Zahra’s 1st Birthday Safari

Zahra’s 1st birthday party was a smash! I don’t think the day could have gone any better. I had my lovely family to help me with all the preparations~gosh I don’t know what I would have done without them. I even had time to put some makeup on and do my hair before the party started (usually that never happens when we have parties!).  Zahra had a nice nap right before the party and woke up just before the first person arrived.  There was 21 adults that came and 6 of Z’s best buddies.  The day was truly special for my big 1 year old~thanks everyone for coming and making it so great!

       

 

 

 

Fun,  fun, and more fun!!!!!!!!

 

 

 

Here’s a photo montage of ‘Simba the lion’

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

So the lion thing went pretty well~considering the ages. We only had one little sad one (poor Owen) but he did get over it and gave Simba a high five! Shrya absolutely loved it, Zahra did too! The others were a little skeptical. Overall, I think Anil loved it the most :) And despite the pictures Anil was not trying to be scary…you should have heard his voice (lOl).

 

 

 

 

 Fun fun and more fun but this time outside!!

  

 

Presents & Cake

  

Zahra didn’t love her birthday cake but she did get a bit messy and even managed to throw some cake on Oma.

The best 6am surprise ever!!

So it was a normal Wednesday morning. Anil & I were sleeping comfortably. I was in dreamland and all of a sudden there was a doorbell going off in my dream. I came to a slight consciousness and asked Anil 'was that our doorbell or was it in my dream?" He rolls over and says it was our doorbell and goes back to sleep. I dozed back into a sleep and then heard it again~defiantly our doorbell. So I hurriedly got up and walked downstairs to see what the heck was going on. It was 6am who could possibly be at our door this time in the morning and who the heck was ringing the doorbell (I have a sign saying please don't ring doorbell). I see a little boy outside as I am walking down the stairs. What the heck~did someone abandon their kid? In the past couple weeks some strange things have happened to me where I have had to help some random strangers (at the Dells there was a little boy running in the parking lot crying looking for his dog~he was 5 and his stuffed animal got thrown from the balcony while his Mom was in the bathroom. She had no idea where he was. Then the other day at Mayo an older lady falls in the middle of the street right in front of me.) So I open the door and there is my nephew Blake sitting on the grass. I ran out there screaming “I knew it!” over and over again. My Mom, 3 Sisters, and Blake had driven straight thru to MN from ID for Zahra’s 1st birthday! What a wonderful surprise! A few weeks earlier my sister randomly asked me if anyone was going to stay with us the weekend of Z’s bday party. Right away I was suspicious but during the week of Z’s party after talking to my Mom and Jen I was convinced that they weren’t coming out. They were able to stay until Sunday morning. We had so much fun with our surprise visitors!

 

Unfortunately, we had to take Z into the emergency room the day the arrived for a couple hours. Everything turned out alright~it was very scary though. We still don’t know what happened to her. She was sitting in her highchair talking up a storm watching Blake eat~ she had finished 5 minutes earlier. When she went from very happy to hysterical within seconds. She couldn’t swallow so she was drooling all over, screaming in pain. Her mouth was making a strange sound. This went on for a few minutes and then I called her doctor and they told us to bring her into the ER.  At first I thought she was chocking on something but there was nothing we could see, she wasn’[t coughing and she was still breathing then her jaw was doing a funky thing so I thought maybe her jaw was locked. By the time we got to the ER and saw the MD she was back to normal. She was so good when they were examining her putting tongue blades down her throat, looking in her ears- not one tear from her. I guess compared to what she just went thru that was nothing. They said we could do a couple xrays to see if there is anything unusual but we opted not to since she was herself again. Very strange. Thank God everything was okay!

  Zahra and Blake had so much fun playing together!! As you can see in all these pictures:

 

~Z’s new thing is sharing her toys~

    

Bubble bath!

 

 

Taking some steps.

This week Zahra started taking some steps~ the most she took was 6 so she hasn’t took off running yet.

 

For Zahra's birthday we went to Oxbow Zoo for a picnic

  

Presents

Her favorite part was the cards!

