What the Chandlers have been up to.

Painting.

First it's not a good family fun activity. I remembered an hour into the project how much I hated painting. That it's not relaxing for me, at all! But the first coat is up. The living room, entry way, and hall way. Cody went to pick up another gallon of paint, and some lunch. And I'm here watching Sophia sleep. The paint is called "Oat Cake" it's a great living room color that will work out great when it's time for this house to be sold! The next large painting project will find me flipping through the yellow pages and making a call to someone that does painting as a job. Someone that can do it faster, and better than Cody and I can. :-)

This coming week Sophia and I are going to go Christmas Decoration Shopping! I am so excited! I LOVE decorating for the holidays! I guess we should throw away the pumpkins in front of the house huh? Gotta make room for the new decor!! As I already said Cody and I exchanged our major presents already! We are LOVING the new TV! We bought all the stuff we needed to hook the computer up to the TV so we can watch our TV shows on HULU on the TV. Plus I love surfing the internet on a bigger screen!

I'll post some pictures of the paint and stuff tonight. My camera is all the way over there (I'm nodding to the other side of the room just so you know!) and I am enjoying sitting while I can! Since when Cody comes home he'll crack the whip and it'll be time to paint again!!

15 Weeks

Age - 15 Weeks

Weight - A solid 17.5 pounds.

Height - She was 26 inches last time we measured 2 weeks ago.

Sleeping habit - She's had quite a fun week. Three nights of 12 hours of sleep, and 2 nights of waking up every 2.5-3 hours. Whew. Fun.

Eating habits - She's having fun with eating cereal with a spoon. Two times this week she's done a great job, two times she hasn't wanted anything to do with it. She's still young, it's still not something we're stressing over.

Cutest Moment of the Week - She is LOVING her jumperoo. She plays in it for about an hour a day. She is loving the "standing" that she can do in it!

Milestones - Eating with a spoon has been a fun new milestone. Along with playing more!

Firsts - First 12 hour sleep stretch! First time playing in the jumperoo!

A quick update after Wordless Wednesdays.

So it was difficult to stay wordless! We exchanged our major Christmas presents way way early!

I got a brand new camera! Cody got a new TV! Sophia got a Jumperoo!


Ok that's all, lots to do for Thanksgiving!! <3

Wordless Wednesday

I just want to share...

I have taken a lot of pictures the past two days, but I haven't shared any. I'm so horrible I know!

The truth is I just figured out how to blur the background of pictures and so I've been playing around with background stuff. I found an online class that is an at your own pace class that will teach me how to do things with Photoshop. It'll be great to be able to actually do something with this program besides simply crop pictures! I haven't signed up for the class yet, but for anyone who may benefit this is the link.

I am supposed to be writing about my adventures in baby food making. But I just realized I took A LOT of pictures while I was making baby food and so that's going to have to wait until I'm a little more awake.

We had another night of cereal with a spoon vs. in the bottle. She's doing so good!! I didn't get any pictures this time because it was just the two of us here and I only have two hands (I know CRAZY!). I am shamelessly hoping that she gets a better nights sleep tonight than what she got last night. We both need sleep, neither one of us do well when we're tired. That's a trait she got from her Mommy for sure!

I also wanted to share another blog I stumbled across today. I have many crafty friends, and this site has TONS of great ideas!!! She even has recipes sprinkled in as well.


So I won't keep you all waiting any longer to see some pictures from yesterday and today.

The first two are from yesterday. You can see the fun personality she's forming. I love it!




I know, I know...you're heart is exploding into a million billion tiny pieces. She makes me feel that way all day long!

In this picture from this morning you can see what a sweet heart she is.



And here you can see that just a few seconds later she can be totally and completely fed up with pictures.



Alright well, tomorrow is Wordless Wednesday. So now that I've shared the past two days I'll be forced to share more tomorrow!! :-)

Eventful play time.

I left my camera in the car, UGH. Sophia woke up early from her nap time, so a bottle, a change and some music later I put her in her play gym because she loves to look at herself and smile and talk.

During today's play time she did 2 amazing things.

First, she grabbed her feet (a few times!). She looked shocked. I was smiling like a fool.

