Plesantly surprised!

Well...I am amazed at how much I can get done! Especially now that Claire can somewhat help....of course, sometimes her helping slows me down, but sometimes she really surprises me. I've been having her set the table for me. I give her the plates and she knows where to put them. She can get the silverware out herself!

Last night Josh put on some Christmas music and we decorated the tree. Claire actually did a really good job hanging up the ornaments! So now the whole house is completely decorated. I am compensating for last year since I did nothing to decorate. Ha. And I have no idea what next year holds.

I got through all my boxes today ... there are about 12 boxes of baby girl clothes sizes newborn through small 2T sizes. Claire is wearing 3T already!!! And I managed to find 2 entire boxes of neutral stuff in reds, greens, yellows, and whites. I have a few "questionable" items I'll have to ask some people about if they think they are neutral. But I still have enough! I am actually pleasantly surprised! And here I thought I had nothing. But see, I started going through the bigger sizes, which are definitely more girly! I have a lot of small newborn-9 months stuff that is particularly white, yellow, and green. I even have a surprising amount of some blue stuff, but I had forgotten about it since I never put Claire in that stuff usually more than once!!!

I swear I have enough girl clothes for clothing triplets though size 18 month at least. Ha! So I got the boxes labeled and stacked nicely, but what a freaking PAIN IN THE BUTT! I put the shoes and coats in storage with the stuff now as well as matching blankets, since there were like 4 that matched outfits. Seriously...how do people organize their stuff between kids. I actually have several neutral baby blankets, too, so that rocks! And of course all the big stuff like the stroller, highchair, crib set, etc...I got neutral in case we had a boy in the future or the ultrasound was wrong with Claire. Ha! Good planning on my part.

There were a few outfits that I found frustrating...they were too boyish to put Claire in, but they are definitely too girly for a boy. This would be like a solid blue onesie with a little tiny pink flower in the middle. That might work under overalls or something, but really...there were several things like that which were not neutral, but too boyish, but still girly...does that even make any sense??? LOL! We are set with little socks too...lots of white and yellow ones of those!

So now...sometimes I want 4 kids...sometimes I think...2 will be plenty. But we'll take it one at a time and go from there.

Tomorrow we will be starting cooking and getting ready for my parents and brother Rich coming here for Saturday Thanksgiving. I plan on trying to have Claire set the big table and help me dump lots of stuff together. She enjoys doing that!

I got all my boxes put away today and the upstairs vacuumed. Now if I could just get a vacuum that was lighter so Claire could have fun pushing it around for me...

Anyone have any great storage tips on how to do the clothes for kids? I tried to fold matching outfits/socks together, as well as group the sizes together. I'm afraid some of the sizes are a little mixes up, but not horrible.

And how do you store shoes/coats once they get past a certain size. I'm thinking they are too big to mix with the clothes now. And Halloween costumes? What do you do with those? Keep them separate or put in with the right size clothes?

And the stains? WTH! I put away everything clean, and now several items have spit up stains that have crept out. And whoever said bf babies don't stain was full of it! And if that's the case, I'd hate to see formula spit-up stains. I'm wondering if these stains will come out with washing or not?

And if Claire is missing any toys in the next few days, it's totally because she tossed one in one of the boxes when I wasn't looking...

Wish me luck cooking tomorrow.