Hurricane Sandy

I live on the East Coast, and Hurricane Sandy is bearing down on everyone.  Luckily, where I live, we have not taken a direct hit, nor have we had much really bad damage.  Flooding in low-lying areas, a few short-lived power outages for some people, but nothing major.  We have been very lucky.  However, people farther north may not be so lucky, so please, keep them in your thoughts and/or prayers as you so choose, and let's hope no one gets hurt.

Take care everyone!

Playhouse

I think I have mentioned my dad is building a playhouse in the backyard for the girls.  It's coming along really nicely now and looks like a real building now!  So I have decided to give you a treat and show off some pictures.  Enjoy!

Here is my dad carrying some of the wood into our (large) backyard.  He has had to carry all the materials back there almost all by himself, because Bill works and when I'm home, I have the girls, especially Elena, to watch.  I have helped when I can and I wish I could do more because I enjoy this type of thing.

 Below, here is the first of the floor/foundation/whateveryoucallit put in.

 Below, the actual floor has been laid and now we can walk on it.  Cool!

 My dad with some of his cool power tools.  He used to work in construction years ago.

 Below, here are some walls framed up and set aside for later.

 You can probably get a feel for how large this playhouse is.  It is meant to be used as a storage shed after the girls outgrow it, so it is very big.  I think it's 8'x10' or something like that.

 Stairs!  My dad never built stairs before but he worked it all out ahead and these turned out so great!

 Below, you can really see the decking on the porch area.  The tarp is for the rest of the floor so when it rains it won't get quite so saturated. 

 Roof trusses ready to go later.

 Now here's the most recent stuff:  Walls going up with the help of my brother David (in gray).  Bill was just out there talking to them on his lunch break from work.  See that orange cord?  That's for the awesome nail gun.  I AM going to use that thing.

 Here it is all closed off for overnight because it was supposed to rain.  David and my dad got all the walls up and laid the roof trusses upside down inside the building and covered them with the tarp.  It's been raining a lot the last week here.

 And here they are, my awesome dad and brother.

 After working on it some more today (my dad and David) here is what it looks like tonight!  Walls up, door cut out, porch pillars on!  My dad's coming back tomorrow and possibly my brother if he can.

Now, how cool is this thing?  I love it!  I want to play in it, too!!  When it's finished, it'll even have siding on it.  I am so lucky to have a dad who can do something like this.  It has far exceeded my expectations for a "playhouse".  When I asked him to build one for the girls, I had no idea he would make something this awesome!  Karina and I plan to paint the inside of it.  Probably purple since it's her favorite color!  And she wants a rainbow floor!

Three weeks

My house is a sick house.  As in, we've been sick with one thing or another for three straight weeks (heading into our fourth).  First, Elena got Roseola.  Then she gave it to Karina.  When Karina got better, she went to school for one day and ended up with a nasty, nasty stomach virus over the weekend.  While she was recovering from that, Elena got a cold, which she has joyfully passed on to me and Bill.  So on top of all the business and lack of time, there was that.  My house is now an official wreck, but we are, I think, mostly on the mend.  Bill just got the cold, so he'll probably be sick for a few days with that.  Hopefully he won't be as bad off as I have been, where today it was so bad that I had the girls at Target at 8:30am to buy cough medicine and Puffs Plus (my favorite tissue for cold season, and they did not pay me to say that, it's just my opinion, etc. etc).  After a few doses of cough medicine and a hot shower this evening, I am feeling better now.  We'll see how I am in the morning after everything settles back into my chest again.  Ugh. 

I am determined to have fun tomorrow though.  It's a big fall festival in town with hundreds--hundreds--of crafters, a bunch of vendors, stuff for kids to do, and food.  I love this event and I go every year now.  There is one lady who makes capodimonte jewelry, which is a type of porcelain I think. She makes them and paints them herself and they're so pretty.  I think I buy a pair of earrings or a necklace or something from her every year.  Her roses give me heart palpitations of the good kind.  (I love roses in case you didn't already know that).  Tomorrow, Bill is actually coming (different kind of heart palpitations, since he never comes to anything) and is going to take the girls to the kid stuff while I shop!  I was just going to take them with me but this is way better!

