Ward Carnival

Saturday night we had our ward carnival. Chandler finally got to wear his dragon costume I bought for him over 2 months ago. LOL, I was a little excited about Halloween. Everytime we've tried to get Chan to wear this costume he starts screaming. When we put it on him Saturday he was so happy to wear it which was a nice change. I had the big bad wolf costume from bowling but Marsh & I decided to see what else we could find. We found this ostrich blow up costume and thought with my pregnant belly it would be hilarious. It was :) The costume had a nice bubble bum which made me feel that much more attractive...ha ha ha.
Marshall wanted to dress up like the Verizon man but we didn't want to pay $30 for a blue coverall suit. He has glasses just like the Verizon guy and has been told on multiple occasions that he looks like him. My dad has a blue coverall suit so maybe we will borrow it for Halloween so Marsh can be the Verizon man. So for our ward carnival Marshall was the wolf, even though he never put the mask on. And here is Chandler trying to do the limbo :)

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Little Red Riding Hood

Here is one of a few Halloween entries I will do. We had to dress up for bowling and since we bowl in teams of 3, we decided to do little red riding hood. My mom was the grandma & the other gal on our team, Allison was little red riding hood. In case you didn't recognize me, I'm the big bad wolf. :)

29 Weeks

Here's the 29 week belly shot. The shirt I'm wearing is a Halloween one I got after Halloween at Old Navy last year for $.10 - yep, 10 cents, what a steal! It didn't fit very well, but has served it's purpose, lol.

The Magician

So being almost 2 years old and a wild child at times, Chandler is still in his crib. I have no desire to put him into a bigger bed so that he can roam the apartment how and when he wants to. Plus he doesn't climb out of his crib. He's only tried once and he started screaming as the crib was pulled away from the wall and he was suspended by his neck. Yeah, that was scary. Now I make sure the crib is pushed right up against the wall. Anways, I like to take advantage of the fact that he sleeps in late and will usually shower while he's still sleeping. When he wakes up, he has some books and toys within reach that he plays with and reads. Then he will just holler until I come get him out. He also can't turn knobs yet and so if he shuts himself in his room, again, he will holler until someone comes to get him out. I believe it was Sunday, I got up about 9 - Chan usually wakes up about 9:30 and I found him wandering around the kitchen, standing by the closet pantry because he's hungry. Marshall is in the shower so I figure he got Chandler out of bed. Come to find out, Marshall says he didn't get him out of bed. Weird, right? So today I put my ear to his door to make sure he's still asleep and decide to get in the shower. I wasn't in the shower more than 10 minutes. I got out and noticed Chandler's door was open. I immediately felt nervous and ran into his room. Of course he wasn't there. I run out into the living room and there he is, sitting on the couch, reading a book.....lol. I have no idea how he got out of his crib and opened the door to his room? Ok, so the crib climbing thing I can understand, but he can't open doors? I shut him in his room this afternoon to see if he could open it. I could tell he was trying, and he finally just started crying and I let him out. I don't get it?
This reminds me of one other time he proved to be a magician. It was probably 3-4 months ago. I had put him in his chair (buckled in) with his sippy cup and put a movie on. I got in the shower and hadn't been in there more than 3 minutes when I felt a breeze. I panicked and thought someone was in our apartment. Then Chandler pulls back the shower curtain and starts tugging at his clothes because he wants to get in. I went to look at his high chair and the tray was still on, and it was still buckled. He's never done it since :) Guess I need to get up at like 7 am to take my showers from now on, lol.

The perfect blend of sweet and tart

Apple and Eve is a brand of juice which is quite extraordinary as you will soon find out.

Tiffany decided she needed more juice in her diet so she bought a box of tiny "apple and eve" juice boxes at Sam's club for - of course- a "GOOD DEAL." Ah- the juice was good- average anyway.... until one magical day....
Early in the morning I grabbed a juice box- apple, for yet another typical "nutritious breakfast" before a busy day. I arrived at work- being nearly the only one there at 7am sipping my juice as I went through my call list to sell some super websites.

I began to read the back of the apple juice box - as no one really does. The copy writing to me was actually pretty lame and really cheesy. Then I read it, "... the perfect blend of sweet and tart." I chuckled at the thought and continued my work. Then a few seconds later, I sipped a gulp of juice... then sipped again... then yet again! I realized.... THIS REALLY IS THE PERFECT BLEND OF SWEET AND TART!

