Crazy couple of weeks coming up

Mommy says that since we have a crazy couple of weeks coming up that I won't be able to blog for at least 2 weeks! WOW!

We will be in Wichita the beginning of next week for daddy to finish work then we head to Dallas to watch Uncle Tom do some NFL and Division 1 refereeing! I am so excited to see all grandma and grandpa and all my Fimmens cousins, aunts and uncles- Kate is coming TOO! Then after that, I am staying at both Grandparents when mommy and daddy take a short trip to Chicago- they say they need some time just for the two of them- I don't know what they are thinking!!!!

I know everyone will miss me and my blog, but don't worry- I'll be back!

Until then.......

Love,
Anna

Helper

I have been such a good helper the past week getting everything packed up to move to Kansas City. I even crawled all the way through a long box that we called a tunnel. Mommy and daddy thought I was SO BRAVE! Tomorrow morning the packers come to move and I can't wait to see the BIG truck!

Love,
Anna

last wednesday workday in Wichita

To celebrate daddy's last Wednesday Workday in Wichita, mommy and I met him at the lake and ate Chipolte! We had so much fun. I got to play in grass for the first time and I did just an ok job walking in it- it sure is tough! We saw ducks, and I tried to quack like them but all that came out was a coughing sound :) I like ducks SO much!

Love,
Anna

Remotes

ANYTIME I can grab the remote, I do! Mommy and daddy are pretty quick to take it away from me and it makes me VERY frustrated that I grunt and pout. I sometimes take the remote and point at the TV, just like daddy and mommy :)

Love,
Anna

I love him SO much!

Love,
Anna

Feeding myself

And this is what I look like after feeding myself with a spoon.... NO KIDDING.

It's no wonder why mommy and daddy RARELY let me do this anymore :)

Love,
Anna

Wichita YMCA

I will miss the pool in Wichita. We have had so much fun there!

Love,
Anna

Happy 11 months old to me!

In just 1 month I will be ONE! I can't wait. Mommy says that I am having a big birthday party with lots of friends and family.... I am SO excited!

What I have been up to this month- what a CRAZY month (says mommy)!

* At the beginning of the month I was completely weaned off breast milk and start 4 bottles of 6 ounce of formula a day: morning, after am nap, after pm nap and before bed. Just the other day we went down to 3 8 ounce bottles in the morning, before my pm nap and right before bed. I LOVE my baba's! I always point to where they are in the kitchen and get really excited to drink them!
* I am pointing at everything. I just started pointing at food to tell mommy what I want more of to eat. I inconsistently use the sign "more" for more food.
* I started the month walking while holding onto one hand, took my first steps and now I am walking really well on my own.  I still fall here and there but I can pretty consistently walk across the room. Soon I'll be running :)
* I pucker up to I Love You, Goodbye and GoodNight. I love kissing everyone, peanut and all my baby animals. I even blow strangers kisses when mommy says good bye.
*I love playing with my cell phone (I mimic mommy and daddy talking) and my hammer. I hammer EVERYTHING including Peanut's head!
*When someone says "hands on head" I do it. I also LOVE the song, "head, shoulders, knees and toes" (I touch my head and then toes) and "If your happy and you know it" (I clap my hands at the beginning)
*I am beginning to bite the back of my hand when I get frustrated.
*I shake my head "Yes" and "No." When I am by an electrical outlet, Peanuts food, the DVD player or sitting in my high chair and throwing food off the plate, I look at mommy and shake my head no. This doesn't necessarily stop me from doing what I want to do, even though I know how to shake my head "no."
*I love when mommy puts chap stick on me. When I see her putting it on, I get to her fast and open my lips for my turn!
*I stand up and down without any help from anything.
*I am beginning to hum to myself while playing.
*When I see peanut, a dog or a picture of a dog I cough. I can't quite bark yet- I have said "arf" once- but I know they make noise and I'm trying SO hard!
*I like to put my butt in the air and my head on the ground in hopes that mommy helps me do a somersault. I love being tossed around and especially flipped upside down!
*Mommy and daddy have gotten better at using a toothbrush with me. I REALLY like brushing my teeth.
*I have become a VERY independent eater.... no baby food for me this month. I like things that I can feed myself- tofu, hummus (I let mommy or daddy feed me it because it's just TOO good), mandarin oranges, strawberries, raspberries, kiwi, bananas, nutrigrain bars (brilliant Cooper!), Cheerios and bread are my current favorites. I don't really care for meat or vegetables. I tried hot dogs and GROSS! I did like Italian sausage though :)

Love,
Anna

like my cousin kate used to say, "Walk Around??"

Look at what I've learned!

Look at what I have learned from my videos!

