In a Nutshell

In case you haven't noticed, I've been really awesome at keeping everybody informed on this pregnancy... Okay, you caught me, that was a little exaggerated.  In actuality, I've sucked at it.  So I'm here today to give you the basic rundown of what it's been like for me.  It might be a pretty long post, so be warned.

1st Trimester:

Here is my first positive pregnancy test.  I think it's kind of weird to put a picture of something you peed on on the internet... but oh well I guess.  And yes, the picture is upside down.  But the plus sign looks the same either way.  I guess if it bothers you, you can just stand on your head or something. 

I think both of these ultrasounds are from the first trimester? The first is from my first visit to my actual doctor as a pregnant lady. (On a side note, it really bothers me a lot when people say "prego" or "preggers" or something like it instead of pregnant.  I don't know why.)  He was just a little blob, back then.  I was by myself because Sam was working the night shift (as has been the case for every single appointment I've had except for the anatomy ultrasound where we found out we are having a boy.)  I think I was about 8 weeks along.

This second ultrasound picture wasn't planned.  It was my very next appointment.  I was with the nurse practitioner for this appointment and she was having a hard time finding the heartbeat with the belly microphone thing, so she used that as an excuse for her to play with the ultrasound machine and for me to get a couple more pictures.  I was okay with that.  It is seriously crazy to me how much development there is in just 4 weeks.  We decided to tell the world I was pregnant.

The first trimester was weird for me.  I was always so tired around 2 pm.  This is when church started for us (until last week - yay for 9am church now!) so it was SUPER hard to stay awake in sacrament meeting.  

I also had no appetite, which would make me a little bit queasy if I didn't eat enough.  Which is a problem, because the only way to get rid of that feeling is to eat, and who wants to eat when you feel like that?! I never really got the typical morning sickness, but it wasn't pleasant.  Saltine crackers became their own food group for me.  Once, Sam said, "that kid is going to come out holding a box of crackers!"  He makes me laugh.  He also said, "when are you going to get over this sickly phase and into the eating all the time phase?"  Oh, husband...

2nd Trimester:

I'm not posting pictures of the initial anatomy ultrasound, but don't worry.  I had to have a follow up appointment after the anatomy ultrasound because they couldn't get a good view of baby's profile. The only pictures I got from the first one were of his parts (he wasn't too shy about showing them off) and a blurry one of his head.  The second round pictures are much better.  

Little man's head, torso, and arm.

I love this one.  All curled up in a little ball.

Little baby feets. 

The 2nd trimester was better than the first.  I wasn't as exhausted all the time, and I could actually eat some stuff without being grossed out.

My anti-craving for the first trimester was ground beef... well, mostly beef in general (besides a hamburger).  I just couldn't even look at it.  I discovered in this trimester it was the seasoning we used that was causing the sensory problems, so I started seasoning it differently and all was well with the world again.  

I got heartburn a lot this trimester.  The first time it happened was right at bedtime and I seriously wanted to cry.  I went to Joseph City to visit my family and had heartburn basically the whole time I was there.  Then Beau introduced me to the magic of Tums and my life was a little bit easier.  

I first felt the baby moving shortly after we found out the sex.  The movement was a lot stronger than I had expected.  I had heard/read that it is just a little flutter, so I guess I was expecting something like butterfly kisses.  Note to self: flutter does not automatically mean butterfly.

My growing uterus stretched out a ligament shortly after my visit to Joseph City.  That made moving painful.  Still does sometimes a lot of the time.

3rd Trimester so far:

I don't have any pictures from this trimester so far.  I will have another ultrasound in the next week or so, though, so there is still a possibility to see our little guy on the inside again.  

I am currently going to the doctor or nurse practitioner every 2 weeks.  The last couple of times I've gone to see the practitioner I've had to wait at least an hour every time for a 15 minute appointment.  Lame.  My next appointment is with her, so I made it for the earliest slot they had available.  Hopefully I won't have to wait as long!

Speaking of waiting, it's getting unbearable.  Especially since Kourtney just had her little girl yesterday and I am now super ready to have my baby too!  Why does he have to cook for so long?!

We are still debating over the middle name.  I want Blaine (after my brother, since my due date is the day after his birthday), Sam wants Brett (which we had decided on before I decided I wanted to name him after my brother). 

I have the best husband ever.  One day Sam texted me and told me to go treat myself to a manicure and pedicure.  I only got the pedicure (because I'm cheap), but it was wonderful.  As a friend from my ward said, pedicures are the way to a pregnant girl's heart.  Truer words were never spoken.  

