I'm going to pull out all my excuses for being a slacker and not posting even pictures lately! And I'm also gonna try and make up for it by at least catching you up on most of the pictures from the last month, (though there are some on my camera that I can't vouch for, so you'll just have to sit tight for those!)
So first; my excuses. I have not been trying to keep it off the blog, but it just hasn't come up, since I post mostly about Natalie, but I am 21 weeks (or 5 months) pregnant. That has mostly just caused me some fatigue, clumsiness, and absentmindedness so far. But along with that I've been using most of Natalie's naptimes, (i.e. my blogging time) for my own naptime. More recently, since the first trimester fatigue has gone away my time has been spent getting our house ready to put on the market. That has been a ton of work, but we are on the home stretch. Our house is already one big playroom, and adding another kid to the mix wasn't going to help that. We had always planned on finishing the basement to give us a playroom, extra bathroom, guest and work rooms, but when we figured out how much that would set us back, and how much work it would be, we realized we might as well just upgrade to a new house. So, assuming we can sell ours in the next few months, we will be moving shortly before the baby is born, (due date November 13th.) The new house will have rooms for each of us, plus a guest room, play room, and (my favorite) an office slotted to be my sewing room/library. Plus an unfinished basement for all the rest of our stuff! It will also have a slightly smaller yard (not on a corner), back to a "green belt", and be four doors down from one of our favorite neighborhood parks. And it's only a couple blocks from where we live now.
Here are Natalie and her dad checking out the lot. Natalie is standing on what will be our back fence.
And again you can barely see them, (or at least the blue shirt) standing in the same spot. The path hooks up to the Erie path system which may one day actually go somewhere but for now really just hits old town and the rec center/library/park complex. If you follow the path to the horizon it goes to the little neighborhood park.
So anyway, that's our big news. Hopefully you'll excuse my past, (and possibly continued) blogging negligence! Now on to the pictures!!
Nat loving the water wings at our friends' neighborhood pool. We now know from our swimming lessons that these aren't the best thing for her, but they did help her get over getting her face wet!
Teddy Bear picnic, put on by the library staff. Natalie led the bear hunt.
Getting her haircut by Nan. Love the juicy mustache!
And playing on Grandpa's swingset afterwards.
It took the strawberries a bit longer to ripen this year, but now they're going strong.
Poor Robert hanging out with all these silly little girls!
At the "beach" with Aanya.
She's such a little girl these days! I'll try to share more pictures and news soon.
We saw a peacock in a tree! I know they're birds, but I never really imagined one in a tree. 
And we enjoyed some of Mimi and Dolly's new artwork posted along the construction walls for the new Asian Tropics habitat. 
I figure Natalie walked over three miles that day. We covered the whole zoo, including the primates, and then even backtracked a bit to check out the sea lions again. She had so much fun. 
Here she is being a flamingo. 
And we managed to catch the "flamingo walk" where they take a few flamingos for a short walk around, and then hang out for a bit to answer questions. Here's Lexi making an escape attempt. 
We also rode on the carousel for the first time. Natalie loved it and wanted to do it again without me behind her. 
Here she is on the cheetah after I got off. 
And here's her second mount. She loved choosing from all the different wooden animals. 
It was a great morning at the zoo. She was so worn out from all the walking and playing that she was asleep before we left the parking lot!
