AndrewAndSimone

June 14, 2009

June Happenings

Filed under: Monthly Happenings — Simone @ 11:15 pm

Now that June is half way over, I better get started on making my June calendar. June is a super busy month for us and you’ll see why now.

Birthdays and anniversaries galore: (Keep in mind that we will attend or have attended parties for each of the birthdays mentioned.)

-June 1st: Baby Isabelle’s actual due day. Obviously we had her about 2 weeks early, but it was still something that was on our calendar for awhile.

-June 4th: My cousin’s daughter Destinie’s birthday.

-June 6th: Andrew turns 24 years old. He’s nearing the middle of his 20s which means he’s just so much closer to 30. I bought him an awesome 24″ LCD monitor. He’s been wanting an LCD monitor for a long time and I finally decided to get him one and a bigger one at that. It’s huge. I’ll post a picture some time.

-June 11th: My cousin Katrina’s birthday.

-June 16th: Our 3 year dating anniversary.

-June 18th: My cousin’s daughter Ellie’s birthday.

-June 19th: Isabelle’s one month old. It’s tradition in my family (and Asian culture in general) to have a big party for a baby’s one month.

-June 21st: Father’s day.

-June 28th: Our first wedding anniversary. Aww…

Movies I’m looking forward to:

Opened June 5th

Opened June 5th

Opens June 19th

Opens June 19th

Opens June 19th

Opens June 19th

Opens June 24th

Opens June 24th

There you have it. That’s June. It looks really unexciting to me right now… I’d like to see these movies, especially Transformers and Away We Go, but I’m not sure how easy it will be for me to see these in theaters with Isabelle and all. Maybe I’ll figure it out enough to at least see Transformers in theaters. Andrew and I are super excited for it. We’ll see how it goes though.

Happy June!

June 9, 2009

Isabelle Nelson

Filed under: Isabelle Specific, Pregnancy News — Simone @ 1:16 pm

The morning after my last post was the day I went into labor. It was Tuesday, May 19, 2009. It was a very uncomfortable sleepless night for me so I wasn’t sure what was going on when I started having contractions. I usually look at the time when I wake up to go to the bathroom, but this time I didn’t and of course it’s the time I really should’ve. I think it was just after 5 AM when I started having contractions. I didn’t think too much of them until they really started to kick in and I was huffing and puffing. I was pretty sure I was in labor from the beginning but I wanted to make sure before I woke Andrew up… By 6:20 AM-ish, I was sure I had to go to the hospital. I woke Andrew up telling him what was going on, but he thought I was overexaggerating and rolled over and went back to sleep. I sat next to him for the next 10 minutes or so trying to breathe through the contractions. He tells me later that he didn’t hear me next to him at all. He only knew I was serious once I’d moved to the other side of the room about 20 minutes after I initally woke him up. He said he heard me huffing and puffing and that was when he knew it really was time. We packed up our stuff really quick, since we weren’t prepared beforehand, and headed to the hospital. Thank goodness the hospital is about a 5 minute ride.

We arrived at the hospital at about 7:15 AM I think. I had a contraction before walking into the building, one right after we got off the elevator at the entrance to the Women’s Center, and another one before I even got to my room… The nurses quickly admitted me seeing how the contractions were really close together. They checked me and I was 5 cm dilated I think. I asked for an epidural since I was screaming in pain. You know those movies? I kind of thought the movies were a bit exaggerated, but boy was I the epitome of the stereotypical woman in labor. Andrew had to fill out some paperwork and he couldn’t remember what room I was in when he was coming back, but then my screams led him to the room just fine. Wonderful. The nurse asked if I wanted something in the meantime for the pain and I’m not sure how that went, because I was still in lots of pain by the time the epidural man came in. I was breathing so fast that my whole body eventually went pretty numb. The nurse kept trying to tell me to take bigger breaths. I tried my best, but I was still pretty tingly and numb everywhere. The anesthesiologist was pretty much rushed in and they gave me the epidural without waiting for my blood work to come back I think. Later the anesthesiologist tells us that he was afraid I was going to have the baby while he was trying to get the epidural in. It was pretty quick. I was about 8 cm by that time and I had the biggest urge to push. They kept telling me to try not to push, but come on. It’s not like I could really help it. So I guess I dilated 3 cm in about 20 minutes which is really fast.