I started doing this randomly this afternoon (while mommy and daddy were finishing lunch) to my music jam toy (when the song "Head Shoulders Knees and Toes" came on and for every song after) and mommy and daddy couldn't believe it. They were watching quietly in amazement and then completely went nuts :) I LOVE dancing to music while touching my head and toes!

Enjoy!

Now if only I can figure out where my shoulders, knees, eyes, ears, mouth and nose are :)

Love,
Anna

Videos

I love watching my reading videos.

Mommy and I cuddle up (Daddy and I do on the weekends) before my morning and afternoon nap on the couch and watch my videos together. Mommy will ask, "Do you want to watch video?" and I will turn to the TV and point at it. I get so excited to cuddle and watch them and I get especially excited when the little girl on the video says hi to me.... I just LOVE it!

Love,
Anna

We going to....

Kansas City.... Kansas City HERE WE COME!

And I'm not talking a weekend trip, I'm talking "We're coming home!!!!!!"

I know some people might not know that we moved to Wichita (it only happened in May) BUT Rob got a job opportunity in Kansas City that would bring us back to our family and friends. And we can't pass up our family and friends.

So where do we stand on our current situation?

So status on....

Wichita House
after a week of trying to get out of a housing contract which led me to have multiple breakdowns on an hourly basis, a short span of depression, unreasonable anger at the world and a brief loss of appetite, we are out of the housing contract! And that only cost us part of Anna's college savings (it's only money, right?!?!)

Moving Date
We are packing up the apartment this weekend and the packers come in one week (Friday, August 27th) to fill the moving truck! We will drive to KC after Rob's done working. Unpacking is all day Saturday, August 28th so anyone who loves to move, come on over :)


KC House
Since our house didn't sell... heck, it was barely viewed, we will be moving back into it. All our stuff in the house is ALL packed up and ready to be moved to Wichita. As for this stuff, we are not unpacking one thing! We are keeping it packed so that we don't have to do it when we finally sell our house. We are keeping it on the market and if we get an offer we are jumping on it like CRAZY and finding our dream home in a good school district... aka Blue Valley.

Rob's Job
Even though Rob was enjoying his job here and he had great potential professionally with this company, the prospect of being close to family won over. He is super excited about the opportunity existing for him at his new KC job and can't wait to wear jeans everyday. And don't worry- we are buying some new jeans for him!

Ok, I think I covered the ba-zillions of questions that people keep asking me.... I am serious- it has been BAZILLIONS!!!

Much Love and didn't I just pack a couple of months ago????

Jenny

"White" hairs....

I don't know if it is because my 30th birthday is beginning to breathe down my neck OR if it's from the fact that the last 2 weeks of our lives have been 2 of the most stressful in our marriage OR if it's because I dread meal time with my daughter who is pretty much throwing EVERYTHING on the floor. Hummmmm.... could it be all three?!?!?!

Regardless of the cause, I can no longer conceal my "white" hairs that are sprouting all over my head like weeds in a damp field. I mean just when I pluck one, there's 12 others to be plucked within an inch. I started finding these"white" hairs after my first year of teaching- I was 23. And since then, I would pride myself on the fact that I can hide them VERY well. Whether it was the strategic placement of my bobby pins or they just got lost in my thick curls, I was ok with these white hairs... I really was.

But now the only solution is hair dye. It's going to be like high school again where the color looks SO good on the box and then I have bright copper hair and people will call me penny jenny. OR it comes out too dark and my dad tells me he likes my original hair color better (ummmmm... when dad notices, that is code for your hair looks like crap!) So please help me hair gods- either make my entire head bright white and I'll be the youngest white haired lady alive, or find me the magical hair dye.... Rob has even volunteered to dye it :)

Much love and plucking of the "white" hairs,

Jenny

And this is what happens....

when I flip through a magazine when she is awake.....

.... and in hindsight I guess the Cheerios should have been in the cupboard NOT on the TV stand :) Oh and maybe that I should have taken the bag of cheerios away from her once she got them out of the bag and opened. The things you learn the rough way :)

Luckily Peanut was napping in the other room!

Much Love,
Jenny

Baby Stilley

We are happy to share with the blogging world that there is another bun in the Stilley oven!

Yep- we are pregnant with #2 and are SUPER excited!

We feel so blessed to be bringing another little one into the world. He/she is due February 19th and I am currently 15 weeks along in the pregnancy. He/She's due date is the same as cousin Kate's birthday. I asked Kate if she wouldn't mind sharing her birthday and OF COURSE she doesn't mind one bit :) So far everything looks healthy with the little man/girl. Mommy is feeling very tired- I remember my exhaustion lasting until 18 weeks with Anna.... hopefully I only have 3 more weeks of pregnancy exhaustion to go- I realize that soon two will make me even more tired!!!!!

