Where have I been?

I know I haven't posted much lately.  I haven't been sleeping well and am pretty overwhelmed during the day with the girls.  Elena is not sleeping through the night and I am struggling with how to deal with it.  Back and forth between the wait it out and the not so much wait it out methods.  I can't stand for her to cry, on the other hand, I would like to sleep.  Early August I'm participating in a huge consignment sale, so I'm crazy getting things tagged and bagged and hung up, so I'll be using any free time I have between now and then on that mostly.  But I'm still here and I will post again.  Thanks for hanging with me in the meantime! 

Ginger's Blog Candy giveaway

My friend Ginger is having a blog candy giveaway to celebrate four years of her blog!  You can find her at Andora's Stamping Studio and check out her giveaway.  Since I'm semi-blogger-illiterate, I couldn't get her image to post on my sidebar but here it is!

Happy blogiversary, Ginger!

Elena's 6 month checkup

Today was Elena's 6 month checkup.  We got to go to our pediatrician's new office; he and two other doctors from the practice actually opened a new practice, and I couldn't be happier!  We went in and found out that Elena is 18+ pounds and in the 90th percentile.  There was a little girl in the waiting room who was just so cute.  She was smaller than Elena.  She was 9 months old.  Pretty funny!  (Oh, and she was soooo cute!)  Dr. B answered all of my 1,000,000,000 questions and I probably backed him up a few hours, but what a patient, understanding doctor he is.  So great.  We donated some books and gave him a picture of the girls for their new bulletin board, and he said it was their first picture!  So that was cool. 

But basically, Elena is healthy, growing just fine, and can start solids.  He recommended some sleep training to get her sleeping better through the night, and I'm just hoping and praying that it works fast, because I have a feeling it's going to be, um, hellish.  She wakes up screaming in the night sometimes and it's just awful.  She wants a bottle so she can go back to sleep.  Because she has trained herself to fall asleep while eating, so that's yet another strike against us.  Oh, do we have our work cut out for us....I told Dr. B it was a job for Daddy!  I can't stand hearing them cry.  He assured me that going in and comforting them without picking them up still lets them know that "Mommy will come when I cry".

Well, that's about it, really.  Nothing much going on otherwise, my dad's building a playhouse in the back so I'll have a post on that once it's done.  He's really been going to town on it, but so far it's just the foundation and stuff, so not that exciting yet.  He's out of town for a week but will start back up after he gets back.  Once it's done I'll do a post on it.  It's going to be amazing. 

Have a good night!

Navy and pink with polka dots and some stripes

 This is the dress I bought that day that I told you about in another post.  Isn't it pretty?  I love the navy and pink combo. 

 Here's a closeup of the top.  Very flattering.  And below, you can see some shirts and a onesie from Baby Gap in the same color combination (that's navy, not black; I know it looks black but it's not).  The onesie was the first one I had, and then I found the shirts at a consignment shop recently and got them too. 

I don't know what it is but I just love this combination lately.  See my blog design from Jennie?  It's the same color scheme!

An outing and a bunch of pictures of Elena

 We went to the park near us and they have a very small beach on a lake there.  It's just a little tiny man-made lake, nothing huge, but the angle I got with these pictures is so good, it looks like more than it is. 

 I love these two photos of Karina. 

 Below, both girls zonked out in the car.  Above, just cuteness in baby form.

 Below and the one above the one above, I had to use my fade correction on these two so her eyes look a lot bluer than they actually are.  They are turning more gray-blue and look very little like Karina's and mine.

 Below, I just love this one!

 And this one.

 Below, please do not judge us by the pizza and snacks we eat.... :-)  You just keep looking at that smiley baby.

Paper Dolls and Coloring

 Karina has been into paper dolls lately, really really into them.  While searching online for printable Disney princess dolls, I found a paper doll blog called "Liana's Paper Doll Blog".  This lady can DRAW.  She is on a hiatus right now having had a baby in April (her first) but you can still go through the blog and find some incredible dresses to print.  She also has some you can color.  Here are some I printed for Karina to color.  Please note:  These dresses are copyright Liana's Paperdoll Blog and are not my artwork.  Per her blog, you can print and color them and play with them and stuff, I just want to make sure you all know, I didn't do this, and Karina just colored them.  And yes, Karina colored them, not me.  She's good for three years old, I think.

 I did not color any of those dresses.  The last one is my favorite that she did (she being Karina).  Below, she's also been playing with my old Fashion Plates.  Ha, you can see Elena hanging out with us there, too!

Baby bunny

Check out this little baby bunny we found in our yard one day while Karina was playing on her swingset.  I got her to put her foot in the picture so you could see how tiny he (or she) is.