Category Archive

Our dear friend Laurel came to visit us from California for the past week and we were so happy to have her with us! Kivrin loved her, of course and we spent time catching up, doing crafts, hanging out with the baby, and visiting Laurel’s favorite spots around Topeka.

Laurel and Lissa were matched through the Big Brothers/Big Sisters of Topeka program back in November of 2001 (when Laurel was a spunky 8 year old and Lissa was a spry young 23 year old!) and Laurel will always be a special member of our family.

Laurel and Kivrin hamming it up for the camera!

Kivrin showing us the orangutan at the zoo.

Kivrin taking a ride in the cart at Target during an impromptu shopping spree.

This is Kivrin’s first bite of  a Jimmy John’s sandwich. She didn’t get much, but she liked trying. Jimmy John’s doesn’t have any booster seats or high chairs, so Kivrin got to sit on my lap at the booth while we ate.

Laurel had fond memories of hangin gout at the local roller skating rink, the Sk8away, so we went for an open skating session on Saturday afternoon. Laurel roller skated around and Kivrin and I watched from the little snack bar area. Kivrin was enthralled with the skaters and the flashing lights. (and I got nachos from the snack bar, so everyone was happy!)

Laurel is passionate about rainbows. Enough said. 🙂 Her purple hair wasn’t much of a surprise – I remember the very first week I hung out with her 8 years ago. When I picked her up, parts of her hair were bright pink. When I asked about it, she said the babysitter had done it, and it was supposed to wash out but it didn’t! This purple isn’t supposed to wash out, but it does, and so Laurel has to redo the dye periodically.

Laurel is becoming quite the artist and is sketching and drawing constantly. She used markers to make Kivrin a personalized shirt that says “I love unicorns.”

Kivrin and Laurel making music together — Kivrin on the rattle and Laurel on the Ocarina iPhone app!

Laurel brought homework along with her — she worked on it while Kivrin entertained herself in the living room.  

Lissa and Laurel posing for a nice “sisters” picture on Laurel’s last day in Topeka…and then being silly to entertain the baby….

We miss you already Laurel — we hope you can come visit again soon!

Kivrin loves lounging — in bed, in her chair, on the floor. It’s adorable to see her enjoying her newfound abilities to move around how she wants, and to relax how she wants too! She will stand up and sit down and slouch around in the chair over and over.

We have usually tried to vacuum while Kivrin is at school or not at home, but we discovered after a very messy muffin-eating session that she doesn’t mind if we vacuum when she is awake to watch!

A photo of Kivrin sleeping in her mama’s arms that I edited using my iphone.

Kivrin and mama sleeping in the morning. Kivrin has been consistently staying up to almost 9pm and sleeping past 7 am the past few weeks (though still nursing several times in the night).

I made Kivrin a little space with pillows and a blanket on the living room floor. She used a blanket to wrap up her baby doll.

Messiest face ever — Kivrin seems to know when it is bath night and she gets extra messy with her dinner. I think this was beets and baby food…I can’t remember what else is smeared all over her face though! She is obviously pretty happy while messy!

Kivrin is a climber, although she doesn’t have much to climb on at our house. Here she is using her chair to try to reach the picture frames high on the wall above her, with little success. She has been very interested in looking at pictures/photos lately. She loves looking at the photos of when her Mama and Aunt Leigh Anne were little girls, and also of her family photos on the bulletin board at day care. And any photo of an animal is great, especially if she can get someone to make animal noises for her if she keeps pointing at the picture! (She has us well trained.)

Kivrin and Mama pose for a quick picture while playing in the kitchen.

Kivrin got some play time with her Grandma Sandy and Grandpa Steve  when they came from Kansas City to bring our friend Laurel from the airport. Kivrin is showing off for Grandma with both her baby doll and her car.

Kivrin crashed out on the couch for a nap — she is a lounger and loves to spread out in every direction.

Kivrin likes when we blow bubbles, although she doesn’t chase them too much. She likes to watch them float in the air, and she likes when *we* chase them.

This is the rocking chair where I sit to nurse Kivrin every day at her school. I put her up on it so that she could rock her baby doll. She likes to use old soft burp cloths to wrap up her baby dolls and fusses if her teachers try to substitute a baby blanket instead.

Now you see why Kivrin loves to try to climb the stairs — at the top is our little cat, Ella, trying to escape from Kivrin! We have a gate in the hallway so that Kivrin can’t get to the stairs on her own.

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!

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!