Arden

Some guests with baby & video

Arden Chandler and Happy mom

Here is the new baby born at 05:37 hrs 12/28/2008, that's right I get that tax deduction. Yeah! Weighing in at 6lbs. 13 oz.., with 18" in length. If our goal was to have the baby at the hospital its a good thing we did not wait too long. We arrived at the hospital at 05:15 hrs this morning, a whole 20 minutes to spare! Deb's woke up in 'labor' at 03:55 hrs so we know we did not want to wait too long. Of course she has had contractions for about the last month, so she's been prepping for a while now. Anyway more to come...

True Colors...

Well, the true colors are shining through. Here are some recent pictures of Seth and Mr. Bud!


Bud

Seth

Hope your holidays are filled with much joy and many memories. Still waiting for the baby to come; we are expecting it any day now! Will update as soon as it arrives!
MERRY CHRISTMAS

Let it snow...

This morning the phone rang at 6. No, we had not discovered the snow yet. It came down pretty hard until about 9:30 or so. I think we ended up with close to 6 inches. The kids liked it better from inside. The cold and wet were not their cup of tea, but they did go out in it. Nadya didn't like it in her face (Seth took her out while it was still snowing). The chickens didn't want to come out of their cage until it stopped snowing, but the puppies and Scout had a lot of fun running and playing in it. I think they liked the fact that they could just lick up some snow instead of having to go to their water bowl for water.

From the Deck

Our pine tree; I love the green and white!

While it was still snowing pretty hard!

A picture of the creek

The gate going to our neighbor's field in the back.

A picture of the house from the pasture.


The words, "Sean, come here, this is fun!" made me look over and discover this mess Aubrey and Nadya made. Nadya was innocent in the sense that this was her first offense with flour, but Aubrey was definitely guilty since this was his second time. They had a brief moment of fun before the grim reality hit-of course mom is going to be mad when she sees this mess!

The Waiting Game...

I have been quite remiss in not posting; I apologize for this. I was settled down to post lots of pictures but the internet is not cooperating today due to the weather. Oh, the joys of satellite internet!! So this post will not be long, but I did want all of our followers to know that we are expecting our newest addition to the family any day now. The kids are excited and argue about how the baby will come out. Sean wanted to know if the doctor was going to open my heart and take the baby out and Aubrey promptly replied that the baby was going to "shoot" out. Of course all of this is terribly amusing to listen to, but thankfully they haven't asked for any details and are content to simply argue about it with each other! I know it is coming, but we will face every parenting challenge as it presents itself and just laugh in the mean time! Hope this finds you well and not stressing out about the holidays!! Much love from the Chandlers!

Scout's Pups

We are happy to announce the arrival of Scout's puppies. Four girls and one boy! Proud mother is the Australian Shepherd "Casey" next door. They are approximately 2.5 weeks old. If proper homes are not found for them, they will be part of a friends "Traveling Barn" which, in its travels finds homes for puppies such as these! It will be hard to see them go, but I don't really need any more furry dogs like Scout, which these appear to have every bit as much fur as him! Aren't they adorable. They are starting to have lots of personality and growl and nip on each other even though they don't have any teeth yet!


Proud Daddy

They were sucking on Sean's fingers

Folic Acid, Floating Star, & Rubber Boots

As many of you know, I took a quilting class in August. I enjoyed the class thoroughly and learned a lot to boot. I sent the quilt to Deanna in Nepal so she is enjoying it now. The pattern is called Floating Star. I have some other projects I am working on, but I can't post them because they are Christmas gifts.




What happens when you mix a little boy who is supposed to be taking a nap and mommy's folic acid vitamins?? Nothing good!!! I told him to lay down and take a nap; shortly thereafter, he came to the top of the stairs saying his nose hurt. I started up the stairs and smelled vick's vapor rub, cruel parent that I am, informed him that it was his own fault he rubbed too much on and told him to go back to his bed. Fast forward to the afternoon, I began to notice him sneezing a lot; like 3 to 5 sneezes every 10 minutes or so. He came to me and said his nose hurt. I looked and noticed that it was bulging a bit on one side right at the bridge of his nose. I laid him down and looked up his nose and noticed some white stuff. I made him blow, but nothing was coming out, so I thought once we get home we can suck it out. Well, that didn't work. I brought Aubrey upstairs by my bed and asked what was in his nose. He pointed to the folic acid tablets; I asked him how many; he replied five. Well, to make a long, agonizing story short, He blew the one in the picture below out of his nose the next morning, which cleared the airway in his nose, and then blew another out with the help of Daddy's homemade extractor made from a paper clip *shudder*. Anyway, Aubrey now says he will not put things up his nose. We know that will only last as long as he doesn't find anything that fits so perfectly like the folic acid tablets!!

