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Kivrin received a GIANT box of early birthday presents from her Gramma Mary!
She looks on with interest at a purple plush that is trying to escape.
Kivrin liked banging on top of the box. (Yes, she is holding a dirty sock. Her favorite things right now are dolls and dirty socks. She likes clean socks too, but we seem to have more dirty socks on the floor at home.)
Kivrin is very interested in the special book that Gramma sent “Creature Comforts” about people and their security objects. Kivrin hasn’t choosen a security object yet, although increasingly any small doll or sock seems to make her happy when she is having a quiet time.
Kivrin wasn’t interested in wearing this hat herself yet, but the moment it went on her Mama’s head, she wanted it!
The box contained lots of great underwater-themed toys to match the theme of Kivrin’s bedroom. Kivrin is making a funny fish face back at this clown fish.
Kivrin crawled right over and started helping take things out of the box!
Kivrin and I read the Creature Comforts book together, at least a few pages anyway.
After all of that present-opening, Kivrin was pretty wound up. This is a picture of Kivrin and Mama rough housing together.
Thank you Gramma Mary for all of the wonderful presents! The musical triangle is also a favorite, and is featured in the latest video!
For the conclusion of our fabulous anniversary weekend getaway, we went to the Kansas City Zoo for the afternoon.
Kivrin and Dan watching a monkey together.
Kivrin liked to watch the meerkats. And to stand on her own at the fence, with the animals at eye level.
Kivrin and I admiring some monkeys.
Kivrin giving the lowland gorilla a friendly wave hello. (He was lounging, which I’m sure she admired!)
This was the view from our lunch (peas and tofu for the baby, nachos and pretzels for the parents) at the zoo. The farthest little animal on the right is the brand new baby zebra.
Kivrin and her daddy went to admire the lions and this one was right up close!
It was pretty obvious when Kivrin was done for the day! We went through the new rainforest exhibit while she was sleeping, and she slept the whole way home to Topeka. It was a wonderful weekend away, but Kivrin was happy to see her bath toys, her trucks and eating in her high chair while watching the cats. All her favorites!
Behold Kivrin’s absolute joy at a bizzare monkey toy she charmed out of our waiters at the Mexican restaurant near our house (El Agave)…she left a huge mess of rice everwhere, we left a big tip to compensate for the mess and then they gave her a present!
Kivrin discovered at the big Barnes and Noble on the plaza that she could push around the stroller herself!
At the same store, Kivrin and I discovered TRAINS! neither one of us is very good at playing trains yet — Kivrin throws them and Lissa tries to hook them together backwards, but we both had a good time.
This is a naptime reenactment of how Kivrin hogged the king sized bed all night for our big anniversary trip. Although she does not sleep across the pillows at the top (yet) I think she gets this bed-hogging from her Aunt Leigh Anne!
Although the water in the outdoor pool was cool, Kivrin loveed swimming and splashing.
This picture doesn’t look like much, but it illustrates three of Kivrin’s newest hobbies — the first, holding socks. She likes to carry around socks (clean, dirty, doesn’t matter to her) like little dolls. The second activity is dragging around grownup shoes by the laces. She likes to carry a pair and walk around dangling them with her. The third activity is lounging. Kivrin likes to lounge on mommy or daddy, or course, or on the bed or the couch. Here she is lounging on the floor, with her feet up on the stroller.
Kivrin entertaining herself (an iphone video during dinner)
Lissa and Daniel took a special weekend trip for their 5th wedding anniversary, and Kivrin came with us! We ate dinner at Buca di Beppo on the Kansas City Plaza, figuring (correctly) that at a busy family style restaurant, Kivrin would enjoy herself and fit right in! She even got to sit in a booster seat between us in a big comfy booth. All of the waiters and waitresses stopped to get smiles from the baby, and Kivrin had a blast!
Kivrin signing her version of “more” and getting a bite of mashed potatoes.
Kivrin chewing on the heel of the bread and playing with her monkey.
Kivrin and I got Daniel some “daddy cakes” for his birthday. Kivrin didn’t get any of the supersized deluxe glamorous cupcakes for herself, but she eyed them with interest.
