Enjoying the Chaos :)

Welcome to chaos! This is the kids' room/my office/playroom. Notice, Alex is napping in the crib where there is a hamper of clean clothes. Otherwise, Claire would take everything out and then I wouldn't know what's clean/dirty.
Ok, so here is the changing table. Notice Claire has put her footstool here so she can change her baby dolls here. She also likes to watch Alex get changed.

Now...check out how organized I was...lol. And I do mean was. The day before Alex was born, I had Claire help me tape these labels on the drawers. She still has some work to do with putting dirty clothes in the hamper and not back in the drawers. When I put laundry away, I have to check the drawers for dirty/unfolded stuff. She changes clothes like 6 times a day. A battle that I do not wish to fight...

This is Alex's dresser. He got a Onesies label and that's it. Haha..it will stay like that for awhile. Just like my desk is going to be sitting in here. I seriously need someone to come over and help me rearrange...we have space...we have 4 bedrooms/3 baths/3,200sq. ft. but I am clueless how to use it and organize stuff. We never use our dining room table. I actually have a makeshift changing table set up on it for downstairs right now. Any professional decorators want to come over and give me some pointers before my desk sits in here another 5 years? I suck at decorating stuff. We don't want to give up our guest room yet, but I think it will be headed that way...eventually...once someone starts sleeping alone anyways... also notice that the Barbie bin, nicely labeled with stickers so she knows what goes in there...is totally empty.

Click on the pix to make them bigger.

LOTION DRAMA

Easter Sunday was great! Monday wasn't. I was sick! I haven't ever really been sick sick like that before...knock on wood! I thought maybe I overdid it on Sunday, but I didn't really DO anything major at all! Then I thought I was going into early labor. But it turns out, it was really just a 24 hour stomach bug...which I've apparently never had one before, because this was awful. Really the only times in my adult life where I've thrown up were when I've tried to take Vicodin after a car accident. Painkillers do not sit well in my stomach.

Anyways, thankfully, I woke up Tuesday feeling 100% better. Thank God. I seriously thought I was going to die. I actually had Josh come home from work so I could sleep all day and rest. I've never had him come home from work. Ever. You can parent when you're tired, even when you have a cold...but not so well when you have a stomach bug affecting you at both ends. Ugh.

Anyways, I've managed to completely catch up on laundry at the moment INCLUDING having the machines and hampers empty. That's like a first. EVER. Usually there is at least something dirty. Now my goal is to do a load every day and keep up on things so it won't be this massive pile up with a new baby. Ha. Fat chance with that. ;)

My latest struggle with Claire is her increasing potty independence. She wants to go into the "onesie bathrooms" alone...you know where it's just one potty with a solid door. Well, I'm afraid she would lock herself in and not be able to get out. Since she couldn't crawl under the door, then we'd have to call the fire department or something. Ah! So like today when we went to story time, I turn and face the door so she can have privacy. Seriously? Where did she pick this term up? She goes, "GO AWAY! I want my own privacy." Yet she's content to streak around the house naked before and after baths...even if there are other people around. It must be something about the actual act of going potty?

The other major accomplishment this afternoon was putting away all my Easter decor...mostly baskets with cute eggs. And Josh has stashed the bin in the back of the closet. YAY! So now the baby is allowed to come. :) We did an Easter egg hunt with Claire on Sunday and put only 1 MnM or jelly bean in each egg. I thought she might want to eat them all at once, but she actually doesn't like most of the flavors of jelly beans. :( Little picky girl! I also took her to an egg hunt Friday but she didn't like most of the candy from that...she won't eat anything with nuts in even though she likes trail mix? Crazy. She doesn't like chocolate with carmel even though she likes the carmel apple dip you can buy next to the apples. Crazy. Something about things being mixed. I'm hoping with time, her horizons will broaden, but I'm definitely not trying to make her eat crap or candy. In other exciting food news...have I shared that she will now eat french fries and ketchup! Probably a good month now. She started just licking the ketchup off the fry. Then one day she took a bite. She spit it out, but it was progress! Now she might eat 4 or 5. America will be proud. :) I recently posted a list of foods she'll eat. It seems like a lot, but that's like ALL she will eat.

So I entitled this lotion drama because she woke up early this morning crying for lotion. Well...apparently Daddy forgot to put lotion on her last night. Our bedtime routine was messed up last night because I gave her a bath in the tub downstairs. I planted several flowers from the Easter Service at church and the baby blessingway (which I totally need to post about too...ack!) so she was dirty from that...plus Moon Sand.

