Mama has been here for the past 24 hours. yesterday she was watching Leah's kids for her while Leah worked, so she and I took all 7 out to Emma Long Park aka City Park on Lake Austin to swim. Brian and i went to his boss' retirement party at Nuevo Leon last night. there were a lot of people that i knew already, and Brian introduced me to other people he's talked about for years. it was really neat to hear all the great things that people said about Bob, Brian's boss. he has had a big impact on so, so many people and has done so much good for this community. it made me really happy that Brian has been able to work under him for the last 14 years.

Margaret has been doing swim team every night with the Patterson Piranhas. it's such great exercise for her! their first meet is Saturday against two other Austin teams.

other than a terribly stuffy, bloody nose, pregnancy has been treating me well lately. i'm getting out every day and walking at least 4 and a half miles. most week days i get in a couple more miles in the evening while waiting for Margaret to finish swimming. i've also been swimming some and doing weights. i'm glad to have my energy back after a rough first trimester. i'm sure i'll lose some stamina toward the end of the pregnancy, but i'm enjoying being able to keep up with the kids right now. i think i feel better about myself this time around than before. i'm able to embrace the pregnant shape as beautiful and not despair about weight gain. i've gained 11 pounds so far!

after a lot of prayer and coming to a lot of dead ends and closed doors, i think we've decided to do something crazy and take the kids out of school for a year. if you've been reading my blog for awhile, you'll know that nothing short of an act of God could lead us to do such a thing, but that just seems to be what has happened. we feel we have no other options for Margaret. because of the budget crunch, AISD is limiting transfers because they don't want to hire new teachers just to cover transfer students. that leaves us with only the undesirable schools, the ones that no one else wants to go to (which is why they have available space). it'is too late to try to get into a charter school as those are by application and lottery and the deadlines are past. so for this year we have nothing else for Margaret but to homeschool her. once we started talking about that, i realized the logistic trouble in trying to homeschool her and also put in all the time i need to at Maplewood with the boys there. add to that caring for a newborn. it seems like the answer God is giving us for this year is to take a break, pull the kids out and homeschool for one year. this will be a transition year for us anyways with the baby coming and the option of selling our house once we finish our loan obligation next May. next fall <hopefully> we can make a fresh start in an area where we feel good about the schools, or at least get a priority transfer for Margaret and Samuel to a middle school that is good and feeds into a good high school.

this is all so crazy, and i was really resistant to it when i first started seeing it as our one halfway decent option, but i have to say that the idea has grown on me a little. we've had the kids in school for 5 of the past 7 years - 3 years in private school and two in public school. i think a year of reassement might do us all some good. i know it will be hard, but, gosh, we just don't know what else to d!. at first i was so mad at AISD for not being more flexible with us, but the more i prayed about it, the more peace i felt about the how things were panning out. i know it's all in His hands. goodness knows i wouldn't have worked it out this way, but i'm going to move forward with joy and embrace what He has for us.

i've been getting some deep cleaning done today while Mama has the kids and is out running errands. i cleaned out the dreaded craft closet, and the cabinet under the sink, but am stalling on the linen closet. it's a twisted lumpy mess!

i found a moses basket for the baby at my favorite thrift store yesterday! its one of the larger ones, the size of a bassinet and looks real similar to this one -


it was marked $7, but i got it for half that because of the color tag sale for the week! i am so excited to now have something for baby to sleep in that will fit in our room!

i suppose that's all the news for today.