and the Celebrating continues

The celebrating of Kendall's 1st birthday is definitely not over just because it's not May 1st anymore! We've had fun week continuing on celebrating and spreading out opening more presents this week as well. I know of some families that celebrate a birthday for the month ... that sounds like fun to me! (This post is more or less for the scrapbook records!)

Before we left for the Abilene last weekend, we had received a package from Canada and a card from Kendall's great-Grandpa Byers ... and when we got home from Abilene, we had a package from Vancouver, WA ... so she had lots more to open once we got back home!

Huni and GranGran left Kendall a sweet birthday card and some money when they were here last that we opened up and read to her once we got back home ... they called her on her birthday before we left for the weekend and she got to Skype with them for a while, so that was really nice to see them on the webcam, too! (Since they are missionaries in the Ukraine, once a year when they come home in December, they always leave each of their kids & grandchildren their next bday cards & bday money, so that they don't have to worry about the postal system in the Ukraine, which is terrible!)

Grandpa Byers sent Kendall a sweet birthday card and 2 bills ... which was the perfect number for one for each of her hands, which seems to be quite important to her right now. We read her his card and she immediately grabbed her cash ... and thoroughly enjoyed playing with, clapping with & waving them around ... I'm not sure what Kendall will buy with all this money she's been given (I'm thinking she should save some of it in her cute little piggy bank!), but I'm sure I can help her shop for something!

On Monday night, we connected with Uncle B & Auntie Mary, and our 3 adorable nieces Hannah, Sadie and Kylie (Ashley's twin brother & fam who live in Vancouver, BC ... whom we will be visiting in June and Kendall will meet for the 1st time ... yippeeee!) via web conference with the PlayStation 3, so the girls could watch Kendall open her presents from them. (For the past several years, we've watched the girls open their gifts from us, so it was fun to have Kendall join in the tradition this year!) The girls are always quite entertaining and we enjoyed getting to chat with them and Brandon & Mary ... and we made more plans about some of the fun things we'll be doing on our trip! (They called us on her birthday to sing happy birthday to Kendall on our voice mail while we were in Abilene ... soo cute!)

Daddy & Kendall opening the gifts from the girls ... she opened several cute outfits, a bath jungle book with an elephant toy, and a fun book to read with Daddy & all his sound effects (as suggested by Uncle B)!

Our view of the girls (who were bathed & about to go to bed) during our web conference ... Hannah & Sadie are at the age where they are picking out some of the things that they give Kendall, which I think is so sweet! They each made her a birthday card with lots of pictures that they had drawn & wrote a message to her ... Hannah is 5 and is in Kindergarten and Sadie is 3 and is in Preschool ... and Kylie is about 18 months ... and I just can't wait to see all of them again! (Kylie was about 8 weeks old when we saw them last Christmas!)

Kendall also opened up the package from Uncle Rhett & Aunt Ya-Ya and her cute boy cousins Brandon and Tyler (who was also born last May) ... she got 2 adorable pairs of pants for this fall & a cute little cotton dress, a cell phone (of her very own ... yay!), and 2 books ... which she had to stop and read immediately (this girl LOVES books!)! (They called us while we were in Abilene and we got to talk with them on Sunday night when we got back ... they sang to Kendall ... Brandon is such a hoot!)

Kendall LOVES books ... and that makes me sooo happy! I've always loved reading, from an early age, and I really hope she will continue to, as well ... that would be one thing that I would like for her to have gotten from me! We didn't save a lot of our toys & things growing up, but I do have tons of books from our childhood! My parents have been saving them for years and years and now they've been divided up amongst my sisters and I ... and I can't wait for Kendall to be able to read them too! Do you remember the "Little Miss ___" and/or "Mr. ___" book series? I had several of them growing up ... Little Miss Chatterbox, Little Miss Bossy, Little Miss Sunshine, Little Miss Busy, Mr. Cheerful ... I loved these little books and had no idea that they still made this series until 18 months ago, over Christmas, when I was reading some books with my niece Hannah ... I was so excited and knew I would have to share these books with our kids (I was pregnant but we didn't know if it was a boy or girl at that point). I know it will be a few years before she really understands these books, but I saw this one at Target ... it was right before her birthday and I just had to get it for this special 1st birthday occasion ... so here it is, Little Miss Birthday ... Kendall's very own 1st Little Miss book!

a Little Miss book for our Little Miss! (I'm really not sure if this book series is why or how I started using the term "Little Miss" but I've used it for several years ... and now it's one (of the many) names I call Kendall!

I know there aren't a lot of pictures of Kendall on this post, but trust me (Huni!) when I say more ... yes, definitely MORE ... pictures are coming in a few upcoming posts ... so prepare yourself ... ha!