She asked to play with Moon Sand outside. I figured it would be fine since we were outside. Last time I got out her little wooden table and set in the grass for her. Anything that fell went in the grass. Well apparently I was lazy. I just got the pan with the Sand in it and set it on the patio. She decided to rub it all over her legs. Yup. Apparently it's the new way to exfoliate or something. I was busy planting some flowers/weeding and not looking closely at what she was doing. It was from her toes to her hips. Not even kidding. I stripped her down to her panties outside and brushed her off, but that stuff is colored so her skin was pink!

So I had to spray her off with the shower before a bath. You know your kid needs a bath when they require a pre-wash. So anyways, I sent her to Daddy to get jammies on while I started some sandy laundry including putting her flip-flops in the wash...which they came out amazingly well!

Claire woke up at 6 this morning crying "Lotion! My skin dry!" Seriously? Does she really feel dry or does she just remember that part of a routine was missed? Anyways, she went down for a nap today. Ha...she goes, "I no need a nap. I not tired." But I told her no nummies unless we laid down. So guess what? We laid down for nummies and she fell asleep. So she had a good hour rest while I cleaned out my desk. I tried to throw away 3 things from each drawer, and I found far more. Seriously, why do I save some stuff? I like wonder why I ever thought I should hang on to some things. Because if it makes it upstairs to my desk, that means it has sat on my kitchen counter for at least a day or so before traveling upstairs!

So now I'm just going to go crazy nesting and cleaning out drawers and stuff until this baby gets here. :) I also had an OB appointment yesterday. Everything was good. Baby is measuring big still...at 43 weeks. :) Grow baby grow!

What a Mess!

So I spent all day today pulling out everything from our front hall closet to get out the infant carseat. Sigh. So now my project for tomorrow is to put it all back. I did get the carseat straps adjusted to the smallest height setting. Claire's baby doll, "Toby" was the model. I also got my Baby Bjorn adjusted to the smallest setting. It was sorta sad. Claire didn't remember it. She remembers my blue OTSBH but not the Bjorn. I think about this time last year was when I stopped using the Bjorn since her legs were so long, they kept hitting my knees. I stopped using the OTSBH so much since she likes to walk, but I put her in it a few weeks ago when she was teething and clingy, and I was trying to make dinner. She did remember that since I'd continued to use it.

Tonight we went to a preschool open house and got Claire enrolled for the fall. She'll do a year of Pre-3 and then a year of Pre-4 and start Kindergarten when she's 5. She'll be a fresh five, but she's so ready. She is sooo sooo social. She loves story time weekly at the library and and Children's church on Sundays. I'm not sure if we'll still be able to do story times in the fall, but we'll have to see how the story time schedules fit with her preschool calendar. We meet all the teachers she'll have tonight and feel very confident with our choice. I've been to 2 other preschools and gotten the best vibes from this place from others and just from being there tonight. Claire was great and ran off to color and play with toys with the other kids while Josh and I talked to the teachers. We are also going to do a "SUMMER CAMP!" I'm excited about this.

It's just a day camp, 2 days/week for 2 hours. I think it will be great for her to get used to in June and July. Then August will be off and school starts after labor day in September. She'll go 3 days a week for 2 hours. It's also faith based which I like. It's kind of a joke for 2 hours since they'll do a snack and potty break too. It'll be good for her though. She's always asking, "What are we gonna do today? We got story time today? Who's gonna come over? Can we go play somewhere? We going shopping? I wanna play outside!" So this will be nice for her to have something to look forward to 3 days a week.

The other preschool I really liked was 2.5 hours for 2 days/week but they don't welcome siblings on field trips...and that was really a major deciding factor for me! I don't want Claire riding in a car with someone else that I don't know so I'd want to go on field trips. And I don't know if baby boy will take a bottle. Claire never would. So anyways, this way she'll get to go on field trips (bowling, pumpkin patch, apple orchard, tour local pizza place, etc). They've got it all planned out for the year!!!

I actually looked into a 2s class last year about this time, but decided to wait awhile. I know some kids never do preschool or Kindergarten and do totally fine, but Claire is a very social creature and seems to make friends easily. I think she'll also love the crafts they do.

We've been playing outside a lot. It's great! Today it got up to 67!!! We did chalk on the driveway, then brought moonsand outside. That made for a nice and easy clean up! No sand on the kitchen floor!

So Claire did great at her open house and asked me to go potty in front of her to-be teacher. Luckily, she did not lift up her dress to show off her big girl panties, like she was doing at church on Sunday...and all around town the past week or so. We even broke out the sandals today as part of cleaning out the front hall closet.