 Last weekend the youth group went to the state fair and we had so much fun.  I brought the girls and Bill was supposed to come but backed out at the last minute.  He said he didn't want to ride in the van.  Well, boy did he miss out, because we had the best time! 

 

 

 Karina is not crying, she is having so much fun and making a silly face.  

We saw animals (including some adorable baby ducks in a pond) and a watusi with horns that were bigger around than my arms and probably as long as my leg (each horn).

 We ate yucky state fair hot dogs that were actually okay, Karina rode a ton of rides including a slide that was so high I thought for sure she'd freak out at the top and end up in tears! But she didn't cry, and in fact she LOVED it and wanted to go again, but the line was really long.

 Okay, do you see how high up this thing is?  That's my kid climbing up the stairs in front of her two little friends.  The older boy is afraid of heights, too, and his mom didn't think he'd go up there but look!  They were all brave.

We even had a panic moment when I lost my wallet!  That's right, LOST, as in GONE!!  But thankfully one of the youth advisors, Erik, who is a police officer, knew what to do and we ended up finding it in the lost and found with everything still in it--a miracle, I thought for sure it'd be stripped of all but maybe my kids' pictures.  But everything was there, thank goodness!  Elena was a angel the whole time, didn't even really cry about anything until we were in the van going back home.  It was late, almost her bedtime, and she was tired and starting to get that cold.  She was tired of being in a stroller or her carseat, and wanted out.  I had already fed her and was waiting for her to fall asleep, but she started crying more and more until she got really worked up.  Then she started coughing and kind of choking.  She started choking enough that I was scared enough and couldn’t get her propped upright and I took her out of her carseat and she promptly vomited all over me.  ALL OVER me.  Three times.  But that’s okay, because she wasn’t choking.  I just put her back in the carseat, where she fell asleep immediately, and asked our pastor if I could borrow her extra shirt that had long sleeves that she didn’t wear.  I changed lickety-split in the back of the van no problem, and had no trouble the rest of the way home.  It was a good day though and Karina had a great time.  She loved riding in the van and was telling me stories about it today, going to the van store, and how the vans talk there.  She just makes up stuff and it’s so cute.  It’s always, “When I was a little girl…”  I love that!  

My dad is making progress on the playhouse.  Walls go up next!  Woohoo!  Should be getting some or all of that done on Monday.  My brother is coming over to help him do that.  It's going to be amazing!  

Well, there, now you have seen some pictures despite my lack of time, energy, motivation, and health.  But hopefully at least the being healthy part will get better this week!

Short Story

Last night was a weird night at our house.  Aside from Elena's midnight hour long scream fest, Karina fell asleep at 7pm, one minute before Sesame Street started, while Bill was telling her it was coming on.  So I took her up to bed and later she woke up, I'd say around 11.  She was a little confused and I just put her in with me. 

Sometime around 130 or 2, after dealing with Elena for over an hour and finally crawling back into bed, I heard Karina call me.

"Mommy?"

"I'm here, baby, everything's okay."

"Mommy, I can't get this potty seat to stop talking."

Pause. 

"I'll make it stop, baby, go back to sleep."

Roseola. Maybe?

On Thursday I got Elena undressed for a bath and noticed she felt really warm.  Now you should know that both of the girls always feel warm, to the point that I took Karina's temperature almost every day when she was a baby because she always felt hot to me.  It turned out Elena had a fever of 101.4, which is not too high, but no fever is good news to me.  Then I noticed she had a pale rash all over her back.  I had noticed a rash on her bum but figured she'd gotten diaper rash from the overnight diaper or something.  We took her to the doctor in the morning when the rash was worse, and she no longer had a fever.  Our pediatrician tested her for strep and said it was probably roseola.  Roseola is a common childhood virus where they run a fever, sometimes very high, for several days and when it breaks, they develop this rash all over their bodies which lasts for another few days.  During the illness, they usually act as if they are totally fine and not sick at all.

