Surprising Girl

Grannie post: Every time Jillian is here she does or says something that blows me away. Today as I was putting on my watch she wanted one and I had a small Winnie-the-Pooh watch that I put on her. She was quite excited about that. So I asked her, "What time is it?" and she answered clear as a bell, "4 o'clock." "Wow", I exclaimed. But I guess I shouldn't get quite so excited since she didn't have the right time.

Super Fast Girl

Just to give everyone an idea of how fast Jillian has gotten, here's a video of her running in the LCC gym during one of Mommy's volleyball practices. It's kind of scary, because she's got this break-a-way speed that makes it difficult to catch her right away. So, she ends up putting a lot of distance between us and her in a short amount of time.

Tall Girl

Grannie measured Jillian's height the other day in the kitchen entryway, just like she has all of the cousins through the years. Jillian came in at 2 feet 9-1/2 inches, which is several inches more than the last time she was measured. Jillian didn't much care to stand and wait there, though, and wiggled and squirmed until it was done.

Dancing to the Dora Song

Continuing with more Dora, here's a little video of Jillian dancing to the Dora the Explorer Theme Song. Anymore, whenever Cousin Tierney stops by Grannie's house to visit, Jillian immediately starts yelling "Dora", meaning that she wants Tierney to play the Dora clips on YouTube. So, they watch a bunch of the videos on the computer, including "I'm the Map!", "Backpack, Backpack" and "We Did It!". Her favorite, though, is the theme song. Grannie gave her some noisemakers to play with, and Jillian used them while doing her dance.

Dora Portrait

Pretty much the only thing that Jillian likes to draw on her magnetic drawing board is Dora. She's getting better about making it look like something. In this photo, you can see the big circle for the head, the two little circles for the eyes, then the big line through it all for the mouth. We think that the lines that go all the way around the edges are Dora's hair. Sometimes she throws some other things in there, too, but we're not sure what those are for.

Adam's Visit

Saturday night was party time at Jillian's house. Cousin Adam came over for the evening while his mommy and daddy went out. We made the mistake of telling Jillian about the visit early in the day, so she was bouncing off the walls and talking about it the whole time until he came. Their first order of business was to ride the tricycle all over the house, each of them taking turns riding or pushing. After that, all of the toys in Jillian's room managed to find their way to every corner of the house.

Mommy got them to relax a little bit with the movie "Up". They made a little bed on the living room floor, and watched a bit of the movie, but apparently there wasn't enough action, because they were soon up and going again. Eventually, the lateness of the night got to them both, and they got a little sleepy. After jammies, it was time for Adam to go home. Jillian went to sleep pretty quickly afterwards, being so tired from all the partying.

Book Reader

Jillian decided to read to one of her babies tonight. She grabbed her Tag Junior books and did a little "reading" to them, like this video shows:

Exceptional Grandchildren

A little staged picture as I wanted to take a picture of the mat that I got for Christmas from the Uhlenkotts. If you can't read it, it says, "Woodruff Center for Exceptional Grandchildren". They are all exceptional in their own way and Jillian is following them in her own unique way - and she hasn't even experienced "Grannie's School of Torture" yet. By staged I mean Tierney pretended to read a long book whereupon she would normally choose the shortest book in the pile of books.

Jillian got to go to Aunt Dianne's today to play with Rielee and see the babies, Ava and Harper. When one of them cried she checked it out but it was more fun in Rielee's room.

New Stuff XX

It's the 20th edition of New Stuff, and Jillian keeps giving us more to write about:

1. "Shake Your Booty" : Jillian picked up this little saying from us when we told her to dance to the music. So now when the music comes on, she dances and says "shake your booty".

2. "Wiggle, wiggle, wiggle" : Not sure where this came from, though she attaches Dora's name to it ("like Dora"). When she dances, she'll say this over and over.

3. Fake Cry : It's pretty obvious when Jillian pulls out her fake cry. It's more like a loud whining sound.

4. "I do" & "I don't" : We guess that she says this whenever she wants to emphasize something. For instance, when she's full and doesn't want any more to eat, she'll say "I don't"; she tends to put a lot of feeling into saying this.

5. The New Bed (or, The Old Crib without the Railing) : Since Jillian was now able to climb out of the crib, we figured we'd just avoid the big crash when she tries to do it and ends up falling to the floor. So, we removed the front railing, and now she has a bed. This also had the benefit of giving Jillian an extra play place.

6. Tag Junior : One of the gifts that Jillian received for Christmas that has seen a lot of use has been the Tag Junior e-reader and books. She really likes to go through all 5 of the books and hear the characters talk. Her favorites right now are anything in the Dora book (of course), listening to Tigger and Pooh talk, and the ABC song.

7. Nakey Girl : It seems that Jillian's clothes are coming off more often lately. She even does it in public. It's not uncommon for her to just start pulling off her shirt or pulling down her pants, and many times she'll disappear for a few moments, then reappear in only her diaper.

iPod Girl

One of the other things that Jillian really got into at the volleyball tournament on MLK weekend was listening to Tierney's iPod Touch. Whenever she saw it, she immediately wanted (just) one of earbuds. She always put it up next to her right ear, and actually figured out how to stick it in there.

MLK Volleyball

Grannie post: Wow! Three days of volleyball and Jillian was a real trouper through three matches a day plus time between matches. It was nice to have green turf by the courts that gave the kids (Jillian, Adam, and Rielee) room to set up a play area. Of course, there were the many wrestling matches between all three without anyone being the clear winner. The greatest investment I made was getting a toy cash register that Jillian was fascinated with. It gave me some time to actually watch most of the match while she slid the charge card through-looked like she had watched Mommy, counted the money, and bought some of the play food that came with it. She even pretended to scan the groceries. She did give it up for a few minutes so the other kids could play too. One mistake I made was buying markers for a coloring book that I thought were washable and wondered why they wouldn't wash off her hands very well, then discovered when I got home that they weren't washable, although not permanent, whatever that meant.
Getting her to nap at the tournament meant reading the four books I brought about four times each till she dropped off.