Well wish me luck as I organize and put it all back. I've got to paper grocery sacks ready for the Goodwill. I'm a little sad to be putting away her snow pants/hats/mittens. I don't know if they'll fit at all next year and don't know if I'll have another girl. :) I don't know if baby boy would like to wear purple snow pants...but it seems silly to not let him wear a perfectly good pair of size 2T snow pants in the winter just because they are purple. Who made up these silly cultural color rules. Why can't boys wear pink, purple, and florals nowadays?

They used to put babies all in white since it's easy to bleach. Dang marketing.

New Baby to-do List

To Do list:
Move dresser from master closet into kids’ playroom/clothing storage room
Wash, fold, put away baby boy clothes
Move Claire’s play kitchen from Living room into breakfast nook
Move dollhouse bookcase into Game room to make room for dresser
Order picture prints
Scrapbook!
Set up pack n play with bassinet feature
Get out swing, bouncer, check batteries
Pack hospital bag, new baby bag, snacks/gum/Gatorade!
Pack day-away bag for Claire, fav. Dry Snacks/juice/clothes/jammies/emergency phone list/guardian info
Update will with new baby info
Make a list of Claire’s favorite foods!
BIRTHPLAN!
Get out infant carseat, adjust straps, install
Move Claire’s carseat to side
Pick a freaking name

BUY:
Another hamper
Rubbing alcohol, peroxide
Size 1 & 2 diapers
Postpartum supplies

Stock up on household supplies:
TP, papertowels, laundry soap, baby wipes, etc

DO NOW:
Oil change

WHAT AM I MISSING?

Oh so Organized?

Well. I'm organized for now. Ha. I took Claire to pick out bins this morning. She wanted to climb in them...

I needed some different sized toy bins for toy organization. I had gone almost a whole year or maybe a tad longer before I got 2 large clear rubbermaid bins for Claire's toys. I just keep the lids in the closet so they are like toy boxes.

But...all the little toys would fall to the bottom and get "lost"---and she would only play with the toys on top! So then about last year at this time I got about 5 small baskets for toys, but they are really too tiny.

So today I got some smallish to mid-sized bins to organize toys. So now there is a bin for her Barbies, a bin for baby-ish toys like teethers/rattles (got to keep this out for littler friends!), a bin for things with wheels (and here I thought she had a lot of girly stuff!), a bin for random little "crap" toys/figurines, etc, and finally, a bin for blocks. I put one of the big bins in the closet to rotate the bigger stuffed toys/dolls. Her wagon is actually empty instead of full of toys, so she can play in it, which she did tonight, which kept her nicely away from the toys I was trying to sort.

The upstairs always seems more organized for some reason. It's mostly just books and stuffed animals/dolls in her "playroom." Plus, I think we spend a lot more time downstairs.

Now...I wonder how long this will last....ha! Actually, I'm trying to get into an evening routine of picking up. She thinks it's still fun at this age. Of course she gets easily distracted, but I think it will be easier if she knows Barbie stuff goes in the Barbie bin, etc.

She is pretty good about keeping her toy food stuff by her toy kitchen and her books on her book shelves. She knows her shoes go by the back door and her pens/pencils/papers go in her little desk. Yeah...I found a little plastic desk at a yard sale when she was like 11 months old! They were nearing the end of their day, and basically gave me anything I touched for 20 bucks TOTAL!!! It's the same garage sale I got her bike seat at.

I saw the exact same desk at Big Lots around Christmas for $30 so I was excited that it's a "new" desk, that's still being sold. It even has a little drawer in it and shelves on the side. The top is angled with pockets and places to put stuff. I decided to just let her keep her "own" paper, pens, and pencils in it since she LOVES that stuff and wants to play with it everyday. And knock on wood, she has never drawn on a wall or anywhere she shouldn't...knock on wood that she won't do this tomorrow just because I said she hadn't yet. Way to screw myself! :)

I actually got her craft stuff organized too. I re-purposed a 6-drawered mid-sized caddy thing that I've had forever. So she has all her crafty fun stuff there, which I stashed in the cupboard under the microwave. I couldn't do messy crafts anywhere but at the kitchen table. She's still pretty messy with the paint/glue.

We've also started leaving the baby gate at the bottom of the stairs down because she doesn't play on the stairs or anything anymore. She would the first several times because of the whole novelty of the thing...but I'm still a little leery to leave the top one down. I know that most home accidents are on the stairs. Kids fall mostly from stairs, highchairs, and changing tables, right? Hmm...so maybe I should leave the bottom one up?

I have to keep the top gate up though because otherwise she would have no boundary and be free to roam the upstairs, and that's just too far away in this house!