It was weird that Elena still had a fever when the rash started, but the weirdest thing was Saturday night when she was up all night, from 9pm til 3am screaming.  We now think it was unrelated, and she was constipated, but still, all at the same time?  Really?  Thanks, universe. 

I kept crossing my fingers Karina wouldn't get it, because Roseola is contagious (very) and she did not have it as a baby.  Sure enough, yesterday she ran a high fever all day which we controlled well with ibuprofen.  (It was 103.9 at one point).  This morning, the fever is totally gone.  But she has no rash yet.  One website said it could take a few days for the rash to appear. 

I am so frustrated because I don't know whether to send her to preschool on Thursday if she doesn't have a rash yet or not.  I believe she is no longer contagious but still....just not sure.  What if she never gets the rash?  How long do I keep her out?  I hate this illness.  It's annoying.

But I'm glad her fever is gone because that for me is the scariest part.  I remember being sick as a child, probably 4 or 5 years old and hallucinating in my bedroom that numbers and letters were dancing all around the room.  They looked like Sesame Street numbers and letters.  You know, like puppets.  Then another time I don't remember, Mom had taken me to see the doctor and while we were there I had a convulsion from a fever.  I don't remember this because I was very little, but the story is enough to scare me where fevers are concerned. 

Karina and I did do something super fun on Friday though.  We drove across the water to a church fair where my friend had a Tupperware booth set up.  The fair had vendors, crafters, games, rides, and food.  It was overall kind of small, but we had the best time.  Elena was sick so she stayed home with Bill, and just Karina and I went.  We had a blast!  One thing we discovered was a company called Paparazzi, which is one of those direct sales companies where you host parties.  The girl had her booth there and everything is $5!  Kids' jewelry was $1!  Karina got to pick out three things and I got a really pretty necklace and earrings set--$5!  That was fun.  We ate hot dogs and played a bunch of games.  I spent $3 on tickets and she ended up winning a bunch of trinkets and candy and 3 fake dollars to spend in their "store".  She loved that!  She also turned out to be a good golfer.  She got 2 holes in one!  She has never golfed or even held a golf club in her life.  That was pretty cool.  The drive home was less than stellar, as apparently the department of transportation in our area is run by people whose brains have been consumed by zombies, or perhaps it is run by the zombies themselves.  There are three bridge or tunnel crossings in this area that are used by millions in this area.  Millions of people every single day.  So they decided to shut down two of them at the same time, but then secretly the one that was supposed to be open was having road work while another that was supposed to be closed was opened up, except that to get to that one you had to sit through construction on yet another bridge.  So we left at 7:30 and didn't get home til almost 9.  It should have taken about 30 minutes.  Now apparently the DOT has decided to reschedule some of this construction/maintenance because I guess they didn't realize it would cause so much traffic backing up.  Um, really?  Zombies.  I'm sure of it.

Hope you all had a good weekend!

Just a few miscellaneous notes

Elena was weighed yesterday at the GI doctor's office (Gastro-intestinal doctor) and she is 19.5 pounds!!!  That girl is something! 

She has two teeth on the bottom and I think she's getting more somewhere because she is still chomping like crazy on anything she can get her hands on.

She has started "investigating" objects.  What I mean is when babies will pick something up, turn it over and over and just look at it and touch it and really seem to be scientifically observing it.  I love this stage; I think it's so cute.  She was investigating my phone and I scared the daylights out of her when she started to put it in her mouth!  I grabbed it and exclaimed, "no!".  Poor kid. 

Karina is getting consistently fantastic reports from preschool, though I expect nothing less from her at this point.  I am sure there will be some negatives someday, but the way she is right now, I'm just soaking it up!  Yes, please, tell me again how awesome my child is.  Oh yes.  She is.  (I figure I should get my fill now because Elena....I just don't know.  She might be just as good or she might be um, ornery.) (Every time I use that word, I think of my grandfather "Pop" and the first time I saw that word spelled out and I didn't realize it was the same word he used all the time to refer to my brother and me.  "Ornery kids" he'd say, but lovingly.  He wrote it in one of my grade school yearbooks.  I digress.)

