What A Busy September!

Wow!! What a busy month!! Not only did I turn 2 months old at the beginning of the month, but there was PLENTY of other things to celebrate:

SEPTEMBER 7th: this was Grandparents Day, so I wanted to do something special for Por-Por & Goong-Goong and Mah-Mah & Yeh-Yeh. With my mommy's help, I made them fun photo flip books

On the cover, I put this picture of me holding a sign for them:

SEPTEMBER 10th: For those of you who know my mommy & daddy, you know they love to watch women's volleyball. They love it so much that we have season tickets to Stanford Women's volleyball with our friends Auntie Kathy & Uncle Chris. At first, my mom thought I wasn't going to like the games, but I actually love to go to the games! They have this HUGE TV for me to watch (I love to watch tv already at my young age!) and tons of lights. Every once in a while this loud band plays -- but it's okay, I just fall asleep then!

In addition to going to see the current Stanford Women's Volleyball team, about 3 weeks ago, my mommy took me to meet a SUPER STAR -- Kerri Walsh!! I am such a lucky boy -- my mom won an autographed volleyball...and THEN Kerri signed it just for me! She said I was super cute, loved my hair and hopes that she has a little one like me soon!!

                              

There was real paparazi there (not just my Por-Por and Auntie Jenny who I normally call the Paparazi) but sadly, we didn't make it into the newspaper article. Oh well -- I got to see her latest Olympic gold medal too! 

SEPTEMBER 12th: I have a new baby cousin! TYLER HUEY was born on the 12th -- yippee! Here's a picture of me with him. My mommy says I'm so much bigger!! But not for long, I'm sure Tyler will be just as big as me soon...

                    

The rest of the month was filled with lots of walks and adventures like trips to the Japanese Tea Garden, Target, other parks with my playgroups (Chubby Cheeks and Cutie Pies).

SEPTEMBER 30th: This was my mommy & daddy's anniversary, so I got to stay home with Mah-Mah & Yeh-Yeh while they went to dinner at Melting Pot. They had a great time and ate LOTS of food! My mommy had some shrimp and lobster...but it made me super duper rashy, so no more shellfish for my mommy!

October is off to a great start! I turned 3 months on October 6th, and then I had my first Red Egg & Ginger party! Look for more posts on those items!!

It's My Por-Por's Birthday!!

Today is my Por-Por's birthday! I know I'm not even 3 months old yet, but check out the e-card I created for my Por-Por!

Make a Smilebox slideshow

Unfortunately, I made her another "surprise" for her birthday, but it won't be here until early next week :( Check back later for fun pictures of my Por-Por and her cool present!!

Two Months and Growing Strong!

Hey everyone! It's been a LONG time since our last post, and we've been busy! Below is a little slideshow of my 2nd month -- and what a month it's been!

Look for more posts soon!!

My First Visit to the Museum

I had my first visit to a museum with Mommy & Daddy on Friday! Mommy really likes Dale Chihuly, and he had an exhibit at the De Young, so off we went for an adventure! Apparently, I was a really good baby!!

Since the museum is expecting LOTS of people to come see this exhibit, they don't allow any strollers in! Good thing Mommy & Daddy remembered to pack my favorite Beco Butterfly carrier
so I could ride around with mom through the exhibit. (I noticed some babies' parents weren't as prepared as mine, and they just had to be carried the whole time -- yikes!)

I'm sure I would have loved all of the vibrant colors in the exhibit, but I chose to take a very long nap instead! Here are some of the pictures that daddy took.

What Daddy gets to see...

I love my son...but I think it took awhile for him to love me. Here's Daddy's slide show!

Pictures!

I know, I know -- this is waaaaayyy overdue! But, here's a slideshow of some of our favorite pics from Jaden's first month. Enjoy these!!



Thanks for keeping up with my blog!

A Day in the Life of Jaden

We haven't posted any videos in awhile so I wanted to show everyone some of the funny faces our son puts on for the camera.

Around two weeks old here...


Around five weeks...


We have some more pics coming as well...

brandon, michelle, and jaden

One Month and Growing Like A Weed!

