Three Giveaways!

This week Charmingly Chandler is doing *three* giveaways. It started yesterday, but you have until the 28th to enter all three. Of course if you don't know about it that's probably because you haven't subscribed to the new site!! So go do that, and enter. Today's is going to be posted shortly and you don't want to miss out!

http://charminglychandler.com

Have you been to our new site?

Because it's pumped up and going! Charmingly Chandler has MOVED y'all! We just wrapped up our first giveaway and we are doing another one very soon!

So go check us out, see what we've been up to (Like HELLO the Pioneer Woman KNEW MY NAME!). And I'm opening up a lot of things that have been weighing me down.



http://charminglychandler.com

Just make sure you add the new address to the reader! So you don't miss a thing!

If you're still here and not there!!

We've moved!

We can now be found at http://charminglychandler.com

Make sure to change the links in your reader, or blogger listing. You can also subscribe over 'yonder'.

There's also a give away happening right now! So be sure to go and enter to win!!

New Blog Y'all

I am breaking up with blogger. We have moved to our own domain!!

So add it to your reader, or whatever subscriber you use because the month of May will hold some pretty exciting events for Charmingly Chandler!!!!

http://charminglychandler.com/

I am exciting of the things coming up on the blog!! YAY for change!!

Why can't I nap during the day!!!!

Can anyone actually take an afternoon nap after being "full speed ahead"? Anyone who is not pregnant? Anyone who has a constant to-do list running through their head?

The advice for the baby stage is "Sleep when your baby sleeps." which is good advice. It makes total sense anyways. And you repeat it to yourself for the first two months when your baby doesn't understand night time is for sleeping. And for a little while...you can sleep. But then something happens. You return to the rest of man kind and realize that when the sun is up it's time to be awake. It is NOT time for napping. Too bad that your baby doesn't catch on to the 'nighttime is time to sleep' part of that equation.

And then when your sweet, beautiful, loving wee child is 8 months old....and you have a rough night of not a lot of sleep. You will yourself to nap when your baby naps. But you can't, because you're thinking about the company coming in for the weekend. Or the trip you're going to take in a few weeks. Or how fabulous Courtney Cox looks at her age after having a baby. (that last one could just be me, but I did watch Cougar Town last night-and I was hit by a twinge of jealousy)

After all of these thoughts have cycled...I feel myself slowly relaxing. And what do you know....Sophia wakes up. I bet that coffee and tea companys make a lot of revenue off of mothers (and fathers) of wee ones. It's the only way to fight the tired.

Wordless Wednesday

I just played this for Sophia and realized I forgot to share it on here (it's two weeks old!). i think. I can't remember anything. Sophia loves to watch herself and she just laughs and laughs. Hopefully the video works!!

Where did my great sleeper go?

First, most of my blog post titles start off as a song in my head. And tonight while I was putting Sophia to sleep I was singing to myself "Where Have All the Cowboys Gone". I have to singing in my head in order to not go mad by the white noise and my arm going to sleep.

Back to the point on hand. WHERE DID SHE GO? We've hit occasional road bumps on the journey of sleep. Where she'd have a rough few days and we'd be golden again. I have tried to instill good sleeping associations. But for the past week and a half Sophia has decided she doesn't have any need to go to bed at night. Since a couple weeks after getting Sophia crib "trained" we've been able to put her down awake and she can put herself to sleep. So what happened? What went wrong? She now can sense when we've walked out of the room and screams that could wake the dead begin.

We've been good about not picking her up out of the crib. (There was an exception, during teething. She needed to be held and I wasn't going to deny her!) Once she's down, she's down until she wakes up in the morning to eat. I will stand in there with her and rub or pat her back. I will sit on the floor so she can see me. At most the longest this used to take was 5 minutes. Now? This can go on for the better part of an hour. And the moment you go to leave the room...she screams.

I am not against "cry it out". I understand the logic for and against it. I think that for some people it works. It's a personal choice that a parent makes based on their comfort and the personality of their child. And I know by not even having to try this method that there's no way it would work for us. When Cody can't be home to help out I sometimes have to take a break and step out of the room for a little bit. In the 2 minutes I am out of the room Sophia's screams become so much that she can't breathe. Obviously CIO won't be a method of helping her sleep that we will be trying. It just doesn't even seem like something that will work for her.

And the kicker to all of this is that she's not a bad ACTUAL sleeper. Once she's out, she's out until she's hungry. Some nights she doesn't wake up at all, usually she wakes up once to eat--and then she goes to sleep easily. I just would like to know why, all of a sudden, the process of going to sleep has become so horribly challenging for her.