Second, she is really trying to get this whole rolling over on purpose thing. About a month or so ago she rolled over two times in a row, but has never really done it again. I'm in no big hurry because I know that right after rolling over comes shooching, then crawling, then cruising, then walking. And I'm in no hurry to rush any of those things. Well she's really working on the rolling over. And if she didn't have quite the belly I think she would have managed it already. She get on her side and then falls back again.


While I'm updating on her achievements, or milestones even, she's still a drooling machine. But She doesn't seem to be cranky because of it (although she has been slightly cranky anyways because of her cold! So I guess who knows). She has her hands in her mouth a lot, but when I stick my knuckle near her mouth she's not chomping down or anything. So I don't know. Maybe it's teething, maybe it's not. I love her gummy little smile, so no rush!!

She's not a ham for the camera just yet.

Well I was hoping to get a great video of her smiling and talking. She talks constantly, and smiles so much. But the moment she see's the camera you'd think she was an actress...no more smiles, no more talking. It's time to be serious baby!

In fact I just put the camera down and she's next to me talking my ear off while I sing to her. You're probably going to tell me to sing while I'm taping her. You'd all love to hear me embarrass myself wouldn't you?!?! Tonight she is loving Chris Cornell. I think she's got good taste in music!

She had an eventful day today. We went to church this morning, then to lunch with her Uncle Cory, Josh, and a friend of theirs. She loves all the attention Josh gives her!! We came home and she was so tired out that she took a long nap while we got a few things done at the house. Including me making some gooey cake bars. We decided that we would start letting Sophia figure out how to work her tongue. Since she already had cereal in her bottles during the day we decided to make a couple table spoons and see how she did with it on it's own and not in a bottle. She did GREAT! She loved figuring it out and she did great with swallowing it (obviously not ALL of it made it to her belly, but more more than I was expecting!).

I will do my best to get a good video this week. I just went through the video's we did tonight and we find them very entertaining, but we don't think that everyone else will so much! :-)

Here are some pictures from today though. (Pardon her shirtlessness in the second picture. We decided to do the cereal thing RIGHT before bath time to keep there from being quite as big of a mess. We had no idea it would go quite so well!

She's still a sick pun'kin!

My poor baby! She's still stuffed up! She's fine for a few hours a day, but every night the stuffiness comes back full force. We're attacking it at all angles! We've got the vaporizer, the humidifier, the saline drops, the elevated mattress. If on Monday she's still not feeling well I'm going to call the pedi and ask about all those things that say to consult the pedi if using before "x" months/years. There's got to be more we can do!!

Today we got a hand blender thing, so that I can make baby food. I know, I know, the William Sonoma thing is the best for making baby food. But I couldn't justify the money (and I'm sure in 6 months I'll be posting again saying that I wish I had gotten it!) Anyhow, I'm really excited about it. I'm going to make squash and green beans tomorrow or Monday. So I'll let you know how it goes with it! It HAS to be better than using our big blender (which is way too big for baby food making!!)

So I meant to take pictures of her today. But we were SO BUSY today! So I just took this picture of her sleeping!

What is our purpose as parents?

I've been thinking a lot about this question. What is our purpose as parents? What are we supposed to be doing for our children? What is our responsibility to society as parents?

There are some people that feel their only responsibility is to feed their child and provide them with clothing and shelter. Some people feel it's to teach their children to 'act right'. Other people have children, do what they can to raise them, with out ever thinking of the end goal, on what raising a child means, on what their responsibilities are.

Personally I think that our responsibility to our child is to raise them with a set of skills to make it in the world. Problem solving, the ability to talk through issues, how to be honest, how to forgive, how to be productive and fair in life, and how to follow God. It's a tall order. I feel we also have a responsibility to society to raise a child to be productive, to have morals and values that will require them to have integrity and a good head on their shoulders, for lack of a better term. Can we be successful all on our own? The saying is 'It takes a village to raise a child.' How true. It takes have a good support team on your side that can help lead your child by example. It requires a good set of teachers, not just in school but in life. It requires leaders in church. It requires the influence of more people than just the mother and the father.

