Zaida's Birthday

It's hard to believe that a year ago we were sitting in the NICU for a week waiting to take Zaida home. We have been blessed since then with a happy, healthy little girl with a knack for adventure. This last week we were able to have Eden's parents visit to help celebrate Zaida's birthday. She didn't seem to mind the extra attention and loved to "talk" to her grandparents and walk around the apartment back and forth from one person to the other to see what everyone was doing.

On her birthday everyone went outside to enjoy the day. While outside one of our neighbors came out and offered everyone an otter pop. Zaida's got spilt on the side walk so Eden got some water to wash it off. The water end up in the grass/dirt making mud that Zaida found and enjoyed playing with.

After dinner we came home and Zaida got to open her presents. Notice Eden's white necklace that Zaida is wearing. She has worn that thing for probably the past week and has become quite attached to it. If she sees it she has to wear it. She will then start walking around the apartment taking the necklace off and putting it back on. Zaida was more interested in a DVD from the library than opening her presents, but once she pulled out her new toys she seemed pretty pleased with the product. It was hard to get her to put them down so we could have her pull out the other items in the bags.

Before the night ended we stripped Zaida down to her diaper and sat her in the her high chair for the ever messy cake and ice cream eating. Eden cut her a piece of cake and we placed it right in front of her. She touched the icing but didn't want to pick it up, so Eden got a fork and we gave her a bite. She smiled as though she liked it but wouldn't eat anymore so I gave her another bite off the fork. This time she took about half of it. It was about this time that she noticed the banana she had been carrying around prior to being placed in her chair. She motioned for me to open it and then began eating it until it was finished, this was a strange feat due to the fact that she usually will only eat one or two bites of banana. Upon completing the banana she started fussing to be let out of her chair so she got down and that was it.

Out west

This is late in coming, but I thought that I would put it up anyway. At the end of August we got a phone call from my Dad telling us that my grandpa had past away and the funeral would be sometime the following week. I talked with my brother, Ryan, and his family to discuss traveling together since they live 4 hours east of us. We decided to drive and we would leave that night (Friday), drive through the night so the girls would sleep the whole way and everyone would be happy when we got to Utah.
Ryan, Rachel, and Jane got here just about 11 pm so we took off around midnight. Zaida had fallen asleep on our drive home from the state fair (which was only about 10 minutes away) so she was already in her car seat. Three hours into our trip our plan to have the girls sleep the whole trip failed as Zaida woke up. Both her and Jane woke up off and on through the night and the morning. However we still were able to make pretty good time as we made it to my parents house in 13 hours.

While in Utah we enjoyed time with family and going up to Idaho to visit Eden's parents and grandparents. While there we even got to have an early birthday party for Zaida. We were able to spend a little over a week back "home" and enjoyed seeing everyone again. Here are some pictures from the trip.

This is what breakfast accommodations were in Rawlins on the way out. Zaida seemed to like her perch on the storage bins.Zaida took her Grandpa for a walk around the Box Elder County Fair

While we were in Idaho Eden's family had an early birthday party for Zaida.

If you ever find yourself in Idaho Falls around lunch time you should hit this place up just so you can say you ate at the tie-dye bagel shop, just don't expect too much, I mean it's still a bus.

We thought Zaida would enjoy feeding the ducks and geese on the river in Idaho Falls, but it turns out she enjoyed feeding herself more.

Before we left the river we went over by the boat dock and as soon as Zaida saw the ramp to the water she went to the edge. That wasn't close enough, we were barely able to get her clothes off in time for her to go splashing around. She is apparently unfazed by cold water because I sure wouldn't go in it.