Change

So blogger didn't work out the way I would have liked, so I have now changed to a share site on Shutterfly. If any of you would like the web address and password, let me know. I've found it is SO much easier to upload photos and other fun things and all out of state relatives are able to order pictures directly from the site if they choose to do so. I will leave blogger up, but I won't be posting here.

Password Protection

Jon has asked that I password protect our blog. He feels that, and I agree, since I am posting about Julianna and posting pictures of her that we should password protect the blog.



Sooo, please either e-mail, leave a comment, or Facebook me and let me know if you want the password. I will set one on Friday.



Thanks!

Jobs and a Soldier

What a week! And it's only Tuesday!

Jon has four interviews this week. He had one yesterday and has three more to go. All are positions in the Pittsburgh area and two are with big four firms!! Go Jon! Praying and keeping our fingers crossed that a job offer might follow at least one of these interviews!

In other news, my brother is home!!!! He returned yesterday for his two week R&R. We hope to see him soon, but we are waiting on them to tell us when to come. We talked with David yesterday and he sounded great and thrilled to be home. I spoke with Kelly later that night and she said Dave was sleeping most of the day. Turns out he hadn't slept the past four days, so he's catching up. Poor guy! Anyway, I'm so glad he is home safe for the next two weeks and that Kelly gets to spend time with him before he leaves for another 6-ish months.

Like I said, what a week!

Recent Pictures

Here's a few recent pics of Julianna. The first is Julianna sitting in her booster seat at the table with everyone. The high chair is still around, but she enjoys sitting with everyone else. She is also sporting her first band aids. She received two shots at her 15 month check up. Also at her 15 month appointment, we found out that Julianna is small for her age. She is in the 21st percentile for height and the 24th percentile in weight. But she is growing just fine for her!



This is a picture of Julianna testing out her elephant costume for Halloween. She looks so cute!! We are working on getting her used to her the head piece because right now she doesn't like having it on.


Julianna decided that the dog bed looked comfy, so she chased Toby out of the bed and got in herself. LOL! Silly Girl!

Pictures

There isn't much new going on around here. Jon started school and his new internship. All are going well and he enjoys both. Due to the lack of things to update with, I figured I would put up some fun pictures to look at. Enjoy!

Letters of Interest

Last night Jon and I stuffed envelopes with his resume and letter of interest to 60 accounting firms in the West Michigan area. Tomorrow we will put them in the mail.

We are praying that all the letters arrive to each business and make it into the proper hands with in each company. Hopefully Jon will receive some responses in the next couple months.

She Walks!

So what's new in Pittsburgh?

Well, Julianna can walk!! She started walking on her own August 9th. She walks everywhere. However, when she falls, she is unable to stand up on her own in the middle of a room. She has to pull herself up on the furniture or whatever else is around. But that's okay, she will learn soon enough. So now she walks every where. I think in the last few days I have only seen her crawl twice! I would put a video on the blog, but it takes FOREVER for it to upload so I will try to do so overnight tonight and try posting it tomorrow. I hope it works because she is so cute!

Julianna also had her first haircut. Well, I guess it was more of a trim. My mom trimmed around her ears so that it nicely tucks behind her ears. Even though I didn't want to cut her hair, it does look a lot better. Speaking of her hair, I can even pull some up in a tiny pony tail. Its kinda funny looking because it stands straight up from her head, but its cute to see.

Jon has been busy writing letters of interest to accounting firms in the Grand Rapids area. He finished getting addresses for all of them yesterday. He hopes to have them all printed, stuffed and mailed by the end of the weekend, as he starts school on the 31st. Jon also acquired a new internship for the fall with a firm. He is going to be very busy this fall semester so we are asking that anyone who wants to visit wait until December when he is finished. We realize 4 months seems long, but he needs to finish this semester with a bang. In the long run, it will be worth it to postpone visiting so he can fully concentrate. There is a lot of competition out there, and if we want to get back to the Grand Rapids area, Jon needs to do really well grade wise and internship wise, because companies in that area do not know Robert Morris so they will go mostly on what his resume says. Otherwise, we will be staying in the Pittsburgh area for a few years.