Karina is really having fun with my old My Little Ponies.  She insisted on getting them all out of my closet, and I gave in, finally, because I figure they should be getting played with rather than stuck on a shelf, although my first ones I did not give her to play with.  They are just too special.  She still adores her Cars and likes Barbie dolls and Disney Princess dolls of the same size, and she also really likes paper dolls still. 

Karina wants to be Rapunzel for Halloween, but I have no idea what to do with Elena.  I have the outfit Karina wore, but frankly, I'm not sure Elena will fit in it, and the way she whines when getting dressed, I don't think she'll go for it anyway.  I think she is just going to have to be something simple.

A friend of mine recently gave birth to a son, expecting him to need multiple surgeries immediately for some kidney issues he had that they had detected in utero.  However, he is doing GREAT and has not needed any surgeries so far!  Yeehaw!

I know I promised pictures but I haven't watermarked any yet.  I'm sorry, I just don't have the time right now.  I will get to them sometime though.

Hope everyone is well!

Oh wait, I still exist? Hey, actually I do!

Well, as I posted recently--I mean, a while ago--things have been crazy and wild around here.  I've been busy and tired, and busy.  Most of this is an Elena update, but I do have a few Karina things to share.

Basically what happened was this:  Elena was born in January and began crying the second she entered this world.  She proceeded to cry so much in the hospital that we got zero sleep until our night nurse finally agreed to take her out so we could get a few hours of sleep.  Thus began our descent into the month of nightmarish screaming.  After about a month of this, our pediatrician realized that she has acid reflux and prescribed some medicine for her which helped.  We had her sleeping in an inclined bassinet which was great, except that she grew really fast and is in the 90th percentile so she outgrew the thing.  She would wake quite a few times during the night, as normal newborns do, but this continued for months, even when she should have been giving up some of those feedings.  Finally, at her 6 month appointment, we increased her medicine dose based on her weight, but due to circumstances beyond anyone's control, the dose was actually less than what she should have been getting because the strength was not the same as she'd been getting.  We got that fixed, and by 7 months, Momma over here had had enough of the waking up 2-5 times a night.  I hit a wall.  I was so tired one day, I literally could not make breakfast.  For anyone.  I gave her to Bill, announced through tears that I was never, ever getting up with her at night again, and attempted to cry myself to sleep.  Bill and I agreed that I would turn off the baby monitor at night and he would try to help Elena learn to sleep better at night by not immediately responding to all of her cries, something I always did.  We did try other things, no cry methods, and various other things, but the bottom line became this:  I could not function normally or safely, and I could not be a good mother unless I got some stinking sleep.  So the "kind" methods had to go.  Bill used our video monitor to decide if her cries were urgent or just "I woke up where are you come put me back to sleep".  He never let her cry to the point of hysterics or anything like that.  Miraculously, from the first night he took over she slept better.  I jokingly say she heard me say I wasn't getting up anymore!  So now she's 7 1/2 months old, and only waking once a night.  It started out around 130am, shifted back to 330am, and is now between 5 and 530am the last three nights (knock on wood).  The best thing about these last three nights is the part where she goes back to sleep for another 2 hours!  She has been getting up at or before 6am every day (on top of the bajillion night feedings).  So that is on the way towards becoming normal, if she'll keep it up.  Yay!

She is not crawling yet, but very close.  She does the little baby push ups, scootches around on her tush a little, and reaches like crazy.  I think she will be crawling very soon. 

Today, she got her first tooth!  I knew it was coming, I could see it just under her gums, and last night I could not get her to sleep.  She cried for an hour, which she has not done for a long time--even with the crazy night feedings, she'd at least start off going to sleep.  So I knew something was wrong.  Then this morning, she was grinning at me and I saw it--it looked different, so I stuck my finger in there, and yes!  It's just barely breaking the surface, but it is there!  She has been gurgling and goo-gooing all over the place the last few days, too.  Now I just need her to stop spitting out her baby food...I'm not sure she has actually ingested any of it.  She just starts spitting as soon as she sees the spoon!  Sometimes I can't even get the spoon into her mouth at all!

