Still here.

Cool porch, no?  And the kids are terrifying the dog-walkers and joggers alike as they careen down the ramp on their bikes...

The new house is a marvel of freshly-finished floors and just-painted (or just-about-to-be-painted) rooms.  The basement makes the Labyrinth look like child's play and the garage is chock-a-block with the vast majority of our possessions,  but the overall impression is favorable.  The laundry chutes work, the studio is coming along, and the bathrooms are intact, though terrifying.  (Seriously---who paints over the shower tile?  Wait!  It must be the same people who---I kid you not---wallpapered the entire kitchen with Contac paper.)

The kids' rooms are set up, for the most part, but Jess and I are shacked up in the basement until he can harness some manpower to help move our beds upstairs.  The paint colors we chose (long-distance) are fine, for the most part, although the creamy yellow in the living and dining rooms is a little more washed out than I'd hoped for, and the Honeydew that the little girls decided on at the last minute has kind of a neon subtext that borders on being less than soothing.  The kitchen---aqua walls, red accents, and black and white checkered floors---is a glorious sight to behold, although I'm in a snit about the flooring.  Pattern, fab!  Texture, FAIL.  Grainy.  Who makes grainy kitchen flooring?  Suffice it to say that the floor-maintenance department is unimpressed.  Pics forthcoming.

I'm mid-dresser-rehab, in the midst of the madness, and am making a slapdash job of it.  The girls are entranced, though, and can't wait to have the finished product in their psychedelic digs.  Just add princess crowns, and they're happy, thank goodness...

Akiva's 12th birthday came in a frenzy of chocolate-cake-making.  Given the fat that we'd been in the new house for a whopping three days and I'd yet to locate the majority of the Finer Things---like Shani's shoes, the damned baking powder, and all of our hangers---I felt justified in patting myself on the back for
a) unearthing the KitchenAid and
b) producing--- and serving!--- anything even remotely palatable.

Card art by Esti---she blows my mind.

The munchkins sally forth to school this week, and we're all looking forward with varying degrees of enthusiasm.   I'm hoping to have my act a bit more together in time to tackle the carpool-lunches-homework show with my usual aplomb, but have already accepted the fact that we may have to fake it for the first couple-few weeks.  No use being all Pollyanna-ish at my own expense...