Any suggestions on what we should be doing? On what we should change? Words of wisdom? Words of advice?

That just happened!!!!!!!!!

I didn't blog when sophia started crawling because it was slow to come and by the time she actually was moving I was so relieved that she wasn't grunting in frustration I never really thought about making a blog post about it.

BUT today, she totally stood up on her own. Not so much PULLING up...she was hold on for balance but she just stood up on the side of the couch. She sat down and did it two more times. And then she got mad because I was clapping and ignoring the fact she wanted up on my lap. I think cruising will be here any day.

Now WHY would I WANT her to do this. Because if she wants up she doesn't sit there and complain and leave me guessing. When she can stand up she can make it more clear.

Of course now nothing is safe...but we're almost done baby proofing. So we're ready for the challenge.

Monkey see Monkey Do

That's our current stage with pun'kin.

You clap. She claps.

You bounce. She bounces.

You kiss. She kisses. ok we're still working on this one. 50% of the time she makes the kissy sound back.

You go into the kitchen. She goes into the kitchen.

You put your flip flop in your mouth. She puts your flip flop in her mouth. -- Wait no. That's not how that happens. But my ind flip flops DO find their way to her mouth if she can find them. But so does anything else she can find.

I know I need to post a video of her, there's so much more she can do now. But instead of taking a video I am playing with her. So who can really fault me for that???

Anyhow, because I take too many pictures here's an adorable one that I got in the middle of a bunch of other pictures. Rocky made a noise and Sophia's attention was instantly lost! (for good!)

I hate those blurry pictures

I hate when I am trying to take pictures, and then when I look at them...the blurry one is perfect.

Twitter Home Tour: Charmingly Chandler Edition

So, if you're visiting here because you found us on another blog I hope you're not disappointed by the un-decorated-ness of our house. In the past (almost) two months we've been working hard to repaint, unpack, live life, sleep and keep up with our wee one. We have big plans for this place, and as we paint the rooms we're feeling a little more at home. A few months back I started another blog to plan our what we wanted to do while we were waiting to close. Now I slowly post pictures of progress, share stories of what goes wrong with our DIY projects (and plenty goes wrong...crying walls and all).

So if my pictures fail to impress have a little mercy on us...we're getting there. So far we've painted (or had painted) six rooms and I'm currently in the middle of painting the seventh. With those we've painted the ceiling in most of the rooms and all of the trim. I took a lot of pictures of the house when we came to the house for the housing inspection. I am including some for a little before and after. (Will this help you all forgive my non-decorated house? I hope so!)

Now for my friends and family that are wondering "What is going on?!" I'll fill you in. A couple of weeks ago some people started a discussion on doing a home tour...and a few more people joined in and then some more...and now it's "Twitter Home Tour". A fun little tour of our homes. Some people went out to decorate to spruce up their house before the tour (I wasn't really one). Some people decided to take on painting projects the week of the tour (that was me...and I didn't get it done in time to post the pictures!). Anyhow, this is a good time to remind y'all too that there's a blog that updates on what's going on around our home these days. Check out the other posts linked and enjoy their tours as well! Trust me when I say there was a lot of cleaning that happening this week....so go and be a guest in their house!

So, if you have suggestions on what to do with my bare walls...what I should hang...what colors would look good in the rooms. I'm all ears (or eyes). We have the basement left to paint, and the painting will be complete. (I didn't include pictures of the craft room, because that room is my baby. And I don't want to cheapen the amazingness that it's going to be. But if you go look on the other blog I'm sure you can find a picture of it that I took when the old owners still lived here).

So are you ready? Here we go:

Lets start with the living room. I think this room shows one of the most drastic changes of our home so far. Before we painted the room was this color:

Before:

After:
And another view of the awesome color: Blonde by Shermin Williams

Before:
After:
SERIOUSLY what am I supposed to hang on this wall? I dont' want to hang pictures. But what do I hang? Someone leave a comment...tell me...PLEASE! I'm at a loss and I'm tired of looking on google images for hours!

Now the dining room. I don't have great shots/angels. I think that you get the idea though:

Before:

After:

If we move tot he left of the dining room we make our way into the kitchen. The kitchen was a huge painting task. I credit it for the reason we decided to pay someone to paint the living room. Painting over a bold color with a light color is more difficult than we imagined. Ohhh the layers of primer. Ohhhh the layers of paint. It's important for me to point out here that our kitchen is no where near complete. This summer we're putting in hardwood floors, re-doing the cabinets and putting in new countertops. Big changes coming. But for now, the paint changed it enough..for now.