I also feel that it is a parents responsibility to show a child to enjoy life. That's a difficult task. Life is stressful. Bills, work, chores...it all adds up! I think it's important to make time to enjoy life. It doesn't have to cost money, but it will cost you TIME. Time set aside for your family. A day at the park, going to the lake to feed the ducks, a picnic, flying a kite, building a snowman...none of these things require a big bank account. But they will show your child that in the face of stress and hard times it is important to make time for something good.

I know most parents teach their children the bed time prayer "Now I lay me down to sleep....". And it's a powerful prayer that I think we should be really taking in with our children. But what are people doing beyond that? What are we doing to teach our children about God. Are we living by example? Are we going to church, yet cursing on the phone with the phone company? We are all sinners, we aren't expected to be perfect. But we are expected to try. How can we expect something of our children that we are unable to do ourselves?

I am sure I will disappoint my children. I have and will make mistakes. I do what I truly believe is best for them, but I am human. I will make mistakes. I will get worn down, stressed out, tired....I will forget what my purpose is as their Mom. My hope is that my children feel my love, they know that it is unconditional. I hope that they will be able to go into the world one day and be a good, honestly, Godly member of society. I want better for them than I got. I want them to be better than I am.

There are families that I have gotten to know over the years. I look at them and I think "That's the sort of Mom I want to be" or "That's the sort of relationship I want with my kids". I think it's important to surround yourself with good people that will help you reach the goals you've set for yourself, your children and your family.

14 Weeks

Age - 14 Weeks

Weight - Last week she weighed in at 16 pounds 9.7 oz. Today using my make-shift method of weighing her she was over 17 pounds (one time it was 17 and one time it was 17.5)

Height - She was 26 inches last week.

Sleeping habit - Her first stretch of sleep is usually at least 5 hours. So she's waking up between 2 and 4, then again at 6 and 9 or 10.

Eating habits - She's still enjoying her healthy appetite. Just a few more weeks until we start solids! I'm hoping she's as excited as we are!

Cutest Moment of the Week -There are so many. Today was the first time she really enjoyed a toy. She stairs at her mobile on her swing, and she likes the reaction that comes from accidentally kicking and hitting the toys on her play gym. But today at the store I held up a toy that played music and she smiled so big and stopped smiling the moment it stopped. (she of course had to have said toy!)

Milestones - She's filling up the car seat. Is that a milestone? It should be. Because it saddens me in the same way watching her reach milestones!

Firsts - I can't think of anything right this moment.

With a song in my heart....

That's what's gotten me through the day. Sophia was in quite a mood this evening. WOW! I know she's still feeling under the weather. And I'm sure she's at the end of her rope with me cleaning her nose out. But man, oh man. That little girl has found her lungs and wants the entire world to hear her unhappiness!! Not to mention dealing with just little things that weren't working out well today.

Cody and I have been trying to figure out what she is going to get for Christmas. It's difficult because you never really know what Santa is going to give her. So hopefully his elves are also playing spies and they are watching what Mommy and Daddy are ordering. :-) I know that this Christmas won't be a memorable one for her, but it will be for us. I've decided that the next child we have we are timing it better so that they are a little older for their first Christmas! We know that for Sophia it's just another day this year, and as long as she's fed and dry she'll be happy (well relatively happy anyways). But I still want to start the traditions that we'll have for years to come. Cody and I are horrible about waiting until Christmas to open our presents. In fact I don't think that we've ever opened presents ON Christmas. On Christmas Eve we've decided we're done waiting, and we open them all. I don't want that for Sophia necessarily. So we've talked about the "one present on Christmas Eve" rule. And what that present should be! We've toyed with the idea of something like a game that we can play as a family on Christmas Eve. We've also talked about Christmas Jammies. That way in the morning we can all open presents in our cute new Holiday Jammies. We've got a little while to decide. I think more than anything we want to start family traditions that we can all hold on to. I am excited for her to hang Christmas lights with her Daddy, and sing Christmas Carols while getting ready for the Holiday celebrations.

I love hearing about everyone's holiday traditions. I just heard from a friend of mine that when she was a little girl they put out orange wedges and milk for Santa. I mean it doesn't sound like the tastiest thing ever. But I'm sure Santa liked the break from the regular milk and cookies. Maybe we should leave bagel bites and milk out for Santa. :-)

I just want to build family memories that our children can look back on with a smile and tell fun stories about their childhood.

