Chandonnet Family

Swimming

2010-07-02T09:13:00.001-07:00

We headed up to Andy and Mary Ellen's to go swimming yesterday and show off Jaelyn's new found swimming skills. It took many attempts to get her to come in further than the step and even yesterday she swam without her noodle!

Check out our little diva ready to head to the pool!

And finally swimming in the pool!

June is Over

2010-06-30T09:58:00.000-07:00

Almost...tomorrow begins July and brings us that much closer to welcoming baby Kinley into our family. We can't wait to meet her and are playing the waiting game...waiting for a sign, waiting for a contraction, waiting to be dilated...I know it will come soon, but we're ready already!! I'll be 39 weeks tomorrow!

The month of June has brought me a lot of job applying, I think I'm up to 21 total applications now at different school districts here in Arizona. I had to start a spreadsheet just to keep track of where I've applied and what for. I've had 3 interviews, 2 more scheduled, and another in the works...I'm getting excited about all the responses and hope some school district can look beyond my big belly and hire me :) I'm not picky and would be happy to teach any grade level in any district!!

As far as Jaelyn updates, she's still going to school Tuesday and Thursday's and is enjoying it. We have been taking her swimming a few times a week and she is really getting the hang of it! She has gone from only wanting to sit on the steps to floating and "swimming" by herself with her water wings and a noodle. I'll have to get some pictures next time we are out there. Last summer she loved the pool and would jump in off the edge into our arms, this year her understanding of fear has taken over and she's not as friendly with the pool as she used to be, but we're having fun helping her like it.

We love to check on her every night as she sleeps cause she is so quiet and peaceful, this is what we found the other night...

Jaelyn also had her first visit at the dentist, I didn't expect that they were going to clean/polish her teeth and was so glad Marc was there to hold her down. After a little bit of expected crying she did a great job and opened up wide when the dentist wanted to "count" her teeth for her. She got to pick a toy from a grab box and chose a little puppy from the littlest pet shop that goes everywhere with her! Of course we were so proud of her so after the dentist we took her to get a donut at Dunkin Donuts...understandable, right?!?

I recently, out of boredom, attempted to french braid Jaelyn's hair. This was my second attempt and I have to say, I'm pretty proud of myself...doesn't hurt that she's so stinken cute though :)

Her new found love is her tu-tu, she started calling it her dress but loves to wear it as much as possible. It's pretty cute so we try to get her to dance everytime she wears it.

We think she is starting to understand that baby Kinley is real, she knows baby Kinley has a room, toys, and clothes, and of course every baby we see or hear is baby Kinley...so maybe she fully hasn't grasped the concept yet :) We can't wait for her to meet her baby sister though!

We recently threw a couples baby shower for our good friends Andy and Mary Ellen! It was so much fun having the guys in on the festivities and I'm sure they all loved figuring out "what did baby Davis eat?" as I melted a variety of chocolate bars in diapers. I enjoyed planning and decorating and using a variety of ideas from my previous baby showers. Thanks Mems and Jess I stole lots of your ideas :)

Diaper cake, baby pics & desserts:

Picture frame mat welcoming Baby Davis to the world:

Mary Ellen & her Mom trying to figure out 'What Baby Davis Ate?'

The parents to be getting much needed help from Jaelyn opening their gifts:

That pretty much sums up June...I think! Except for our first outing to the Library today for Toddler Time, we read books, sang songs, learned about the letter L and played with other Toddlers. Jaelyn had a great time!

Baby Kinley

2010-06-07T11:56:00.000-07:00

Kinley is doing great and growing right on track...I'm pretty convinced that I was lying funny on the table the day my doctor measured my uterus, cause I didn't think she seemed much smaller than Jaelyn. We had our ultrasound today and everything looks good, we saw her strong little heart beating, her toes, her spine, her face, and her girl part. Dad had to double check just in case Kinley may have turned into Jr...no such luck Marc! She is weighing in at 5 pounds 14 ounces, here are the pics from today. Picture #1 is a profile of her face. Picture #2 is a full front shot of her face, neat to see, but a little scary looking :) Marc says she looks like me! #3 just proves to daddy that it is indeed a girl! The last picture is another face shot, she looks so peaceful sleeping!