Sometimes my feet get swollen and they won't even fit into my cowboy boots, which makes me really sad.  But since it is December and the temperatures are still in the 70s and 80s (lame), this hasn't been too much of a problem because I can usually just wear my flip flops.  This will probably not be the case when we go out of town for Christmas to a place where the seasons actually follow protocol.

I just want to be able to sleep on my stomach again. 

60 days of pregnancy left until the due date... but who's counting?

There is a land called Passive Aggresivia and I am their queen

I realize it has been over a month since I have posted here, and I realize that everyone wants an update on Baby Boy.  Sorry to say, this will not be a baby post.  This will be a ranting post.

I went and got fast food for dinner tonight and when I came home I noticed something wedged in my front door.  I pulled it out and found this:

Please click on it and read it.  I think the person who left this letter was just waiting for me to leave so they could put this in my door without any confrontation.  I am the last person to want any kind of conflict, but this just really rubbed me the wrong way.

To whoever sent me this letter:  I really don't know where to start here.  I'm just very annoyed.  Yes, we do have a doggy door.  You're not going to convince me it's a bad thing.  We lock Zoey inside at night.  If there is a night when we are up late, I leave it unlocked until we go to sleep, but if she goes out and starts barking, I make her stop and come inside.  If Sam is up early getting ready for work and she goes outside and starts barking, he makes her stop and come inside.  Once she comes inside, whether it is late at night or early in the morning, we make her calm down and that is usually the end of the barking.  As for her barking "all day long," yes, Zoey barks during the day.  Mostly when she hears other dogs bark.  So maybe your dog may be just as much to blame as my dog.  And this may come as a shock to you, but sometimes there is nothing we can do to monitor this because we go places occasionally and leave the dog at home (imagine that!).  As for not being able to sleep with the windows open at night, BULL CRAP.  We have been sleeping with the windows open for a few weeks now.  This is not a problem because as I said earlier, the dog is locked inside at night.  Also, I'm pretty sure "waken" isn't a word, and if it is, I don't think you used it correctly.  "Woken" would have been better.  Which brings up another point:  learn proper apostrophe usage.  In my opinion, your poor grammar weakens your argument. 

Don't mess with me people, I'm full of pregnancy hormones that make me extra irritable.

Days off

Sam just had 5 days in a row off.  Let me tell you the last time that happened.  November.  Maybe December.  Point is, even though he has a scheduled week off every month, he usually works overtime for at least 3 of the 7 days.  We had plans for what we were going to do.  We were going to take Zoey to the bark park, go bowling, maybe even catch a movie.  I even had this idea that maybe we'd go to Madera Canyon for a day.  We didn't do any of that.  Instead, we spent most of his days off watching season 8 of Grey's Anatomy.  I've already seen it, but Sam had only seen the first few episodes of the season, so I decided to re-watch it with him.  Did that stop me from crying at every single sad part? Nope.  Being pregnant makes everything 10 times more sad, and if you've watched Grey's Anatomy, you know that it can be pretty sad to begin with, so just imagine the state I was in!

In other, more EXCITING news, yesterday we found out we are going to be having a little boy! I kind of had a feeling it was going to be a boy, but Sam was sure that we were having a girl.  We had to wait almost an hour after my appointment time to actually have the ultrasound, but it was worth the wait.

I hadn't bought any baby stuff before yesterday.  I just wanted to be able to buy something specifically for this baby, not just something that could be for a boy or a girl.  So after lunch, I talked Sam into taking me to Target and getting a few clothes for baby boy.  Has anyone noticed that there is a much larger selection for girls than there is for boys? (that's what it seemed like at Target yesterday, anyway.)  We managed to find a couple things that we liked in the newborn section, and I am so excited! I have a feeling this little boy is going to be kind of spoiled.  I already can't wait to go shopping for him again!

Oh baby!

In case you haven't heard....

I'm pregnant! Also, I think that picture is hilarious.  I knew as soon as I saw it that I was going to use it to tell everyone I was pregnant. Even though the same day I posted it on facebook someone went and shared it to remind everyone she was pregnant too.  Hello?! You already told everyone... this was my idea.  Get your own!  I'm not angry or anything...

So this is the reason the blog department has been lacking lately.  I knew if I blogged I would spill the beans!    