Wordless Wednesday

Today I am starting "Wordless Wednesdays". I'm breaking the rule by explaining this. But I wanted to give you a heads up. :-)

Would this be rude?

I have no problem with friends and family wanting to touch and cuddle my sweet pun'kin. But I do take issue with strangers feeling entitled to touching her everywhere we go. It is cold and flu season people!! She's already got a cold...BACK UP! At least hanging this sign will save me the time from telling each and every person not to touch her. I understand that babies are irresistible. She's got super chubby cheeks, adorable rolls on her arms and legs. She's the baby that people just want to touch and pinch. But I have no clue how people are so unable to control them selves that they can't take a moment to realize that this isn't a baby they know and she doesn't need their germy fingers all over her. I remmeber hearing once that there was a culture that believed that NOT touching a baby was bad form. Sophia and I don't want anyone to have bad luck. So for people that truly believe this, I would be willing to make a deal. If you touch her, and she gets sick, you can come to our house and help take care of her when she's up all hours of the night with a stuffy nose. It seems like a perfectly fair trade. I have no problem with our family and friends wanting to hold Sophia, touch her, & pinch her adorable cheeks (not to hard!). She is a beautiful baby if I say so myself. It's mostly the grubby strangers fingers that concern me.

On to other things, I cut my finger last night and because of this Sophia got to see what the inside of an ER looked like. I will be ok, but it does look quite disgusting. It is too deep for stitches, so it's bandaged and I have to wear a brace to keep my pinky straight so that it can heal. I also got a shot. Lovely. Thankfully Cody is around to help with baths and such so that I am not doing too much that can cause an infection!

I understand that you still have no pictures of Sophia and you are all feeling very disappointed. Petition to Santa to bring a new camera to the Chandler house! I get increasingly frustrated with my camera every day. It's inability to actually take a picture when I click the button is driving me crazy! I miss so many great pictures that I make the choice to put down the camera and enjoy the moments instead of capturing them with a photo. I know in 16 years when Sophia is a sassy teenager I will wish I took more pictures (does anyone ever feel satisfied with the amount of pictures they took??) of her as a baby. But it is what it is, and I haven't given up on the not-so-great camera!!!

Today there was a first.

Sophia has a cold. A slight fever but nothing to worry about. She's very cranky though, which comes from a mix of not feeling well and not sleeping well. Poor Pun'kin.

Well this morning I put her in the bathroom with me while I showered, and she was just so unhappy. So I turned the water down so it would cool down to a more baby appropriate temperature. And I brought her into the shower with me. She loved it! Her eyes got huge and she tried to figure out what this new sensation was. She stopped crying right away and just looked at me with a look of total awe.

I was relieved for the silence. It had been a long long night. (And I imagine since she's still congested tonight will be a long night as well.)

I forgot to update Sophia's 3 month stats

I also didn't do a weekly update last week. Remember I said last week was bad. But this week will be amazing, so I will not let these things slip by.

Anyhow, she had a 3 month appointment because we're doing the modified shot schedule. So anyways, I was excited to see what she weighed and such.
She was 16 pounds 9.7 oz. She was 26 inches long. And I can't remember the size of her head.

But basicly she's still holding the title of chubstar. And I love it! :-)

I have been working hard trying to catch more of her amazing smiles on camera. She just has no interest in giving it up. Not to mention that my camera has started to have an attitude and I get so frustrated with it each time I try to use it. I'll try again tomorrow though. In the mean time, trust me when I say she's still a very happy baby!

Never ever again.

The past few days has been difficult. Truth be told it was already a rough week before more got added to my plate. I look back at the last 3 days and I'm ashamed. I am ashamed that I allowed things and people to cloud the good things. I am ashamed that I allowed myself to put more into the things that hurt me than the things that make me so happy. I didn't take as many pictures, I didn't enjoy my night time bonding with Sophia, I didn't take every moment to be grateful. And for that, I am ashamed. It's a lesson I've learned though. These moments in my life are too special, they mean too much, and they are going by too quickly. I can not and no longer will allow things that are petty to interfere with the things that matter most to me.