Pregnancy Progression and Updates

2010-06-06T20:04:00.000-07:00

I'm 35 weeks and 3 days and I've been thinking a lot over the last few days about the growth of this little life inside of my belly! Tomorrow we have an ultrasound because the doctor feels the baby is smaller than my dates, so I started gathering all my belly pics to check out my growth. And, why not share with everyone...(on the blog I'm terrible at updating, sorry). So here are the photos I have of my ever growing belly, I sure don't feel small!

19 Weeks

23 Weeks

27 Weeks

30 Weeks

35 Weeks

Even though I'm a terrible blogger I'll update tomorrow after our ultrasound, if the tech tells us how the baby Kinley is growing!

A few more updates from our family...I graduated with my Masters in Elementary Education, had to give a speech and go through two graduations. I've applied for every elementary teaching job in Arizona and I've had one interview so far. I'm hoping to hear more in the upcoming weeks. We spent most of May in Washington, my mom, Aunt Diane, Jaelyn and I drove from Phoenix to Kent in the beginning of May. Marc came during the middle of May and then drove home with us at the end of May. While we were in May we had an opportunity to spend time with lots of family and friends. It was a wonderful 3 weeks, but it went by so fast! I was lucky enough to be there when one of my best friends, Brooke, had baby Colin. I enjoyed being there and spending time with them before and after birth! I was thrown a beautiful baby shower for baby Kinley by Merissa and her mom! It was so fun celebrating with old friends, the whole thing made me feel so special! We also were able to drive up and spend a night with Marc's brother Tim and his girlfriend Jenn, we spent a lot of time at the beach, which was Jaelyn's first time!

Jaelyn is still doing great with potty training, she had so much fun in Washington hanging out with her cousins, aunties and uncles, and grama and bapa! Since we've been back she has been going to daycare every Tuesday and Thursday and is slowly getting used to her new schedule. I love that she gets that social time and mommy gets a couple days to get stuff done (or relax). She's getting so big and growing so fast, she is talking in sentences and makes us laugh everyday. She LOVES Dora right now and is still overly obsessed with her bunny! I could go on and on but I don't know where to begin and where to end...I'll just try to do better with the updates!

Marc is done traveling and it has been great having him be home so much. He's still working away at getting his Masters degree and is in the middle of his third class. He just got his wisdom teeth removed on Friday, but is doing awesome with recovery and I would say he's almost back to normal! Our good friends Andy and Mary Ellen, expecting August 12, just moved to Phoenix and we couldn't be happier. It's like having family here and it's so nice to have them a short car ride away. We've been spending a lot of time with them and look forward to having our kids grow up together!

Alright, I can't think of anything else right now! Good night!

A Little Brag Time

2010-03-28T19:04:00.000-07:00

Alright, what better place to brag about Jaelyn than on my blog, that's what I started it for right? So last Friday we started potty training and I'm proud to announce that 9 days later (today) we have been accident free for 3 days. Friday (which was one week) I picked her up from school and she had NO accidents and even slept at nap time in her oh so favorite Little Mermaid panties. She has continued her accident free streak since then and has done and AWESOME job telling us every time she has to go potty!

These last three days we've been out to Peter Piper Pizza, playing outside, hanging at the neighbors, Red Robin, Daddy's work, and Target and have not had an accident!At Target today she informed me that she had to go potty so we checked out and ran to the bathroom and she went potty, she's doing so good, even on the big potty. I don't want to jinx myself, but I'm pretty proud of my little monster!