From my advertising perspective, I was excited that because of their effective copy writing, "the perfect blend of sweet and tart" I then afterwards realized how good the juice was. If I never read that line- I would have kept drinking the juice thinking it was yet another cheap juice box. But it was so much more!

Thrilled at my new discovery, I turned back to the great juice box and read, "Please contact us- we love to respond." Well, all righty then! So I went to Apple and Eve's website, and contacted them through email. Here is what I said:

**************************************************
apple and eve-

My wife recently purchased your apple juice in a juice box H 228.

I'm in advertising/ business finishing up a bachelor's degree, and with the
# of projects I do in seeking research - I thought you'd appreciate a
comment.

I thought the juice was pretty good. Knowing my wife and her buying habits I
assumed it was a "cheap brand" that I never heard of before. The juice was
pretty good- the first couple juice boxes anyway. Then while at work, I was
reading the copywriting on the back of the box. A portion stuck out to me:
"We blend this juice with apple juice from a concentrate to achieve the
perfect balance of sweet and tart." I thought about it, and as I've been
drinking this apple juice- I realize that it really is a perfect blend of
sweet and tart!

It was AFTER I read that copywriting concept that I realized how good the
juice was. Because the text made me think about it- I went from "a cheap
brand" that tasted all right to "this really is the perfect blend!?"

Anyway- thought it was interesting that the text changed my perception and
helped to me to realize how good it was. From an advertising perspective-
I'd say that is a big clue to future promotion.

By the way- I'm looking for an internship or even a job after I graduate in
the Spring next year. I'd love to work for the brains behind a company that
has come up with such an effective, creative message on a simple juice box.

I'm attaching my resume- it's worth a shot.

Regards,

Marshall Snedaker
eznettools.net
marshall@eznettools.com
888-396-9372


**************************************************
Here was the reply by Apple and Eve the next day!


**************************************************

Dear Mr. Snedaker:
Thank you for writing to us. We love to hear from our consumers and are glad
people are reading our labels and story copy. Our juice is a premium product
and we support our product with a 100% guarantee. Our company is a family
owned company that has been around since 1975. You discovered what so many
people know already. We are all about juice!

Although we do not have any positions currently open, I will forward your
resume to our Marketing department and if there are any openings that fit
your background, we will contact you.

Thanks again for your interest in our product.

Best regards,
Rebecca Aubain
Apple & Eve, LLC
PO Box
Roslyn, NY 11576


**************************************************

Moral of the story: GO BUY Apple and Eve's apple juice- IT REALLY IS THE PERFECT BLEND OF SWEET AND TART! I swear it is. I"m still excited about the juice.

Marshall

Pictures

Here are a few pictures I took this week that I wanted to post. It seems like we don't go a lot of places so when we do it's fun to get Chandler all dressed up like a little man and do his hair. Here he is with grandma Nielson & in the car coming to bowling with us :)
The other pic is of Marshall & him. Marshall gives Chan butterfly kisses and Chandler thinks it's hilarious. He loves to cuddle with Dad in bed :) I also had my 28 week dr.'s appt on Friday. Glucose test came back great, iron levels look good, so bring on the candy! lol. I am up 10 lbs since last month but I'm not surprised with my wonderful eating habits. Current weight is 160. Heard the hb, measuring on, baby is wiggling lots!

Help! I'm eating and I can't stop!

Confessions of a pregnant woman:

Why do I have to crave anything and everything and eat it even though I am already full? I made this really yummy hamburger vegetable soup tonight. I ate a bowl for dinner and told myself portion control tonight....lol - yeah right! After a bunch of hot tomales & half a bag of almond joys I decided I was craving chocolate chip cookie dough. I went to the store at 10:30 to buy brown sugar & butter since I didn't have any. I came home, made it - had about 8 big spoonfuls & 2 more bowls of soup. Oh but wait....there's fudgesicles & rocky road ice cream in the freezer. Had to have one of those & some of the ice cream. To top it all off, a peanut buttter granola bar & string cheese. So let's see, probably 1500 calories in an hour. I'm pretty pathetic....so much for shooting for a smaller baby, lol.
Marsh & Chan have been in bed for over an hour...shhhhhh, they don't know about my secret night life :)

27 weeks

27 Weeks today! I took some belly shots last week but I did them myself and they looked very blurry, alas I haven't posted since 23 weeks. I'm already starting to feel uncomfortable. He balls himself up on one side of my belly, head butts my bladder and then kicks me in the ribs. I never felt like Chandler was up in my ribs and I do with this baby already. What's funny is that the side that he isn't on is super squishy. He still has all this room, why doesn't he take advantage of it?, lol. I feel like I'm starting to really pack on some weight too. I weighed myself at work last week and had gained 8 lbs in two weeks, bringing me to 158....oops! Guess I should lay off the sweets. I'm glad I don't have a scale here at home, I think I would be obsessing over it even more. I haven't heard anything about my glucose test from last week. I guess no news is good news. My next Dr.'s appt is on the 19th.