Pretty Girls in Pink

Rielee came to play today and they both looked so cute in their pink tops. The weather was nice enough to play outside for awhile on the jeep and car. They even wanted to shoot a few baskets on the play hoop, I guess because they have watched Tierney and Macee at their basketball games.

The bottom picture shows the bow that stayed in for awhile. Jillian was so excited over her hair today because it was just like Tierney's hairdo when she practices, which is a lot. The bow came out but she was so proud of her hair that she left it up all day.

Long Talks in the Car

Jillian loves to have long conversations. Whenever Daddy drives her home from Grannie's house, she'll talk all the way there. It goes a little something like this (where J = Jillian and D = Daddy):

J : "Dora!"
D : "Did you see Dora?"
J : "Yeah ... We did it!"
D : "Did you watch Dora with Tierney?"
J : "Yeah ... Swiper!"
D : "Swiper, no swiping."
J : "Aw, man ... silly rabbit."
D : "Who calls you that?"
J : "Grannie!"
D : "Grannie's at home."
J : "Shhhh."
D : "You'll see Grannie at volleyball."
J : "Boom! ... Tierney hit the ball!"
D : "You'll see Tierney at volleyball."
J : "May-May!"
D : "You'll see Meagan at volleyball, too."
J : "I want a ball."
D : "I'll give you a volleyball."
J : "Yeah ... ride in the cart!"
D : "You can ride in the cart."
J : "Yeah ... Grannie!"
D : "Grannie will push you."

And it goes on like that for sometime. It might repeat, or we'll talk about something else.

Mommy & Sweetie-Pie

Here's a nice little moment of Mommy and Jillian together. This is right before we all headed up to Castle Rock for Daddy's birthday party.

Learning to Draw

Jillian had always held crayons and pens one of two ways ... with a fist, or at the very end with her fingertips. So, we showed her how to hold her drawing utensils the right way. Apparently, she liked it, because that's how she draws now (like this photo shows). When you look at the magnetic drawing tablet, you'll see circles. That's Jillian's picture of Dora the Explorer's head. The eyes usually end up somewhere around there.

The Big Escape

We knew it was close, just not this close. Whenever Jillian has been in her crib, either sleeping or playing, and she tells us that she wants out, she has started putting her foot up on the top of the crib railing. It makes it look like she is trying to get out. But, she's never gone any farther than that ... until today. While Daddy was trying to take some photos of Sweetie-Pie, she put her foot up on the railing, than hoisted herself up until she straddled the side of the crib (like this photo shows). Don't worry ... she didn't go any farther than that, and Daddy was right there to catch her. Now, we just have to figure out what to do next with our little monkey.

Three Wheeling

Mommy got Jillian a very cool little tricycle for Christmas. It has a grown-up handle on it that we can use to push and steer her around. Jillian likes to have us buzz her around the house a couple times, since she's not quite big enough to totally reach the pedals. She also makes sure to always put on her helmet before she gets on the trike. It must be because she wants to be like her Papa Woodruff, who wears his helmet when riding his "bike".

Rielee Playdate

It was nice enough when Rielee came to play with Jillian that they could go outside. Rielee saw the jeep and got excited so she gave Jillian the ride of her life as Rielee wasn't the best driver. Thankfully I did put it on slow, 2 1/2 mph. They were whooping and hollering the whole time. When Jillian had had enough she went to her little car and Rielee then wanted fast speed but she kept getting stuck against things until I showed her reverse. Then she decided to ram Jillian in her little car which Jillian didn't like so then I decided to make the rules of the road. They certainly had a fun time!

Fearless climber

Today Papa was putting a new overhead light in the closet so he had two ladders set up, one extra for me to help. Jillian liked the new little ladder and spent a lot of time on it, with Grannie standing right behind her, as she pounded on the ladder with a hammer.

Next she decided the little ladder was too tame so she wanted to climb the tall ladder so she went up and down that one many times as Grannie stood nervously behind her. Rick and Heather will need to keep an eye on her when they start remodeling. At least now I know she won't panic if she finds a ladder to climb and gets stuck at the top. When Jillian took her nap I was afraid she would wake up and go into the closet and climb when I wasn't watching so I had to tie the folding doors to the closet shut.

Sighting No. 47

Another photo of Jillian flashing her blue eyes. Just before this, Jillian was all happy because she could hear the neighborhood dogs barking in the alley.

Where the Wild Things Are

The little cousins (Jillian, Adam and Andy) spent this past weekend together, hanging out at the Verd house. They ran, chased, played keep-away, ate, danced, jumped, climbed, made lots of noise, and then eventually took a break, like this photo shows.

The Step Stool

Here's a photo of Jillian using her step stool at her favorite spot ... the kitchen sink. She loves to pretend that she's washing dishes. Sometimes, if Mommy doesn't mind if Jillian gets wet, we'll put a little bit of water into the sink and let her splash around in it. That usually involves filling up bottles or cups with water, and pouring them back out again, though sometimes she misses and it ends up spilling all over herself.

The stool makes the rounds to the different countertops. Sometimes Jillian will take it into the bathroom, and pretend to wash her hands in the sink there. But, her favorite place is still the kitchen. The problem we've faced lately is that she reach about half-way onto the countertops, so that means she can reach quite a few things.

One other note: Mommy found Jillian tonight with her head all the way in the sink. Apparently, our little monkey had used the stool as a starting point, and had managed to pull herself up and over the countertop.