Wednesday, January 14, 2009

It's Not Official Until the Pictures are Taken

That's an Ashley-ism. I have a passionate love of pictures. I have 10,000 and counting of Jillian. We went to Por*trait Inn*ovations for her 2 year old shots. The photographer was awesome!! Bryan and I knew as she was taking the pictures that our pocket book was in trouble. Here are just of few of my favorites:




















Sunday, January 11, 2009

Gussie


For the first time, let me introduce Gus the cat. In college, my friend Amy and I decided to adopt a cat. We fell in love with this cat and we named him Gus because he was fat like the mouse in Cinderella.
Well, he is still fat and now 10 years later, Jillian has fallen in love with him. Or maybe it is Poppy's Corvette??? Whichever, Jillian loves to spend hours petting Gussie on the 'vette!!!

Happy Birday!!



I really wish you could see the entire crown..... Jillian's crown said,

Happy Birday!!!

She received it as MDO. I didn't get it. Are they studying birds?

But then I was reading her daily report and at the bottom, someone wrote

Happy Birday Jillian!!

I guess someone just can't spell???

As promised....a little late

Here are our pictures of our trip to the zoo!

She loves flamingos!! I mean, what girl does not love pink birds?




The grizzly was out eating his morning snack! Good thing it wasn't Jillian!




Jillian thought the hippo was in the corner in timeout!




She always loves to play with the goats. Then they get too rough and knock her down. Then she changes her mind and does NOT like the goats.





It was the perfect little trip! Cool weather and all of the animals were out!!!


Everybody was very tired when we got back to Poppy & Grammie's house......





Tuesday, January 6, 2009

Can you believe Jillian turned two? We celebrated by going to the zoo!!!!

I cannot believe Jillian is 2. How did time go by so fast? I remember her birth day like it was yesterday. In honor of the two years (or 24 months or 104 weeks or 730 days – Who’s counting?) she has been here on earth, I wrote 24 things I love about Jillian (in no particular order):

1. She can almost count to twenty. She will leave out a number here and there but she always leaves out the eight! What does she have against the eight?
2. She already has an opinion about what she wears. Where did she get that? She loves to wear a red outfit with kitties on the front. She loves to count the kitties. She will cry and throw a fit if I picked something she does not want to wear. She will tell me, “I don’t like it.” She is such a cutie-pie and is growing like a weed. She is finally starting to fit into 18-24 months clothes.
3. She gets very upset when you call her a baby and will correct you by saying, “No, big girl.”
4. She calls penguins, “pengos.”
5. The girl loves to chew on her shoes. What is that? She will usually refuse to put on her shoes unless she is given time to chew on the velcro first.
6. I will ask her 100 times before she takes a bath if she needs to use the potty. She says, “No, Mommy.” As soon as she gets in the bathtub and gets herself all wet, then she insists on getting out and using the potty and she actually will go. Can you say control issues??
7. She loves to eat to eat things that are orange – carrots, cheese, apricots. She also loves turkey, green beans, and corn. She loves to eat bananas but only if she gets to peel it and also gets upset if it breaks in half. She loves to eat apples but doesn’t want you to cut it up but let her eat it “self.” Do you see a theme here?
8. She still calls my sister, Summer, Mashure. Although now she has started calling her Aunt.
9. Bryan’s dad always has a cheese snack waiting for her so she calls him Papa Cheese. Secretly, he loves the name.
10. Showing that she is all about being an independent 2 year old, she loves to say, “I do it.” She will also say, “I do it self.”
11. Her favorite song in Rudolph the Red Nose Reindeer. She also loves Twinkle, Twinkle and Old McDonald. She also loves her “Bible” songs and can almost sing the whole CD but her favorites are Behold, Behold and I’m in the Lord’s Army and loves songs about David (she learns a lot about David at MDO).
12. She knows her Daddy works for FedEx. She will point to the logo anywhere we see it and say “FedEx.”
13. She can name her teacher and all of the kids in her MDO classroom. She can even name the kid who left the class because “he cries.”
14. She is very into jumping and hopping. She loves to jump in her crib. She loves to jump “high.”
15. She loves to wear pajamas with a zipper.
16. She has a difficult relationship with our dogs. She knows that she is supposed to be gentle with them. She will run up to them and scare them and turn around and ask, “Pat them gently, right?” with a look of innocence on her face.
17. She loves reading books about Mary, Joseph and Baby Jesus. She can recognize all of them including the shepherds and animals. One Christmas book that we read together shows Mary with a pregnant belly and she will tell you that it looks likes “Mommy’s belly.”
18. When she is in her carseat in Bryan’s car, she insists on climbing in and out “self.”
19. She loves wearing Grammie’s reading glasses.
20. She loves Elmo, Big Bird, Ernie (not Bert), Abby, Zoe, Barney and The Grinch.
21. She cracks me up because she does NOT like the part of S*esame St*reet with the animated clay. She says, “I don’t like it” and will cry and fuss until the segment is over.
22. She loves to play outside and cries on a regular basis when you make her come inside.
23. We went to the mall on the day after Thanksgiving and Jillian got to see a marching band playing around the mall. We went to the mall on Sunday and she kept asking, “Band? Band?” How the heck did she remember the silly band she saw one time from over a month ago? Freaking smart!
24. She is obsessed with 101 Dalmations which she calls the “puppy bideo.” She has watched it over 101 times at Poppy’s house. She knows Pongo, Cruella, Horace and Jasper. It has to be playing for naptime to start.

This is a silly list for a silly girl. Happy Birthday Jillian! Mommy loves you!

p.s. In reference to the title, we did have a great trip to the zoo but I haven't uploaded the pictures yet. Pictures to follow!

Monday, January 5, 2009

Coupons Part Deux

As most of you know, for several months now, I have been on a mission to save money using coupons. Some weeks I use a lot of coupons, other weeks I only have a few to use. I try to shoot for an average of $5.00 per trip to the grocery store which averages to $20.00 of savings per month. I think that is a good goal.

Well, I started out 2009 with a bang!!!! Yesterday at Wal-Mart, I saved $15.75. YEAH!!!!! I wish I had a scanner, so I could scan my receipt to show you the proof.... AND I did not use any trickery of double-coupons.

This time I used coupons from the newspaper and coupons from the internet. My goal for this year is that by the time December rolls around, somebody will be paying me to buy groceries!!! Ha ha!!!!

Thursday, January 1, 2009

Happy New Haircut!!

Happy New Year!!!! We celebrated by getting "big girl" haircuts. Jillian had her FIRST haircut and she did awesome. I was very nervous because she does not even let me brush her hair but we went to a place that had so many distractions, I don't think she even realized her hair was being cut!!! She got to ride cars and watch TV and play with the combs and brushes and spray bottles. The end result is very cute - her bangs are out of her eyes and she no longer has a mullet but a cute little bob.



Now she looks like such a big girl and just in time for birthday #2!!!!! This is her riding her cousin's big wheel.

Mommy got her hair cut too and dyed blonde to match Jillian's beautiful blonde hair. This is the last picture you will see of me until the baby gets here. My hair looks good but that is it. I feel huge at almost 37 weeks. Look at Jillian's face, she thinks I look weird too. I still have the reflux but the countdown is on to the baby's arrival and then hopefully, the reflux will disappear.