The Teganmonster: October 2009

This Halloween is going to be one for the record books. We have SO much going on it's hard to stay sane some days. Today, my brother is leaving for Afghanistan for a 1-year tour. I love how they call it "tour" like it's a vacation. Like he says, "going on a 1-year vacation to sunny Afghanistan at the taxpayer's expense." I'm trying to adopt his optimistic mantra. So far it's not working. Keep him in your prayers!!

Halloween is this weekend and Tegan is going as a giraffe! I'll post pics sometime in the future, possibly on facebook. I hate uploading pics on here, it takes FOREVER! Anyways, our plan was to take Tegan around the neighborhood (more or less, the 5-6 houses surrounding ours since she won't walk that far) and get a little bit of candy. Unfortunately, the TN weather gods had another idea and are now predicting 50% chance of rain for Halloween. So, I think we'll be heading to the mall since all the shops hand out candy. At least then we can take a stroller and she can (hopefully) just sit in it and let us push her. Leila is coming up for the weekend too so we'll have a little extra help with all the craziness...

Craziness being we move on Tuesday! ahhh yes. Tuesday, Nov. 3. We get the keys to the new place on Monday afternoon, Tues. the movers come, and depending on how long it takes to pack up and load our stuff they will deliver and unpack us on Tuesday also. Otherwise, they deliver Thursday. So right now I have Tegan signed up for daycare all day Wed. and half the day Thurs. which will be a BIG help. She's not going to like seeing all her toys packed up where she can't get to them. I just hope the mean ol' piggy flu doesn't get near her at daycare. We've avoided putting her in it lately for that reason, but it was unavoidable this time. We have to be out of our old house by Friday so we have a lot of cleaning and whatnot to do. And seeing as how I'm feeling as big as a house, I don't know how well I'm going to be able to scrub. Ugh. I wish that was included in the mover's job. :) One unfortunate part of this new place is that it is, literally, ALL white linoleum floors. As in, not a spec of other flooring type. That being said, I need to area rugs desperately! If anyone has some they'd like to sell PLEASE let me know! I'm not being especially picky about colors obviously.

Other than that, we are looking forward to getting settled into the new abode and I can't wait to get Caris's nursery set up. It's driving me crazy seeing all her bedding still in the bag and the crib disassembled all over the place. P.S. I bought a beautiful white crib when I was in AL that I can't wait to see assembled and "dressed" up. Will post pics of that as well when I get around to it. 7 weeks until my due date! Baby Caris is looking good and I go back to the doc Nov. 19th!

So I haven't been in the mood to blog in a while, and actually still don't really feel like it at the moment, but I have a lot to update so I might as well just do it. First and foremost, I'm now 6 1/2 months along closing in on 7 months. Me and baby girl are doing well. My small annoyance for the week is actually a little nausea. I'm not sure where it's coming from but the past 3-4 days I've been leveled with nausea at least once a day. But I suppose if that's the worst of this pregnancy thus far I won't complain too much. Tegan and I have been busy cleaning out her room (i.e. old clothes, toys, etc) for the past week. We organized and packed up all of her old clothes into space bags separated into sizes, which freed up the spare dresser in her room. That dresser is going into the baby's room along with the recliner and changing table. So, Tegan's room is looking very empty at the moment which is good considering....we're moving. Again. Yes yes, we applied for on-post housing about 2 months ago and hadn't heard back from them so we had pretty much scratched that as a possibility since it's getting pretty close to my due date at this point. I called yesterday to see where we were at on the waiting list and they had us on hold-status for some unknown reason. This worked out though, because they made us a housing offer while I was on the phone and our approximate move-in date is Oct. 31 (give or take a week). And the other good news is the Army is paying for it...which means very little packing for me! Yay!! I was doubting our ability to move things ourselves with me being unable to move pretty much anything this late in pregnancy, so that was definitely a blessing. Our soon-to-be new home isn't much to look at from the outside, it's pretty much your basic Army housing, but the neighborhood housing we got has the best floor plan. It's a 3-bedroom 2 1/2 bath, 2 story duplex with garage and fenced backyard. It's at the end of a cul-de-sac and has a park down the street. Here's the floorplan; it makes more sense than me trying to explain it.

So far we've figured out that the dining room and master bedroom are bigger than we have now, so we are pretty sure the overall layout is actually larger than what we have now. Plus, we'll be saving a lot of money staying on post and it will be easier on me taking care of the kiddos by myself. Wish us luck with the move!

Tegan is growing like a weed! She is now 20 months old and talking my ears off!! She can say ball, wall, walk, outside, bounce, go, juice, flies, hi, bye, what's that, where'd it go, eyes, nose, mouth, cheese, shoes, rawwrrr (as in, "what's a lion say?"), bees, car, choo-choo, truck, vroom-vroom (like a car), Pooh, and probably several other things I can't remember. She figures out something new everyday I think. She's pretty much running at this point also. No more wobbly-legged toddler. But all-in-all, she's a good girl. She listens most of the time, she rarely whines or cries. And seldom has tantrums, I just hope she keeps it up! She loves to help with things, even if she doesn't quite know how to do it. Right now she's in a phase where she loves to close doors, whether we want them closed or not. Which has resulted in her locking herself in our bedroom twice now. She's a funny kid.

As for Charles' deployment, we still don't have a set date that he's leaving but we know it's going to be around the end of December. He first day of duty with his new unit is October 24th, so at that point we will know more. All we know so far is he's going with 5th Special Forces group, to Iraq, towards the end of Dec. When I know more I'll update. It's going to be a busy next 2 months here but it will be nice once it's over with. Oh wait, no, it's not really going to slow down. Me + Tegan (20 months old) + Caris (soon-to-be newborn) DOES NOT equal a peaceful next several months! haha oh well! I just realized I never updated that we picked out a name...sooo, it's Caris Mackenzie! And her nursery is going to be brown/white/pink with monkeys. Girl monkeys. As in, monkeys with pink flowers on their heads. I just started paintings for her room and I'll post pics when I finish. I think that's all for now! Phew!