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Watch her go!
Early morning playtime at Grandpa’s house with everyone still in their jammies.
“Look at me, I can stand up to play.”
Cousins playing and sharing together. At least while the camera was on!!!
“I’m getting you, Nana!”
“Surprise, it’s Colin! And Kivrin!”
“I love clapping with Nana. Everyone works so hard to make babies laugh. I like that!”
“Oh yeah. Check me out. I’m sleeping in Nana’s arms. That’s a pretty sweet deal.”
“What’s this stuff? Is this Nana’s stuff? I wish I could reach it. I would eat it.”
“Oh, I see. When the baby is too big for the lap, the Mommy turns into a lounge chair!”
An artsy photo by Dan, with Colin showing Kivrin his paper crane.
Colin ate some grapes, but was hesitant to pose for a picture.
Colin was amazed by this paper crane that Uncle Lee made.
Colin is guarding the entrance to the castle. The pillows are the hard castle walls. It was a complicated scenario.
“I’m happy to be here!”
Independent play at the Lego table (which we smuggled home in our trunk — don’t tell Colin!)
Colin trying to blow a raspberry on Kivrin’s head.
Crocheting (Lissa, in the background) with a three year old (Colin, in the foreground) is a stupid idea, which some people (Leigh Anne, who is asleep on the couch with yarn tangled in her toes) must have already known.
“Uncle Dan, will you open these stickers for me?”
“Look at my stickers!”
Kivrin is too little for stickers. But she likes them anyway. She admires Colin and Dan’s stickers instead.
Colin tickling Kivrin’s toes.
This is a photo of the very first time Kivrin scooted backwards into a sitting position. Not that you can tell, really. But it is. Look, that is Lissa, pointing excitedly on the left, and Colin cheering her on.
Even though he is a big boy now, Colin liked most of Kivrin’s toys. She was pretty nice about sharing. This trip anyway.
“Wow. Look at that. I wish I could do that with my mom. That looks like fun. Heck, I wish I could do that with anybody. I can’t wait to grow up and wrestle people.”
“Oh, I know the answer! Pick me!”
“See, the thing is, big kids feed themselves. Watch this food closely. I’m going to do something with it.”
“Well, actually, I’m going to look at it. Really, really closely. Then drop it somewhere.”
“What, isn’t this how you eat avacado? It’s how I eat avacado!”
We spent the weekend at Grandpa Staley’s house. Hopefully I’ll get more pictures shared soon, but here are a few to start.
Kivrin has started eating Puffs, which are sort of like cheerios or kix, but they dissolve more easily. She can’t really feed herself successfully yet, but we let her practice at every meal and then help her when she gets frustrated. She mostly likes to pick them up from the tray and then drop them in her lap.
Somehow I got Kivrin really messy when I was feeding her avocado, and she wasn’t even helping me!
Before the SNOW came (in the last weekend of March!!!) Grandpa cut a big bouquet of daffodils from his yard. Kivrin was very interested in the flowers. I wanted to take a posed photo of her in this “happy girl” flower outfit next to the bouquet, but she is mobile and grabby enough to make that a really bad idea. As it was, Grandpa had to be quick to keep the flowers out of Kivrin’s lunging reach.
There is a nice park within walking distance of our house. Although most of the equipment is “old” for Kivrin, she likes to explore everything with our help. She loves the baby swing, and likes to swing high (4-6 feet back and forth), as long as one of us is crouched in front of her, reassuring her that swinging is really quite fun. Swinging on the lap of Mommy or Daddy is still a good treat too!
Sitting up high, watching lions lounging in the sun, playing with Daddy’s hair. Life is good. The weather was so beautiful on Saturday (in the low 70’s) that we turned off the basketball games and spent an hour at the Topeka Zoo. Kivrin postponed her nap to look at the animals, and then took an over-tired nap at Tuptim Thai while Dan and I grabbed a nice dinner together.