This past Wednesday, I turned ONE month old!! Mommy cries whenever she thinks about how fast I'm growing...especially when I outgrew my "bog boy" striped shirt :) BTW, that was a preemie size!!

I went to the doctor's on Thursday for my one-month appointment -- and I weigh 9lbs 7oz now! That's 3lbs 1oz I gained in one month - wow! Dr. Tanaka says I am now in the 50th percentile for weight. And, I've also grown two inches to a towering 21-1/2" :)

I have learned how to scream when I need attention. Not the screaming you heard from me earlier, but just little single sound (very loud) screams so that Mommy & Daddy pay attention to me!

I've also learned how to smile and laugh with mommy -- and she swears it's not just gas anymore!! But...I'm camera shy, so when the video camera comes on, I don't like to do my tricks :)

All of my pictures are on Daddy's computer, but mommy will post them as soon as she can!

~Jaden

Three Weeks...feels like 3 Nanoseconds!

Wow! I can't believe Jaden is already three weeks old - it has literally flown by!!!

We are having a wonderful time getting to know our little Jaden -- even the 1:00 am - 5:00 am "social hour" that he seems to like!!

Here's a few things we've learned in our early weeks of parenthood:

• BEWARE of shooting baby poop during feedings! (Brandon learned this one a few times - Michelle has been lucky and hasn't had any "hands on" training with this one yet!)
• Grunting is a GOOD sound! Jaden has recently taken up this very animalistic grunting sound - which at first frightened us - now we find it quite entertaining!
• Waking up for night feedings every 1-1/2 to 3 hours is okay -- I'm getting used to it!
• White noise is our friend -- it seems to calm Jaden down at times (he even was soothed by the sound of the gardeners' blower yesterday!)
• Spit up in the bath water makes a pretty swirl! Yes...even though our baths are supposed to be for removing spit up residue and such. Sometimes spit up makes it into the tub...yikes.

In all seriousness, we couldn't love our baby any more! It seems that all of those things that we found SOOOO important "pre-Jaden" aren't so high on the priority totem pole anymore! At least for me, Jaden is truly the center of my universe and I am cherishing EVERY moment with him and can't believe he's already three weeks old! I think Jaden actually listened to his mommy's request of "please stay little until you come out! Once you come out, you can grow up to be big & strong all you want!" We had our two week appointment with Dr. Tanaka on Monday, 7/21. Apparently, the goal for weight at the two week mark is to be back at the original birth weight. Well...little Jaden was an "overachiever" in this area! He weighed in at 7lbs 7oz!!! He only weighed 6lbs 6oz at birth!! What a good little boy!!!!!

During his first three weeks, he has had lots of visitors!! THANKS to everyone who has come to visit Jaden already! We know there are lots of other friends who want to see the baby as well, and we hope to get those visits scheduled soon! BUT...some of Jaden's favorite visits were with his great grandparents - all the "Tais"
Tai-Tai (Brandon's Grandma)

Tai-Por & Tai-Goong (Michelle's maternal grandparents)

Tai-Tai (Michelle's paternal grandma)

Okay...time to catch some ZZZZ's while Jaden is sleeping. Below are a few of my favorite photos from the past weeks.

Enjoying my warm towel after bath time...

Smiling for my mommy & daddy...

Mommy's favorite "big boy" striped shirt...

That's it for now! Please keep checking the blog for more Jaden updates!!

I'm Going Home!!

After two short nights at the hospital, we all were "released" to leave the hospital! Although, Brandon & I thought one more night in the hospital would have been good -- extra visit from the lactation specialist, help from the nurses, etc., we were happy to bring our new little guy home with us :)

I know I'm a biased parent, but he is just SOOOO cute!! Look at this face!! In this picture, he's making one of my favorite "oooohhh" faces - he does this one a lot!!

During Jaden's last day in the hospital, there was LOTS of activities...he had his "boy procedure" done first thing in the morning. AND, if that wasn't enough 5 minutes after he came back from his procedure, they came to do the CA Newborn Screening test. What they have to do for this test is prick his little foot, and drop blood into 5 spots for testing. Please note the ENTIRE spot on the paper has to be filled, which was taking about 3 drops of blood each time. POOR BABY!!