In comparison, here is Chandler at 28 weeks.

Locks of Love

I did it! I cut all my hair off and I love it. It feels way light and will hopefully take less time to do. I decided to cut it in an a-line and add some carmel highlights. I wondered if I had enough to donate because you need 10" of hair to donate to locks of love. Sure enough, it was 11" that I cut off. Almost a foot of hair....crazy. Here is the end result - and I'm glad chopping my hair off will help someone else.

Sugar High

I left Chan and Carson alone for a few minutes while I put a load of laundry in the washing machine. I had put an Elmo movie on for them and they were being awfully quiet. I came back in the room and saw two VERY happy little boys. One of the table chairs was pushed close enough to the counter that Chan could climb up. I bought a bunch of boxes of chocolate on clearance last week and had one that was opened with maybe 4 pieces gone. As you can see by the video - what happened was very self explanatory. Now a half hour later, I can tell that the sugar has set in. They are jumping around, screaming wrestling, climbing on me and laughing about everything. Ok, need to go, I'm being ambushed :)


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TV

When Marsh and I got married, we decided we wanted to invest in a good TV. Alas, we bought a Sony. We paid over $300 for a 27" and were confident it would last us for a long time. About a year ago, our tv became developed a temper. It started turning off whenever it felt like it. This was frustrating when we wanted to watch a movie, etc. We decided in February to take it in to be fixed. 2 months & $65 later, we got our tv back. We watched it for about an hour and it started turning off again. The place that supposedly fixed it said that they had a 3 month guarantee. We took our tv back as it obviously was not fixed. In the meantime, they loaned us a small tv which had to be at least 20-25 years old. The brand was "JcPenney" LOL at that one! At least it worked. After this place had our tv for another 4 months we decided to call and see what was going on. They said they still hadn't figured it out and would call us when it was fixed. Another month passed and the guy who was fixing it called us and said we would need to put another $200 into the tv to get fixed. WHATEVER! We went and got it, saying we could deal with the problem. They didn't refund us any of the money we paid at first and I will never take anything back to that place. So we've had our tv for about a month and I'd had it. It would turn off every few minutes and I couldn't handle it. I started looking around on the BYU-Idaho bulletin to see if there was anything worthwhile. My sister suggested I look on craigslist, but we don't have one for this area. I decided to try to look anyway and was pleasantly surprised to find that craigslist is now serving Eastern Idaho. The very top post was a big screen 47" tv that someone in Pocatello was selling for $150. It is an older tv, probably 10-15 years but we decided to jump on it. I called the owner to talk to them about it and they e-mailed me pics. Yesterday we decided to go for it and Marshall loaded up his truck bringing along his dad & brother. Below, you see the end result of what we got. We are really excited and happy to have found such a great deal. Woohoo!

Tired

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So I know the majority of this blog is about Chandler, but when I spend just about every waking moment with him and he's doing funny things all of the time, I just can't help it. This video is from Saturday. We'd tried to get him to go down for a nap a couple times and finally we just put a movie on and he fell asleep, he couldn't fight it anymore. I almost dread naptime & bedtime until Chan is asleep because it's so hard to get him down. (Mostly for bed at night) If we're lucky, it takes half hour to get him to sleep. On a not so lucky night, it's 2 hours. We've tried just about everything, and Marshall and I can't stand to hear him scream and cry for more than about 10 minutes. It's easy to hear everything in our apartment and I'm sure our neighbors don't appreciate it. Oh well, maybe it's just a phase.

We also watch Chandler's friend Carson once a week while Carson's mom Sara does her student teaching. Chan loves having a friend come over and they are two peas in a pod, their personalities are so much alike it's funny. Chandler will throw a block at Carson, then Carson will pull Chandler's hair and they will both laugh about it. For the most part they get along really great and it's nice not to have to figure out how to entertain Chan all day.