 

                     instruments from Daddy                                                                                                                        stroller & puzzle from Mommy  

Fun car from the Montanez’s 

 

Playhouse from Oma, Papa, and Auntie Keziah & Em

   

My big 1 year old!!!!!

We love summer!

Pool, Pool, and More Pool!!

We probably go to the pool once a week….twice a week on a good and hot week. We joined the RAC this winter and I am so glad we did. It had really kept me busy~ I am now playing tennis about 3 times a week. Two matches and one practice. I have been enjoying it soo much!! At first I had a great record now it is about 50% wins but that really doesn't matter. What matters is that I am getting out and having some ‘me’ time and lovin it! I am excited for this winter and getting Z more involved in fun classes at the RAC.

Loretta & Anne came up for a fun weekend. We went to the pool and then left the babies sleeping that night with Anil and went out on the town~ had some yummy oatmeal cookies ;)

 

Bath time!

 

 

A Visit From Grandpa

  Tim came to visit for a few hours. We went to MOA. Zahra was staring at some flying things in lego land here. I couldn’t get her to look at the camera to save my life.

I have no idea who the character is below but it was fun to have her first picture with a character. This was Zahra’s first visit to the MOA. I’m not sure why we haven’t gone before this~ we had so much fun!

INext stop the aquarium!

some fun videos of.....you guessed it Zahra!

Zahra loves to play outside. We got her this fun new water table~ which she loves!! She is getting so close to walking I thought a couple times there she was going to walk over to her pool. She stands up all the time not holding onto anything for minutes at a time and has taken a couple baby steps towards me but that doesn't really count. I literally have the video camera where ever we are at in the house because I want to get the first couple steps on video.

We have been doing sigh language with Zahra since she we started feeding her solid food- so right around 5 months. She did her first sign "all done" about 9 1/2 months, "more & milk" about 10 months. This month she's really using her signs more consistent and correctly to communicate during mealtime. Today she did "eat" as we were going to the kitchen to have lunch. When she watches her signing video she will sign "duck, hat & dog" too. Its so much fun to see her communicate and learn~ I know this is just the beginning!!

 "more & milk"

being silly & practicing her "uh oh"

"all done"

11 months old ~~ WOW!

 She is getting more into books and will actually leaf thru them now instead of just trying to eat the pages.                                                      

Z loves to look outside...

and she loves her kitties!

So I was going to do a new post today when I realized I never finished this one...so here is a very short and sweet post with pictures of our darling Zahra.

A Fun 4th of July Weekend!

So we had a good 4th of July Weekend. The 4th is actually one of my most favorite holidays...I think because it is usually hot & sunny! So we started off the weekend with having the Deimels over for a BBQ. It was the perfect evening for it and luckly the bugs weren't too bad. Drew and Zahra are just a couple weeks apart- they had fun hanging out together!  

We shot off a couple fireworks for the girls then did some sparklers. Zahra thought it was pretty cool.

On Sautrday me & Z went to Riverfest in LaCrosse. We met Bekah, Kim, and Owen downtown. Z had her first experience with cheesecurds (she thought they were ok) then we watched pig races last but not least Owen & Zahra rode on the train. We also went to say our goodbyes to the Alameidas who are moving too Arizona next week- we will miss them.

Mississippi in the background. It was a very hot day but the breeze saved us!

 

Happy 4th of July

Aww what a cutie pie!

Had to take a break and suck her fingers & rub her hair.

 Zahra is addicted to her fingers. We have successfully trained her not too suck them while she is in the highchair (took about a week) now we are going to work on appropriate times to suck on her 2 favorite fingers & rub her hair. It maybe cute to you but I'm kinda over it...especially when she is crawling around on a dirty floor and takes a break to suck. Granted I sucked my finger until I was in 3rd grade so I can't criticize too much.

Anil had a good call on Saturday night and got to sleep some so his postcall day he actually felt like doing something- so we went swimming indoors (it rained the entire 4th).  

I joined a tennis league at the RAC this summer. Today was my first game. Yes, I got a skirt. I had too I would have been the only one without so I gave in- it was actually pretty handy stuffing the balls up in the attached underwear. I was so nervous about playing but it went really well. Our first set we won 6-3 then 6-1. I was so happy and had a lot of fun too!!