All of his visitors didn't bring drama though!

The on-call pediatrician, Dr. Tillman, came in and made sure Jaden was okay to go home! He passed with flying colors :)

All in all, it was a GREAT day to leave the hospital -- here's a picture of us leaving the hospital with our favorite nurse, Mary Jane! And, also a picture of Jaden in his carseat for the first time!


And, last but not least, here's our little boy at his new home for the first time!


Time to get some sleep - we'll write more later :)

Videos of Jaden

Here are some videos to take a look at...

First bath...take notice of his lungs, amplify by 100 times, add 20 minutes, and that is our life at 3am every morning.



"hello"...



A little practice for the milk dispensers...

I'm Here!!!

After Daddy worked so hard in the delivery room, Mommy forgot to update the Blog. Bad Mommy!

Hello Everyone,

I'm Jaden Michael Young. I was born on July 6, 2008 at 9:38pm in Burlingame, Ca. At birth, I weighed 6lbs 6oz and I was 19 1/2 inches long. I've lost weight since then on my new diet but I'm sure I'll be getting bigger any day now. INSERT the real deal by Michelle: Please don't take for granted that Brandon has recorded the CORRECT weight & height here. That night, he went out to tell the grandparents that Jaden was 6lbs 2 oz and was 19 inches. Sheesh! ALSO - he wasn't sure how to spell J-A-D-E-N.

The following are some pics that I posed for at the hospital. I will be uploading a bunch of photos of me and my stay at the hospital at Costco.com so look out for the link that is coming soon.

Also, Mommy and Daddy have been really bad at "thanking" everyone for all of my gifts, goodies, and support so I wanted to say "thank you" to you all. INSERT Michelle Edit: Yes, I must apologize for our tardiness!! We are very lucky to have such wonderful friends and family, we haven't kept up with our "thank yous" Hopefully, during the "prime time" where Jaden is up (11pm - 5am), I can write some add'l notes :)



Look at daddy working so hard while Mommy relaxes

Very Tired

Daddy sure knows how to swaddle {I'm pretty sure Mommy did this swaddle!}

I am also going to update my coming home trip as soon as I can. Can't wait to meet you all.

He's Got Michelle's Nose

Who do you think he looks like??? Michelle and I decided to do a 3d Ultrasound. We invited the future Grandparents along as well. Here's the results.

Baby with a bit of umbilical in front of his face




Baby with hand under chin


Baby with foot in front of mouth


uhhhh...boy parts

My Home Away From Home

I wanted to give you a tour of my future living space in 6 or so weeks.

Here's my couch/bed. As you can see...It fits me perfectly. I am pretty sure I'll sleep great.


Here's where my beer goes. My own personal fridge...


My own restroom with laundry baskets...


My entertainment center...


My pajama and underwear warmer on those cold mornings...


My own earthquake machine...


and finally, my own reclining chair...don't mind the person hooked up to all of the monitors.

In case you are wondering why Michelle is in bed at the hospital, read the following.
Michelle and I recently had a tour of the hospital...but not the way we planned. We actually scheduled a tour of the hospital with Mills Peninsula. We went to the tour but our guide turned out to be an historian of the hospital and we had to listen to a lot of old stories about the way it was. Our tour turned into an 2 hour event that could have been completed in about 30 minutes. We did get to see a lot of things though. Little did we know, a couple of weeks later, we would have an in depth view of the birthing center.

Michelle had to be admitted into the Labor and Delivery room the other day. Everything is fine but she had to undergo some monitoring. She was feeling some pains in her abdomen...something like a muscle pull. She called the advice nurse, who called the doctor, who told the advice nurse, who told Michelle, she should go immediately to the hospital. Shell called me up and asked if I was busy. "Of course I'm busy!!!" I said. Then she told me the story. "Are you having a baby?"I asked. "I don't know....but you better come down." she said. "WHAT THE F*%K", "HOLY SH@T", "ARE YOU F&^%$#@!$^&ING KIDDING?" is what I think I said. Well...it turned out to be a false alarm. Everything is OK. We still aren't exactly sure what caused the pain but the doctor cleared Michelle. Needless to say that it was an eventful day. At least I know where they store all of the "freebies" at the hospital. I'm bringing an empty bag for all of the goodies I'm going to get.