2 Year Check Up

2010-03-20T10:02:00.000-07:00

Jaelyn had her 24 month dr appointment yesterday and was a little ham through the whole thing. The doctor barley had to ask any questions about her development because Jaelyn was talking her ear off. Here are her stats:

Weight - 26.8 pounds (50%)

Height - 35.43 inches (85%)

The doctor said it was good that her height was more than her weight...Marc said he wished that were true for the rest of us :) During the routine check up the doctor became shocked and asked us how long Jaelyn had been sick for?? We were a little confused because she had just been coughing a little over the last couple days. Apparently she has a serious ear infection that the doctor said would have landed us in Urgent Care this weekend. She hasn't been acting like her ear is bothering her at all, although last night she got a hold of my ice pack and held it to her ear for a little bit. Other than that, she is the same old crazy Jaelyn.

Speaking of crazy Jaelyn, we started potty training yesterday at approximately 11am (after our hour wait at Walgreen's for her medicine)! Well, I'm not proud to report that after approximately 23 hours we've had 5 accidents and one success!! We are trying a 3-day potty training plan that I found on http://www.babycenter.com/, basically for three days we stay home, she is naked from the waist down and we watch for signs of having to go potty. Then when we leave the house she wears just light pants and no diaper, and yes the daycare has agreed to this. Yesterday I caught her in the corner going #2 but successfully whisked her to the potty without a drop...until after she said she was finished and went back to the corner for round two! We tried to nap without a diaper (my bad) and had one accident before she fell asleep and one as she woke up. After that we decided to go outside and play with the neighbors, with shorts on and no diaper and she decided to pee in the neighbors garage on his workout carpet...of all places!

But...now I'm proud to report that this morning when we woke her up, her diaper was dry and about an hour after being up she ran over to her potty and went pee! We all celebrated and cheered for her, she was so proud. Since then we've had one MAJOR accident where she screamed and cried like she was being hurt!! We're all cleaned up and calmed down and waiting for the next opportunity! Here's a pictures of her during the process...who can resist this cute little bottom :)

Berry Cobbler & Weekend Fun

2010-03-15T18:20:00.000-07:00

We had a fun filled weekend that felt busy, busy, but it was so nice to finally have Marc home for a whole weekend. Saturday consisted of shopping and then attending my college roommate Meghan's wedding shower. I'll be a plump little bridesmaid coming up on April 9th, but look forward to enjoying the festivities with her! We topped our Saturday night off with date night and went and saw Alice in Wonderland in 3D. I enjoyed the movie, however, 3D is just not my thing...I think I'll stick to 2D.

Saturday we caught up with old friends (wow, I sound so old saying that) who we haven't seen in 3 years or so. We went to college together and had the misfortune (or fortune) of running in to Austin on one of his routine calls as a firefighter...unfortunately the call was when Jaelyn and I got in our car accident back in January! With that aside, we had a fun little play date at their house, with a wonderful lunch (yes, I had three helpings), girl play time, a trip to the park, and a scrumptious dessert (what? I made it, I have to brag). Krista and Austin have a daughter Ki, Jaelyn and Ki managed to ignore one another enough while Jaelyn strutted around Ki's playroom claiming everything as hers. The girls did great with no naps all day and Jaelyn was passed out in the car before we even left the neighborhood. Both Krista and I are expecting, 2 weeks apart, so it was fun sharing our "joys" of pregnancy! I wish I would have thought to take some pictures of our fun day, but at least I got some shots of the dessert :) (Please try not to be jealous of my photography skills). I kind of picked apart a few recipes to make this experiment, I'll post what I did below.

Berry Cobbler
¾ Cup Water
2 Tablespoons Corn Starch
¼ Cup Sugar
3 Cups Berries – Strawberries, blueberries, & Blackberries
Combine ingredients in a sauce pan and bring to boil. Cook for 1 min. Add Berries, stir and put into pie pan.

Topping
¾ Cup Flour
¾ Cup Brown Sugar (packed)
¾ Cup Oatmeal
¾ Cup Butter
Combine ingredients in a bowl, mix and top over berry mix.
Bake 350 for 25-30 min.

Seconds

2010-03-11T18:31:00.000-08:00

Today I'm 23 Weeks and I had Marc take a picture of me this morning. You would think with this being my second pregnancy I would get use to these belly shots but I find them somewhat awkward, although necessary. So here's a pic...

