I went downstairs late at night for a glass of water last week and found this on the inside of the back door.

Finding reptiles all over the house still totally amuses me.

This is what scripture time looks like around here.

My girls have always sat nicely for scriptures each night, since they were very little. The boys, not so much.

Nate and I found this totally cool bromeliad at Home Depot. I went back to WalMart to buy the last of the really cool, cheap pots we found there to put it in. And I love it.

We also picked up this happy little jade plant and funky asymmetrical pot at IKEA. I’m hoping it’ll get enough light where I’ve got it.

It’s so hard to stop buying plants once I start. And since I can’t have plants EVERYWHERE (tho’ it’d be totally great if I could), I have to be selective. As it is, I still want a prayer plant when I come across one, (I’m told they’ll be around in the fall), and I’d love an iron cross begonia. I had to leave behind the lucky bamboo that my mother-in-law gave me for my birthday 5 or 6 years ago that had sprouted babies, and the christmas cactus Nate bought for me 10 or so years ago. Very sad. (Anita, you can totally buy me another plant when you come to visit).

As of now, I’ve got the rabbit foot fern in the kitchen*, the bromeliad and jade in the living room. I don’t have a spot for plants in the front room, which is kind of dark… so I guess if we get any more, they’ll have to go upstairs.

*Funny story… Nate calls to me from the breakfast table-

“Baby, what are these hairy, worm looking things in the plant?”

“That’s the rabbit foot part of the rabbit foot fern. The fern sprouts out of them. They’ll eventually grow to the edge of the pot and start trailing down the sides.” I then wiggle my fingers in demonstration.

He replies, “‘Cause that’s not creepy.”

Well, I didn’t think it was creepy.

This amuses the heck out of me, except for the fact that Max isn’t supposed to be on the computer, ever. But I came across some photos he unintentionally took of himself recently and had to laugh.

I’ve knit all of the first, 1100 yard skein as of this morning.

I’ve been working on this shawl since the beginning of July, as time has allowed. Now I need to wind the second skein into a ball and…. keep knitting. I’m not sure how many more yards I’m going to use, but I have about 45 rounds left, and somewhere in there, I have to do another increase, doubling the stitches.

And I’m already trying to decide what to knit next. I have 700 yards of a gorgeous, purple laceweight yarn to do something with. That’s where I’ll start. Maybe another half round wrap, or a large rectangle?

There’s an amazing aquarium at Cabelas, which is a few miles from us

Nate and Max and I went on Wednesday morning

Because they are smart, they have big bins of enormous stuffed fish by the aquarium. Max fell in love.

Then we went to lunch

Right now, it’s raining, and there’s a leak in the roof. Water is running down the wall in the girls room, and dripping out of a hole in the middle of the ceiling. This house is only 6 years old, and has SO many probs. Glad we’re only renting.

In our initial setup of the living room, I had made a nice little corner behind the chairs for my guitars and amps and such. It was SO great having my own space set aside to play.

But, it was short lived.

The couch arrived yesterday. (They DIDN’T fabric protect it like they were supposed to. Awesome. Fabric couch with 5 kids and no stain resistant coating).

While I’d planned to put the couch in a particular place, it just didn’t look right. I tried everything, but my music section had to go.

and much of my gear is currently sitting in the kitchen while I try to figure out where the heck to put it now.

(See my little sheep bag in front? That’s holding the big shawl I’m working on right now. Yup, still knitting)!

I’m not done arranging the room yet, and a lot of the art will need to be moved around. On the plus side, it’s looking really, really nice.

And I need more plants!

So y’all can see the new place.

The house we’re renting in Buda

The front door. Every night there are geckos all over the limestone wall to the right.

Veronica is starting the french horn this year. Max thinks it sounds hilarious.

my corner of the living room

The very small kitchen.

We all went to the pool late Friday night to cool off

When we got home, our resident toad was out. This time, Abby caught him. I’ll be interested to see if he comes back.

Our couch comes on Monday at which point, we’ll be able to put the living room together. Then the downstairs will be in good shape. Upstairs still needs a lot of unpacking. At least, my room and the common room up there. The kids rooms are about done. We just need one more bed. Right now, Max is sleeping on his crib mattress on the floor.

I’ll leave you with a cool shot of the sun coming up behind the Goforth water tower behind our house.

Sure, it’s the Friday of week 2 already, but I haven’t got around to taking photos yet. And today, I didn’t think about it ’til the last second so I was practically chasing them out the door.

It’s been busy.

But here’s what I’ve got.

With the starter out on my car, Nate’s been scootering Clark to school. And Clark is thrilled.

Veronica, Liv, and Clark all head out at the same time. The girls catch a bus at the end of the street.

Abby won’t let me take her picture. She claims that she’ll get dressed and “pretend” to go to school tomorrow so I can take her picture then, but I don’t believe her for a second. I’ll have to be sneaky and get one sometime next week on the sly.

With oodles of pictures!

On Saturday night, we took the kids into Austin to see the bats. Many years ago, before my sister lived in Texas, before I had any possible reason to EVER be in Texas in my lifetime, I read about the bridge that housed hundreds of thousands of bats in Austin and about their incredible nightly flight. I LOVE bats. So I was very excited.

We got to the park under the Congress Bridge at around 7. The crowd was already starting to gather.

The bats were supposed to come out around 8:15. So we waited.

and waited

and waited

and waited

It got a little darker

and darker

and by the time those hundreds of thousands of tiny, dark brown bats decided to grace us with their presence, we couldn’t see a bally thing.

So that was disappointing. I guess we’re a little late in the season to be able to see them well. There’s always next year.

We found a tiny little pink gecko in the house the other day. That was exciting.

We see much bigger geckos on the garage door and on outside of the house at night, along with the big old toads that like to hang out on the driveway after dark. We didn’t have reptiles up in Seattle, we had rodents.

I prefer reptiles.

And here are some pictures of Max and Mieko today.

And then Max got bit in the cheek…

And finally, our first houseplant after the move!

I’m told that the selection at the nursery will get more interesting come Fall. But I have a plant now! Something green and alive for me to take care of. I can wait for more.

Lots of white in this house. White walls, white doors and trim, light colored carpet. It’s kind of weird. I haven’t lived in a white house in over 10 years.