Now, as you might remember, I am going back to school in August of next year, so we knew we only had a short window of time to get a baby here.  I didn't want to leave a newborn with a babysitter while I went to school.  So in March or April we decided that if I wasn't pregnant by the end of May, we were going to have to wait until I was done with school.  Here's the deal.  We've been trying to get pregnant since January.  I got my IUD out the end of November and then was SUPER irregular in the monthly visitor department.  As in more than 2 months passed between visits.  I'm pretty sure it had something to do with the hormones in my birth control.  We'll see if I use that method again.  Pre-IUD I was never late.  Never. There were a few times when I really thought I was pregnant due to this irregularity (and I was extremely sad when I found out I wasn't).  I even went to my doctor at the end of April to see what the deal was, and she suggested I get an ultrasound to check everything out.  Well I'm kind of a procrastinator and I kept putting it off.  I decided to make the appointment after we got back from our trip to San Diego.  We got back from our trip, and big surprise (not) I was about a week late.  So I decided to just take a test.  I had two random tests floating around without boxes, and I figured I might as well use them so they wouldn't go to complete waste.  When the results came, I had to Google the result to see if it meant I was pregnant or not since I didn't have the box to tell me which symbol meant what.  When I saw what the result meant, I went back to the room and told Sam "I think I'm pregnant."  It was about 5 in the morning on his day off, so I think he said something like "Okay" and went back to sleep.  He was really excited.  A few days later I took another test (just to be sure) and this one said I was pregnant too.  I thought we were going to wait a few days to tell anyone (including family) but Sam started calling his dad and brothers and grandpa right away.  So I guess he really was excited!  

So baby Simons will be here early February.  Sam always said he didn't want to find out the sex of the baby until he/she was born, but I'm pretty sure I have him convinced otherwise now.  We are super duper excited.  I had an ultrasound the other day and baby was jumping all around in there.  Sometimes I get really nervous about everything, but I think the excitement outweighs the anxiety.  Good thing I still have about 7 months to prepare!

San Diego

Number of times I've seen the movie Anchorman: 1
Number of times out of 10 I want to say, "Stay classy, San Diego.  I'm Ron Burgundy?" whenever I think of or say San Diego:  10.

Anyway, we went to San Diego for a few days this month with my parents, Zach, Kourtney, Brigette, Tera and Austin.  Here's the rundown of our trip:

Thursday night:  Sam gets home from work and we head to Mesa to meet everyone.  Zach and Kourtney were supposed to be on their way already, but their car got broken into.  Thankfully, only a pair of sunglasses was stolen.  So we stay the night in Mesa.  We watched some of Jimmy Fallon's Late Show and this little skit happened.  Many laughs were had.

Friday:  Dad, Mom and Austin leave, and the rest of us go to get the window in the suburban fixed.  We leave and take a weird (scary) detour through a field and closed road, almost run out of gas because Zach forgot to get gas in Yuma,  and eventually show up at the rental house.  We went to the Rock N Roll Marathon Expo and Dad and Kourtney got the stuff for their run.  Back to the house.  Let me just tell you about this house: It was like the people who lived in it wanted to make some money so they just packed up for the weekend and left.  All of their stuff was still there, it was dirty, there was no room for anything of ours, there were dirty clothes in hampers, and mouse poo.  Not what we were expecting, so we got a refund and a hotel.

Saturday:  Sam and I went to a Spanish Session at the San Diego Temple with Mom and Dad.  Sam was excited, and the rest of us got to wear headphones the whole time.  I really just wanted to stay in the temple all day.  I just love going to the temple, and the San Diego temple is the biggest and most beautiful one I've ever been in.  I'm ready to go back now.

Bad picture of me! Yay!

After the temple we went to Sea World! Sam and I had never been before, and I was pretty stoked.  We didn't see everything, and Sam took a lot of pictures of the different animals, but I mostly just have pictures of some of the shows from my phone right now, so they'll have to do.  We had fun, and got to cross Sea World off of our list.

After Sea World, we wanted to go to Olive Garden so Dad and Kourtney could carb-load for the race the next day, but there was about a 2 hour wait, so we found a local place and waited for about 15 minutes instead.  We let a random Marine eat with us.  We're nice sometimes.  

Sunday:  Dad and Kourtney woke up really early to go run 13.1 miles (does anyone else find this completely insane?!). When they got back, we went to Coronado beach.  Sam had never seen the ocean before, and the inlets in town just were not enough for him.  We didn't swim since it was only about 70 degrees outside, but I made Sam walk out into the water.  We decided that when we're millionaires,  we're going to buy a house there and live there sometimes.  

 After the beach we headed to Petco Park for a DBacks vs Padres game.  Another first for Sam.  We got matchy-matchy jerseys for the game.  I was ridiculously excited about that.  Sam had to make his experience authentic.  He had 2 huge hot dogs, and of course, peanuts and cracker jack.  The Diamondbacks won 6-0! I think there were 3 home runs.  It was a pretty good game (for us DBacks fans, anyways!) 