So on that note, all you Grand Rapids folks, keep your eyes out for Accounting jobs with CPA firms.

Next weekend my parents are hosting a pool party for their CBS group. According to my mother, she has invited 70 people. For her sanity, I hope not all 70 people show up. So this coming week we will be busy cleaning and preparing. Hopefully there will be no rain the day of the party.

Well that about sums up what's been happening. Hope everyone is enjoying their last weeks of summer!

Our Trip

Here are the pictures from our trip to Clarksville. We had a blast and can't wait to go back!

To The Point Update

Okay, these weeks are just so busy it's hard to sit and write about what is going on. Even now, I'm limited on time because of a training for work. So here is a list of all that is going on:

• We spent a week at Big Star Lake with the Feyen's near the end of June. We had a blast!
• I threw Sarah a bridal shower, which was a lot of work but a TON of fun!
• Jon and I had an overnight get away a little over a week ago. We stayed at a nice hotel down by the airport. Did some shopping, went to Golden Corral(we do not need to return there), Jon went swimming, I read, and we got to sleep in!
• Myself, Julianna, my mother and grandmother, now named Nana for Julianna, went to Clarksville, Tennessee to visit with Kelly for a few days. It was a blast!
• In about 8 days, we head to Michigan for Sarah and Dane's wedding.

Well, when I get a chance, I will write more about each event, but I need to finish getting ready for this training. Summer is going way to quickly, but that's good in some ways. Happy Hump Day!

I'm behind

I'm a little behind on posting, but I haven't really had a chance to sit down and type something out. However, now is not the time seeing as I have to leave for work shortly. But I will be back this weekend to post more about what has been going on and what we have coming up and post some pictures! Until then, have a wonderful week!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY LITTLE GIRL!

HAPPY FIRST BIRTHDAY JULIANNA!

One Day Before The Big Event

June 9, 2009...one year ago I was lying in a hospital bed, with monitors and IV's, waiting...at this point (2:45pm) waiting patiently for our little girl to come into this world. Jon and I were still thinking she would arrive at some point on this day and be able to share a birthday with her Grandpa Feyen. However, Julianna had other plans.........

Julianna Swimming

Yesterday Julianna went swimming for the first time. She LOVED it!

We had my grandparents over for lunch yesterday and we ate out by the pool. After we were finished eating, I decided to put Julianna's feet in the pool by the steps. She stood on the step for a minute and then kept trying to sit down. So I got her in her swimsuit and in we went. She had the BIGGEST smile on her face when we got in the water. She kicked her little feet and splashed the water with her hands. Jon blew up her little floaty and once she got in, she laughed and smiled the entire time. She really got the hang of it too. She would kick her little legs to try and get from one side of the pool to the other. She loved being pulled around by us and passed between Jon and I. Later we put her life jacket on her to test it out. It's a little on the big side, but she didn't care. She loved floating in the pool. She wasn't afraid at all. She kicked her legs and moved her little arms and tried to lick up the water that came near her mouth. It was SO funny!

She didn't get in the pool today, but hopefully she will get in tomorrow. It's so fun watching her grow! We love her so much!

Coloring

Julianna is learning to color pictures to send to Uncle Dave. Big Girl!

The rain has stopped and the sunshine has come out! Julianna loves being outside!

3 New Accomplishments for Julianna!

What an eventful weekend for Julianna!

Julianna learned 3 things:

1.) To Crawl
2.) How to sit up from being on her tummy
3.) How to pull herself up in her crib. She is now able to turn on her mobile all by herself!

I thought she would never crawl. I figured she would just start walking because she loves to do that with us, but I was wrong! I will try to get some video and pictures of her newest accomplishments.

YAY Julianna!

Julianna's Investments

I just had to post these pictures! They are too funny! Julianna is reviewing her investments. Haha! Can you tell she and I live with a bunch of accountants?!

Julianna is 11 months old today!!

A Call From The Bro

Yesterday we got a call from my brother!! It was so great to hear his voice! He sounded tired and he had a cold, but otherwise he is doing very well. Hopefully he will get some sleep in the up and coming days. He said he is in a safe zone, so that's comforting to know and right now he is just doing office work. However, talking to him makes you miss him more, that's for sure!