We got to see the little man/girl at 10 weeks in our first sonogram. I was surprised that we would do a sonogram so early but the doctor was nervous that I was carrying twins. Since I was measuring much larger then he thought I should be, he wanted to be 100% sure that there is only one... and there is only one! Good thing or mom and dad, we would have been moving in :)

During the sonogram we got reassurance that not only was it one baby, but that it was growing and developing great. We saw the little heart beating and we even saw his/her tadpole tail! I have never seen a baby this small so it was pretty amazing! Anna was also in the room with us and she got to see her little brother/sister too. It was just as cool as the first time we saw little Anna.

Anna and Baby Stilley will be around 17 months apart and one school grade apart. In mommy's world, that is perfect! I always wanted my kids to be close in age so this thrills me even more :)

We went to our 15 week appointment and got to hear baby's heartbeat. The doctor was having a tough time finding the heartbeat, which was unsettling at first, but found the little one's heartbeat for just a minute because he/she was moving around like crazy. But a minute of hearing our baby's heartbeat was enough reassurance that he/she is doing great!

It's crazy to think that in 25 weeks we will have three kids (yes- peanut is our first baby). We feel so blessed and are so happy that our family is growing and healthy.

Much Love,
Jenny

Enjoy sonogram pictures from our 10 week visit :)

Read my Shirt Closely.....

YEP- you read it right!

I am going to be a BIG SISTER!!!! I am so excited and can't wait to teach the little guy/girl all my tricks :)

I already love my baby brother/sister SO MUCH! I can't wait to give him/her kisses :)

Love,
Anna

"Date" Night

I know to many of you this does not look like an ideal date night but to me it was heaven!!!

After we put the little girl down to sleep, we rearranged the furniture to have our front row seats in our very own theater- couch, blankets and pillow included!! We figure that if we can't leave the house because we don't know anyone in Wichita to babysit, we will bring the action to us! Then we searched ONDEMAND and settled on Hot Tub Time Machine, and had a great time!

Oh and of course you can't forget the concessions:

So for all you people who can go one dates whenever you want, wherever you want, for however length you want, HECK YES I AM JEALOUS, but at the same time will savor this ANY Saturday night :)

Much Love,
Jenny

Brush

Another new thing I am doing is brushing my hair on my own and when mommy says brush. I have my own hairbrush (sometimes mommy lets me use hers and that's pretty cool) and like to brush the hair above my ears.

I am just learning so sometimes I brush my chin, or teeth, or nose BUT most of the time I can brush my hair when mommy says "brush brush brush!!!"

I get so excited!

Love,
Anna

Walking Machine!

Not only am I standing on my own, but I am getting pretty darn good at walking on my own!

I am a fantastic walker with the walk and ride, scaling furniture, holding onto both of daddy's hands and even holding onto one of his hands. And in just the past couple of days I have gotten really good at walking by myself!

I usually take a couple of steps, stand there for a while, take some more steps, stand for a while or sit down, or take some more steps. Occasionally I fall because a toy or brother gets on my way. I also sometimes get SO excited that I fall over too! Mommy and daddy think I'll be "running" soon :)

My favorite thing to walk between is the ottoman and the couch. I take about 5 steps to get between the two things and I LOVE it!! :)

Love,
Anna

Big Girl

I am standing!

I can stand for a pretty long time now that mommy and daddy says that I am officially standing on my own! I can also squat up and down without holding onto furniture or my parents. I stand up for the longest when I have a toy in my hand but do a pretty good job standing without toys too!

Mommy and daddy can't believe how big I am getting :)

Love,
Anna

Hot HOt HOT!

8 OBSERVED Hi  103°F Lo  77°F Precip (in) 0in.

9 OBSERVED Hi  103°F Lo  81°F Precip (in) 0in.

10 OBSERVED Hi  103°F Lo  78°F Precip (in) 0in.

11 OBSERVED Hi  103°F Lo  79°F Precip (in) 0in.

12 OBSERVED Hi  104°F Lo  77°F Precip (in) 0in.

13 OBSERVED Hi  108°F Lo  83°F Precip (in) 0in.

14 OBSERVED Hi  102°F Lo  70°F Precip (in) 0.35in.

And this meant TWO THINGS..... NO WAY were we leaving the house AND naked baby week!!!

OH we had so much fun! The only time I had clothes on was when I woke up in my pj's, before I went to bed and one day where we left the apartment to go to a doctors appointment. Mommy even did naked baby week with me and wore a tank top and her diaper too!

As much as I loved naked baby week, I hope I start wearing clothes soon :)

Love,
Anna

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LOVE,
  Anna

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Goodbye CO

Goodnight and Goodbye Colorado. We had SO much fun!