Tuesday, February 24, 2009

Happy Birthday (Presents) Ari!

After eating half a cake, we got Ari all cleaned up and went into the family room to open presents. I wasn't sure what to expect. At Christmas, she liked playing with her new toys, but had no interest at all in opening any packages. She spends all day at home emptying drawers, bags/purses/backpacks, armoires, cabinets etc. and tearing any paper she can find. (The paper is usually found in Daddy's textbooks!) So, opening presents seems like it would come naturally to her, but even at Valentine's Day she still needed a lot of prompting to open her treats from her Grandma Sherree. Well, that is not the case any longer. She started out on Daddy's lap, but it seemed to slow her down so he put her on the floor and she went for it! She has a system that she is pretty consistent with. If it is a wrapped gift she starts at the corner and gets every bit of paper off. If it's a bag all the tissue must go. The paper and tissue is placed behind her and if you happen to move any of it she stops, gets it back, and returns it to the pile. Any gifts that happen to be clothes are also placed in this "discard" pile. She even learned a couple of tricks along the way: if she runs her fingertips down the back of a box she can find the edge of the paper to tear and if a corner is too stuck, use your teeth! (There's a pic of this in the slideshow.) Thank you Gram and Granddad, Aunt Kristen and Aunt Lara for all the great gifts! Notice the rockin' outfit that was an early birthday present from Aunt Kristen!


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