Happy Mother's Day!

Happy Mother's Day!!

Julianna got me a cute card and some beautiful flowers! We also get to go out for ice cream with Daddy when the weather gets a little warmer. I love being a mommy and can't wait to have more kiddos!

It's FRIDAY!

It's Friday! Finally! And the weather is already BEAUTIFUL! 82 degrees by 6pm! WOOHOO! I can't believe it was just 52 degrees the other day and now in the 80's. Awesome!

This morning was Ali's father's funeral. Hopefully everything went smoothly for them and they all got the closure they needed. Their lives are going to change a lot now that he is gone. I plan on stopping by sometime next week to see how they are holding up.

This weekend the in-laws are stopping by. They say they are arriving tomorrow morning, however, they are on their way here today so they may make it here tonight. It depends what they decide to do on their way here. No plans really for the weekend. Just hanging out.

Well I need to go wake Julianna up from her nap. Enjoy your weekend!

MUCH LOVE!

A funeral

This evening I was able to take the night off from work. While I was able to miss the county inspection and my supervisor getting fired, it wasn't a relaxing night off.

My best friend Ali's father passed away on Tuesday, so this evening Jon, Julianna and I went to his viewing. It was nice to see Ali and her family, but it was very sad. They were holding up pretty well considering the situation and considering viewing was from 2pm to 9pm, making for a long day for all. The funeral is tomorrow. Our thoughts and prayers will be with them tomorrow.

A Wagon and A Swing

My Dad's 65th birthday was on the 20th and Grandma gave Grandpa a wagon. Julianna loves to be pulled around in Grandpa's new wagon. We also put up Julianna's new tree swing a couple of weeks ago. She loves to swing!

In Honor of my Brother Dave

In honor of my brother David who is proudly serving in Afghanistan.

Dear Lord, please bless our soldiers
Protectors of our land.
Servants called to battle
When our country takes a stand.

Please give them strength and courage
And hearts that will forgive.
With peace and understanding
In a world for all to live.

Our country's prayers are with them
No matter where they roam.
Please listen when they're lonely
And return them safely home.

By John E. Kleimen

Julianna's 10 Months Old!!!!

Happy Spring!

I apologize for the lack of posts. There just doesn't seem to be enough hours in the day. I'm not really sure where to begin, so I guess I will start with Easter.

All of us headed to Michigan for a quick Easter visit. We had a great time shopping at Goodwill, eating out, and seeing friends. The trip made us very homesick for Michigan. Thank goodness we are returning in June and again in August!

Jon is finish up his spring semester at RMU. He has one more to go. He's picked his classes and everything worked out so he will be finished in December. I never thought the day would come! It seemed liked such a long time when we were discussing his schooling, but it really has gone quickly. Jon will start applying and interviewing for jobs in September when most of the firms will visit RMU, however, if he finds a job he is interested in before then, he'll apply as well. It sounds like, though, that if he goes with a big four, he might not start until the following October, which to me sounds horrible, but the reason they do that is so you have time to study and take parts of the CPA exam, so it's not a bad trade off really. Jon does need time to do that. In terms of his summer break, still no internship and no job. Mind you, he hasn't really been looking for a job yet, but like I tell him Target is always an option. I'm looking forward to him having a job this summer so he can help out with school expenses, but really he needs a job or he'll go crazy with board um. If you know Jon, you know he can't sit and relax, he must be doing something at all times until it's dark outside. =)

Julianna is doing well. She now has her two bottom teeth. They are not fully in, but you can see them when she smiles, which she does a lot. She's getting so big! I can't believe she will be one years old in two months. Time sure does fly by! She's eating more food, which she enjoys a lot. She isn't crawling or walking yet, but that works for us. She loves, loves, loves to stand, so we aren't so sure she will crawl. She may just start to walk some day. Who knows! She's such a little peanut and she has such a personality! She's also very much a mommies girl. So no complaints there!