Along with my second pregnancy I'm attempting (again) to be a green thumb! After an unsuccessful attempt at growing my own vegetables last year, I'm taking baby steps, one plant at a time. I have to say so far not so bad...I got a cherry tomato plant at Costco a few weeks ago and I'm proud to report we have life! Not to jinx it, but it has rained so much these last couple weeks, I think good old mother nature is on my side! I think I have about 7 tomato's in sprout.

I have my first full session of physical therapy tomorrow...keep your fingers crossed they can get my spine back to it's normal position...this is getting a little too painful!

22 Weeks...Tomorrow

2010-03-03T19:09:00.000-08:00

If there is one thing I'm good at...it's eating Cadbury Mini Eggs, even when I'm not pregnant I love these things!

Anyway, being pregnant certainly has it's joys and hardships. I love the feeling of the baby kicking and moving, I love the fact that I crave vegetables and somewhat healthy food, I love the continuous growing belly and as of tonight I love water aerobics :) I headed to the gym for some low impact water aerobics, although very exhausted at the moment, I enjoyed the chance to move around and not feel the aches and pains. I'm sure tomorrow will bring a different story. I'm in search of a cure to my annoying sciatic pain, it gets worse and worse by the day (minute) and apparently, according to my Internet research, all that mopping and vacuuming I did on Sunday was probably not a good idea! So if there are any of the 1% of pregnant women out there who get sciatic pain and dying to share their relief tips, I'm all ears...if not I'll continue this venture on my own.

Back to the water aerobics, I have one small issue...my bathing suit! I'm cheap and don't want to buy a new one, so do I

1) continue wearing the "tankini" that is too big that I have to safety pin at the side on the top to keep from falling down, but that the bottom half (of the top) is continuously above my belly in the water anyway and have to keep tugging at it or

2) be THAT pregnant lady wearing a bikini?

Are these really my options...? Yikes!

Time Flys

2010-02-27T08:10:00.000-08:00

I'm seven weeks into my student teaching and loving every minute of it...well except for the 5 year old tattle tailing, bad words, and the most recent boy who was walking with his hands in his pocket, got pushed, and landed on his face on the cement, busting 3 teeth, his nose and not to mention many facial bumps and bruises. Other than all that business, it's so fun. The days fly by and when a student comes up to you and says "you're beautiful" or "i like your shirt" it just makes you feel wonderful. They do such a great job driving you nuts but then know just the things to say to make you smile. I've started teaching all the lessons everyday and feel so blessed to have such a great mentor teacher, she is so prepared and has lesson plans for the whole year as well as a scheduled routine that the students know like the back of their hand. We have parent teacher conferences coming up in a week or two so it will be interesting meeting the parents and listening to all the Spanish conversation, hopefully I pick up on a little bit of it.

As far as my schooling, I have ONE class left and then I'm done with my Master's degree. I'm in the stages of contemplating furthering my education, but may hold off until a little later in the year. I think I'll stay focused on having a baby and finding a job first! I have one test left to take (for the second time) to get my teaching certificate which just happens to be the US and Arizona Constitution, two things that are so far out of my brain, I've had ALOT of studying to do. So keep your fingers crossed.

I'm 21 weeks pregnant (picture at 19 weeks) with baby girl #2 and already can't wait to meet her! She's moving a lot and right on schedule everyday, I usually feel her in the shower, a couple times throughout the day, in the car on the way home, and again between 8-9pm. She's active and I can't wait for Marc and Jaelyn to be able to feel her moving too. I've been feeling great (minus this sciatic pain) and slowly starting to get more and more energy back!

Jaelyn is constantly making us laugh (and pull our hair out). She is a toddler with a mind of her own and has no problem expressing her feelings no matter where we are! It's made for some interesting outings (sorry Mary Ellen)...She is very opinionated and we try to give her as many choices as we can because she is so proud with the results. She is such a big helper and loves to help mom in the kitchen...she's great at putting peperoni on bagel pizza's! The daycare loves her and can't stop telling us how great her vocabulary is, how much she talks, and how polite she is. Which makes us feel great because around the house we get alot of "NO's" and break downs :). She is good at entertaining herself and really loves being in her room, even in the morning when she wakes up, she doesn't come and get us, she just grabs books or toys and climbs back into her bed. Her hair is getting so long and is still curly, I love putting it in full pigtails, she looks so cute!