Navy Appreciation day at Petco Park

Super excited!

On Monday we headed home.  Zach, Kourtney, Austin and the girls went to Disneyland.  Even though Sam has never been and I wanted to go, we decided to wait until we have kids old enough to enjoy Disneyland with.  Sam said he would feel silly going, even though I've told him several times that you can never be too old for Disneyland.

Good times.

  

Guilty Pleasure

I'm not really a big fan of the bubble-gum pop music... but there's just something about this song that makes me dance in the kitchen.  

Enjoy.  (and please don't judge)

Alive & Boring

Hi.  I'm here.  Just boring.  Seriously, my life has been super lame lately.  Usually, I'll be doing something, and I'll think, "hey, I could blog about this!" Well, NONE of that has been happening lately.  Boring = me.  Yup.  Absolutely nothing has been remotely exciting  enough to blog about.  So here we are... and I'm still stuck with the borings, but I'm going to try and get an acceptable post out of my life. Do you guys do Instagram? It's kinda cool I guess.  It's an app that you can edit and share your pictures with.  So I like it.  Especially because I follow a few people who have exciting lives and go to places like Italy and Florida and Japan and stuff.  Well here are some of my instagrams.

I am proof that all of AZ is not desert.  I've lived in AZ my whole life and I've never seen this kind of cactus with flowers.  

Zoey and I went for a walk yesterday.  It was only 91 degrees outside.  After 2.66 miles, she was a little tired and hot.

Did you know Sobe juices don't come in glass bottles anymore? Lame! Well, anyway, this was on my Sobe lid the other day.  It made me feel pretty good about myself.

We got Sam a BBQ grill.  And he taught me how to use it.  I can now grill up a mean chicken breast.  

This one isn't an Instagram, but it's important.  My mom's dog, Coco got bit by a rattlesnake the other day and died.  It was really sad.  Even though she couldn't figure out the doggy door, I really liked that little dog! Well, luckily, the day after Coco died, my mom was able to find a lady selling Shorkie puppies in Casa Grande and so they loaded up Kourtney's suburban and headed down there.  I met them in Casa Grande right when they were picking up the puppy.  Meet Angel.  She's super tiny and cute.  We miss Coco, but we are glad that my mom was able to get Angel.  

March Happened...

I just didn't really get around to blogging about it.  Here are some highlights and not-so-highlights.

• Started off the month right with my birthday! I turned 22 and Sam bought me a Kindle Fire.  I love it.  And I also love Sam (not just because he got me a present - but let's just say I don't love him less for it.)  And unlike last year and the year before, I had no classes or tests to take.  
• I got called to be Relief Society Secretary.  That means I'm not in Primary anymore! I am super excited to be around grown ups again.  Don't get me wrong, the kids in my class were (mostly) good and well behaved, but maybe now I'll actually get to know the people in my ward!
• We went to Joseph City for Founder's Day.  It was the first time I've been since high school I think.  Well let's just say that the fire department's BBQ is not the same without my dad in charge.  But my Grandpa Bushman was being inducted into the JC Hall of Fame, so we braved the yucky beans and watered down punch and listened to a very nice little speech and maybe got a little teary-eyed.
• After the BBQ/hall of fame ceremony thing, We went to Flagstaff to see The Hunger Games with Zach, Kourtney, and Austin.  We had to sit in the second row and I think I experienced a little motion sickness, but the movie was pretty good.  I also lost my ticket and had to show the cashier guy the transaction on my bank app on my phone so they'd let me in the theatre.  Whoops.  Thank goodness for smart phones.
• We are dog-sitting my mom's dog, Coco while they are in Utah visiting Blaine.  She can't figure out the dog door to save her life.  But she has figured out that if she's stuck outside for long enough, Zoey will open it for her.  Teamwork at its finest.  Coco is kind of like a little furry lump that follows me around and then lies down and waits for me to go somewhere else so she can repeat the process.  Here is what is behind me practically anywhere I go.  It's just what she does.

• I went visiting teaching for the first time since we moved into the ward.  I'm really on top of things.  
• I discovered Saved by the Bell is now on Netflix instant streaming.  Life is good.

Bragging Rights

I have always known I picked an awesome husband.  Here are some things he's done lately.

• Washed my car.
• Taken off my toenail polish (the glitter kind that is SUPER hard to get off).
• Paid off the washer and dryer.
• Not made fun of me for crying over silly things.
• Told me he's proud of me when I go running.  Even though I'm really slow.
• Scrubbed the shower until it literally sparkled.
• Got acrylic paint out of the carpet.
• Put an extra blanket on me in the morning before he leaves for work so I don't get cold.