Now I have a little girl that is late for her b's (bath, bottle, and bonding) so she can go to bed. We're a little behind because we went to dinner.

Sophia's 3 month present to her Mommy!

Sleeping Through the Night!

AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!

Now, it could be a fluke. It may never happen again. But last night Sophia slept from roughly 9 pm til 6:30 am! Do some quick math on your fingers, don't worry we'll wait for you...........

Yes! NINE HOURS! I wish I had gone to bed at 9! Lesson learned dear Sophia...lesson learned. Mommy will head to bed early tonight! Just in case you decide to do an encore presentation of tonight!!

Happy Birthday Pun'kin! Mommy loves you!!

Today we got to spend a day with our veteran.

Cody that is. We didn't do much but it was nice to have a day with him since his schedule has been sorta crazy lately.

Tomorrow Sophia will be 3 months old THREE MONTHS OLD. It actually makes my heart heavy to know that this time has gone by so quickly. When you're pregnant a trimester lasts forever, but when you have an "outside baby" the months fly by, it's difficult to even keep track of the weeks!!

We bought Sophia few 6-9 month outfits today. My scale at home still shows her at 16 pounds. We know that could be off a little. I hope for her sake she does plateau soon, I mean she has to eventually right?!

Tonight during our music time I pulled up old school theme songs on youtube and we danced to them. Cody told Sophia that they were "shows Mommy and Daddy grew up on." Wow, well if that doesn't make me feel old. I know HE just had a birthday this week, but why do you have to drag everyone else down the old tunnel? :) She enjoyed listening and dancing to DuckTales, Salute Your Shorts, & Animaniacs. It was fun. And a fun break from the music we have been listening too lately.

As I mentioned yesterday Sophia is having quite the attitude. Tonights bath didn't go much better than the one last night. I was forced to have Cody hold a bottle for her while I washed her. It was the only thing that calmed her. I feel like maybe her internal schedule is shifting. So I'm going to spend the upcoming days tinkering around with what time we do things like bath time. It could very well be that she just isn't in the mood at the time we're doing baths right now. So we'll see.

I realize I didn't post any pictures yesterday. But you remember I said Sophia was in quite the mood. Here's evidence. You can FEEL her attitude in this picture.



It makes me giggle. It's the things like that that I wish our family were closer to see. Her personality is SO STRONG. Not only does she have a very distinct attitude, but she's also quite the talker (I really have NO IDEA where this comes from!). But she just loves to gab away. Even if no one is around to hear her. Here she is in the middle of jabbering about her day.



And so that I've completely caught up on showing pictures off (if this was 1992 I'd be that annoying mother pulling out a photo album at the grocery store!)...here's her new habit. She doesn't suck on them, she just noms on them ALL DAY LONG!



Ok I know you all have to take a break from looking at her beauty! :-)

Tomorrow we have a doctors appointment with her new pedi! I am pretty excited. I've heard good things about her, and this office. So I'm hoping for the best!!

One Fourty Five in the Morning.

Sophia has been fed, changed, and swaddled. I laid her back down in her crib and turned the soother on. The white noise was already on.

I took this lead from Cody. After her bottle and after he changes her he lays her down, and he goes back to bed. She puts herself back to sleep. I make some modifications to this because that doesn't really totally fit for ME. I talk to her for about 15 minutes. I give her kisses, and tell her how much I love her. And then I swaddle her and put her in the crib. I stand in there and tell her I love her, and then I turn on the infant soother and I walk out of the room.

I am writing this right now because I want to look back and remember this moment. I want something to remind me. She's in there cooing and talking to herself. Just a month ago I thought she was going to be this very dependent little person. But lately a very independent soul is making its way out. She still wants her Mommy when she's upset. But she is fine alone. It makes me a little sad, but it makes me proud too. She's growing up fast. But she's growing up secure. I hope she always feels comfortable enough by herself to talk and coo and smile.

Well that was different.

Tonight has been quite interesting. I am googling in a seperate tab if we're dealing with another wonder week. It sure FEELS like another one. She's fighting sleep. She's insanely happy for part of the day, and then absolutely miserable for other parts. Usually the parts where she's close to getting tired.

