Jillian's 2nd Brithday!

Jillian's custom made birthday banner :) 

Our princess turned 2! She got to celebrate with most of her family.  A few of them had the stomach bug and could not attend.  We were sad they didn't feel well but glad they didn't come share those germs!

Wearing her custom birthday shirt :)

Trying to force out a smile for the camera

"icing" her cupcakes

This is her "new" dog Pepper.  This dog was a gift from me and my mom to her dad (Jillian's great gpa  when he had to stay in the hospital fora bout 6 weeks.  He loved his dogs and couldn't have them at the hospital so we got him this to keep him company.  Her great gma know that she loves dogs so she gifted this down to her.  Let her name it. Which it of course looks like one of her dogs that is named Pepper, hence that is what Jillian calls it.  Here she is all worn out from the Birthday festivities.  Moments after I took this picture she was sound asleep.

Jillian and her CAKE.  This goes with the Word World theme, which is her favorite show.  Really the only show she will watch.  She already has episodes she doesn't like.  If you put one of those on she says "no want that one, no want that one" and waves her arm.  She will request some by what the theme is.  Yesterday she wanted twinkle star.  It is an episode in which the Duck character sings twinkle twinkle little star. 

Jillian playing in he new kitchen from mommy & daddy.  Mommy & her papaw spent about 2 hours working together to assemble.  Mommy read the directions and papaw mainly tightened all the bolts and things.  It have 32 steps.  I think we did a great job myself.  She really seems to like it :).  She had fun opening and closing the fridge & freezer doors pulling out milk and "pouring' it in her cup and putting it back again.  She is all about keeping drawers or doors closed.  So each time she gets something out she closes the door after it.

She got lots of nice things (not that she needed anything at all).  She obviously likes the new toys.  This morning she was asking to play ice cream and with Jilly's kitchen :). 

MeRrY ChRiStMaS

Jillian got to celebrate Christmas several times. We started on Christmas Eve and my Grandma's house with all my dad's family there. Jillian loved playing with her cousins. She even made up to Karla and they had a good time playing. She is a very shy child in general and takes her a while to warm up to people especially in a large group setting. She tends to stay close. Not a bad thing necessarily.

The next Christmas celebration was Christmas morning at home with her Mommy & Daddy. This was followed by Christmas with Rick's family around dinner time. The next day was Christmas at my parents house.

For Christmas Jillian got a trampoline from Santa.  She has really been enjoying playing on it.  She has found other uses than just bouncing.  She likes to put stuff up on it as well as lounge around on it.

12-25-11 Relaxing after a "hard" morning of opening presents ;)

12-25-11 Jillian jumping on her trampoline for the first time.  I think she likes it. :)

She also got a Cookie Monster toy that talks and moves a bit.  It is very cute and has a backpack with 3 cookies in it.  When you feed him the cookies they fall back into his backpack.  She was not a big fan of this toy to start with.  She didn't like that it was animated and would shy away from it and hang on tightly if it got near her.  So Cookie Monster has been hiding in the closet.  Every once in a while she asks to go peek at Cookie.  When asked if she would want to play with him she would say no.  She just had to check that it was where she had us put him or something pretty silly.  Other times she would tell you that Cookie was sleeping in the closet. 

Saying all that yesterday she asked to go peak at Cookie.  I took her over to see him and asked if she wanted to play with him.  Much to my surprise she said YES!  So I got him out, but left him turned off.  I showed her what to do with the Cookies and she was soon playing with him having fun feeding him his cookies.  I did try to turn him on for her later, and she started to shy away from him.  So Cookie Monster is cool as long as he isn't turned on.  Perhaps she will change her mind on this too soon enough. 

(1-8-12) Jillian playing with Cookie Monster

At this point she has already pretty much mastered playing with an Ipad courtesy of her grandparents.  So for Christmas she got her very own Kindle Fire!  While they do work pretty much the same there are some differences on how to get back to the home page and switch apps.  It didn't take her too long to figure it out.  The only issue I have found so far is that with the one click purchase set up and no logging in required you have to really watch that she doesn't go to the app store and start downloading random things.  I was directed towards a kiddie app that makes it so you cannot get to the app store that works well.  You have to draw a "Z" on the screen to close out of the program and get back to the main page. 

(1-8-12) Jillian playing with her "IPAD"