>House Pictures! Yay! If you’re still interested!

>So I bought batteries last week but then I was waiting for the house to be clean to take pictures but we all know that that will probably never happen again given our current/future family/professional situation. So, here are some pictures of the new place.

Kitchen. I love the cabinets, I don’t love the fourth shelf of the cabinets, which, at 5’10” I am still unable to reach. I had to ask Ryan many times to retrieve various objects for me. But still, I am very excited about my kitchen.

The other side of the kitchen where Rossby is helping clean out Charlie’s high chair with his mouth. The door on the left is to the half-bath, the one in the middle is the pantry/laundry room, and the right is to the back yard.

Here is the living room and foyer. The messy coffee table is like that because I am still working there while we try to get our wireless modem up and running (and because I’ve been craving a burger from Sonic for three days and decided today was. the. day, that’s what all the paper is from). The windows on the left look out onto a wildlife reserve and at dusk a herd of deer come out of the woods and cross the street to eat the grass on the other side.

Dining room, where Ryan and I feast on four course meals while “the children” eat leftovers at the kitchen table. Just kidding, it’s usually quite the opposite.

Charlie’s playroom… the listing called this a “home office” which I am fundamentally opposed to, (even though I work at home, which is odd, I think home should be a relaxing place). We made it a fun room instead.

Master bedroom with hastily made bed. Not pictured: TV that turns itself on every morning and scares the heck out of me when I am home alone.

Charlie’s room. It doesn’t have much furniture yet because his closet has a built in dresser and his dresser went to Baby Bravo. Soon we hope to have a twin bed and a desk in here (where Charlie can write my dissertation for me).

Baby Bravo’s room. Those are not our handprints. I’m still deciding if that bothers me or not. Given how much I hate painting, I’m going with “does NOT bother me”.

Kids’ bathroom and the shower curtain that nearly killed me (we HAD to find one Friday because we were having overnight guests and it was over 90 degrees and I didn’t have any maternity shorts yet and Ikea and Penny’s didn’t have any good shower curtains. Finally I decided to go to Kohls but made a pit stop at the Old Navy nearby to buy some shorts, which I changed into in my car because the jeans I was wearing were sucking all the life out of me, and felt much better. When I came home I had to lie down because I was so exhausted from shopping for a freaking shower curtain. Isn’t pregnancy magical?)

We call this “the park”, as in “Charlie, want to go to the park?” He always does. Even when it is cold and raining, if we don’t let him out in the back yard he goes and finds my keys, takes them to the back door, and tries to open it himself. Charlie has played here many times in nothing but a diaper after getting out of his baby pool but I didn’t take any pictures because I am afraid of the Neighborhood Association’s strict anti-redneck policy.

Yes, we have a Neighborhood Association, as in “If that guy has that boat in his driveway one more week I’m going to sick the Neighborhood Association on his ass.” I feel like such an adult living in a neighborhood where you’re not allowed to store car parts in your yard (or manufacture meth in your garage). If only the residents of Meth Lab Acres Apartment Community could see me now!

All the neighbors I’ve met have been great and all of them have young kids. There’s an Easter Egg hunt in the park on Saturday and Friday outdoor movie nights in the summer. Our culdesac has parties in the summer too where, I’m told, the fathers and kids play kickball and the mothers drink margaritas and wait ready to call 911. There is a frisbee golf course across the street which seems to be wildly popular on Saturdays. Last weekend I saw a group of frisbee guys with a stroller, which I thought was just adorable until they turned the stroller around and I saw that it contained A COOLER OF BEER. Which is ingenius!

I don’t have a visor or double jogging stroller or Honda Oddysey yet, but I think we are going to fit in really well here.

In other news, I had a good OB checkup today. I heard Bravo’s heartbeat so looks like everything is nice and alive in there, probably really enjoying his diet of tea and donuts with his barely developed fetal tongue. I also met my OB for the first time and I think she’s going to be great. She kind of stared at me gape mouthed when I told her I have a 16 month old and am in grad school and then asked tentatively if I was planning on finishing before Bravo is born, which I am. She seemed relieved. She also offered me phenergan for what I described as “a touch of really manageable morning sickness.” I declined because phenergan knocks me out, but I like that attitude!