Anyway, the epidural never really went into full effect by the time I really did have to push. The doctor had to give me a second dose of something that was suppose to work faster, but I’m not sure how much it really worked. I wasn’t in a whole lot of pain, but I did still feel everything. I literally pushed 5 times in maybe 5 minutes and the baby was out. Andrew cut the umbilical cord and there is the end of this pregnancy.

Her first picture.

Born May 19, 2009 at 8:16 AM. 7 lbs. 2 oz. 19 inches long.

Now if you look at the time, I had her about an hour after arriving at the hospital and about 3 hours after I felt my first contraction. Quick, huh? It was all a really big blur. In retrospect, I probably could’ve done without the epidural, but things are definitely different when you’re actually going through labor. I wasn’t too numb afterwards though. Andrew thinks it must’ve worked just enough to take the edge off. I wasn’t in pain while pushing. I was just more weirded out from being able to feel everything and that probably helped me get her out faster. The nurse also told us that it’ll be faster the next time around and told us to make it to the hospital a little sooner than we did this time.

Since my labor was so quick, the antibiotics they gave me to prevent the baby from catching Group B Strep in the birth canal never took effect so the baby was at risk for that. I guess I’m a carrier of GBS. They had to monitor her and gave her some antibiotics since her white blood cell count was high. We were in the hospital for 2 nights and were able to leave Thursday afternoon.

Now, about naming the baby… Andrew and I went into the hospital with a couple different options: Emmy or Shia. We put off naming her until the last possible second before we left the hospital. Everytime we started talking about it, we’d either get interrupted or just give up. She didn’t look like an Emmy or a Shia to me. Andrew and I eventually decided to throw those names out and rethink our choices. We both thought she looked very feminine and so we wanted a name that was a bit girlier. I wanted something that was a little more sophisticated, since Emmy seemed like it was too short for her. It seemed incomplete to me. It was the night before we left the hospital that Andrew resuggested Isabella to me. I didn’t like Isabella too much, especially since it was ranked #2 on the SSA name list for 2008 and it was so long it seemed like it had to have a nickname. (If you know me, I don’t like nicknames that much and would rather not have nicknames for my kids.) Andrew’s suggestion made me think about the name Isabelle and the more I thought about it that night, the more I grew to like it. It took me a little while to bring it up to Andrew, but once I told him I thought I liked that name, we had a little more to go on. We looked it up and checked everything out, like the meaning and the spelling. Nothing made us deter from the name and we both could see her as an Isabelle. After much thought, we finally decided to name her Isabelle Nelson. No middle name. That was something I wanted again and Andrew didn’t fight me on it this time.

So there you have it. The story of Isabelle Nelson. I don’t think I left too much out, but I’ll write more if I did later. Thanks to everyone who visited or left me messages/comments. There are a lot more pictures on my Facebook if you’re interested.

May 18, 2009

Belly Shot…

Filed under: Pregnancy News — Simone @ 9:55 pm

Here’s the darn belly shot:

37 weeks and 3 days

37 weeks and 3 days

Blame Andrew for the awesome picture taking. I’m not sure if he knows how to use the zoom or line up a shot… Just kidding. I’m 38 weeks exactly now so I’m not sure how different I look now. I’m not thinking I look too different, but maybe I do?