Knitting Frenzy!!

Wow! Once Brandon's Grandma found out we were pregnant, I think the knitting needles came out within minutes!! :) We are so excited about the hand-knit blankies that the baby has. This is the first one that Tai made for the little guy...

Here's Grandma in "action" with the blankie! Isn't it AWESOME???!!??!

To top that off, it's double sided! The square pattern is on the front and it's a solid purple on the back!!! (Lisa's little Bambina has the same exact blankie, but hers will have a blue border on the back so we can tell the blankies apart. Pretty smart, Tai!!)

We were completely happy with just the one blankie, but a few weeks later, Tai had knit an ENTIRE outfit for the baby, complete with matching blankie! He now has a sweater, feetie pants and hat. So Cute!!

Here's a pic of the blankie...

Not only will the baby have fashionable blankies to wrap himself up in, but Nana Young also knit us a wonderful sweater. Well...at the shower it was "Rusty & Lacey's" gift to us...but somehow I think both of their sets of paws are a little too big to work the knitting needles to turn out a BEAUTIFUL sweater like that!

Oh...by the way, it's hanging in the baby's newly designed and installed closet (We LOVE the Elfa system at The Container Store!)

Okay...that's it for now! Look for our next couple of blog posts!!!

My First Mother's Day!

I was able to celebrate my first Mother's Day this year! It was quite fun :) We did our "normal" celebrations, with dim sum in Alameda at East Ocean and then back to Por-por & Goong's house for dessert and presents. yummmm!!



It's so weird to think that next year at this time, the Baby will ALMOST be one year old -- holey smokes!


In any case, Brandon did good! (I trained him very well -- hee hee!). Here's a picture of my cute card:








AND...on top of that he surprised me with MICHAEL BUBLE tickets the Saturday before Mother's Day! It was a GREAT concert, and the baby really liked it :) Here are some pictures -- they're a litte fuzzy, but you get the idea...




Here's the stage...pretty good seats!!

Here's a picture of Michael himself!!

Lastly, here's a picture of him in action, so you can see all the screaming fans AND the band

All in all it was a GREAT Mother's Day! Thanks for reading the blogs :)

The Results Are In!

Hey everyone! We have so many topics to blog about -- and this is probably not the one everyone is waiting for...sorry!

As most of you may know, I "failed" my 1-hour glucose screening test about 6 weeks ago. BOO!! They do this screening for all pregnancies to catch gestational diabetes in pregnancies (Apparently 2-7 percent of us pregnant ladies are diagnosed with this!!). In any case, because I failed the first screening (I was in good company, 20% of us fail that first screening), I needed to go in for the glucose tolerance test. Well...here's how this test goes:

• Fast for 12 hours (not so easy for a mommy with a hungry one growing inside!!)
• First step at the lab - draw blood to test your fasting level of glucose in your blood (has to be under 95 mg/dl)
• THEN, if the fasting level is okay, you have to drink this SUPER SWEET, concentrated concoction (think old school Fruit Punch concentrate!)
• AFTER THAT, every hour for THREE hours, a blood sample is drawn and the glucose level is measured

This is NO fun, because you are not allowed to leave the lab waiting room. Luckily our hospital has wi-fi, so we were able to surf the web! Also -- you have to remember I have already NOT eaten for 12 hours, so by hour 2 I'm starvin, Marvin!!

Now...jump forward a few days. My results come in, and I have one elevated level of glucose - which means that my body isn't breaking down sugars to glucose like the "normal" population. SO...what does that mean? My Doctor wants me to test again in 4 weeks. Waaahhh!!! Another Saturday morning sitting in the lab :(

In any case, that was this past Saturday. AND...two good things came out of my test!

1. My new friend Beki (that's in my Prenatal Yoga class) was there doing her test, so we were able to catch up and I found out she's having a little boy too! Yippee! Another boy to play with!!!
2. My results are back, and still just the one level elevated. SO...I do not have gestational diabetes! WAHHOOOO!!!

I do have to watch my simple/refined sugar intake and keep up my exercise, but I should be doing that anyways! hee hee.

