Haircuts anyone?

Saturday night Clay and I went out to do some Christmas shopping for our extended family (no one was throwing up during the day). We came home to this--
The picture really doesn't do it justice.

Samantha's hair was finally starting to get longer and I've been debating whether or not to cut bangs. Jonathan made my decision for me. Samantha now has very little (if any) bangs. One less decision to make.

Yesterday Clay came home to tell me that he was told that he'll be deploying to Iraq in January. It really isn't a surprise and we're both feeling ok about it at this point. We haven't told any of the kids (good thing they don't read the blog) so if you're local, please don't mention it to the kids. We figure we'll tell them when we know more details.

His application is out for DO schools again this year and hopefully we'll get some good news soon. We are fairly certain that he'll get an interview and most likely acceptance for the school in Tennessee. If that is the case, the deployment should be relatively short (3-4 months?) as he would need to be home 90 days before moving to finish up things here at Fort Hood.

I don't know that one is ever really ready for deployments/separation from the family but I am grateful for the time that we've had over the past few months to work on our family more and get things running smoother. Hopefully I can keep it all up when he's gone. I'm so grateful to have one older to help babysit and help in so many other ways with the younger kids.

All the kids finally made it back to school today after being sick. Daniel came home with a horse voice so we'll see if it hold out for tomorrow and Jonathan and Amanda keep telling me they're not feeling well. Some times it hard to know what's really sickness verses just wanting to stay home. Hopefully I can be in tune with what's true so we're not spreading this bug any more.