More newsies to come. This is just to hold you over ’til then…

May 13, 2009

House Hunting

Filed under: House Adventures — Simone @ 11:12 pm

Let’s just start talking about this post by saying that house hunting is a pain in the butt. By that, you can tell that it hasn’t been a smooth, happy process for us, or at least me. Andrew deals better with stress than I do. Andrew and I have been talking about moving out on our own for as long as we’ve been together practically. We looked around some before and sort of figured out what we thought we could afford and what we’d get with that, so I’d say we were pretty prepared to begin our official house hunt. I guess we started looking at houses seriously in February. It’s been a few months now and boy have there been plenty of ups and downs…

Before searching for real, we thought we were going to get a cute townhouse or something in the Lehi area. That idea changed to maybe in the Sandy/Draper area… Location is a pretty big deal to us and we wanted something that wasn’t too far out there. Well, our idea of a cute, little townhouse changed when we learned about all the free money the government was giving away for first-time home buyers. Andrew actually paid extremely close attention to that part of the Stimulus Package that was going through earlier this year and not much else. He was so excited when they uped the tax credit and then made it free… Lol. (If anyone was around then, Andrew was pretty darn happy with the government because of this and his tax refund. It’s all he could talk about.) Well then, with that and figuring out how much we could realistically afford, we found out that we may be able to purchase a HOUSE! This is a big deal to us (as I’m sure it is with most people), because 1) We don’t do well with sharing walls, as I’ve never had to, and Andrew doesn’t prefer it, and 2) We wanted a fenced backyard for kiddies to run around in.

In the beginning, Andrew and I were pretty dead set with our must-have lists. We both didn’t really want to move too far from where we are now. Andrew HAD to have an unfinished basement and I HAD to have 3 bedrooms. Well, after finding a neighborhood where we could afford a house… Our shared must-have of our ideal location was already out the window. Daybreak is located in South Jordan, which is a bit out there for us, but at least it’s still in the same county. There, we could afford a house, which is still pretty amazing to us, and it’s a very family friendly area with lots of great amenities included in the HOA fees. All that obviously won us over.

With the neighborhood pretty locked down, we started looking through the bazillion builders and their numerous house plans. From there everything became ridiculously complicated and stressful…. When we first started, we had a broader range of what we thought we may afford. (We weren’t sure yet since Andrew wasn’t working full-time yet.) So we picked out our fave house plans and just waiting awhile to see what would happen with Andrew’s job. A little bit of time passed and we figured out that maybe our first choices were a little too expensive for us. Back track!

Our number 1 choice...

Round 1: Our number 1 choice...

We went through all the darn papers we’d accumulated from all the different builders and sorted out the ones out of our budget. This left us with a bunch of houses we originally through out because we didn’t like the floor plans or they didn’t fulfill our wish lists. With our list of must-haves once again out the window, we settled on the bare minimum of what we acutally NEEDED. We even considered purchasing a townhome because of the ridiculously low prices, but in the end, we didn’t give up our want for a stand alone house. We also didn’t settle on houses with the master suites on the main level since we didn’t think it was a good idea to have kids wandering down the stairs in the middle of night to our bed… (Jadon still runs into our room down the hall from his in a panic most nights.)

Round 2: Pricier option

Round 2: Cheaper option

Round 2: Pricier option

Round 2: Pricier option

We narrowed them down to two options. Both are pretty similar except one is a little larger and a little pricier. Andrew would still have his unfinished basement, but I decided that having a house was worth more to me than having 3 bedrooms. Each house only has 2 bedrooms, which means Jadon gets a room and the baby shares a room with us… Not the ideal situation, but it would have to do in order for us to really get out on our own. Plus, honestly, Jadon still sleeps with us so who’s (or is it whose?) to say the baby really NEEDS her own room.

After deciding on these options, we learned about the lots and the costs for different lots. Argh. More decisions… Do we want a lot that faces a hill or one that faces a street? Do we want a corner lot? This doesn’t seem too bad, except we could only build certain houses on each lot and the lots varied in pricing. We had to decide if a corner lot that faced the street was really worth $10,000 more than one that faced the hill that wasn’t a corner lot. Yes, this doesn’t make much sense and we were really boggled with this decision for awhile, especially since we’re not loaded with money and every little upgrade was important to our budget.

