Anna's Weekly Update- 27 Weeks- 7.31.16

I can't really tell you too much about Anna's week because I was gone most of it. :) What I do know is that she has yet to pop a tooth, but oh boy do those gums look like they're ready, so it's effecting her mood, her eating, and her napping (thankfully not her night sleeping). We're really hoping they pop through soon. She doesn't smile as easy these days which I miss.

 

Like I said, I was gone this past week doing the music at the RYS Nation Youth Convention. There were 698 people there this year and they did not disappoint as far as singing goes. I absolutely love getting to do the music there (this was my 10th year doing it) because these kids know how to sing and it's so fun to lead them. And I get the privilege of playing with these guys! Although I have to say I think the sound guy was pretty surprised when we were the "praise band" who showed up :) but he told us multiple times how good we sounded (always with a surprised look on his face :)). But yeah, I guess if I saw us show up I might think the same :).

 

I was also excited to see this girl. When I was pregnant with Micah we didn't know if we were having a boy or a girl. We came up with the name Micah for a boy very quickly, but we had more of a discussion for a girl's name. Steve wanted the name Anna, me Abigail. But Micah was due December 29 and Anna goes with the Christmas story, so I was okay with it. But we had a boy and didn't use the name. Well then I met this Anna. She started coming to my GEMS and then I started giving her piano lessons. And I came to absolutely love the name Anna because I absolutely loved this Anna, she's just the sweetest, kindest person and I so badly wanted my own Anna. I hadn't seen this Anna since my Anna was born so it was so great to get to see her and to tell her how she made me come to love the name Anna. :)

 

While I was gone to convention they were having lots of fun at home. Steve's parents came out to help him while I was gone which was wonderful! And they did lots of fun things. One afternoon they took the twins golfing

Steve, his dad and Micah went golfing one morning with one of Steve's former seminary professors who was in the area (golf courses out here have quite the views)

Micah got to do some fishing for which he was very excited about

Anna loves her swing (also, I think it's because her gums feel different, but she always has her tongue out!) 

 

More fishing

They also went on a couple of hikes. This one to a waterfall

 

They tried to make it up to the "M" too. Once again, the boys couldn't make it quite that far :), but they still had fun

Anna doing what she did all week, working on getting those teeth in :)

They tried fishing in the river, but had no luck so they went back to the pond they had been at another day.

Thanks so much Mom and Dad Bussis for coming out and taking great care of my kids while I was gone!!! They had a blast! 

 

Showing off their "souvenirs" I brought home for them, RYS bags and sunglasses telling where next year's convention is :) (Super excited it's in Southern California next year!!!)

I was pretty excited to get back home to this sweetie!

Spending the morning with my kids (while Steve went golfing with some guys :)). We played games outside

David wanted to just sit and watch the horses by our house :)

My cutie!

So great week, but glad we're all back together again!

TerraFit Challenge

I'm doing a 21 day TerraFit challenge and I have some time here before I have to leave for the airport to fly home after being at the RYS convention in Springfield, Missouri this week, so I thought I'd share with you about this challenge because one, I have found it so helpful and two, I get points for telling people. :) I did this same challenge last winter except that was a 12 week one. I had awesome results from it, felt great, and then I got pregnant :) (as a side note, I think there were 5 of us who did that challenge that ended up getting pregnant soon after, so if you want a baby, I'm just saying :)). And now all the cute clothes I got after my last challenge no longer fit. And I had this crazy idea at the end of my pregnancy when I was cleaning out our house because we were getting ready to move to give away all my "big" clothes because I didn't want the option of just wearing those again after I had my baby. Well, now I don't have many clothes that fit :) so finally it was time to do something about it so I decided to do the 21 day challenge and I'm so glad I did. In the first 2 weeks I lost 5 pounds and I'm feeling better, eating so much healthier, and feeling stronger. It was tough being at convention this week but I brought my immersion blender with me and would go in the morning to the cafeteria and fill my mug with ice and skim milk, grab a banana and come back to my room and make my protein shake. I ate a lot of salads, grabbed fruit on the way out, and I'm happy to say I never once cheated! I also realized exactly how awful I would have eaten had I not been on the challenge (they had an ice cream machine :)). I even had room in my dorm to do my workouts every day. I've realized it's all about making good decisions and that what this challenge forces me to do which I need. So how the challenge works is you get points for eating healthy foods, eating 4 servings of vegetables, drinking enough water, exercising, doing a daily challenge, eating 6 small meals/snacks a day instead of 3 big, not eating after 8pm, and then you have to deduct points for all the unhealthy food you eat. The winning individual and team at the end get a prize. So if you're looking for something to help you get back on the right track, I highly recommend checking out TerraFit (www.terrafit.com). It's run through DoTerra oils which are also wonderful things :). There's actually a challenge starting on Monday (August 1). It's a little different one. It's called TerraFit Burst and it's 4 weeks and I think they even give you a meal plan. Then there's 12 week challenges starting in August, September and October and there's another 21 day challenge starting September 19. If you have any questions, let me know, I'm happy to talk about it. I'll have to let you know next week how I ended up doing.