So I'm feeling a little bit organized, but not nearly as much as I'd like to be. I feel like there is still a lot that I need to do soon AKA...before baby boo two arrives. I guess picking out a name would be another good thing to do...ack. We are so not going to decide on this until like, um, he's born! Yeah, it sometimes feels like when you start organizing, that you just realize how much more stuff there is to organize.

My Exciting Nesting!

It's Saturday night...actually technically Sunday morning...12:30...and I'm still up. I didn't watch the Colts game...nope...I folded 6 baskets of laundry and put them away. FUN! THEN...I scrubbed three bathrooms. I have to scrub the toilets after Claire's asleep, or she wants to get her little face in there and look really close. They she'll ask funny questions like, "Why you brushing the toilet? Why the toilet dirty? I brush it too???" In other SUPER exciting homemaker news, I have folded and put away all the Christmas towels and linens too...it's fun to decorate and enjoy the stuff up, but not so fun to put it all away!!! I also got all the de-thawed lights put away. Christmas is officially over in our house. :(

In other nesting news, I cleaned out all our medicine/toiletries areas of the house because...well...honestly it was something to do in order to not get around to folding 6 baskets of laundry, and I'd already played too much today...(Can one possibly play with ones kids too much?) Actually, I saw this blog post at Pretty Babies and decided to see what I had expired floating around.

I was doing pretty good in the kitchen cabinet where we keep a few things. I trashed some mouthwash and deodorant guests had left in the guest bathroom that had expired. I thought I was doing pretty good. I went through the shelf above the changing table area and trashed some nipple cream that expired last month...not too bad. But definitely wouldn't want to use that since it might be ingested. Through out some expired samples of butt cream...why do they give those things out?

SO this is the part of blogging that is fun to read about...at least for me. I've read about other people nesting and cleaning, and I think it's great. It's very inspiring to get my own butt in gear to do some cleaning!!!

Moving to Claire's bathroom, I just trashed some rubbing alcohol that expired June 2009, so that stuff must be good about 2 years because it was for her belly button...I was still doing pretty good! THEN...I moved to the master bath and found LOTS to trash...LOTS AND LOTS! There were a lot of contact solutions, mostly various samples from cough, ahem, Josh. Trashed lots of decongestant and cold remedies stuff, another bottle of rubbing alcohol...most of it expired within the past 2 years. I was actually surprised that I found as much as I did since I am really anal about watching food dates. I figured I wouldn't find anything before 2005 since that is when we moved here. Some people might think it's fine to use that stuff that expired because it's just less potent, but um...that's nasty and disgusting in my opinion because if it EXPIRED 2 years ago or whatever...WHEN WAS IT MADE? And this stuff is going on OR in your body like food...it's absorbed! Also trashed some nasty orange toothpaste that expired. I didn't know toothpaste had a date on it! Oh, and trashed one tube of teething gel...I think that's about it...except for the winner...a bottle of medicated powder that expired...ready...MARCH 2003!!!!!!! YIKES!

That means we moved it AT LEAST twice while expired. HA! So then later I thought I should check my purse and trashed some hand sanitizer that expired June 2007 and some ibuprofen the same. YIKES!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! It was a good way to child-proof too since we don't have locks on the cupboards. We just put safety knobs on the bathroom doors, and hopefully it will be a long time before Claire masters those!!! So she's never in the bathrooms alone.

Well, that's it! Hope all the rest of you had fun watching the Colts game. I've tried to get into it, but usually find myself picking up a book or magazine if I sit with Josh to watch it.

PS...we did Moon Sand again today. THAT STUFF IS FUN! :)

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.

I got bitten.

Something bit me. It's the nesting bug. Seriously. I am have been going nuts cleaning/organizing and baking/cooking. Tonight I made some BBQ chicken pizza with onions and green peppers. It was glorious. Instead of a red sauce, you use BBQ sauce. It's kind of like that pizza they have at Papa Johns, but the chicken doesn't taste like it's been frozen. :)

So right now the downstairs is super organized and ready. We are having Thanksgiving here on Saturday. That means I have 2 days to finish the upstairs. Eep. Last night I decided it was a good idea to pull out all of Claire's clothes to go through them and see what I have that is neutral. I am about halfway through and found 2 yellow onesies. SCORE! Lol.

Then I thought I needed to pull everything out of the hall closet to get out the upstairs decorations for Christmas. Yep. I thought that was a good idea. Now the hall is full of about 42 boxes and plastic storage bins. I'm also going through my teaching stuff right now finding some cool stuff I can use with Claire. Really...because this is just the time of year I need to pull out 8 paper boxes full of teaching crap.

I better get busy. Wish me luck. Damn nesting bug.

HEY! Have a Happy Thanksgiving!!!