Happy New Year!!!!!

Boy, am I glad the holidays are past. Now we can focus on the “next big thing”. Mercedes birthday is coming up (fast). We are buying her a new (replacement for the old, broken one) DVD player. She doesn’t know yet, but she will be thrilled when she gets it. At least she will be thrilled when she can use it again. She loves to watch movies in her room. I got her another Disney Princess DVD player so that it matches her existing TV and the bubble gum pink room.
The kids and I had a movie night last night. We all piled into my bed and watched one of the old Sinbad movies. You just can’t beat some of the older movies for entertainment value. And Mercedes even liked it. You can’t ask for much more than that.

Derek started back to school yesterday. He’s taking three classes this term, which ends in March. After that, he has 6 more classes to go, so one full term, then the two short terms for the summer. Right now, I think we just need to focus on getting him through this term. Two of the classes are ones he dropped previously, so he knows they aren’t going to be easy. The third class is with an instructor he’s had before who he really seems to like. That’s good anyways.
I also started school, and I don’t think my class will be that bad, though I have NO IDEA if I will be saying that after the exams : ) A big part of the class is discussion (online), which is fairly easy for me. I also have a 10 page (that’s all?) term paper I have to do, but that’s pretty easy. It will take less than a week to get that done. I just need to sit down and do the work. My biggest concern is formatting which I always screw up. As things stand now, I have my course load mapped out through June. I start a new class every month after this, and end one pretty much every month as well. I‘ve only got to take 10 classes total, one of which is a comprehensive seminar to close everything out. With the schedule I am on, it looks like I can complete everything (graduate) by next year. That’s really good for me. I also have concerns about moving. If I don’t get orders to leave WPAFB, then I will have to move to a different job which might not be so reasonable about classes.
As we start the New Year, we have not made any “resolutions” though we do have some hopes. Mine is to get bills paid down (off), and keep it that way. Derek’s hopes/plans are to save money for things that we need, or just as a nest egg. Since you can never be sure what will happen each year (each day), we are not binding ourselves to anything. I am sure come April/May I will be vowing to lose weight and get back in shape, but that’s a ways away.
I am now 23 weeks pregnant, and Micah Payton Thiem is a night owl. He is routinely awake between 2 and 4 a.m. and seems to think that’s he’s going to escape through my abdomen: ) Or maybe that’s his way of making more room for himself, I don’t know. I rejoice in feeling his activity and continue to be hopeful that he will arrive healthy and happy in April/May. I can only imagine the chaos his birth will bring into our lives. Alexis, Mercedes, and Mason definitely bring a different element of chaos with them, so Micah, I’m sure, will bring something completely new and unexpected with him. I guess that’s what makes kids (life) so much fun.
The New Year has also made me somewhat introspective. Looking back, we were hit by three tragedies, though they were separated by months. Losing Mom was really devastating for me, and extremely difficult for Derek. I still get blindsided by her being gone. The second tragedy, losing Shane, was also very rough, though, I think we made it through that one pretty well. The last one was losing Grandma. I know it was a long time in coming, but she was one of my last links to “home”. I guess I’ve become something of a gypsy with no place where I have roots anymore, which is part of the military life. Still, heritage has always been important to me, and it’s another piece that I won’t ever be able to make my children fully understand. The importance of Grandma and Grandpa in my life is probably more than most people, so losing them both has been difficult. I have to hope though, that the worst of the tragedies are behind us for a while. It seems like we were beaten up pretty well this last year in a variety of ways.