Thanksgiving & Black Friday

Thanksgiving was great! As I mentioned in a previous post, we went down to Justin & Avry's in Syracuse for dinner. We went down with my parents Wednesday evening and got back Friday afternoon. It was nice just to lounge around on Thanksgiving and EAT! Jason (my brother) came up with his friend from Salt Lake and joined us. It was fun to see him too. Dinner consisted of Turkey, mashed potatoes, stuffing, yams, cranberries, a relish plate, rolls, frog eye salad and of course pie for dessert. By the end of the meal I could barely breathe between my full full belly and Rowan taking up the rest of the room. Maeli was Chandler's only cousin there and is so unbelievably great with Chandler. She's an awesome babysitter and loves to play and take care of him. (She is 7) Chandler loves to wrestle and Maeli just laughs and takes it. We took this video of Chan mauling Maeli. Notice Avry's laugh in the backround - priceless :) Chandler kept saying "Oh Fun!" while they were wrestling too. He said it probably 8-10 times while they were wrestling and did it a few times in this video.

Photo Sharing - Video Sharing - Share Photos - Free Video Hosting After 5 hours of sleep we got up to conquer Black Friday! It's become a tradition for us to get up and go shopping. We scope out the ads on Thanksgiving, make a list, and decide which stores are most important for us to go to, lol. We went to Walmart first at 5 am and that was a joke. They had hardly any stock of their sale items and you had to wait in a huge layaway line to try to get what you wanted. Yeah right -we just left without buying anything there. Next was Target at 6. I'm a huge fan of Target. They were restocking items as people were grabbing them which was nice.

Photo Sharing - Video Sharing - Share Photos - Free Video Hosting This video is from all of the crazy people running into Target. Half the reason I go out on Black Friday is to laugh at everyone :) There was a girl who was trying to get into Target and jump the line. They had security guards making sure noone was doing this but this girl was determined to get in. I wish I had video taped it but the security guard told her quite a few times to go to the end of the line. She proceeded to tell him no and started hitting him. Needless to say, she was ejected from the line. We only went two other places, Walgreens & Kohls. Avry got in line at Kohl's as soon as we got there while the rest of us shopped. We waited in line for an hour & 20 mins there! We were done by 10 am and I am happy to say I am done shopping for Chandler & Marshall. I also have my shopping done for most of the other people on my list, except for my dad and father in law. They are tricky. Men are tricky to buy for in general. I think I have a few ideas though. I'd like to be completely done shopping in the next couple weeks as my back ached soooo bad after shopping today and I'm still 7 weeks out from having this baby. It's also nice that Marsh & I started saving for Christmas about 4 months ago, putting some money away every month. I don't think we'd be having much of a Christmas if we hadn't done that. I think we will make a habit of it.

32 weeks

I'm a bit late posting this, but here's my belly shot from last Sat - at exactly 32 weeks.

Drumroll Please........

Wahoo! We've finally decided on a name. I thought we'd be in the hospital before we agreed on a name. So unless we totally change our minds which I don't think we will, his name will be Rowan John. I've liked Rowan to begin with and funnily enough where I heard the name was Rowan Atkinson. I think that's how his name is spelled. He plays Mr. Bean, Johnny English, Rat Race...lol. Kind of a goofy guy but I still love the name. I like the name because it's not too popular right now (knock on wood) and it's different but not weird.
We decided on John as a middle name because it's Marshall's middle name after his great grandpa and it's just a good solid name. Today Marshall told me he liked the name a lot and it was a go!
It's nice to know that this little guy of ours finally has a name!

Poseidon the Fish

Chandler loves animals, fish, bugs. He is just plain fascinated with them. About 5 weeks ago we got him a male beta fish that was red and blue. It was a really pretty fish and Marshall thought Poseidon was a fitting name for him. Chandler was really excited about the fish and loved it when Marshall would clean out his tiny little tank because that meant he got to tease him. I came home from work last night and Marshall said Poseidon was dead. I actually felt kind of sad, it was weird. I must have had some unspoken connection with our fish, lol. That mixed with the hormones and lack of sleep from working all night. Marsh said they flushed him down the toilet and Chandler was ok with it. Granted he doesn't really understand either though.