Before:
After:

Before:
After:

Now the pantry. OHHHHHH the pantry. The 3 hour project that took more like 3 days. Thanks to some crying walls, and painting. Because yes, my husband...he painted the pantry (and I'm grateful for his need for things to be done a certain way, I love my pantry..I love that it's painted!). This is the only "before" picture that really isn't BEFORE. I took it after we'd moved in, removed what they had in there, and painted. (and this picture includes the hubs!)

Before:
After:

Taking a quick trip down the mini-hall we get to my bedroom...where the sleep happens. And the prayers for a quiet night of no wee one wake-ups occur.

Before:
After:
this room is a pathetic excuse of a bedroom. and if I didn't want people thinking we just slept in the living room I wouldn't have posted it. I swear that soon we will have furniture in there but we're in the process of selling our old furniture. i swear we aren't college kids!

My favorite room in the house right now. Sophia's room. Seriously I love it. It's not decorated yet (remember no decoration...anywhere). The vision that I have for her room is clear. But the color of the room. Oh my goodness I love it. It's bold, and playful, and strong, and fun...and it is exactly what I wanted for her room! The problem that others have is that they don't know what i'm going to do with the room...they look at it like "WHOA COLOR" and I look at it and think..you just wait. Her room...it's going to be the best room in the house!

Before:
Before it was a boys room
After:
Before:
After:

The guest room is just down the little hall from Sophia's room. The bed and stuff for the guest room is currently hanging out in my one-day-craft-room. I have a story to explain the wall color that is in this room. I DID NOT PICK IT OUT! Ok that's not true. I did pick it out. Cody left it up to me...and I picked it out. And I didn't test it out. I would like to say I'd never make that mistake again, but we have made that mistake again. Twice already. But neither was as drastic as this was. First it's WAY darker than I was expecting it to be. And the second you can't really embrace unless you walk into the room. But it's PURPLE Y'ALL. It was supposed to be brown. But it's not...no....it's PURPLE. Like a prune. I lovingly call it the prune room. Could we repaint it? Sure. Are we going to. Not until it transforms from the guest room to a nursery. We've had to just embrace it, and change our plan for bedding and such. So, as we were.

Before:
After:

Ohhhh what is left? Oh yes, a couple quick basement shots. Seriously. Only two, and they are both before shots because we haven't quite made it to working down there yet.
Cody's Media Room (aka: Cody's Man Cave)

Before:
Yes I blurred out faces, they aren't my kids y'all!

And the stairs (dull right):

Before:

So if you've made it this far you should be rewarded. And it's come to my attention that some people are doing crib style video's. And I don't want to truly disappoint. I thought about what I could give y'all that would be cribs like. I could take a cool picture of my car, or maybe of my dog, or what awesome microwave meals are hanging out in our freezer. But then it came to me. In a flash. And so while some of these pictures were loading I took the final picture for my Twitter Home Tour:

I suppose I should have offered you a glass at the beginning of the home tour. After all my Mom did teach me better than that!!

While you're here you should check out the good cause I've posted about to the right!! You can still help! So go check it out!

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

I've put the button to the right so you can snag it. And it will link you back here! :-)

Once upon a time, @MomNom, @jennandtonica, @emmie_bee, @heirtoblair, and @ColeEmmett were talking about home decor on Twitter. We thought it would be so great to be able to see each other's homes! A *bunch* of other tweeps joined in, @Alena29 put together a terrific button, and #twitterhometour (or #twitterhouseparty) was born! Feel free to join us - add a link to your home tour post (pictures, video, or both!) below.

Ch-ch-ch-changessss

I never really feel ahead of the curve when it comes to Sophia's schedule.

I think she's dropping her late afternoon nap.

I think she wants to drop a bottle.

I think she could sleep through the night completely if I could get the schedule right.

So we're going to play the food game & I hope it dominos change into everything else. We already do three solids a day...but now we're going to do them with no bottles in between. Maybe then she'll actually take her evening bottle. And then maybe she will sleep through the entire night consistently!

Babies should come with a quick reference guide.

Good Morning World!

One of the things you don't remember/can't grasp about having a new baby is the amount of sleep you will no longer be getting. It's one of the many things that fade quickly when mommynesia sets in and your body is screaming for another baby and you can't think of one possible con to bringing another wee life into the world. Then about 2 weeks after your new baby is home...you remember...you miss sleep. You miss sleep in a big, huge, major, sick to your stomach can't remember the last time you ate a real meal...much less the last time you got a full nights sleep.

