Who is your twin??

Today I am linking up Raven with for a little bit of fun. 

 Do you ever get told that you look like a certain celebrity?? 

Well here's your chance to show of who you look like! Head over to her blog for some fun !

 Here are my look a likes:

  

 Not bad I guess!!

Although I most often get compared to her........

The beautiful Jennifer Garner

And I'll definitely take that one!!

So go link up and check out the fun!!

Venice Beach

My sister pretty much had only one request while she was visiting, a beach day!! Now I have lived in California my whole life but had only really visited the Orange County beaches and, of course, my favorite beach ever Pismo!! But since we moved, we are very close to the LA beaches so I decided to look up a couple to check out. I found one called Point Dume Beach in Malibu and it sounded wonderful so I told my sister and she was good to check out that one. Well, she realized that we were also close to Venice Beach. She had never been there and neither had I but I knew what the beach was gonna be like. Nevertheless she wanted to check it out so we headed there last Saturday.

It was so crowded!! Last Saturday happened to be the nicest beach day of the year so of course everyone was there. It took us 45 mins just to get into a parking lot and park!! It was crazy but we decided to make the best of it. My sweet baby girl loves the beach just as much as her momma and it was so nice watching her play in the sand. My sis took her into the water when we got there and let's just say that she would have stayed in the water the whole time if we would've let her!!

Barnyard at the Park

We are officially all moved in!! Yay!! We moved on March 24th and have been so busy since then that i havent had much time to blog. Four days after we moved, our church's state association was going on so we headed up to Sacramento for a few days and then last week my sister was staying with us during her spring break. I was looking for some stuff for us to do so she wouldn't be bored and so I could also check out our new city! I stumbled upon a park that has a little petting zoo and a mansion/museum. I guess the mansion used to be the home of some famous silent movie actor and it said that there were Bison roaming around the hills surrounding the park so we decided to check it out. It was a nice little park and the petting zoo was small but Sadie enjoyed seeing the animals. We didn't see any Bison until we decided to walk up this super steep driveway and then we saw them way down the hill. Bummer!! But we had a nice time at the park and we will definitely be visiting again!!

Fingerpainting

About a month ago (before we moved), I decided that I would try fingerpainting with Sadie and see what she thought about it. I also decided that I would make homemade fingerpaints. Well, the recipe I used I didn't like very much. It was too thick and not that easy to spread but it worked for the time being. Sadie seemed to enjoy it although she didn't really know exactly what she was doing. She was more into the spoons we used to mix it with but none the less she made some pictures.

To sleep or not to sleep?

                           

For the last 2 weeks, Sadie has such a hard time with sleeping (naps and bedtime), hence why I haven't blogged in awhile. She usually took two naps a day and was pretty much sleeping through the night and then all of a sudden she wouldn't sleep in her crib. I rock her to sleep because that is what works for us right now and then when she is asleep I put her in her crib and she will normally stay asleep. Well it was a normal day and I rocked her but when I went to put her down she woke up, started screaming and wouldn't go back to sleep. That night, the same thing happened and then the next day it happened again so I decided to start trying different ways to get her to sleep. We did the cry it out method for a couple days and it didn't work. Sadie is one of those babies that when she gets worked up, she can't fall asleep plus I have never been a fan of letting your baby cry alone in a room for hours on end so we stopped that method. I then tried putting her down while she was drowsy and still awake. Nope that didn't work either so I then tried rocking her, putting her down, patting her back and laying down next to her crib. Can you guess how that worked out? Yup you're right, it didn't work either.

I was so frustrated and exhausted so I started doing more and more research. I bought a book, read everything on the internet and so forth. We did the calming bath wash with the calming lotion and reading a book and setting a calm atmosphere but she would still wake up and the only way I could get her to sleep was either let her sleep on me or in our bed and we didn't want to make that a habit. I started to realize that she was most likely going through separation anxiety so I changed my view on how to get her to sleep. I make myself feel relaxed, I rock her and gently put her down and if she does start to cry I talk softly to her and pat her back. After doing that, she will usually stay asleep.

I was putting so much blame on Sadie for her not sleeping that I didn't realize that I needed to change my way of thinking about it and not get so frustrated about her sleeping habits because let's face it, she's a baby toddler and they change their sleeping habits quite regularly. I also decided to change her naptime routine. She now only takes one nap a day, usually right after lunch and then is in bed by 9pm (I know that sounds late but her daddy doesn't get home till later and that works for us). It seems to be going pretty well so far.

If you are looking for a more loving, nurturing method for getting your baby to sleep, check out this article here. This article is just one that I liked because I'm not a fan of the cry it out method but if you are and that works for you than that's great as well!! Hope this is helpful to any of you who are having sleep trouble with your babies.