Quinn Marie is 11 months old!

Quinn turned 11 months old last Friday. She really is getting to be such a big girl! Here are the highlights from this month:

1. She's walking. A lot. She's officially mastered the art of "toddling" and there's a video below to prove it. She LOVES wandering around the house now and it's so fun to see her walking about.

2. She's communicating so much more. You've heard recently about book, puppy and "who's that?" but she's also doing things that indicate she knows what we're talking about (like looking for Millie) and doing little things to respond to us.

3. She loves us and can show it now too! Ask for a kiss and Quinn will give you a big open-mouthed smacker. Very cute...as long as it's not Will Bemis or Owen Welling asking for that kiss!

4. She's getting picky with her food. She's eaten capers, artichokes, kiwi and more, but if she's not in the mood for it, then no way Jose and Mildred gets the food instead. (Happy Millie, not so happy Mommy.)

5. She is so happy and her laughs, grins and squeals just light up our life!

So here she is, not-up-to-par PJs and all! (But we LOVE Daddy for taking the bunny pics while I was gone!)

Prizes will be awarded to those who guess what Jay is gesturing about in the second clip.

Quinn's Dad is Awesome

Quinn absolutely loves her Daddy and can you blame her? He reads her books, plays with her and buys her this sweet onesie proclaiming his awesomeness.

You can see how awesome she thinks he is here. :)

My favorite thing now is that she squeals "Da-da" when the phone rings (but of course is silent once we answer it).

Aren't they the cutest?

Q hearts Books

Ask what Quinn's favorite "toy" is right now and you'll get the same answer from all of us: books! She absolutely loves being read to, turning pages and just pulling all the books off her shelf. Clearly it's a sign of high intelligence.

Oh, and did we mention she eats the books too?

Monday Mother's Day

As many of you know, we celebrated Mother's Day on Monday. Sunday was not the most awesome day for the Syverson family, but we made up for it on Monday. It was SO nice to have positive news from the doctor and get Jay back home with us, so we celebrated by not going into work Monday afternoon and enjoyed some much-needed family time instead.

First, I received an amazing Coach purse from Quinn and Jay and very sweet cards to go along with it. Then we headed to lunch at Waterfront which was delicious and quite fun. Quinn got to have sweet potato fries and clam chowder (sans the clams) and was the star of the restaurant -- quite well-behaved and oh-so-cute. After lunch we shopped a little bit and then treated ourselves to Maggie Moo's. I even broke my rule of "no-sweets-til-Quinn's-first-birthday" and let her try ice cream. It was a little too cold for her, but we think she liked it!

At home, I was treated to Wrestlemania starring Quinn Marie & Mildred which is always quite entertaining.

We had sushi for dinner (my absolute favorite) and watched a little Broadway documentary after Quinn went to bed. So despite a rocky start, it was a lovely, lovely first Mother's Day with my two favorite people!

Long time, no blog

Hello Quinn fans! I'm so sorry I've kept you away from her for so long! Here are my excuses: we've been quite busy, I had no internet for 2 days and then, well, Jay. :) But all is better (including Jay) now so we're back to updating you on Iowa's cutest little redhead.

A lot has been going on with Quinn this past week! First, she's been "talking" a lot more. Mostly it's words only we can decipher as her parents (and Morgan), but it's communication and progress for our little girl! She says "boo" for book, "puppa" for puppy and this morning she said her own little version of "who's that?" when looking in the mirror. (We always ask her "who's that baby?" when she looks in the mirror, which is quite frequently.)

She is also mastering this walking thing! She wanders all around the house (as much as we'll let her anyway) and can now stand up on her own without anything to support herself. Quite impressive!

No videos of all this action yet, but here are some of my favorite pics from my fancy new iPhone. :)

This last one is demonstrating how big she's getting. I bought it as a dress...will be used as a top instead!

Look out Jackson town

Last night we had the privilege of watching the cutest little guy Jackson Gregg. And Quinn had the pleasure of overwhelming him completely. Jackson is a mellow little 5-month-old and Quinn is a not-so-much mellow 10-month old, which made things quite comical for us.

Here he is, the cutie-pie hanging out innocently in the exersaucer...

...and here's his reaction when he sees Quinn.

"Let me at him!"

After accosting young Jackson, Quinn tried to show him how to use one of the exersaucer toys (it involved squealing in a very high pitch and flailing her arms). Jackson was clearly impressed.

Eventually, Quinn had enough of the exersaucer business and moved on to bigger things, like walking with the activity mat. (For you non-baby people, that thing is supposed to stay on the floor.) Never a dull moment with little Quinn!

Sunday Funday!

Today was a very fun day with Quinn. She was in a great mood all day and was constantly hamming it up! We had a mid-day visit from our college buddies Robin & Chris Rooney. Quinn was quite taken with Chris and made us laugh so much as she said "heeey" to him and smiled and squealed.

She's also walking a LOT more! She walked all around the room for the Rooneys and got even better as the day went on. I might say we're getting pretty darn close to a full-fledged walker!

Another trick she kept doing for us all was putting her hands up when she says uh-oh. Morgan taught her to do this and it's so stinkin' cute!

Today was also the first day I used a lint brush on Quinn. She and Millie played together a bunch and even though it's super-cute, our little pug gets hair everywhere. Quinn doesn't care though. She loves her puppy!