We've also been trying to sell our tv that magically shuts off and the tv cart with it. We were practically giving it away at $20. Marshall said he had a guy call last night that was interested and came over to look at it. Here's what Marshall told him about the tv.
"Our tv has a really neat feature. When you watch too much, it shuts off so it helps to monitor how much tv you are watching."
Nicely said Marshall.
The guy decided he wanted it and offered Marsh $18 for it. LOL - who does that when you are getting a good tv with a tv cart? Marsh told him no, $20, that's it.
He took it and now greatfully we have more room in our apartment & $20 for a night out on the town :)

Kisses

Another day, another blog :) Not too much going on - I keep trying to talk Marshall into putting our Christmas tree up and he keeps telling me to wait. Maybe I can talk him into it this weekend. I love Christmas, I'm way excited for the music, lights, and just the feeling of the season. I also must add that I am excited to go shopping the day after Thanksgiving, aka Black Friday!!! We are going down to my sister's (Avry) house for Thanksgiving. She lives in Syracuse, UT. I've never done black friday shopping in Utah and I'm really excited.

Chandler had his 2 year check up yesterday. He's had a nasty cough for over 2 weeks so the dr. gave us some stronger cough syrup. He slept 12 hours last night in his own bed and didn't get up once. How nice is that? It was also fun that they gave us a paper that told us how big Chandler was at each of his checkups. Height, weight & head. He was in the 95% for height and weight when he was born. He has stayed really high on the growth chart for height but his weight has evened out a lot. He was only in the 20% for weight when he was a year old, but is in the 65% now. Yesterday he was 29 lbs and 36.5" tall. I asked the dr. about him not talking much and he wasn't too concerned as he is great at following commands and problem solving.


Last news for the day - I found a new delicious candy that I'm sure I will be having a lot of. Hershey makes a white chocolate kiss at Christmas time that has peppermint in it. It's so yummy. That also means peppermint ice cream should be out in stores, I should go find some. My sister (Jeralee) gave me a good recipe a few years back for white chocolate peppermint fudge. These kisses taste a lot like that fudge. I ate most of a bag last night and will have to run out to get some more today :) Gotta feed the fat...I mean the baby, lol.

Rant

Sorry this video is sideways. I uploaded it a few times and tried to rotate it and all it would show was black. Guess you are just going to have to kink your neck to the side to see it, lol. Who knows what Chandler was ranting about but Marsh and I both thought this was pretty funny.


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Big Boy Bed

So, since Chan has been climbing out of his crib, he thinks he can come sleep in our bed. I don't mind him in bed with me when Marshall leaves, but with the 3 of us and a queen size bed, there is just not enough room. Last week, Chandler got up 6 different times to come climb into bed with us. It wasn't a very restful night, lol. We finally decided we should move him out of his crib. My mom is replacing one of the beds in her guest rooms and had an extra double bed she said we could have. Although a double bed is way bigger than what Chan needs, it's free - no complaning, right? Chandler's crib converts into a headboard and footboard for a double bed but that didn't really solve the issue of him maybe rolling off the bed at night. So, instead of putting the footboard on, we decided to bag that and the mattress frame and just put the bed on the floor. We basically took the front off the crib and this is what we came up with. Chandler usually comes into our bed right before he goes to sleep to read books and "calm down" LOL. Now we can do that in his bed and lay by him until he falls asleep. If he comes into our room in the middle of the night, I take him back to his own bed and lie with him again until he falls asleep. I have to wonder if it isn't so much the bed but maybe he just gets lonely & knows that Marsh & I sleep together, so why doesn't he get to? Two nights ago, he got ups twice and last night he didn't get up at all, he slept in his bed 11 hours straight - talk about nice!! Let's hope it lasts.

Chan is also starting to show some interest in the potty. I know we are a LONG ways off, but any interest is good, right? The other night, he came out of his room and said, "Bleh!" We always say bleh while we are changing his diaper and he thinks it is pretty funny. He said it again and I wondered if he was poopy. Sure enough he was. The next morning while I was doing my hair, he lifted up the toilet seat and started tugging at his pants. I took his diaper off and let him sit on the toilet. He looked down like he expected something to happen, got off, and clapped for himself. He did this two more times yesterday and the third time he looked at me and said, "bleh?" as if to question where it was? Obviously there was nothing in there since he didn't actually go, but he wanted to flush the toilet anyway and clap for himself. We decided to pull out the "ROYAL POTTY" that my sister gave us. It makes noises to help praise the child who goes in it. LOL - whatever works! (Thanks Jer!) He thinks it is pretty neat. I know it's a long time coming, I'm hoping he's potty trained by 3 but I'm not going to push him into anything.

