Sandoogans' Log

Our joint ornament. I fell in love with it as soon I as saw it, I knew it was perfect given of where we go married. Our first family of four ornament. This makes my heart smile. I love Christmas. I'm sure I've talked about this plenty of times in the past. As soon as December 26th comes around I get a little bummed knowing that we'll soon have to start packing up the Christmas decor. We usually hold out until January 6th for El Dia de los Reyes. In keeping up with  tradition , this year's ornaments are quite special. I still need to get the girls their individual one, but Mr. A and I are content with sharing this year's ornament. This is the first year we got a joint ornament being that it's our first official Christmas as a married couple. We were also pretty stoked about getting our first "family of four" ornament from Hawai'i. Each time we go to Hawai'i we make it a point to get a family ornament with all our names on it. It m

I normally don't get too much into detail about my feelings or what's going on in my life. Well, let me rephrase that: I normally don't talk about the negative stuff. I might talk about superficial bad stuff but nothing overly personal. Just your basic "life is peachy" facebook bullshit. I'm deciding to open up a bit more about my emotions in hopes that it'll help alleviate my mental state. Lately, for whatever reason, I've been fighting off some really bad anxiety. I'm really not sure what brought it on but I think it was triggered by a car accident I was in about a month ago. I haven't been the same since. I think that combined with school, work, home life and trying to figure out what I want to do career wise, has brought out this beast with a full vengeance. I also think my fear of having anxiety (I'm still kinda of in denial about it) and it triggering depression, again, is only making it worse. I've come to the conclusion that I

Still thinking I was going home. A year ago today, I was in the hospital, pregnant, thinking I was going to get to go home soon. I had been there two days so far, when the picture above was taken. I went in for what was suppose to be a "regular check-up" on the baby and ended up getting admitted. I remember when they told me they were admitting me I asked if I could go home the following day. They always said "Let's just do some tests and we think you should be home by tomorrow." Every doctor that came in asking me questions and giving me the rundown of what was going, I would always ask, "and then I can go home?" Some smiled and made me feel like I might be going home that same day. Others chuckled and said, "We'll see." I think by evening of the second day I realized I wasn't going home. By the time I was finally able to go home I didn't want to leave anymore.

The newest addition to our family! She's been with us for several months now but hadn't been officially baptized. For the longest I debated on a name for the new precious and could not decide. There was a few times where I thought I had finally made up my mind, but in the end didn't feel the name suited her; until now. Named after one of the greatest fleets in the whole wide world (Battlestar Galactica) replaced our old car which was giving us nothing but headaches and problems. Tired of investing money into getting it fixed, and with a bigger family now, we knew it was time to invest in a new car. Mr. Andrade was a little bummed about trading in the old car since it was technically his car, but he knew it was for the good of the cause. Now he loves it and so do the girls. It's so comfy and roomy and awesome! Only downfall: new car note.

A few minutes after having Sami. Still trying to take in being a new momma. I noticed lately I've been backtracking with my posts. I've started doing prequels haha! I think after talking about Emma's milestones, and her arrival, it made me realize I didn't have many of Samantha. I started my  blog  in December of 2010, Sami was 1 and no longer an infant. That may be a reason why I didn't think of talking about her baby stuff and talked/talk about her toddler/kid stuff. So, I've decided to semi-backtrack and talk about my experiences with her, too. This will also help me remember all the beautiful moments and will be something nice and special for her to read in the future. Sami's arrival was quite the story, this was my first pregnancy and I had no idea what to expect. A lot of my mom friends would always say, "Trust me you'll know." One went as far as to say that she was  not going to sugarcoat anything for me, and that it was go

A couple of days ago I blogged about Emma's 1st steps and how I wished I'd done the same with Sami's milestones. I decided to dig through the archives to see if I found any pictures of Sami crawling, walking, etc . . . I ended up finding a video of her acting like she's going to sleep. I totally forgot that she'd act like she was going to sleep whenever we told her "mimis." The video isn't the best quality because it was done with an older iPhone camera. I believe the iPhone 3. Anyway, I ended up remembering Sami's firsts milestones, I was a bit worried I'd forgotten them. I wasn't the scrapbooking mom who noted everything done. I remember she started crawling around 8 or 9 months. At first she'd roll around the living room trying to get wherever she wanted to go, sometimes hitting her head not realizing she'd arrived to her destination. Eventually, she was able to crawl on all 4. She learned to walk at a year and 2 months whi

This is not an actual picture of her walking around today. She crawled and then stood up the door.   Today Emma started walking around the couch. So far she's been doing fairly well with milestones; surpisingly well considering she was a premie. She started crawling and standing at 7 months and took her first steps at 9. It's pretty exciting seeing her progress. She was late with the sitting up on her own, though. I wish I would have thought about blogging this when Sami was a baby. I'm not sure if I had a blog back then but it would have been nice to look back at her milestones too. 

 You can see where I've had to glue the frame because it broke. The Social D lettering use to be red once upon a time.  So, we got a new car, which means my infamous license plate frame is getting transferred over to the new wheels. We didn't get rid of the Orange Bang, that would be blasphemy! We traded in Mr. Andrade's old crappy wheels for a bigger roomier carro. This license plate frame has been with me for eons. I believe I got it in 2000 at a Social D concert. I remember seeing it and knowing instantly I had to have it. It's been with me for 3 cars now, scratch that---make it 4, and I plan to hang on to it for as long as I can. I've gotten tempted to get a new frame, maybe a Disney, or Packers, or Dodgers but can't seem to look go. I know it looks all beat up and stuff but I feel it gives it character. Besides, after my sister called my car a "mom car" I need to add some cool factor to it.

One of the very many awesome special memoriesI have of my dad is going to Disneyland. I don't think my dad cared for Disneyland much (Gasp! I know) but would still take us when we were kids. He rarely ever got on any rides with the exception of: The Jungle Cruise, Haunted Mansion, Small World and Pirates of the Caribbean. I think Pirates was his favorite. I always looked forward to my dad getting on the rides with us, even it was a few, and remember how he seemed to enjoy the scenery as cruised along the dark waters.  We've tried to convince my dad, several times, to come with us on our many Disney trips we take now as adults. We've even tried to persuade him by telling him they now sell alcohol at the park. So far he's declined every invite. I think we're just going to have to bamboozle him and not telling him we're bringing him to Disney. We'll see, that man isn't easiest person to trick. Love you, papi!