Monthly Archive

The holiday weekend brought fun visits from some of Kivrin’s favorite people.
Our friends Kate, Aaron, Addison and Avery visited on Saturday afternoon from St. Louis.

Kivrin meeting Avery

Aunt Leigh Anne came from Milwaukee to spoil her new niece

That’s right, over the course of just 48 hours Kivrin gained nearly 6 ounces! This was a welcome surprise at her weigh-in, but does mean (assuming she continues to gain weight at the same rate, which by my calculations is approximately 100% likely) she’ll weigh something like 45 pounds at 6 months…

Keep eatin’ kid.

Kivrin is actually awake many times throughout the day….and night… but some of her most photogenic moments (and also most of the times we have a free hand to grab the camera) are while she is sleeping.

Momentous though it may seem, the five minute drive home from the hospital was the easiest part of getting discharged and settling in at home with a new baby.  The first few days home were a new-baby blur, because unfortunately Lissa’s spinal headache returned on Monday with a vengeance. After a brief return visit to the hospital, by Tuesday evening we were back on track and feeling fine…or, well….just a normal amount of new parent exhaustion.

Grandpa Steve checking out his first granddaughter on Saturday afternoon.

Papa Staley drove from Collinsville, IL on Saturday morning after his 5 am wake up call.

Grandma Sandy came to Topeka on Tuesday afternoon to help out (and spoil the baby!)

On Sunday, Sara and Jon brought their son Thomas to meet the newest member of our family. In this photo, Thomas is 178 days old and Kivrin is only 1 day old.

Kivrin weighed 8 lbs, 5 oz at birth (photo cropped for modesty!)

Dan holding Kivrin just after delivery.

Lissa snuggling Kivrin in the recovery room.

One last posed picture of the baby in the belly, taken August 18, 2008.

Kivrin was “due” on August 14th, so we were pretty confident we would have an August baby since two weeks on either side of that date would be considered normal.

Earlier belly pictures from June 11 (31 weeks), June 29 (33 weeks), July 21 (36 weeks) and August 3 (38 weeks).

Dan bought me this maternity t-shirt from thinkgeek — it was my favorite shirt throughout pregnancy, both because it was extremely comfortable and obviously awesome!!

A few pictures of the baby’s room — it was my idea to choose the decor before the 20-week ultrasound, so that we could make a truly gender-neutral decision. (Little did I know that we wouldn’t be finding out the baby’s sex until later anyway!)

This is a room created with love by our family and friends. The walls were painted by Dan and his dad Steve and our friend Carrie. The bookshelf was made especially for the baby by Papa Staley (who swore he would never make Lissa nother bookshelf for fear our house will collapse from the weight of our books!) , and it is already filled with many books from our favorite children’s librarian, Grandma Mary! Our two and a half year old nephew Colin had just about outgrown his changing table/dresser and mirror that Papa Staley made for him. The crib from Ikea was so highly rated here that is was almost impossible to find one in stock, so we were excited to eventually get one. Nana sewed the yellow curtains and the blue and purple basket liners (along with several matching pillows and crib sheets.)

Our family and friends contributed squares to the baby quilt at our baby showers in Topeka and Collinsville, then Nana sewed it all together. The quilt is reversible because we had so many squares to include! We think it looks great, and each square is precious because of the people and relationships it represents.