Zaeda Turns One

I have quite a few clothes that I wore as a little girl and I have had fun putting Zaeda in these same outfits.

This is a picture of me at 11 months wearing my poppy’s christening gown. The gown was 57 years old in 1975. Here is Zaeda at almost 12 months wearing it. We took about a dozen pictures and most of them just have her foot in the shot. She’s a busy little girl.


Zaeda is walking a lot and she’s fast, getting into more trouble and making us chase her. One of her favorite tricks it to start up the stairs and giggle as we tell her no. It’s a game to see how many steps she can climb before we make it to her and take her back. Her record is about five.

She is now very expressive, both physically and vocally, and is starting to mimic a lot of sounds. Some of the ones we recognize:

1. Uh-oh
2. Oh no
3. Cow
4. Moo
5. Woof woof
6. Nigh Nigh (Night Night)
7. Bye Bye
8. Yesss
9. Hi

Her favorite by far is "oooohh!" and her little mouth is in the perfect little “o” shape. She waves bye-bye and night-night and points at everything. She also holds a play cell phone to her ear to “talk”.

1st Birthday Party

Zaeda’s party started off with lots of presents—adorable clothes, nesting blocks and baby dolls (the stylish blonde doll in denim was made by our very talented friend and neighbor Autumn). I tried out a new cupcake recipe which seemed to go over ok. It was a chocolate cupcake with a ganache center and meringue buttercream frosting. I didn’t think the frosting turned out that great but it was edible.

We got the customary shots of Zaeda eating her cupcake when she suddenly became very fussy. She was pulling and scratching at her ears which were bright red and the skin around her neck was also red with what looked like welts. We cleaned her up quickly and headed to urgent care thinking she was having an allergic reaction to something. We left the house in a big hurry without much of an explanation and a complete disaster of ice cream, cupcakes, tissue paper and presents. Thanks to everyone who stuck around and cleaned up.

After about 30 minutes in the waiting room Zaeda seemed to be getting better. We waited a total of 2 ½ hours before she was finally seen and diagnosed with an ear infection in both ears. Not exactly how we planned her first birthday to go but it was memorable.

Here we are at the end of Monday and Oliver is coming up on 4 days straight with a sticker on his face. Apparently one of his teachers stuck it on his face for fun, but he has since refused all requests to take it off. Once it dried on, it wouldn’t come off easily, not that he’d let us try. Right now he’s in the bathtub, where I was able to soak it a bit, but I think we’ll see sticker residue the rest of the week.

He’s been obsessed with collecting bugs in a little plastic bug collection container. There are potato bugs in our yard that’ve been caught and released four times by now. They’re learning to scatter when they hear him coming.


Oliver Quotes
“Mommy, are you joking me?”

“I’m Spiderman! I can fly!”

 "Fishing" at the local elementary school carnival