Also, when you're pregnant and people tell you "sleep while you can" they've already experienced pregnancynesia. They've forgotten you don't sleep when you're pregnant. The nausea, the heartburn, the bladder issues, the stretching, the awkwardness, the pressure, the weight....the million things that mean NO SLEEP.

But then this thing eventually happens, your baby wakes up only once a night instead of every 2 hours. And once in a while your baby doesn't wake up at all. At All. And when you wake up in the morning, because of the sun not because of a crying baby. You may turn to your husband and ask when your child woke up in the middle of the night. He will tell you she didn't. You will walk into the living room and hear some babble. You'll grab your camera, walk quietly up your stairs, slowly open the door...and take a picture worth a million words:



And then, if you're like us...you'll pick up your wee one and cover her in love while she laughs and laughs. Then you realize you'd better go to bed early that night..because this sort of thing won't happen too often.

*it's worth every sleepless, teething, hungry, cant go back to sleep night...

I think I forgot to post this.

I feel like a nerd, because when I got an e-mail from NewParent.com over a month ago I was so excited I read the e-mail to Cody from my phone. That sorta stuff doesn't happen to me. I only write about Cody, Pun'kin and myself. So anyways, I thought about it for a week said...sure it would be fun. So I decided on a topic, wrote a blog and sent it off to some person at NewParent.com and she said thanks and she'd let me know when it was posted.

So then I waited. And waited. And waited. And then I got an e-mail on a random day saying "It's been posted, we'd love for you to write for us again" (just to be clear, I'm pretty sure they say that to everyone, AND I'm pretty sure that a lot of people get the original e-mail from them).

So here it is (and yes, in my little bio I manage to fit in Milo's Tea and a War Eagle!). Mommy Judgment.

And I realize that most of my friends have already seen this...but this was more for my family. Sorta like hanging a good report card on the fridge.

And for what it's worth, I'd write another one if I could decide what to write about. Hmmm...

How do I say this?

I've written and deleted. Written and deleted.

I have been given miracles in my life. When I wasn't sure if God would trust me with another, he did. And I try my best to not fail my miracle. To nurture her, take care of her, love her, and teach her to be the person she's meant to be.

And sometimes it surprises me that even though I've been blessed beyond belief, it doesn't erase the past. There are still things that hurt. There are still pains. There's still a shade of darkness that gets the best of me.

It's in those moments I have to remind myself that I can do this. That the actions of the past, the choices of who I was...that they don't define who I am. They don't define who I will be. Because I have God. And a good doctor. And maybe some good help. And people who see that look in my eyes, and know that even if I don't say it, I'm thinking of things I don't want to put words to.

I have been blessed, so blessed. It almost doesn't seem fair to have all of this other stuff in my mind, clouding it. Is anyone able to really take their miracles and not question how deserving they are? Is anyone able to find endless joy in the blessing with out having self doubt?

I am sure this is all a jumbled mess. There's more I want to say, but I understand that this wasn't clear and so I don't want to add to the confusion.

Mothers Day is NEXT MONTH y'all!

And in honor of making sure that every Momma (& non-Momma) gets something great Circle of Sentiments is doing some great for all of y'all! She's giving 20% off to everyone for Mother's Day! The website even has a "drop a hint" link at the bottom, so you can tell the guy in your life "I'd rather have this than a toaster!!"

Make sure you look around her site, and when you find something you love, use the code moms20 at checkout to get your 20% off!

Happy Early Mothers Day y'all!

This is why I love Spring!

Because of dresses. As I mentioned a couple of days ago....I love dresses. But more than that I love tiny little dresses (well tiny even though my 8 month old is wearing 12-18 month old clothes!). Whyyyyy do I love them? Because Sophia looks so darn adorable wearing them. And something about the style of the dress she wore to church MADE me put this PW action with it:


And then there's a picture that just is...well....cute.

Ok, Easter Pictures

It was difficult for me to look at these. Because of all the missed shots. My camera kept saying "Busy" with a lightening bolt (I assume I'm waiting for something to do with the flash) I missed some pretty amazing shots. And maybe that's what has kept me from posting this. The sadness of not getting the shots I could have had!

But I do have a lot of amazing shots still. I am grateful that some turned out better than expected. I wish I had taken more pictures of Sophia in her dress with out the bib and paci. But with teething drool and early morning church, both were needed to have a clean, happy baby!