Ok well what do you know, week 12 is a wonder week. This makes total sense. Now. I was coming to write a long thing about how miserable she was during her bath tonight. I think now it's because she associates bath time with bed time. She normally LOVES bath time. She kicks and we play "this little piggy" and she is happy. Not tonight. Tonight she screamed until she was beat red. I picked her up and put her on my lap and finished washing her that way. By the time it was said and done I was soaked. She then fought sleep for a good 45 minutes.

But I get it now...this is pretty much exactly like what happened at 8 weeks. Boo to that! I'm looking forward to her "sunny week"!!!

I'm Obsessed with Wordle

Ok so these are really really small. And it's almost 2 am so I am not going to sit here and fix it. So take yourself to wordle.com and play!

The End.

The Ugly Word of the Day: Constipation.

Poor poor Sophia. She's actually not ACTING miserable. You would think drinking anywhere from 42-48 oz of formula on any given day would mean that she'd be a pooping fool. She used to be very regular. (When she's older she's going to be so mad at me for discussing this publicly). But I have a point. Up until last week she was regular. Then something changed. And now she isn't. As I said she isn't ACTING miserable. But the tiny poops that I've gotten in the past days are not the poopy diapers that a child that eats as much as mine should have. And she doesn't even have those tiny ones daily.

Today we experimented with prune juice in the bottle. Everything I read made this seem like a sure fire way, she WOULD have a poopy diaper. But has she? No. Her 6 o'clock bottle had prune juice, and now her 1 am bottle has prune juice. I'm expecting a blow out of epic proportions at any moment. I'm armed and ready. I have two diapers next to me as she drinks this bottle. I've got a burp cloth covering my lap, and she's been wearing non-adorable clothes all day...just.in.case.

You may wonder why I'm even bothering if she hasn't been acting miserable. Well this is two fold. One, if it were me, I'd want someone to step in and help move things along prior to there being a big problem. Two, I don't WANT a screaming miserable baby. I would like to avoid that. So in an effort to make sure she's the happy, smiling, comfortable baby that she usually is...I'm striking early.

We have an appointment on Thursday anyways. But if by noon on Tuesday there hasn't been some major movement I'm calling.

So there are no adorable pictures today. Just picture the Stunning Sophia in a plain white onesie all day.

Today was Cody's birthday!

I am glad he got home in time to spend at least part of the day with us. I can tell he missed his little princess, the moment he came home he showered her with attention and love. She was only half awake, but gave him big smiles for all of his efforts. She loves her Daddy!!
I tried to take a cute picture of her for his birthday and we got some decent shots. She definitely lets me know when she's done taking pictures!


And by the time I got a sign printed out she was pretty much done!



I could have spent the afternoon finishing the laundry before Cody came home. But I could tell by the look in Sophia's eyes that she just wanted to cuddle. So we took an afternoon nap together. Normally I can't sleep during the day but today I was so tired! I decided last night that I was going to let Sophia sleep in the bed with me so I could do some things in her room after she went to sleep. This was perfectly fine with 3 week old Sophia (which is when we transitioned her from co-sleeping to crib sleeping---but don't worry there was no CIO or such happening!). But almost 13 week old Sophia is SO ACTIVE! She was kicking me and punching me in her sleep. I'd turn her so that she wasn't able to kick me, only to wake up an hour later to find her turned and kicking me in the arm. So I don't think the full night of co-sleeping will ever happen again. At least not if we can avoid it. I felt like the waking dead for most of the morning.

Sophia's new favorite song is "The Wheels on the Bus". Well I'll be honest, it may be her favorite because it's the only one I can remember that we can be active with! I do all the movements with her legs and then her arms. She loves it she smiles so big and kicks and waves her arms trying to get it all working together.

Obviously when I've taken an afternoon nap I have more to write about. Odd how that works out. Hopefully the weather is good tomorrow. We have to go pick up her records at the old pedi's office, and go to change the forms with the insurance company for the new pedi. I've heard a lot of good things about the new doctors office, I'm so excited to take her here!!

Fall Gift Exchange.