After much thought and discussion, we decided on what we wanted and arranged a time to make a reservation… Of course, to our amazing luck, the lot we wanted was taken the night before the morning we were planning on coming in. Great. Rethink!! FAST! We made our reservation and hoped for the best. You’re wondering if we’re done yet right? I wish…

Next step? Applying for a loan. All the complicatedness with this is best to not be discussed because it’s a pain and I’d rather not go much more into detail. So we’re in the process now of getting approved or declined for a loan. Things seem to be great. Our house is almost in sight, right? Oh, yeah right.

Rewind to our number 1 choice. Remember that one? The one we thought we couldn’t afford… Well, due to the awesome economy, the price on that house dropped pretty dramatically. (Also include the great incentive our builder is offering, which I forgot to mention before… They’re matching the Utah Home Loan Grant thing, which basically means lots more FREE money on top of free money.) With all the free money floating around and the newly reduced price of our number 1 choice, Andrew and I are again reconsidering our options… Of course, all this is dependent on whether or not we’ll get approved for the loan and what that amount will be for.

All this is just a short summary, with little emotional stress added, of our last few months looking at houses. Fun, huh? I’m sure this is a lot more complicated than normal, but I wanted to document it at least since I’ve been wanting to write about it for awhile. Just take this HUGELY long, boring post as a sum up of the other little posts I would’ve written if I’d had the time.

Keep your fingers crossed for us and I’ll let you know how our house hunting adventure concludes…

May 9, 2009

Pregnancy Woes

Filed under: Pregnancy News — Simone @ 11:32 pm

So I’m just about full term with this baby now, which is 37 weeks. Remember: My due date is June 1st. I can hardly believe I made it this far since Jadon was born at 32 weeks and I’m technically “high risk” to have another preemie. But then again, it doesn’t surprise me that I’ve gotten this far along. I think it’s rather ironic that we were so afraid with this pregnancy going into early labor, but we haven’t really changed many things and I’m doing just fine.

We opted out of taking the weekly progesterone shots that may or may not help 1 in 3 women prevent preterm labor. We looked up studies that were all inconclusive and that’s why they stopped using this method a little while ago, yet there was  a recent study that said 1 in 3 women seemed to benefit from the shots so they started using them again. Who knows though? Andrew was really worried about the long term effects on me (the mother) since the effects don’t seem to affect the baby that much. I mean, the drug isn’t super old or anything so there could be something popping up from it later in life that we wouldn’t know about just yet right? Andrew’s response to the fact that there weren’t any “known” side effects for the mother was along the lines of, “You’re getting huge doses of a hormone weekly. How could that not affect you in anyway?” (Eh, with the effect/affect words. I may mix them up as I’m typing this, but I do know the proper way to use them and I don’t like rereading my posts before I publish them.)

The other day Andrew said, “Good thing we decided not to take the shots.” I responded, “Yeah sure. But if we had taken them, we would be saying ‘Good thing we decided to take the shots.’” Darn that hindsight bias! I am definitely glad we decided against taking those shots, but like I said, it’ll be bittersweet if we make it to my due date and just plain ridiculous if we happen to go PAST my due date.

On the brightside, my pregnancy has been pretty good so far. At my last doctor’s appointment on Wednesday, when I was at 36 weeks, I was already dilated 2 cm. (Sorry if that’s too much info, but I don’t really see how it is since it’s not really graphic or anything…) My doctor said that I could go into labor that night or I could go into labor weeks from then. Not too informative, I know, but I guess it’s a good sign that I wasn’t dilated earlier.

I’m starting to really be in pain though now. It’s a struggle to walk without pain and getting in and out of a seat is tough, but these are all different from the last time I was pregnant. I’m happy to report that I’ve only woken up once with a bloody nose and have only had to suffer one huge leg cramp. When I was pregnant with Jadon, the leg cramps were horrible daily occurences which happened at the most inconvenient time. They always occured in the middle of the night while I was sleeping which is awesome to deal with. Aside from the typical pregnancy pains, I’m feeling pretty good. I think I have it pretty easy when I hear about others stories so I don’t feel like I can really complain or boast about how easy it is… Just kidding.