I'm still working full time. We got a new supervisor like two months ago, and as of next week, he won't be our supervisor any longer. YAHOO! He was horrible. Now we are all anxiously awaiting to see who the new supervisor will be. So needless to say, the job has been stressful lately. Otherwise, that's pretty much all I do these days, work and hang out with Julianna and sometimes Jon when our schedules don't conflict. Really, I only spend 2 days a week with Jon. I do see him when he returns from school but at the most that's 2 hours. When I return home, he's usually sleeping. Oh well, we are almost finished with these crazy schedules!

No news from my brother. I'm guessing he will be leaving any day now, but it's the army and things change constantly. Once David leaves for Afghanistan, he will be gone for 12 to 15 months. Hopefully his tour is uneventful and his unit returns home safe and sound. Kelly, David's wife, just took a job at one of the local hospitals, so luckily she will be busy while he is gone. We all hope the next year goes quickly for everyone.

Okay, I think everyone is caught up on what is going on with us. I will try to be better about posting, but life is pretty routine around here and that gets boring to read about all the time. I will try to post some pictures of the peanut when I get a chance! Happy Spring! MUCH LOVE!

"SO BIG!"

I can't believe how much Julianna has grown in the last 9 months!! Time sure does fly when your having fun!

Julianna at 2 days old

Julianna now

Quick Updates

Julianna has her first tooth! You can't see it when she smiles, but it's there if you look closely. Julianna has also learned to roll over from her tummy to her back. It's so funny. She is so deliberate about what she does to roll over. I should try to get a video of it so you can all see what I'm talking about. On Tuesday Julianna goes to the doctor for her 9 month check up. I can't believe she is 9 months old already!! Time sure does fly!


I'm still busy working Monday through Friday. We have a new supervisor at our house, and it has NOT been a smooth transition. I'm hoping he won't be around long and things can get back to normal there. Last night at work, we took the guys out to Eat N Park for dinner. When it was time to get our bill, the waitress informed us that another gentleman had paid all our bills for us. How cool is that?!?!?! It was a great ending to a rather long and stressful week.

Today we all went to the outlet mall. It was great walking around in the fresh air and sunshine. Wish it had been just a tad warmer, but we had a blast! Everyone came home with a little something.

Yesterday marked the beginning of Jon's spring break. He told me that this week he wants to go to the casino and wash the cars. Hopefully he does more than just those things. However, I can't really complain because he works REALLY hard every semester. I can't believe that he has one semester left! It seemed like it would be FOREVER before he finished school, but now it's just around the corner! Jon is busy looking for a summer internship, but nothing is looking promising. He might have to do an internship after he is finished. We will just have to see how it all plays out. It's too soon to tell right now.

Jon also lost a very dear friend this week.....his orange retro recliner died and was put to rest in the dump. Jon is sad, I'm thrilled. Hopefully he will keep up all the good studying he did in his old friend. His new friend is a blue leather recliner that we rescued from the storage unit. I'm much happier looking at him. He matches the room MUCH better.

Couple more weeks and we will be in Grand Rapids for Easter. We plan on seeing some friends and shopping some GoodWill's while we are there. It's going to be a fast and busy trip!

That's all for now! MUCH LOVE!

Julianna and Snow

Like Mother, Like Daughter.....we both don't enjoy the snow!

Snow!

I just spent 31 hours STRAIGHT at work. I arrived at work at 3pm on Friday and returned home at 10:05pm Saturday night. While the pay check will be awesome with 23 hours of over time...I would have preferred NOT being at work that long.

The amount of snow we got from Friday afternoon until Saturday at noon was ridiculous! Pittsburgh is NOT supposed to get this much snow. To give you an idea of just how much snow we have, it was up to the middle of my thighs and I'm about 5'4" 1/2!

So why did I get stuck at work? Well, Friday night no one was going anywhere! It was snowing like crazy and roads were pretty much undrivable! So, no replacement at 11. No problem, figured I could go home around noonish on Saturday since they were calling for the snow to stop then. Well, didn't happen either. The dumb landlord hadn't shown up to plow the driveway that had thigh high snow all the way down it. When he did finally come, he barely plowed the very beginning of the drive. So to make a really long and frustrating story short, my replacement never came at 3pm and then he never showed up at 11pm either, however, the supervisor finally said I could leave at 10. So I put on as many layers as I could and made the 15 minute trek through the snow on the driveway to the street where Jon lovingly came and picked me up to bring me home after those VERY LONG 31 hours.