All in all, it was a great weekend -- look for more blog posts about our activities!!

See you all soon :)

What's In A Name??

So...what exactly is in a name? Why is everyone so curious to know the baby's name?!?!?

Brandon & I have made the decision that we won't be sharing the baby's name until he's actually born -- but quite honestly, we don't even have a name yet!

HOWEVER, we certainly have been given plenty of suggestions...from LOTS of people! INCLUDING my dad :) As you can imagine, some of his names have been verrrry creative! The creative names combined with my parents "OOC" syndrome (Out of Control syndrome) have derived in this...



My dad is so crazy!!! Aloysius is the baby's latest "name" according to my Dad. And, my parents are down at Disneyland this week -- the next thing I know, the baby has a pair of Mickey Ears!! LOL -- so out of control... ;)

But, at least we know the baby has very cool and very loving grandparents! Here's a pic of the grandparents-to-be:

Baby's Firsts...

Hey everyone! Sorry it's been a while since our last blog entry -- it has been quite the busy time for us! In the past month, Baby has had quite a few firsts!!

Back on March 29th, we went out to dinner for Uncle Erik's birthday. It was Baby's first time eating at a Michelin Star restaurant! (Not to mention his parent's time eating at a Michelin Star restaurant!) We went to Bushi Tei in Japantown, which is French-California fusion cuisine. And...it was REALLLLY yummy!! Hopefully baby will get to go there again some time.

Frequent flier miles!!
Although Baby isn't near the experienced traveler that his cousin, Hui-Hui, is but this past Tuesday, Baby boarded his FIRST airplane flight with mommy. To the lovely town of Austin, TX for a Wells Fargo leadership conference. I was a bit paranoid about it and in EVERY pocket of EVERY bag that came with me on the trip, there was a "pregnant traveler's emergency contact sheet"!!! It had information on there of who to contact, what my health insurance was, who my primary care physician was, my due date, etc. You never know!!! Baby was a good sport - he stayed active, so I could do my kick counts, but not so active that I couldn't nap on the plane :) He'll be finishing the second half of his trip back home on Friday.

THUNDERSTORM!!!
Here in Austin, there was quite a bit thunderstorm!!! As I'm writing this, there's TONS of lightening happening outside. Strangely, I hear no thunder, so I'm not too worried about it being too close (since we are staying right on Lake Travis) and hitting th hotel or something!

TAIKO PERFORMANCE!!
This coming weekend, Baby will be in his first taiko performance at the Morgan Hill Taiko Festival. He's getting a little too big for mommy to reach the drum, so this will be it for me until he's born!

What an exciting time :) I am sure we will have many more "firsts" once the baby is born -- but thought these were some great milestones to share!

Have a great weekend everyone!

Daddy's setting a good example!!!

Contrary to popular belief, I eat vegetables.

As the following photos show, my baby will always know it. :)






Introducing our new (used) high chair. It's pretty unique and it's covered with true statements about Daddy.

"No More Shopping!"

What? This can't be true, MICHELLE doesn't want to shop anymore?? Holey moley...what is this world coming to?? :)


but, it's true! There are so many decisions and things to buy for the new little guy, that I'm actually shopped OUT!! A few weekends ago, we tackled Babies R Us to do our baby registry there. Luckily for us, our friends Kat & Ky came along to provide their "new baby expertise". Even with their guidance, we were still in that store for THREE HOURS picking and choosing items to add to our registry!! Who knew someone so little could need so many things???


What the heck is a sheet saver?!?!? :)

What is the difference between a mattress pad and a mattress cover?

Do we really need that many diapers??!!?

In any case, THANKS KAT, KY & KYLIE for helping us out! We would probably still be in Babies R Us, if it weren't for you!

On top of our B-R-US registry, we also registered at Target. Now that we had one under our belt, this wasn't so bad. I got pretty "scan happy" with the gun. We were warned not to scan clothing yet until we're a little closer to our due date, but I just couldn't resist!!

sheesh! Next stop...crib, changing table and glider! Let the madness stop!!! :0

HEY -- one good thing about all of this, is that I get SPECIAL PARKING at some of the Babies R Us stores.

Check it out!!