Sophia and I had a great time at the gift exchange. Sophia loved all the attention she got. She also enjoyed looking around at a house. I think she's already bored with our home. :-)

We had a great time gabbing with the ladies! And the gift exchange was a major win! We got adorable place mats (even though my first gifts were all stolen!!). I stole the place mats in the beginning, so YAY for getting them back, it may be considered cheating, but the after party trade was totally worth it! I love them!

I took some pictures of Sophia before we went. I loved her outfit today. But when I was changing her into her PJ's I realized that the seam has already started to come apart. So I'll have to fix it. If not, sadly, this will be the last time she got to wear it! I'll come back in and edit this post to add pictures. after I get her to sleep!!

EDIT:Ok I can add some pictures now. First of all here's a picture of her in her outfit. I wish I would have gotten more pictures of her in it!



I know, the bib is really what makes it! I'm glad I found all the bibs for the outfits. Although I wish I would have remembered where I put them when she was wearing some of the outfits last month!

I have been meaning to post a picture of her memory board before I take all the cards down and put them in her book! This is only about 1/2 the cards. We are so grateful for the love and well wishes that were sent our way. Hopefully I'll get some pictures ordered soon (I guess it does no good to TAKE a billion pictures if you don't print any of them out!) so that I can put up some pictures of her on her board!

She's a stylin' little girl!

Sophia has some darn adorable clothes. Unfortunately she's growing so quickly that she isn't going to get to wear some things as much as I'd like. Today's outfit is one of those things. I wish she could wear this all winter. But the jeans are pretty much too small. The shirt is fitting just right (meaning soon it won't fit at all). Luckily the vest we may be able to get some wear out of until late December.


It's the cutest thing isn't it? Go ahead, admit it. She's totally the coolest kid in her adorable vest outfit!!

Today we had a busy day. We went to lunch with her little friend Natalee, Miss Amanda, and Maddie. We then headed over to Uncle Cory's fr a little while. We ended the day at a church group meeting. Sophia pretty much slept through the whole thing. Not shocking really. When we came home I decided to start some laundry, wash the bottles and get as much done as I could before she woke up and wanted out of her car seat. I got a good 30 minutes of cleaning in before she stirred. She ate, we talked for a while, took a couple pictures and now she's down for the night.

Tonight at church during song praise, I kept thinking of how much I've been blessed in my life. I do not deserve all that I've been given. He really has not only provided much more than I thought possible, but He's blessed me in so many ways. It's really difficult sometimes to grasp His will, to understand His forgiveness. But in some moments of stillness I can feel it. It's so real that you can almost reach out and touch it. He has blessed me, even though I don't always deserve it.

And just to show you how blessed I am. This little girl looks at me every day and thinks I'm the greatest thing ever. I can fix her hunger, I can make her dry when she is wet. I can sing to her and dance with her when she is bored. To her I am amazing. To me, she is a blessing.

On a day of great sadness.

I think Sophia is missing her daddy. During today's picture taking time I asked her to smile for Daddy and instead she gave me this:


It breaks your heart a little doesn't it?

This weekend will be busy! Tomorrow night we've got church group for the first time! We're both very excited about that. And then Saturday we've got a fall gift exchange event. Sophia always loves getting lots of attention from everyone.

Today was a horrible day for America. Today there was a shooting spree at Ft. Hood, TX. So many peoples lives have forever changed. You expect to worry about your soldier when he's gone. But you never think when he leaves for a briefing that you should be worried he may not come home. It is days like today that make the country reevaluate it's morals. At least you'd hope events like today would wake us up. Post 9/11 every one was about unity. About brotherhood. No one knew a stranger after the attacks that day. We were so unified that anyone you passed on the street you cared about. Things aren't like that anymore, after a couple of years our country pretty much went back to being self absorbed. I hope that if nothing else the horrible and senseless shooting in Texas will remind everyone that life is fragile. That we can't take a moment for granted. I can promise you there was a little more cuddling going on in the Chandler house. We should never need a reminder to keep our hearts open.



Because today has been a sad day I'm going to leave you with another picture.

12 weeks

Age - 12 Weeks (seriously where has the time gone?!)

