Oops, should have posted this 2 days ago, it is from January 9.

I've been really busy the past several days. In accordance with my New Year's Resolution to get organized, I am trying to get my house physically organized so that I can move into maintenance mode and have a good schedule for keeping up with everything. Since I last wrote I have gotten all the toys sorted and put away, the garage cleaned out and re-organized (now we can park BOTH vehicles in there AND park all the boys' bikes), the art table cleared off and papers put away, the backyard cleaned up, the movie and game cabinets organized, and tonight I tackled the computer room. It took me about 3.5 hours but now all the filing is done, I have clear surfaces, and I am going to keep up with this! I have a nice basket on the desk to put current bills and every week (Thursday I think) I am going to go through all the bills, pay them and file them. I have a humongous laundry basket filled with papers and other trash that needs to be thrown away, but because of all my organizing, our garbage can is totally full so I'll have to wait until after garbage day to throw it all out.
My remaining household-organization tasks are the exercise room (that is really mostly Ben's stuff that he took back here when moving offices and hasn't taken to his new office yet), my sewing desk and cabinet, the CD shelf (most of our CD's are currently not in cases). Then I have about 100 other projects I haven't gotten around to that I will take on one at a time. But the pressing day-to-day stuff will hopefully be routine.
The boys seem to be adjusting well to the new schedule. They now ask me during the day what our "schedule" is. But I think I can also be pretty flexible, in that my designated hours can be rearranged as long as I have 2 good hours with the boys, an outside play hour, and a clean-up hour.
Ok, enough of the boring business. Did you know it has been COLD here recently? Seriously, on Saturday it was really cold! I think it must have dipped down into the 40's at night. At church on Sunday I had such a chill that I just couldn't shake, I had to wear Ben's suit jacket. But today it was back to 78 so I'm happy. I actually like these little cold snaps, just to shake things up, as long as they don't last more than a day or two. Hope I'm not upsetting you cold-weather folks too much! This is Florida's beautiful time of year and I love it. On the way home from church on Sunday Brigham was telling us that it snows in Utah and if we go there we will get frozen and have to wear jackets (having to wear a jacket is the ultimate in cold-weather behavior I guess). Then he asked why Utah gets cold and we tried to explain that the higher elevation and weather patterns in Utah made it cold. I guess he sort of understood because his response from the back-seat was, "Oh, that sucks!" Oh my goodness! My boys are picking up on my language. I will have to watch it. Although I personally think that cold weather sucks too! I just looked at Ben and laughed, though, because it just goes to show how closely they listen to us. I am quite sure I have never used the word "sucks" in conversation with my boys, so they clearly have picked it up (as well as its proper usage) just from listening to me talk to other adults. I guess it is good that "sucks" is pretty much the extent of my questionable language.


Tomorrow (I guess actually today) is Mosey's birthday. He will be TWO! Amazing. The big boys are aware of his birthday and have consequently become re-interested in their own birthdays, constantly asking me when it will be. Every day they ask me if their birthday is "going to be on the other day" (which means tomorrow to them). I keep telling them that it is not for a long time-- after winter is over and after summer vacation and after school starts again. But they are not really grasping the concept. Since today was Monday and school started again for the week, they asked me if their summer vacation was over and if it was going to be their birthday. No! I keep telling them not to worry about it, that I will tell them when their birthday is getting close, but that is not cutting it I guess.
Joseph's behavior is getting better, I think. He is still having a lot of anxiety about pooping in the potty, and both Ben and I agreed that his really bad behavior seems to correspond to when he has to go to the bathroom but can't. So our plan (as agreed upon over dinner at the Cheesecake Factory-- thanks Brigham and Christine!!-- and isn't it lovely dinner conversation?), is to really back-off on the pooping thing and let him continue to use pullups for a while. I had been trying to encourage him and pressure him a little since I know he CAN do it, he just THINKS he can't. His big incentive is that we have promised a night at Dave and Busters if he successfully poops in the potty. Anyway, we're not going to talk about any of that for a while and see what happens. I keep reminding myself that he will not be 18 years old still needing pullups. I don't think so anyway.
Joseph's spelling is also getting really good! He can sound out pretty much any 3 letter word now. Oh, and the boys re-discovered our Leap Pad as I was organizing toys. I got it for them when Mosey was born, but they really were not interested at the time. But now they love it. The one little book I have is too easy for them, though, so I'm going to go see what other books I can find. I bet Joseph would do great learning to spell and read simple words with the leap pad.

Let's see, other exciting stuff. Ben got me Photoshop Elements as part of my Christmas present, and I have been playing around with it. There is a steep learning curve, but I'm really excited about what I've learned so far, and a great book just came in the mail yesterday (I ordered it from Amazon) so hopefully I'll be an expert soon. I decided I need to really get good at Photoshop before I start thinking seriously about a digital SLR camera. Pretty much all digital portraiture these days (high-end anyway) employs quite a lot of Photoshop techniques that I really will need to learn well. There is a 1 week course in New York for only $900! @@@ I think I'll try to learn on my own first.
Mosey was a snickerdoodle last night. He had no nap yesterday afternoon and was a real bear by about 6:30, so Ben got him to sleep somewhere around 7-7:30. Then about 10:00 he comes down the stairs, apparently thinking it was morning. He followed me around for a while until I headed to bed, and then proceeded to sit in the bed and talk to himself (loudly!) for more than an HOUR. Didn't go to sleep until after 12:30 AM. I've got a night-owl on my hands. Today he had a nap, but only a very short one (less than an hour). I hope he'll sleep all night. I can't believe he is already giving up naps.
Ok, that's it for tonight. It is 12:30 and I am 3 hours behind schedule! But the computer room is clean and that feels great.
Have a great Tuesday everyone and think of my big 2 year old today!