Visiting Amy & Adam

Saturday monring we drove down to visit Amy & Adam along with Candi & Chase.  The 3 "big" kiddos had fun playing while Adam watched.  We even managed to get a picture with all 3 of the "big" kiddos looking at the camera at the same time!  I will have to get this from Sarah though since it was taken with her camera.

When we first got there one of the dogs jumped up on Chase and he was not amused.  He actually cried, which is unusual for him. Guessing the jumping up on him scared him.  He is used to my dog, but my dog is 70 pounds and better not be caught trying to jump up on the little people.  It was very short lived and then he was fine with them.  Chase's mommy Candi is not much of a dog person, yet the two little dogs Sarah has kept buggin her for attention or snuggling up next to her. 

We went to lunch at a Mexican place and everyone did well.  You never know how a meal out with 4 kids will be!  Adam napped through all of it and the others did pretty good about sitting or at least staying around our table. 

Jillian & Amy enjoying their suckers

After lunch we went to Whole Foods store in search of a specific cheese I had there before that I wasn't able to find back anywhere else yet.  They have rather small carts so when Sarah put the infant carrier in the the back section you couldn't then use the upper part.  It wouldn't open since it was hitting Adam's seat.  We put Jillian and Amy in another cart.  They did well riding with out trying to stand up.  While there we gave them each a dum dum sucker. 

Amy & Jilly playing the big piano, Chase is playing the little one.

After we left the store we were trying to decide if we would go back to Sarah's to let the kids play for a while longer or head back.  We just said if they stay awake back to your house we will come back if not we will just head home.  They managed to stay awake so they got to play a while longer.



Jillian "holding" Adam. It didn't take her long to ask for me to take him back and hold. She said "mommy hold Adam".



Hair Styles

12-18-11 I think this was actually the first time I pulled her hair up with anything.  Only stayed in long enough for a picture.  She wasn't a fan.

1-26-12 "bitty" pony tail, she hated this and wanted it out.  It was all I could do to get a picture.

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Yipee she has enough hair for me to play with :)  Also she has decided to let me.  It took some convicing.  It seemed to work well to tell her it was like Katie & Ellie's hair (her little friends).  She will on occasion ask for pig tails :).

2-18-12 Full piggy tails

2-13-12 Half piggy tails

Potty training in progress

Jillian is showing interest in potty training.  Especially after seeing that some of her little friends are using the big potty.  Doesn't hurt to have some slightly older friends for her to hang out with. 

She is really just getting started.  She has successfully used the potty on multiple occasions, but won't always use it.  We are just taking it slow for now, which seems to be working.  She will ask sometime to go potty and will actually go.  Of course not every time since I think she sometimes asks to go right after she has used her pull ups. 

In the last few weeks she has even started to let daddy or papaw take her to the potty.  At first she was more resistant to them helping her. 

To encourage her to use the big potty we give her a special treat if she goes.  She gets M & M's and seems to really understand the link.  She will go and then say get MM's (as she calls them), but luckily she isn't asking for the every time she goes.

During her bath on this past Saturday she peed in the tub.  After doing this she told us what she did and asked, get MM's?  Um. nope sorry we don't get MM"s for peeing in the bathtub.  Silly girl.

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" 

BABY DOLL NAMES

Over this past weekend Jillian named one of her babies.  This is the first time she has ever called one of her dolls anything but baby.  The first one to be named was baby Lila (after one of our friends little girls :)).  She has two dolls that are essentially the same so when we got the second one out she named it as well.  The 2nd baby doll to be named is baby Hannah.  I believe she named her after my cousin's baby, but who really knows.

(12-5-11) Baby Lila & baby Hannah

(12-5-11) Here is my attempt at a video to get her talking about her baby names.  Here I was saying how she didn't tend to get them confused, but in this video she is briefly referring to baby Lila as Hannah, but she was also wanting to sit in my lap to look at the picture I had just taken of her baby dolls.  She thought that was very cool :).

OCTOBER 2011

So I'm not very good at staying on top of my blogging.. But here are some of the fun things we did in October.  We made a couple of trips to Appleworks.  Jillian loved riding the ponies and the little train they had there.  She also loved the petting zoo with all the animals.  The first time we went there we went with Aunt Susie, Uncle GP, and GP's two nieces.  The second time we went to Apple works we went with Sarah, Amy, Adam, Candi, Chase, Alyssia, and Eva.

 Amy, Jillian, Chase, & Eva @ Appleworks

Jillian @ Appleworks - she loved ridding the little train 

Jillian @ Appleworks petting zoo

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Also in October is the Pumpkin carving party.  This year to go along with Jillian's costume of a pig I carved a pig pumpkin.  I think it turned out really well. 

Annual pumpkin carving party - Jillian with my pig pumpkin