Weight - I did a ghetto weigh-in this afternoon and she weighed 16 lbs!

Height - We'll see in a week!

Sleeping habit - We're getting six hour stretches! YAY!

Eating habits - She is still a chunkster. As if you can't tell. So obviously she's still eating quite well!

Cutest Moment of the Week - Halloween! She was the cutest darn flower of 09!

Milestones - She's loving sitting up. She holds on to my fingers and pulls herself up.

Firsts - She had her first halloween.

Amazing Giveaway!

I'm not giving anything away (I bet more people would follow if I did!)

But this photographer is hosting a giveaway. And I'd really like one of these beautiful necklaces!!

http://jaideanbakerphotography.com/blog/?p=1091


So cross your fingers and toes for me!

How to know you're taking too many pictures.

When the batteries die in 3 weeks.

Ooops!

I didn't get many pictures today because the camera batteries died. Again. I can not WAIT to get a new camera (did you hear that Santa..momma wants a digital slr?!!!)

I did manage to take a few pictures before the blinking battery icon appeared to ruin the morning!!



Obviously the picture was cut short. Normally I get more pictures with out the pacifier. She just didn't want to do that this morning.




Anyhow, during football season Sundays normally include watching the game at Old Chicago. However, I just wasn't feeling up to it today. I wanted to stay home and relax. So Cody headed over to his brothers to watch a little bit of the game while the girls ran a couple of errands.

While I already miss the newborn stage of Sophia's life. I love love LOVE the fact that she can smile. It makes me so happy!! I love that when I sing and dance with her after diaper changes that I know she's enjoying it. I also love the fact that now I know when I need to step up my game and improve my skills. :-)

The DST sort of messed with our schedule tonight. We got her into the bath at 8, which would normally have been perfect except to poor Sophia it was 9. So by the time the bath was over, and she was all dressed in her PJ's she was beyond tired. Which makes turns our sweet little angel baby into fussy pants in no time at all!

Luckily she did eventually fall asleep and Cody and I had a little bit of time to watch some TV before he went to bed. I am actually soon to follow...since Sophia isn't aware that the time has changed I'm sure the need to eat will come an hour earlier by the clock!

It's November!!

But we have to have another Halloween post. Because yesterday was Sophia's first Halloween!!
We dressed her up as a flower. We didn't want an overly elaborate costume (we're saving that for next year!). But we did want to dress her up for the day. I bought her costume more than a month ago. At the time I didn't know Sophia would be in 3-6 month clothes. And silly me went ahead and washed it (making it impossible to return!). So her costume was size 0-3! It was SMALL (seems to be a theme, which is why I won't be buying holiday attire that far in advance ever again!). But she was a champ. Our beautiful little flower:



Seeing as how she's far too young to "trick or treat", she didn't get to go do much in her costume. We did take her to run some errands, and to Uncle Cory's house for a little bit. Everyone thought she was the most beautiful little flower (seriously, don't take my word for her beauty, other people agree!!).

Here's a picture of her in her carseat ready for the world!



You may be wondering what in the world Cody and I were for Halloween. We didn't celebrate the day with a costume. Or at least I thought that. Until last night when I went to brush my teeth to get ready for bed.

Let me start off this short story by saying that I love my new hair cut. I love the way it looks, and I love how easy it is to style. But I hate how my hair get in my face during the day. I wish I could just pull it up in a pony tail and do what I need to do around the house. I sometimes have my sunglasses holding my hair back (like I have right this second actually). Well last night our friends (the Brokaw's) came over. We watched Saw and ate nacho's. I got tired of my hair and put a headband on. Now when I put it on it was semi cute like this:



It was serving it's purpose and being cute.

Well I guess I kept adjusting it. And fixing it. And I realized last night that I had dressed like a Mom from the 90's. All I was missing was "Mom Jeans" and a button up shirt tucked in. Because my headband went from the cute but purposeful headband to this:



So I guess I was wearing a costume, just not intentionally. I was a Mom of the 90's. Oh dear me!


I have one more picture to throw in here, because I know you all enjoy looking at my little chubstar in all of her chubby glory!! She loves to splash in the water, and I caught this adorable picture last night after she kicked the water and splashed me in the face!!