Progress and mama!

We have been busy almost every night working on our lists of things to do and other various projects, and we have made some good progress!  We have de-junked a bunch of clothes, random craft supplies, and too- old- to- use electronics equipment, given furniture away, gone through every bedroom and closet in the house and organized/ repacked everything, redecorated our master bedroom, and BJ and Charles built shelves for our storage unit.  Whew! It has been exhausting but it feels great to have more room and to know where everything is. 

While the menfolk worked on the shelf, I made some wall hangings for our bedroom, out of styrofoam and fabric.  I think they turned out pretty well for making it up as I went!  And all I did was use hot glue, styrofoam, and cardboard- no sewing.  I blogged about how I did it here.

 
Gabe has been growing and changing quickly.  He still uses signs, but he babbles a lot and many of his words are becoming more recognizable.  He still loves to make animal and car sounds.  Most exciting of all, in my opinion, is that he has started saying "mama"! It sounds more like "muhmuh", and he still calls me "baba" sometimes, (he actually called me "dadda" when I picked him up after work yesterday), but he will repeat "mama" if I ask him to!  That makes me happy.  We have enjoyed being outside for the few days it has been warm enough to spend time out there, and we are looking forward to the weather warming up so we don't get too stir crazy!  Also we are looking forward to warmer weather and the end of flu season and cold season.  Gabe seems to catch everything, and if he does, it inevitably turns into an ear infection.  So Gabe is on antibiotics again for the 3rd ruptured eardrum in just a few months.  Boo.  Gabe's pediatrician says there is nothing we can really do to prevent him from getting them.  I have heard some good things about chiropractors helping babies and children who are prone to ear infections.  Anybody heard anything about this?  Anyway, here are some pictures from the past few weeks or so.

Plans!

We are all feeling much better this week, thanks for all the concern expressed.  Today is the first day I really feel like my sinus infection is gone, and it is great!  BJ and Gabe are healthy now as well. 
We have been working a bunch on decluttering and getting organized around here.  We I have a 3-month plan (I just love lists, what can I say?) of the things we are trying to get done before the baby is born. 
Done so far:
I have a large, ever- growing bag of things to go to DI.
We have gone through our books, including old textbooks, to determine which ones will be given away, which ones we are using right now, and which ones can go in storage for a while.  We consolidated the "keepers" onto one bookshelf, then we boxed up four 18- gallon sized Rubbermaid containers full of books.  We are getting rid of the large bookcase that all the other books were on.
I repacked some things in storage including our Christmas decorations to make more space.
We downsized to a smaller, and more child- friendly proof television and entertainment center.
We have installed dimmer switches for our lights in all the bedrooms to conserve electricity.  We'll be doing that in the rest of the house soon.  

A few things we are working on now or will be soon:
Clearing every non- essential gadget or appliance off the kitchen counter and coming up with an organizational system to prevent junk build-up.
Going through all our closets and cupboards, giving stuff to DI, or boxing it up for storage. 
BJ will install a ceiling fan in our room, but probably not until this summer.
BJ is also planning on building shelves in our tiny storage unit outside so that we can better utilize the space.
I am working on meal planning ideas and revamping my recipe binder to be more helpful.  We recently came up with a grocery shopping list system that has helped somewhat in meal planning and preparation.  It is an itemized list of our most commonly purchased items, that we circle as we run out of.  I posted about it (and included the list for people to download) on my other blog here.

Gabe toddles around, "helping" as much as he can.  He has become very interested in helping put things away in buckets and containers, and pushing laundry baskets up and down the hall.  He pats his chest proudly when we say that he is a "big boy helper".  He has been very interested in little babies, although he still points to himself and signs "baby" sometimes.  He is finally starting to sign "mommy" when he sees me, and today he started saying "nananana" which is the closest thing I have heard to "mama".  I know it isn't banana because he calls bananas "lala"s.

Anyway, that's what we have been up to and will probably be working on for some time.  I am trying not to be overwhelmed by it all, but rather to enjoy the progress we are making.