Seriously people, he's the best.  The cat's pajamas.  The bee's knees.  The bomb dot com.

Progress

Hey guess what I did! 

I drew on a canvas.

 Then I painted it.

 Then I painted it a little more.

Now I'm gonna hang it up in my room and call it art.  Because that is what it is.

I've also been doing pretty well at the whole running thing.  I started on January 3rd, and since then I've ran about 33 miles.  Usually I don't get to 6 days a week, but I'm trying.  I have gotten to where I usually run about 2 miles when I go running.  One day last week I ran 3.21 miles.  I was (am still) quite proud of myself.  Maybe I'll actually be able to do the 5k race for Founder's Day in Joseph City!  Hopefully I don't lose my toenail before then (or at all).  Did you know that happens? Some people lose toenails because they run so much!  I hoped it wouldn't happen to me, but the other day my toenail got a little beat up on my run.  It is still hanging on, but I am scared for its life. 

Wow did I really just blog about toenails? Weird... Also, sorry.

Awkward & Awesome

Awesome:

• New phone! Woo hoo! We got iPhones for Christmas.  Kind of.  It was after Christmas since there was such a huge demand on them for the holidays, but they still count as Christmas presents if they come in January right? Right.  
• New case for phone! It's pretty much everything proof.  Which is good since I tend to drop expensive things and make them not so awesome anymore.
• Sam gave the lesson today in Gospel Doctrine class and I had at least 3 people tell me he did a great job! Go husband!
• Spending Saturday in Mesa.  Brigette ran the Kids Rock half mile for the Rock N Roll Marathon.  My dad ran with her in cowboy boots and Wranglers.  

Saturday was Tera's (and Tanner's!) birthday.  We went to lunch and she got this ice cream brought to her.  Look how excited and adorable she is!

Awkward:

• We were in Best Buy the other day and I overheard this - "No, I don't really go to strip clubs.  What fun is it to go somewhere to get all worked up and then have to go home and take care of things myself?" I  quickly stifled my giggle and rushed off to tell Sam what I had heard.
• My semi-high state after I poured nail polish into eye shadow cases to make a play makeup set for Tera's gift.  
• I got a text from my lab partner from my Biology lab at NAU today.  It took me a good 5 minutes to figure out who Tammie was, and I only remembered after I googled the number's area code and remembered that she told me she was from Washington.  Nice to know she still cares, although I doubt she even realized that I was still in her contact list.
• Getting out of church at 5 p.m. Sucks.

2012

Confession:  I am not very good at documentation.  This blog is the closest thing I have to a journal, and it doesn't really have that much in it - just stuff I think might entertain some people.  So one of my New Year's Resolutions is to be better at keeping track of my memories.  I'm not exactly talking about blogging more, even though that is something that I would like to do.  I'm talking about something that I've never EVER been good at.  I want to scrapbook.  That's right.  I found the Project Life scrapbook kit and inspiration struck.  It looks like something for people like me... You know, people who got the short end of the crafty stick.  I'll have to take lots more pictures, but I don't really see how that could be a bad thing.  Hopefully the husband likes the idea as much as I do!

Other things I want to accomplish this year:

• Make my house more homey.  Paint, art, nick-knacks, the works.
• Run 6 days a week. I don't care for running much.  I'm slow and I feel really insecure when people see me work out in any way.  But our housing development has these awesome paths, and I guess I might as well put them to good use.  Also, I have some really awesome running shoes (that were 50% off, I might add) and they are so light and wonderful.  Seriously amazing.   
• Landscape the back yard.  It's still just dirt. 
• Learn more recipes.  Thank goodness for my Pinterest obsession.
• Learn how to budget.
• Go to the temple monthly.  We were so close last year!  We only missed two or three months, I think.
• Be a better primary teacher.  Yes, I'm in primary again.  I was not too excited (Ok, I was pretty upset) but most of the kids in my class are pretty good and I've only wanted to strangle one or two on very few occasions.  This class is a lot different from my last primary class.  There are usually 6 to 10 kids there and they can be pretty rambunctious.  

So there it is.  Hopefully I'll be able to do these things.  And now that you've read this you are obligated to keep me in line.  Especially on the running one... Because I can see that one going down the drain fast, and it's one of the more important ones on there for me.  Oh also, Kourtney... Let me know if Stampin' Up has anything like the Project Life thing.  I wouldn't want to be disloyal or anything.