Christmas? It's not even Halloween yet?

I started seeing Christmas stuff in stores weeks ago. Weeks! Ridiculous. Can we please do one holiday at a time??

Anyway, someone recommended an awesome booster seat to me today, so I figured I'd put it on our Amazon wish list. Found a couple cool things the boys would like. Mom, there's our list. *laugh* Darrell, of course, is impossible. I have no suggestions for him. I added a cool link at the bottom of the pictures on the right side of the page. Handy, that...

Kaden has been out of sorts the last couple of days. I'm guessing he has some teeth moving in. They've been taking their time - thank goodness Kaden doesn't get cranky much.

Speaking of teeth, did I mention that J's other top front tooth finally fell out? That thing was dangling for weeks. Very gross. He wouldn't let us pull it; I'm so glad it's out. You can sort of see it in the picture below.

Darrell is getting all kinds of good information about his upcoming deployment. Always better to know what you're about to be dealing with. He's getting to know his team; so far, there aren't any issues. I hope they're all able to get along. It's going to be a long time with just the small bunch of them.

I was able to sell our elliptical today. I made Darrell promise that we won't be buying any more exercise equipment. *sigh* I came back in the house after helping the buyers load it into their truck and Justin was crying. He liked it and didn't want us to sell it. Wow. How do you tell a seven-year old that he gets enough cardio during the day and he doesn't need to work out at home?? *laugh* I had no idea that was going to be a problem.

We also sold our washer and dryer. They're the same units we got when we got married, and for the most part, they're still working strong. Well, the dryer anyway. The washer is held together with 100-mph tape (duct tape for you non-military folk) and unless it's leveled just perfectly, makes an awful racket when using the large load setting. I advertised it as "buy a dryer, get the washer for free" so I wouldn't have any unhappy buyers come back and complain at me. I was completely honest with them, so hopefully they're happy with the deal. The house we're renting has units in it, so we were just storing them until we move again. However, we're not expecting to move any time soon - we'll probably stay in this house for the duration of Darrell's assignment here. We can buy new ones when we PCS.

I've listed the bowflex on craigslist (where we listed the above - I'm quite pleased with it so far) and I've had two interested replies. One just asked me questions about it. I answered and haven't heard back. The other wants to buy it for $500. Yikes. I understand her position (new mom, can't afford more and has no time for the gym), but we paid at least three times that. I told her I'd talk to Darrell about it. So yeah, NO more exercise equipment. We both have handy gyms nearby for free.

I'm swamped in schoolwork right now. I have a few semester-long projects that I haven't started on, plus my thesis proposal that according to department policy, I should be defending before the semester break. Hmmm, not going to happen. I'm hoping to work on it during the two weeks when the kids are still in school/at the babysitters on my semester break. For now, I need to keep plugging along. Taking 12 credit hours as a grad student seemed insane when I enrolled, and it's still insane. Still, it needed to happen for me to make my graduation goal. I'll get it done.

Speaking of graduation, I've decided to finish up my 6-12 teaching certification. I'm so close to finishing that it's really stupid to let it slip by. I'll take the rest of the education coursework next semester, write up the masters thesis over the summer, do my last two masters courses in the fall, graduate in December 2008 with the masters in geoscience ed and the GIS certificate, then do my student teaching in Spring 2009. Just in time to get a 'real job' somewhere by the fall. I'd still much prefer to teach at the college level, but we'll see what's out there when it's time to job hunt. Having the university here results in a LOT of applications locally, so I'm not very confident. Eh, it is what it is... Maybe I'll stick around for another degree.... (Kidding! I think....)

Tired. Going to sleep now...

Lots of new photos added to the boys' albums

Darrell signed in to post yesterday and starts training today. We knew it was coming for months, but it certainly doesn't make it any easier to return him to the army. *sigh* I think this is my new favorite picture of my boys.