Today I also had my 31 week appt. Since I am 30 + 6 I am calling it my 31 week appt. I waited 50 minutes for my 2 minute appt :( Chandler was patient for about 20 minutes and then kept throwing himself on the floor, telling me no, and crying. Oh well. Weight was at 167, baby sounds awesome, and is measuring on. 7 lbs in the last 3 weeks - WAHOO! (sense the sarcasm here)

I am assuming he is head down because Dr. Barton found his hb the first place he put the doppler on and said, "Great, right where it should be." My appts are getting closer together, the next one is on Nov. 28th.

Birthday Party!

We had Chandler's birthday party at Grandma & Grandpa Nielson's house. We ate pizza and I made his ugly cake. I took pictures of it but I didn't want to post pics of that, you can see it from the side in some of the pics. Chan's really into Elmo and so I did some Elmo figurines on the top of it. The writing looked like a 4 year old had done it. LOL - oh well, guess I saved some $$ by making it myself. Chan got some fun new stuff including a bunch of plastic animals & a dinosuar book from Snedakers, an outfit & color wonder from grandma & grandpa Nielson, a baseball & bat toy from Chris & Natalie, and a little people's dinosaur set & playdough from Marshall & I. Although Chan was getting over pink eye and was getting a cold, he was a pretty good sport. It was hilarious to watch him blow out his candles. He would blow them out and then grin and clap for himself. He blew them out 5 or 6 times :)

Blowing out candles for the 5th time :)

Getting a birthday kiss from cousin Claire

Halloween

So this is a little out of order considering Chandler's birthday was after Halloween but I haven't uploaded these pictures until now. Chan was more into Halloween this year than last year, but I still don't think he really gets it, although he knew the concept of taking candy and putting it in his basket, that made him pretty excited.
Marshall had work until 7 so I took Chandler over to the Rex. It's an entertainment place, has a bowling alley, movie theater, arcade. They were doing a trunk or treat there and since our ward didn't do one, we went to this one. Afterwards, we picked up Marshall and headed down to grandma & grandpa Nielsons. We ate dinner and of course did the trick or treat. We then went to trick or treat at the assisted living center where great grandma Nielson lives. Then onto the Hainsworths. They are an older couple that my parents have known for years. The give out an excessive amount of candy and going there is equivalent to going to 20-25 houses, lol. Of course they made Marshall & I take a big bag of candy too. Lastly, we headed over to grandma & grandpa Snedakers. It was a fun Halloween!

Trick or Treating at Grandma & Grandpa Nielsons

Chandler & Great Grandma Nielson

Chandler reading books w/grandma Snedaker

Marshall and I were kind of joking about this picture that was also taken on Halloween. I pulled up one of our wedding pictures and we were comparing it to this one. Why is it after you get married, you put on weight, get double chins, and never quite feel the same? Gotta love it.

Happy Birthday Chandler!

Here is a picture of Chan a few days old. My friend Camille took pics of him and she did an awesome job, this one is my favorite

This is one I took a few weeks ago - it's fun to compare the two.

I can't believe my baby is two. Granted he's a not a baby anymore, but a toddler with personality. Still the same, I cannot believe how quickly time goes and I almost feel like crying just looking at pictures of him as a baby. These last few years of embarking on motherhood have been challenging but oh so rewarding. Some days I just want to sit and cry and he tears the house apart and ninja kicks me. Other times when he cuddles up to me and falls alseep I just want to cry again, but for different reasons, maybe just because I love him so much.
Chan was a very very good baby. He was born November 1, 2005 in Idaho Falls. He was born via c-section, weighed 9 lbs 1 oz and was 22 " long. He was really content as long as he was fed and he was fed well as I look back and see that he was almost 14 lbs at 2 months, lol. As he started crawling and exploring his independence he became somewhat of a terror. He keeps me running and sometimes I envy those moms who's kids will sit and play with toys. He cut his first 2 teeth at 5 1/2 months and had a whole mouthful by the time he was 14 months. It was nice to have a 9 month break from teething as he cut his 2 year molars a few weeks ago. He started walking at 10 months and has been running ever since. He loves to climb and boy can he do somersaults. He's really adventurous and is willing to try anything once, or twice, or maybe even three times, lol. He loves when Marshall comes home because he will really get down and wrestle with him. Although he's a little boy of few words, he's starting to talk a little more. I guess it isn't too important to him right now. That's allright though - soon enough he will be talking back and making smart remarks and I can wait for that! I know he is going to be a great big brother and he has really blessed our family. So there's my little tribute to Chandler. Sappy I know - but what do you expect from a mom? Happy Birthday Chandler! Birthday party pictures coming soon.....