 Karina's chair, my nose.

 The now famous Lambkin.

 Her toes.  The girl takes millions of pictures of her feet.

 Her face.

 Elena's grin.

 Fountain at church; below, some flowers at church.

Karina.  She is doing great, as usual.  My sweet little girl is getting so big!  She starts 3 year old preschool on Tuesday!  Wow, how time flies!  She is really excited and can't wait to go back to school.  This weekend we gave her a kid camera of her own because she has been taking pictures with mine and I'm so afraid she'll break it. But she loves taking pictures, and some turn out okay, too!  This one is by Vtech and has only about 1.5 megapixels, but it stores 1000 pictures and has been super easy for her to use.  She loves it!  And I love that she's no longer asking to use my camera every five seconds.  :-)  I need to edit and watermark a ton of photos of mine, but that takes forever, so I'm sorry but you will all just have to settle for a bunch of Karina's pictures!  I know they are blurry, most of them, and that's because there is no flash on her camera.  The outdoor photos did better, but she has to learn about holding the camera still and things like that.  I think she did all right for not even being four years old yet.  Aren't the flowers pretty?  And the one above them is the fountain at church in our columbarium garden.  I don't know why there are suds in it.  I guess they cleaned it or something.   

So we're all doing okay, doing better in a lot of ways, too.  My dad is working on the girls' playhouse and when he's done I will definitely post some pictures of that, because you all are not going to believe how awesome this thing is.  It's huge, first of all.  He has two walls framed up now and once he gets two more done, woo hoo it's going to look like a real building!  So I will post about that later.  (People, it has a porch!  A real one, like with decking and stuff!  My own house doesn't have that!)

There you go, all updated, sort of, in summary form.  As Elena gets older and is more able to play on her own I should be able to carve out a little more time for photo editing and blogging so you can keep track of my ever-so-exciting life!

Oh, my cousin's baby is due in about 8 weeks!  So exciting!  I'll keep you posted about that, too!

Enjoy the rest of your holiday weekend everyone!

You probably all think I dropped off the face of the earth

But I didn't!  See, I'm still here.  Just overwhelmed lately.  We are desperately trying to get Elena to sleep more at night (she still wakes up between 3 and 4 times, and she's going on 7 months old!).  Plus I just participated in a flash consignment sale that is actually in progress right now.  I pick up my stuff tomorrow, whatever is left over (I hope not much!).  So it's been hectic around here.

Yesterday we went to Bill's softball team's picnic and Karina had a blast playing on the playground.

The day before that I was able to shop the consignment sale early, so I took both girls and went off with them to that.  We first ate lunch with my dad and brother and I had to coordinate with a friend to bring something to Stephanie on my way.  We didn't get home til almost seven pm, Sesame Street time.  Makes for a very hectic night, especially when we hadn't had dinner yet!

The day before that I actually can't remember what we did.  I know it was something. 

The day before that (Monday if you're having trouble keeping track) we went to my grandmother's house for dinner while my mom was on her second mini-vacation and my aunt was in town.  In the morning, we followed my mom over to the beach and saw my brother's new house.

Most of these days, the excursions were combinations of things, like Wednesday; lunch then shopping.  Or Monday, visit, then second visit. 

It's been crazy around here. On top of it all, my dad is working on Karina and Elena's playhouse out back and he'll call in the morning to see if we're around, and then come over.  So I don't really always know when he's coming.  He did tell me that he'd come either today or tomorrow, and since he didn't come today I'm assuming he'll be here tomorrow at some point.  Of course, I also have to go pick up consignment stuff. 

You see what I mean?  So it's not that I'm intentionally neglecting you, my sweet and faithful blog following readers, it's just I have no time for myself in any capacity right now.  I'm lucky to shower daily!

Hang in there with me.  It's bound to improve some day!

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.