Kivrin usually doesn’t look at the orangutans because they don’t move around enough to get her attention. Today was an exception, as one of the orangutans was sitting near the glass, interacting with the zoo visitors. Kivrin placed her hand on the glass, and the orangutan did the same– I don’t know if the orangutan or Kivrin was more pleased!
Kivrin was especially fascinated this visit with a giraffe who was eating in her stall. Her tail swished, her feet stomped, and when her head stretched up high, Kivrin watched in awe.
Kivrin took a quick rinse off bath in the kitchen sink after playing outside in the yard. These pictures were taken while she was still enthralled with the water, and before she started grabbing everything else within reach!
We had a beautiful photo shoot in the front yard today, trying to get some good pictures for Kivrin’s Easter card. This picture looks so pretty I wanted to share it with you now. Don’t worry — we brushed all of the mulch off of Kivrin’s Easter dress, so it will be ready to wear for the big day!
Looking at the world from a different perspective is great, especially if your new view is achieved by throwing your whole body backwards and dangling your head upside down. Kivrin now likes to do this several times in a row, several times a day. (Must more often than any of us can understand the fun behind the action.)
It’s hard to show a sound with a photo, but at least this image has two angles of Kivrin’s tongue. Her newest fun sound is a kind of baa- baa-baa sound made by sticking her tongue straight out and and then babbling as loud as possible. It’s pretty cute and I’ll try to catch it on video soon.
A word to the wise: (actually, a word to the unwise….you other folks probably already knew this…) If you kiss a baby a lot and think it will be cute when they finally kiss you back, you are forgetting one crucial element ——– saliva. Copious amounts of saliva. All over your face. Luckily, it is still pretty cute.
Lissa’s dad was in town midweek for the library’s annual Messy Science Day, and (of course) to visit his favorite granddaughter!
Kivrin is too little for slime and gluep and oobleck, so she stayed home with her daddy while Grandpa wowwed the children of Topeka with messy science activites.
Grandpa also helped us babyproof our house by building and installing a cat door in our basement doorway. Since Kivrin is more mobile every day, this was perfect timing!
We also took a walk to Boswell Park, and Kivrin took off her cute plaid hat somewhere along the way and even though we backtracked we never discovered where she dropped it along our route. Kivrin tried a baby swing and liked it. I only pushed her a nudge.
We brought up this new (borrowed from cousin Colin) toy from the basement for the first time and Kivrin liked scooting through the tunnel.
Kivrin liked playing with Grandpa, talking to him, grabbing his beard, and she even invented a new move– the backwards head first dive, which she currently loves to do. She also showed off her sweet rolling skills from one side of the kitchen to the other. And when Grandpa read her a stack of new books from the library before bed, that was really great!
March Madness is upon us and Kivrin knows just who to cheer for!
I-L-L I-N-I Let’s go, Illini!
After a successful 6 month checkup less than 2 weeks earlier, we were back at Dr. Iliff’s office to investigate the cause of Kivrin’s fever. Even though the wait times at not at all excessive, babies (and parents) get bored quickly, so a photo shoot in the examination room helps pass the time.
Kivrin was diagnosed with an ear infection in her right ear, and prescribed Amoxicillian for 10 days. On Wednesday her fever went down, so she went back to school on Thursday and Dan and I got back to work!
Admit it, you think I put the wrong title on this post.
Look at how happy this baby is, playing outside.
Only 90 minutes earlier, I had received the dreaded phone call “This is your day care. Your child has a fever and we need you to come pick her up.” This is not to make light of Kivrin’s illness — her temperature went up to almost 102 degrees overnight, but she’s just such a happy kid that most of the time she is sick, she is still playing and smiling and laughing with us. Have I mentioned lately how lucky I feel?
Kivrin was also happy to scoot around the kitchen floor, exploring my pump bag and purse. She pulled herself almost to her knees trying to reach my purse and finally scooted around the side to acheive her goal. I cut her some slack since I was frantically reading the baby books about how to treat fever symptoms!
I just liked how small Kivrin looks in this photo, tucked in her big-girl stroller, plus the contrast of my half-dead-brown-shady and half-growing-green-sunny yard in the background.
Kivrin Anne 
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