessed & excited!

Jeff graduates from law school in May and takes the Bar Exam only 10 days after my due date -- so we're already hoping the baby comes sooner rather than later! ;)

I've recently been experiencing the joys of morning sickness/general queasiness & I'm starting my 2nd trimester next week.

Hope this first week of 2009 is going well for everyone!

I traveled to Nashville for a conference this past weekend. It was great to see the leaves actually change color!

I was able to enjoy a great cup of (Starbucks signature) hot chocolate and have it warm my hands as I walked outside in the crisp autumn weather.

oh yeah, & I got lots 'o FREE books -- score! :)

This week we performed "The Big Pumpkin" puppet show during
pre-school storytime(based on the children's book of the same name by Erica Silverman). We have 4 preschool storytimes at my library so needless to say I am a lil' tired :) It was great fun though-- I got to be the mummy and the bat (the bat's the best cuz he saves the day!). All the kids came in costume (the cutest was a little UPS guy and a cowgirl with her horse).

I dressed up like a "50's girl" & wore a poodle skirt -- one of my regulars (a little girl named Peyton) came up to me and said, "Ms. Deban, I like your sheep. Can I touch it?" hehehe

What are you or your kiddos dressing up like this year?

In August, my mom and I were able to take a trip to Colorado Springs together. It was great! Since I was 8 years old, I have listened to the morals-based radio drama "Adventures in Odyssey" produced by Focus on the Family. It had been 20 years since it started & we attended the 20th anniversary birthday bash - which included meeting the actors and being a part of a live recording of one of the shows. It was an experience I will never forget. I am so blessed that I was able to share this experience with my mom-- I will always treasure our trip together.

In September, Jeff & I went to the Texas State Fair for the first time. It was fun to see the "sights & smells", but I don't think I'll ever have to go again -- haha! We did ride the Pharris Wheel, uh, I mean Ferris Wheel :)

This October has been uber-busy! Every October is national "Teen Read Week" for libraries, which makes my life as a "Teen Librarian" extremely eventful. We hosted 2 performances of our "Teen Mystery Night" play - teens watch the play, guess who the culprit is & try to solve the case. I acted in it again this year...and I was the killer! But it was an accident, Really!! We also hosted a teen band from Arlington whose lyrics are based on the "Twilight" series -- "The Bella Cullen Project". They were great!

In November, I'll be traveling a lot for work-related events... I'll be in Nashville one weekend & Austin the weekend after that... I hope I can see some of you soon!!!

A children's book author read this C.S. Lewis quote at the library conference I attended:

"In a sense a child does not long for fairy land...Does anyone suppose that he really and prosaically longs for all the dangers and discomforts of a fairy tale?—really wants dragons in contemporary England? It is not so. It would be much truer to say that fairy land arouses a longing for he knows not what. It stirs and troubles him (to his life-long enrichment) with the dim sense of something beyond his reach and, far from dulling or emptying the actual world, gives it a new dimension of depth. He does not despise real woods because he has read of enchanted woods: the reading makes all real woods a little enchanted. This is a special kind of longing."

I love the thought that reading can make something ordinary become "enchanted".

Nearly every day at work I am asked by a child or a teen for a "fantasy" book...I read a study that said kids who read fantasy are usually well-adjusted, have a stable home-life, and are generally happy with life. Kids that read books that deal with real-life issues (realistic fiction) are generally troubled and trying to figure out how to fix their problems. In suburban Plano, life is pretty good for kids so maybe that is why they are reading fantasy... When I worked in East Austin, most of the kids wanted real-life books (if they read anything at all). It's only a study but it has me pondering...