Slowly making progress

I'm so tired! Today I deflated the ball pit, the boys had all the balls out of it and were just knocking it over and jumping on it anyway, so I decided it was time for a break. I had kept the bag for the 100 balls, so I went around and found them all. Just that was a huge improvement, not having 100 balls all over the place to step on. Having the ball pit deflated was nice too.

Next we made a little progress on the dining room floor. We had a multiple drawer storage thing that I was keeping sippies, bibs, bottles and those types of things in. Tyler took it upon himself to completely empty it. I had tons of bottles, nipples and breast pump parts from our hospital days. My only issue was, it hurts to bend over more than about twice these days! So the other day I had made a place for the sippies in a bin thing on the counter and today Dan gathered up a bunch of the bottle stuff and we put that up there too. It needs a lot more done, but it's a start.

The biggest thing we did was tackle our walk-in closet. It really wasn't a walk-in anymore, it was more of a lean-in, since the entire closet was full of stuff. It had been neat, but things kept getting aquired and put on the floor, stacked up, etc. Once the Christmas stuff was put away, or more accurately, tossed in wherever it fit, we really couldn't go in there at all. So we completly emptied the bottom of the closet and went through things. We were able to combine boxes, ended up with a big duffel bag full of garbage (it was garbage, so ended up with all the garbage in it). There's a grocery box full of stuff to donate and about 4-5 boxes that no longer need to be in there. Plus we made a little room on the shelves above the racks by filling some totes that weren't full on the bottom. It was a long, tedious job but the results look great! We have our walk-in floor space back, plus the space under the clothes rack on my side even has room for more if needed. The boys had a big problem with us putting a gate up at our door and not letting them in, so I spent half my time just trying to keep them out from under our feet. We're both pretty tired. Dan went into the job thinking he'd get the entire room done today, but since I've been doing a lot of cleaning and organizing lately and know how long of a process it can be! I was just happy to have the bottom of the closet cleaned out.

I'm really hoping to get more cleaning done tomorrow, even with other things on the agenda. I made a huge to-do list on the computer which pretty much has every area of the place that needs work, plus some other specific things too. It's a very long list, but it's nice to have that visual and be able to cross things off as they get done. Dan plans to go to the junkyard tomorrow so he can move forward with fixing vehicles and we're also hoping to go see my Grandma's new house that she built and is working on moving into. I've been wanting to see it for quite a while, but we're either too busy or we have a cold, so couldn't go.

Dawson is now eating oranges! He sees Tyler and I eating them all the time and suddenly decided to join in and eat a few slices. It's great seeing him try something new, that hasn't happened in a long time. I've also noticed in the last couple days that his words are less choppy. One thing we'd been working on is saying "I-want-____". He would say it just like that, 1 word at a time, very slowly. He's just started saying it as a flowing sentence now and it's so nice to hear that coming together. He only does it about half the time, but it's a big improvement.

Tyler imitated another word today and continued to use it. We had sold our old fake tree and bought a new one on clearance after Christmas. We decided to set it up, make sure the lights work and all that before putting it in storage. The boys were excited to see it all set up and Tyler even said "tree!" and was excitedly pointing at all the lights. He seems to be missing that first letter sound in many of his words, so "tree" is missing the T sound. Dawson does that too, we just keep emphasizing it and he sometimes works on it and picks it up, but always needs that reminder. I did get Tyler to get very close once, so it's great that he seems to want to say things and does pay attention to those sounds.

Baby #3 was so active this evening! I was getting so sore, trying to get things done and he was practicing kick boxing in there or something. This little guy is very strong! I'm pretty relaxed about the baby so far. I feel pretty prepared, we sure didn't need to buy clothes or anything, we have enough diapers to last the first few months thanks to a good deal on Craigslist. The only thing we still need is a name. My boy name list is feeling pretty picked over and I can't seem to find many new ones that get my attention. It will be a big relief getting that figured out. I just hope it happens before April!