Besides all of the other valid reasons for child labor laws, let’s face it, babies are not good helpers. Here Kivrin is helping me snap green beans that Carrie’s dad grew for us. While Kivrin likes to pull things out of the bowl even occasionally put things back into the bowl, she decreased the over productivity of our task by a large amount.
Kivrin was equally unhelpful with the ribbons of my fairy-skirt-making project, although she enjoyed them A LOT.
This was supposed to be a picture of Kivrin walking, but she came in for a cute little snuggle instead.
This is also supposedly a picture of Kivrin walking at the Topeka zoo on July 11th (about a week after she took her first steps). We figured she would want to toddle around a bit, so we didn’t bring in a stroller or sling, but every time we set her down, she plopped down and refused to move! So, we lugged her around the zoo the old fashioned way, in our arms.
I’m sure we’ve posted similar pictures before, but look, Kivrin’s waving to the elephant. That never gets old.
until I have time to sort through the 3.7 GB of photos and videos we came home with…
We were at the mall on Saturday to see and be seen, since Kivrin is quite the social butterfly. She loves the food court best, since she can maximize her smiles-per-square-foot.
Kivrin was playing peek-a-boo through the garden house mailbox at school last week when I snapped this picture.
I’m all caught up on pictures taken with my phone now — you’ll notice a sad sad absence of QuadCam photos — the application broke with the new iPhone OS 3.0 update and there hasn’t been an update released yet.
Here is one I took with a new app called ColorSplash
Kivrin and Mommy reading Hand Hand Finger Thumb by Al Perkins and Where is Baby’s Belly Button by Karen Katz.
Daddy’s dirty socks!!! They are so amusing. You can hug them, throw them, pick them up again and again, and drop them behind your head, only to discover them right there behind you, completely delighted to see them and grab them all over again.
The last 10 months have flown by. Kivrin’s personality is emerging more every day. I would describe her as extrememly social, very physically active and daring. She likes banging her toys to make loud noises and will squeal with delight when she sees one of our cats. When I asked Dan, he described her as boisterous and fickle and also a cutie pie. Her newest “skills” lately include trying to carry mutiple toys in the same hand (2-3 legos, 2-4 gears, etc.) and getting frustrated when she can’t carry everything and crawl at the same time. She says “mama” pretty regularly now, and although sometimes it seems related to seeing me, most often it seems to mean “this situation isn’t to my satisfaction, fix it now.” She hasn’t said “dada” yet but is adding to the combinations of sounds she says to make up longer words lately and has been babbling happily both to herself and to us. She is picking things up and putting them behind her head a lot, sometimes pretending to talk on the telephone, often just dropping the thing behind her. Three teeth on top are working their way through the gums this week. In the past few days, she has started standing unassisted for 10 seconds at a time. Dan says she was trying to see how many times she could clap before grabbing onto his leg again (apparently, it is three). She loves to take a cloth (a scarf, a burb cloth, a wet washcloth, etc.) and a toy (her monkey, her doll, her sippy cup, a lego) and wrap up the toy with the cloth and then cuddle it against her and then uncover it and do it again. She is eating more table food, scrambled eggs and pancakes, spaghetti, mexican rice, and drinking whole milk out of a sippy cup. She’s still nursing during the day and at night, but has no trouble taking a bottle when mommy is away, and Dan even offered her a cup today instead of a bottle for one feeding, with some success.
This is the best clearance sale $6 I’ve spent lately — a wooden tractor trailer complete with logs and a driver. Kivrin loves pushing it around, taking it apart and most of all – banging the logs together and on everything else in the kitchen!
Sometimes now Kivrin will yawn after someone else does, but mostly she is still the one causing us to yawn!
Well, we tried to make a holiday card since it has been awhile since our Easter card….but we can’t seem to get any great shots. Here are the best three of Kivrin wearing her special 4th of July t-shirt.
Smiling at her daddy
Showing me the gross wet leaf she picked up off the porch
Laughing with delight at herself
recorded and uploaded from mommy’s new iPhone!!!
Kivrin made her daddy a very special gift at school to celebrate his first father’s day. The framed picture has a cute poem, Kivrin’s picture and a handprint.
Unfortunately, Dan had to work at the library on Father’s Day, but Kivrin and Lissa tried not to do anything fun until he got home again. The cats even joined us for an afternoon nap!
Kivrin Anne 
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