Placed by a matchhead for comparison


Sean, Aubrey & Owen with their boots!


Well, I am happy to say we lit our first fire of the season (in the fireplace that is). We are enjoying this cool weather immensely! Scout is especially enjoying it; he is super hyper right now. He loves the cold weather with all that fur of his!! That is about it for now. I will catch things up soon. Hopefully it won't take a month to post next time!!

This post is mostly just pictures. We have had a very busy, but fun month. The children are growing. Sean celebrated his 4th Birthday and now thinks he should get presents everyday! He went to the Boot store this weekend and got some new cowboy boots with his Birthday money. I will get some pictures of them soon. Seth was working in the back on one of the dirt piles and came across this snake, so he killed it with the tractor. This is the first, and I'm sure not the last, poisonous snake we have come across. To the best of my information, it is a juvenile water moccasin. Look at the double fangs!!






As you can tell Nadya just loves being outside and getting dirty. Look closely, she has a film of dust on her!

Sean making a silly face

Can't leave anyone out on the picture taking!

I will post more soon. I have several things I would like to post but it contains time sensitive info!

Correction

I mispelled "due" in the last post. Sorry!! Oh, and I also apologize for not having the pictures in better order. Just be glad they are on the post! It took over an hour just to post those!! : )

Gustav

I am soooo tired of hearing about Gustav. Ok, I know that some people don't mind seeing the same pictures over and over again, but it makes me question my ability to remember what I have already seen; i.e., didn't they just show that loop??;surely they wouldn't repeat that loop over and over. Oh yes, my friends, they will and do. What I don't get is, don't do an all day live coverage if all you can do is repeat yourself and show the same pictures over and over in between press briefings. Ok, so I know I don't have to keep the t.v. on and I don't, but it still drives me crazy. Maybe my lack of patience has to do with the cabin fever we are experiencing. Have you ever seen Muppet Treasure Island?? You have to watch it just to see the cabin fever part. Back to the subject of the day: Gustav. We weathered the storm well. We are so, so, so blessed with a generator last Friday. God provided just in time and the exact one we were looking at. It is running well, so we are not suffering! We don't have any natural gas do to the gas company not having a generator to run the pumps. Our phone lines are also down, so we are at the spotty mercy of cell phone coverage. Oh, well, at least the satellite internet is good for something!!! I've posted some pictures below. Like I said before, if cabin fever is the worst we suffer, then we are more than blessed. Oh, our neighbor said that our house is the only one on our road with lights!!!
The tree count is as follows: 5 pecan trees in the front yard down with several others leaning; one oak by the house; and at least 3 by the creek that I have seen so far. All of the fruit trees did well and some of our citrus trees didn't even lose the couple of oranges that are on them!



Sean on "Sugar" at Skye and Caden's Birthday Party

Nadya at the Birthday Party

Intersection of Riley and Pride Port Hudson Road


Our creek which is flooded. Look at the grass; it is laying down where the water was.

The barn roof suffered some


Aubrey at the Birthday Party

The oak tree that fell by the house. It didn't hit anything.

More of the oak tree and some Pecan trees in the front yard.

The creek crossing. See all the grass that was under?! (if the grass was cut recently, you wouldn't be able to see that! I knew there was a reason I don't cut the grass every week!)

The other crossing. It has also gone down some.

Isn't this pitiful. I am hoping we will be able to stake the tree back up but I am doubtful. We have a couple others that are leaning this badly as well.

Long time, no post....

Wow how time flies by. Where did the summer go?? I think it is funny how people refer to summer as when kids are not in school but I tend to refer to it as hot weather which is like 7 months here in La. Anyhow, I digress, I can't believe school is already in session. Sean asked me the other day, "Mom, when will I go to school?", to which I replied, "We are going to start doing school work soon at home", then he said, "but school is far, far away; you have to ride a school bus to get to it!". Here are some pictures of the balloons, skydivers, and fireworks from the balloon festival. It was so much fun and best of all it was free! I highly recommend it to everyone!! Plus, it is a great opportunity to get some really neat pictures!


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A balloon silhouette



The Balloon glow

Fireworks


Army Black Dagger Parachutist

The Boys with Lauren

Balloons Everywhere!


As most of you know, Azure disappeared much to our dismay. Everyone was heartbroken. Yesterday, we went and got two of her cousins. They don't have names yet as we just got them. They are very sweet!!!

She is a little bit more shy, but is warming up nicely!

She is very friendly and outgoing!


A straggler balloon picture