Anyway, I just thought I’d share some pregnancy news since I haven’t really been blogging about it. Sooner or later, I will post a picture of my huge belly. I just need to remember to take one before the baby arrives…

May 3, 2009

May Happenings

Filed under: Monthly Happenings — Simone @ 11:29 am

I think I’ll try to start a new tradition here for me and post things I look forward to each month. We’ll start with May, even though we’re already into the month. Hopefully, next time around I can do this before the month actually begins. We’ll see though…

Events I’m already scheduled for:

- May 5th: My one and only final of the semester will be done and over with that evening. Sucky part is that I have to drive up to the U to take it. It’s an online class so I usually just take the tests at the testing center in Sandy, but that’s not an option this time. Darn.

- May 8th: Andrew’s graduation. He has still yet to decide if he’s walking or not. (I’m pretty sure he’ll at least make some effort to get a last-minute cap and gown…) The college of engineering commencement takes place at 4:15 p.m. at the Huntsman Center.

- May 9th: Star Trek, baby! Just kidding. If anyone here knows me even a little bit, I’m sure you’ll know that I’m completely clueless when it comes to Star Trek. Before, when we were getting tickets with Rachel, Jason, and a bunch others, I kept talking to Andrew and referring to it as “Star Wars.” Oops. I know there’s a difference. It was just natural for me to say “Star Wars” rather than “Star Trek.” Since then, I’m better about it so no Trekkies will go and beat me up on opening weekend… Lol. Anyway, we’re seeing it on Saturday night rather than Friday night due to Andrew’s impending graduation.

Events I’m looking forward to:

- Spring Dine O’ Round: If you haven’t attended this before and you enjoy eating food at reduced prices, you should definitely check this out. We went to the one last year and it was a nice thing to try out a restaurant we wouldn’t normally go to due to the cost. This year, I’d like to try out Bambara since I’ve heard so much about it, but it’s too pricey for us to just go to for the heck of it. Dinner for $30 a person sounds like a great deal… Check out the link for the other participating restaurants. Some are also doing lunch specials.

- Movies: It’s looking like it’ll be a nice movie summer! Here’s a few that Andrew and I are looking forward to:

Opeing May 15th

Opening May 22nd

Opening May 22nd

Opening May 29th

Opening May 29th

There you have it. Those are the May events that I can think of at the moment that we’re looking forward to… Oh, and having a baby too. I would think we’d have her before the June 1st due date, but you never know.

May 1, 2009

Jadon’s Growing UP!

Filed under: Jadon Specific — Simone @ 11:54 pm

Present day Jadon

Jadon’s getting so big that it really makes me sad to think that I’ve really lost my little boy. I’m a bit sentimental about it all and Andrew, of course, thinks I’m overly dramatic about it. So I thought I’d write a bit about Jadon since I’ve got some time and can’t really think of what to write about. I always have topics to write about when I’m away from the computer, but once I’m free to write, I have nothing to write about. Isn’t that just how it works?

BabyJadon

Look at him compared to the doctor's hand...

On Saturday, January 14, 2006, I started having contractions at 4 a.m. but figured it was a false alarm or something and went back to sleep. (It was my normal potty break time so I didn’t think much of it.) I ended up going to the hospital around 8 a.m. and it was too late to stop the labor. After some pain and an epidural, Jadon was born at 2:14 p.m. measuring in at 4 Ibs. 10 oz. and 17 inches long. He was about 7 1/2 weeks early. His original due date was March 8th. Needless to say, we were all taken by surprise. He stayed in the NICU for one month exactly before he was able to come home. He was a little one with reddish, brown hair and blue/gray eyes. Even though he was super tiny, he was still extremely expressive. He had a ton of really funny/cute expressions that even the nurses in the NICU mentioned that he was the most expressive baby there… I guess things don’t really change, huh?

BabyJadon2

Jadon all hooked up and ready to be transferred to another hospital.