Anna is 6 month's old!!- 7.23.16

Our sweet girl is 6 months old today!! It's actually hard to believe it was only 6 months ago, feels like a whole lot longer :), but not because she's such a difficult child, we've just had a lot happen in the last 6 months. Here are some of the things going on in Anna's life at 6 months.

She weighs 19.6 pounds

She wears size 3 Kirkland diapers

She wears 6-9 or 9 month clothes

She drinks 5 bottles a day, one 4 ounce, the rest 6 ounces. I moved her up to a fast nipple this week since she was doing so bad drinking while teething, at least she gets more now when she is sucking :)

She eats solids 2 times a day, either oatmeal baby cereal, baby yogurt or fruit and vegetables

She takes about an hour morning nap, anywhere from a 1 1/2-3 hour afternoon nap and then sleeps 10-11 hours at night

She can sit up on her own

She rolls over front to back, back to front

She scoots backwards on her tummy

She is starting to get separation anxiety. If I walk out of the room she cries. She is not a fan of being alone, except in her crib.

She smiles very easily. She loves her brothers, they are her greatest form of entertainment :). She loves watching praise baby. She loves eating her toes.

She is such a joy to our family!



 

Steve took the boys to the playground at the school one morning.

They had yoga for kids at the local library

Jonathan joined in just for the picture :) otherwise he and David had no interest in doing yoga

They were however interested in playing in the tent in the library

We were going through Costco and ran into a lady from church who was sitting on a couch with two of her grandkids while her daughters shopped, so she told me to just leave my boys with her and go shopping, it was awesome! :)

I fed Anna her cereal in one of the boys chairs outside, she was a little messy but still happy

We went to a splash pad with some friends. On a super hot day it was a great place to be!!

Anna chilled in the shade

Notice Jonathan, he's just not such a fan of being in the water

We had a picnic lunch there

Some car washing going on

Me and my sweetie!

They felt the need to play with umbrellas, indoors :)

Micah and I went to the fair. He's been talking about wanting to go on a Ferris wheel for a while so he was pretty excited to finally get to go on one

It was quite a view

Then he got to pick some more rides to go on. He picked the helicopter...

Car ride...

And then this dragon "roller coaster" as you can see he was a little terrified at first :)

But then he thought it was fun

After rides we went to check out the animals. Oh my goodness, he LOVED the animals. We couldn't pass one up, he had to check out all of them

The goats were pretty crazy

And the pigs were huge!!

Then we had some dinner there and he insisted that he wanted lemonade and he didn't care that it was this huge cup and he had to drink it all himself. And drink it all he did :). It was such a fun time with just Micah. We have an incredibly busy August so this was kind of my last chance before he goes to school to do something with just him and I.

I love the little tutu skirt! When I asked Steve what he thought of it he said "it's a little much" :) Good thing God only gave him one girl :)

Silly Jonathan thought the exersaucer was for him :)

Anna got to sit in a high chair like a big girl at a restaurant for the first time. She thought it was pretty fun.