Marc is off and traveling with his golf teams and Jaelyn gets so excited when "daddy" comes home. He's headed back to school as well and is taking classes towards his Masters in Leadership and is doing a great job completing his assignments and we are so proud of how hard he is working!

While sorting through some photos I found this one of when I was about three and my first thought was "Jaelyn does look a little like me" (or so I like to think), maybe it's just the hair???

Today is the Day!

2009-12-23T07:15:00.000-08:00

It's been so long since I've blogged, I really do need to get better at this. Since today is such a big day for me I thought it would be worth documenting! Today is my last day of working at the Arizona Women's Golf Association. For the last 22 months I've been taking classes towards my Masters in Elementary Education and today is the LAST day of my final class...YIPPEEEE! Which coincidentally falls on my last day of work, making today a somewhat significant day (well at least in my mind). I start student teaching in a Kindergarten classroom on January 7 at Griffith Elementary here in Phoenix, AZ. The entire class is ESL, which frightened me at first, but now I'm looking forward to the challenge. Tommorrow we head to Washington for 10 whole days of rest and relaxation, no school, no work...AHHH and to spend a much awaited Christmas with my family!

Halloween

2009-11-01T20:12:00.000-08:00

I carved pumpkins with the neighbors last week and we went trick or treating last night with our little bumblebee! Her first two houses, she needed some encouragement and to be held, but once she got the hang of it, she was miss independent. Walking on her own, blatantly letting us know she did not want to be carried or go in the stroller with her powerful "NO" every time we asked. She carried her trick or treat basket the whole way around and was so excited when she got a sucker, holding it up and showing us. She kept her wings and antenna's on the whole night and was definitely the cutest bumblebee I've ever seen!

Shower Invitations

2009-11-01T20:07:00.000-08:00

Today I hosted a shower for Jessica at our house. Marc and I have been busy at work all day, of course after the party was over and all the food was eaten and decorations dismantled I realized I'd forgotten to take pictures! I was so proud of my centerpiece including the brides custom made shoes on a cake tray, my homemade flower pen bouquet, and our arrangements of snacks! What I did remember to get a picture of was the invitation I sent out a few weeks ago...this is all I got :)

A play date with Bella!

2009-10-19T20:34:00.000-07:00

Today we were going to head to the library for pajama story time with Bella, but when I called the library they thought Jaelyn might be a little too young. So we decided to meet at the park to play and feed the ducks. The girls were so excited to see each other they ran and chased each other, continually said "Hi Bella" and "Hi Jaelyn", slid down the slides, swung on the swings, and fed the ducks. Here are a few pictures from today's adventure.

Jaelyn's first Bella sighting

Favorite Friends

First Time Blogger...

2009-10-18T21:33:00.000-07:00

I decided to start a blog because I think it would be fun to explain more about what is happening in our lives here in AZ...we're so far away from all our family and friends, it feels good to be able to update everyone by blogging! I'm so far behind in scrapbooking and never find the time to do it so I feel like this might make up for it :) Plus, it will be fun for me to brag as much as I can about Jaelyn!! I suppose I'll start with today's happenings...Marc headed to California for his second to last golf trip of the season...yes we're counting down the days. So Jaelyn and I decided to invite the neighbor kids, Anthony (ET as Jaelyn calls him) and Alyssa (lissssa, according to Jaelyn) to paint pumpkins. Jaelyn's too young to carve them so I thought paint would be a fun alternative. Jaelyn loves ET and Lissssa and any time she can spend with them. Here are a few pictures from our fun day...starting with a paint covered Jaelyn.

Anthony & Alyssa
The finished products...Alyssa's, Jaelyn's & Anthony's (from left to right)