I only really looked at him for a mere couple of minutes before he was taken away. They had to keep him for a little while to see if he needed to be admitted to NICU. He did come out crying though so that was good. The biggest worry was that his lungs weren’t fully developed. He did hit the 32 week mark which is when their lungs develop, so he just barely made it. He needed to be transferred to another hospital so they got him ready and this what I saw of him before they took him to the University of Utah Hospital (Primary Children’s was full and later on the U Hospital was getting full too in the NICU. Go figure there was a preemie boom at the time.) I saw him for a total of maybe 10 minutes and didn’t form much of a bond with him at all. Heck, I was too scared to look at him when he was born because I didn’t know what to expect him to look like. The nurses were telling me that he’d probably the size of the palm of someone’s hand, so that was freaking me out enough.

I guess that’s how much of a story there is with Jadon’s birth and NICU days… I probably had more to say, but I started this post a little while ago and have kind of lost my train of thought.

Wedding flashback!

Filed under: Family — Simone @ 11:20 pm

Our awesome wedding photographer just included some of our engagement pics in an entry on her blog. If you haven’t seen them already, check them out here. These pictures were taken probably close to a year or so ago. I can’t remember the exact date, but we’re nearing our first wedding anniversary (June 28th) so I’m sure you can guess that it was about a year ago…

Budget Nazi meets his doom…

Filed under: Family — Simone @ 12:00 am

Dun dun DUN!! Andrew the Budget Nazi (check out this post if you haven’t read it yet) has finally met his match and our strict budget is practically no more. It’s kind of sad since we were doing so well and it was for only a short amount to time… What might you ask has ended the reign of the Budget Nazi? (Blame the time and my weird schedule for the day as a reason for this oddball post.)

About a month or so ago, Andrew came home and decided he wanted to go get himself an external hard drive. He needed one for work so we set out on our quest to find him his hard drive. He decided that he wanted to go to Costco to get one. Usually, we just use my parents’ membership whenever we go, but he didn’t tell me about his plan until after it was too late for me to get the card that day. But of course, Andrew couldn’t wait a day so he thought this was as good as ever to get ourselves a membership. We would’ve eventually gotten our own anyway, so went to Costco and signed up.

After some searching and comparing, he picked the hard drive he wanted to purchase and we wandered around the rest of the place to “look around.” Well, $250 later… We emerged from Costco completely full of goods that we may not have needed. Mind you, the hard drive only cost $100 or so and I’m not including how much we spent on the membership itself. *sigh* I’m all for Costco, but I think Andrew got a nice punch in the ribs from the spending. The thing is though, even the Budget Nazi can’t resist a trip to Costco. A week or two later, we went back to Costco and spent another chunk of money leaving the Budget Nazi question whether or not the membership was really “saving” him anything. Haha.

Well, I guess he doesn’t really care as much anymore because we’ve been going back to Costco regularly to refill our pantry. We’re actually eating a bit heathier now so that’s a plus and it’s just a nice fun shopping trip for us. I guess you just know that you’re getting old when you count trips to Costco as fun time… Lol. I wouldn’t say that’s what we call it, but we definitely enjoy spending time there looking at all the random things.

So there you have it. The Budget Nazi failed to stand up to the temptation that is what we call… Costco. (Keep in mind also that we’re not going that crazy in our spending. We’re actually being pretty frugal for how we used to be… )

April 26, 2009

(Almost) Fully Up and Running!

Filed under: Miscellaneous — Simone @ 10:38 pm

Andrew has finally figured out our site for the most part. Now we’ll be able to do a lot more stuff with it like post pictures easily and add widgets, etc. Also, this blog can be found easily by accessing our home page directly instead of doing the “/wordpress” deal…  Awesome. Now everyone who’s figured out the slash deal needs to undo that so they can get to the blog. Good news is that having this all done now should make blogging more fun and convenient for us. I try to blog more often just because I have things I want to post, but then again, I’m not always on the computer at the time I want to post something.

Anyway, so here’s to our (almost) up and running site. Oh, and Andrew’s also switched me over to a more competent computer so I won’t be so impatient working on an ancient computer. Yay! Look ahead to more random posts by me and maybe Andrew will get around to writing some more…

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