Adorable right? Ahhhh, I love dresses! And little bity pink dresses? They make my heart explode. Adorable.

If there was any doubt that Sophia was a little Irish. Pictures like this put those doubts to rest. Those perfect blue eyes, that strawberry blond hair. I love it! And it's also in pictures like this where I am overwhelmed by how much she looks like Cody!


Yes, at 7.5 months old, Sophia got an Easter Basket. We filled it with things we wanted her to have anyways. Some more books, some new bibs, a couple new pacis (where do those things end up? We've lost SO MANY!!) a toy. You know..usual baby purchases. All bundled in an Easter basket.


Sophia wasn't too sure. She thought it looked cool. And books?! She loves books! (Just like her Mommy!) And she went right for them.

Like a typical child....Sophia would rather play with the Easter Grass than her toys. She wanted to eat it....


...see Pun'kin eating Easter Basket Grass later in the week.

You haven't seen EASTER PICTURES?

Oh man, this is what happens when I don't get my one solid night of blogging to catch up on things, tonight is the night...so this week will be a great one!! :-)

Sophia's personality is coming out by leaps and bounds. I am constantly amazed by the hilarious things she's doing (and the mischievous things as well--hello the dogs bowls are not toys or wee baby food!). When I just uploaded these pictures I saw this shot and giggled. This face is her personality 100000%. I had planned on first posting the Easter pictures (my camera had a huge issue that day--I wish I knew how to REALLY use it!), but when you see a picture like this, you have to post it. And you have to post it hoping that everyone will look past the squash on her nose (but not the Auburn blanket in the background!). So here it is. My pun'kin...in perfect pun'kin form!

I know, I didn't do WW

And now it's Friday. I'm a slacker. But if only that were true. But it's not. Sophia's speed is increasing rapidly. I spend most of my day moving her from Rocky's bowls, keeping her away from the front door, fishing out toys that somehow ended up under the couch.

I here I have a few seconds to check the internet, but not as much time to post. I still haven't even uploaded pictures.

But this weekend hopefully I'll get an hour of free time to get one done!

Did I mention she IS in fact teething again? I have a picture, I will get on that.



Have I mentioned that I am going to the Pioneer Woman book signing in a month?? I'm so excited!! Charlotte here we come (and by we, I think the total group is about 15 people!!)

I know it's Wordless Wednesday

But I feel like today is a good day to remind everyone of a couple things.

First: You have until the end of the month to give! Either through a donation to the walk, or by buying coffee. You can read all about what I'm talking about here.

Second: If you haven't been nosey and checked out the house blog lately you should. And then maybe you can tell us how to fix the bathroom light fixture issue. Hopefully I'll be doing some basement painting this coming week!

Third: To go with the pervious thing, next Friday there's going to be a major home tour! Not only of the Chandler casa but along with a lot of other awesome ladies' houses. So you'll have to make sure that on the 16th you come and check out the action!


If I get a chance to upload pictures and crop and stuff I'll be posting pictures! It's easy to write a blog post while Sophia naps, but if I don't have the cord already out--uploading pictures just isn't an option.

The One Where She Played In The Pool

Yes, I let her play with the lens cap. It's the only way to get her to sit still in the chair for me to take some pictures. Isn't her little swim suit adorable? It was a gift from Aunt Penni, she got it for Sophia in Hawaii.

I told her we were almost done, but she's obviously already done. Done.Done.Done.
I tried to take a picture and hold on to the camera. I am so appreciative of digital SLR's now. I mean 1) the SLR part means better pictures 2) the digital part means I can take 100 pictures even if only 10 of them are good!
She was ok with standing in the water. In fact she liked it. Fun stuff. But whatever you do, don't sit her in the water......
....this is what happened when we tried to get her to sit in the pool. She wasn't having it. She did NOT understand. WHY AM I WEARING CLOTHES IN WATER? WHYYYYY?
Finally, after bringing out all the stops. She was ok. Not great, not over joyed. But ok. I think a few more times in the pool....and she will love it.
This weekend we'll try it out again.

Catching up: Park Pictures

I am just going to toss a bunch of pictures at you all. Why? Because I only have a few moments and I know you want to see pictures? Why? Because you've asked. Why? Well because I assume you don't feel like you get to see enough pictures. Why? Because I don't post as many as I used to. Why? [Ok too far, no more Whys]

Anyhow, these are from last week at the park! Enjoy!