All's well--or I'm unaware--in pregnantville

Not a lot on my mind lately to blog about. Not that that's intentional or that my life is stress-free or there aren't in reality lists of things that I should be remembering and getting to--it's just this pregnant mind. It keeps going vacant. I'm forgetting basic simple conversation tools; here are two examples:

• I asked a relatively new friend at church whether she sings. Innocent enough, if I hadn't been practicing a song with her and 5 other gals in recent weeks, AND sharing music with her each time.
• Another new friend at church who's son has become Simon's pal asked for my phone number a few days ago so the boys could play. Fun! Then I realize this morning that I didn't even think then to ask for hers, nope, not until I wanted to call them today.

Okay, now a totally different topic. I see a lot of images I love on other people's blogs. I always just go to Google Images and hunt around (e.g. "pregnant head", "pregnant empty mind", and finally "daydreaming" for this post). I'm not exactly finding the quality or depth of choices that I'd like (though seeing this new-to-me Winslow Homer piece was nice).

So, what's your favorite image site??? Please, do tell!

Oh, and also I took my kids to Hermann Park for 3.5 hours today to wear them out and make up for spending a lot of time lately ignoring them inside while I try to manage all the insurance, bills, and mumbojumbo--with this pregnant mind, no less, it's quite a task. Anyway, I think my other intent was to let them just play themselves out so Mark and I could get them to bed easy tonight. The most frugal date I've thought of yet--since we can't quite squeeze a babysitter or going anywhere that costs money out of our pocketbook just now. It's called "Worn-out, happy, asleep EARLY kids" theme-date. But they're actually asleep right now in the car in the garage. Now isn't that a nice luxury???!!! Even though I'll have to change the date plan, it's nice to know that I didn't have to move them, they're close by (just in the other room, really!). A few weeks ago I would have had to move them, they'd wake up, be grumpy, and I'd wish I had had a safe place to leave the car where they wouldn't be kidnapped or look abandoned.

Okay, enough ramblings. Don't forget the image question! ;)

The new house--a rented bit of bliss!

Alli dug out Simon's old hat from a box and looks pretty outdoorsy sporting it.

Our friends that moved out left their swingset for us!

You can also see the neighbor's rabbit hutches on the other side of the fence. The kids are really entertained by them--Alli thinks they're hysterical when they just move around their cage.

This is the rest of the backyard and the shed (which is actually hooked up with electricity and a workbench, if I decide to try my hand at something). ;) There's also a square of more backyard to the back left of this picture; it has a little fig tree and it was interesting to see the shape of fig leaves in real life.

Just a happy moment--though there have been some playground spats too.

The covered patio spot

No shots of the inside yet--too many cardboard boxes still. But let's just say that rooms are seeming a lot bigger and things newer than we thought--we keep waiting for our parents to come and reveal that this is actually their house, we're too much of kids to have this much house at our disposal. Mark keeps saying that our bedroom feels like a hotel. I love having the family room; right now I'm working at the computer and I can see the kids out the screen door happily puttering around in the yard. That means I'm not working on this in my bedroom with kids climbing all over me or our bed or running away outside and having me holler after them. Hooray!

We found out about this house to rent from friends at church. A family that had just finished their PhD was moving out of it and invited us over and sold us on it. It's about 4 blocks from our church, so 20 minutes from work for Mark (he's planning on getting a bike and riding along the bayou most of the 5-6miles). The neighborhood is nice (and pleasant smelling . . .), zoned for a great school for Simon (either next year or the year after). More later . . .