You would THINK this would be the end of my story....NOT SO! The truck was still at work and still stuck. My coworker and I figured the landlord would come back and plow the driveway, plowing our cars in, but we could just dig them out afterwards. Well this is NOT the case. The landlord called and said he couldn't plow the driveway, get this, until we removed the cars!!!!!! THE CARS WERE STUCK!!! THERE WAS AT LEAST TWO FEET OF SNOW IN THE DRIVEWAY!!! So, Jon, my dad and myself headed to work to help my coworker shovel out her car and then figure out how to get my truck and the company van out of a driveway that SHOULD have been plowed. It took us an hour and a half to get them all out. Luckily a lot less time then expected! Thank goodness there was 4 of us to do the job. No thanks to the landlord who had left! We ended up shoveling snow from the truck ALL the way out to the section where the landlord had plowed. We removed just enough so Jon could gun the truck through the snow to the plowed area. It took much longer to get the company van out, but we did after getting it stuck 3 times. It would have been SO much easier to dig the cars out AFTER the drive was plowed. Whatever! What goes around comes around! I promise the landlord will hear from the head honcho on Monday about his performance this weekend.

So now that this crazy ordeal is over, I'm off tomorrow! PRAISE THE LORD! Seeing as I had NO weekend, I told my boss I was taking a "sick" day. He told me I didn't need to use a sick day, to just take the day off instead! I'm just thrilled to not see that place for longer than 24 hours and to spend time with Julianna! That was the longest I have ever been away from Julianna since she was born! It was way to long! I missed her very much!

Well off to relax and play with my little girl and spend some time with the hubs! GO COLTS!

MUCH LOVE!

Updates

I debated about writing a post about everything that has gone on since my last written post, but decided I would just do a quick overview of the past instead.

Since the Christmas rash, Julianna has continued to try new veggies. So far everything has gone smoothly. She really enjoys Sweet Potatoes, but she likes green beans and carrots as well. We are going to attempt peas again, and then it's on to fruits. We are taking things slow due to food allergies in the family. The doctor says food allergies aren't genetic, but we aren't going to rush it. We have also started teaching Julianna how to use a sippy cup. She sortof gets it. She likes to chew the spout more than drink from it, but at least she is getting used to the idea. We still can't believe how big she is getting these days. She now plays, "SO BIG" and loves to laugh and "Dance." She has such a personality now. She sits up so well too. She loves to give me hugs and "kisses." Her kiss is more of her just opening her mouth and leaning into my face and getting my nose. =) She is such a lovey and happy baby. She's still very much a mama's girl and cries whenever anyone other than me, Jon, or my parents holds her. While I enjoy that she wants me so much, I do hope this phase will pass shortly.

Jon is back to school FINALLY! A month off for Christmas is just WAY to long for both of us. So far he is enjoying his classes. I think his Casino class is his favorite so far. One of his assignments is to go to the Casino downtown and check it out. Jon's been bugging me to go with him because he wants to check out this buffet they have. I guess it's supposed to be pretty good. Jon said he has a number of group projects this semester, which is bad. It's hard to do group projects in college with everyone living all over the place, having different schedules and having some students who just don't care about their classes. Last semester, Jon had a group project and their group had to actually kick a member out of their group because she wasn't doing any of the work. Hopefully these projects go a little smoother. Otherwise, Jon is still on track to graduate next December.

In other news, we were going to visit my brother in TN the first week of March before he shipped out for Afghanistan, but it sounds like we won't be able to because he won't be around. My best friend Sarah is getting married in August and I'm her Matron of Honor, so I will be making a few quick trips to Grand Rapids, to throw her a shower and help out with some of the wedding prep. I'm very excited! Other than that, I'm just busy working and enjoying my time with Julianna.

Hope all is well! MUCH LOVE!

December and January Pictures