Jaida's 10th Birthday!

Jaida had to share her birthday this year with Alyssa's baptism. I don't think she was very happy about it. Not everyone could stay, so we hurried and fed everyone after the baptism, then later that night she FINALLY got to open her presents.
New jeans!

A new watch, and her bedspread in the background.

Her choice of dinner was waffles! Since we had already had dessert earlier with all the family, we stuck a candle in her waffle and sang to her again! :)

Best enemies....uh I mean Best Friends. ha ha

Cards with money! Always a good thing!

Her Justin Bieber shirt that she begged for after Alyssa got one for her birthday. After I bought it she decided that she hated Justin Bieber. When she opened the shirt a little over a month later she was "disgusted". It was pretty funny. She will not wear it in public, and only wears it for sleeping. Whatever. I can't keep up with the fads. At least the shirts were only $1 at Walmart.

And last but not least, Jaida's "new" room! She had dark green walls, so she picked a fun, bright green color. She also had a cute bedspread to match, but when we got it out I had accidentally bought a full size, so we had to take it back. When we returned it, she found this one she liked better. I like this one better too!

I really liked how this room turned out too. I was able to get her dresser painted white, which helped, but she will have to wait on the blinds. Little bits at a time, so we will add to hers probably at Christmas too! Anywyay, she loves it!

Happy Birthday Jaida!!! We love you!

Happy 9th Birthday Jaida!!!

Nine years ago on April 9th my sweet little Jaida snuck in to this world a tad too early. Born at 27 weeks, weighing just 2 lbs. 12 oz., and measuring 15 inches long. She scared us all half to death by coming that early, and we didn't know what the next few hours, days, weeks, or months would mean for us.

Needless to say, here she is 9 years later, a perfectly happy, healthy little girl. She is our little miracle baby! We love her and are so proud of the big girl she is becoming!!

We went shopping and she was determined to have these blendy pens!!

She also chose Pixos!

Mom decided it was time for a new jacket!

And a girl can always use a new pair of pajamas!

Her little brother played photographer for the night and captured a close-up of her new piggy bank! (This year Target had the cutest banks, so I made it a goal to get each of my kids one for their birthday.)

She also got money from Grandma & Grandpa Saul, and Great Grandma Wittick, and a sewing machine from Grandpa & Grandpa Robison!

We love you Jaida! We hope you had a really fun birthday!

Eight is Great!

Last Saturday our little Jaida was baptized. It was her special day! A new dress, new shoes, new scriptures engraved with her own name instead of mom's old ones. :) A very cute scripture case from Grandma and Grandpa Robison, and the Gift of the Holy Ghost. What more could a girl want? Being 8 really is great! She was so excited and happy, and couldn't quit smiling the whole day.

She was baptized by her dad, and confirmed by her Grandpa Robison.

It has been kind of ironic, when we moved into Moroni, we moved into an old friend of mine's ward. We were best friends growing up, and it has been weird to end up here close to her in Moroni of all places. Anyway, she also has a daughter who is a couple months older than Jaida. It just so happened that they were able to get baptized on the same day.

Here is just Courtney and Jaida together. They were in the same class last year, and have become friends. I think it was fun for them to be baptized on the same day too.

Congratulations Jaida! We sure love you!

*As a side note, I do have to say, that yesterday at church the bishopric member who was conducting called Jaida up to the podium to announce her baptism. We were sitting all the way at the back. She did not even hesitate to make the LONG walk up to the front.
It was kind of crazy too, because if the primary is singing, she WILL NOT go up there. Ever since we have moved she is too shy to do anything. Well, not yesterday. I was so proud of her!!!

Flashback Friday!

Since we just celebrated Jaida's birthday, I thought I'd flashback to the pictures of her birth, and some time spent in the NICU. We were only in there 7 weeks, and at the time it felt like the longest 7 weeks of our lives. We know we were truly blessed with a miracle! We also had a wonderful family support system, and couldn't have gone through any of it without you!

Here she is at 1 day old!

Tiny little foot, and Eric's thumb.

Eric's finger holding her hand.

The traditional picture by the $1 bill.

Great Grandma Robison in awe of all this. This type of technology was never around back in her day.

A little cry or a yawn, I can't tell.

At about 3 weeks, they discovered that her head was starting to swell. She would need to have surgery to drain off the access fluid. She had grade 3 hydrocephylus caused by a blood clot in each of the ventricles in her brain. Here they are getting her ready for the surgery.

It took several of them to transport her and all the machines they would need.

This was one of the scariest days of my life!

Here she is after surgery, which went really well. The doctors had to drain the fluid for a few days through a shunt, and then things magically started to work on their own. They told us that there was a 90% chance she would need a permanent shunt for the rest of her life. I guess we were in the 10%. About 6 months later when she was much bigger and really healthy they went in and removed the shunt (which was called an Omaya Reservoir). We have never looked back since.

It wasn't long after that that we could finally take her out and hold her for small periods at a time.

Eyes wide open! She finally felt like saying hello to the world.

Great Grandma Wittick came to visit.

And Grandma Saul.

Still needing lots of rest!

Mom getting a much loved snuggle!

And soon, we were on our way home!

Aunt Celia decorated the front of the house.

And Jaida looking very content!

Jaida's 8th Birthday!!

As most of you know, Jaida was our little preemie! She was born at 27 weeks, weighing 2 lbs. 12 oz. Considering all that she went through, she is our little miracle! Today is her 8th birthday, and you would NEVER know she had a rough start! For her birthday post I decided to post a picture for each year! Enjoy!

Just 2 days old!

About 6 months!

Here she is at 12 months.

At about 2 years.

Age 3.

Happy Birthday 4 yr. old!

Age 5 at a Primary Rodeo Activity.

Age 6 feeding her new little brother Cade.

Age 7.

And Happy Birthday 8 yr. old!! Here she is at Build-A-Bear!! This became a family tradition this year at our house. We love you Jaida! We are so glad we were blessed to have and keep you in our family!

Flashback Friday!

I jumped on the blogging bandwagon a little later than most, so I have so much "old stuff" I'd love to journal and write about. There is no way I will ever catch up, but I found this cute idea on another blog I stumbled across. I decided to use it also, so hopefully it's not copyrighted! :-)

This post is called Flashback Friday! Every Friday I will randomly pick an old photo or group of photos and post about it! If anything it will keep me posting at least once a week. :-)

The December Countdown was fun and all, but I'm just not that exciting of a writer to post every day! Anyway, enjoy my memories!

Here are some great shots from January of 2005. Grandma Saul was visiting and braved the snow with the kids! Building a totally cool snowman!

Building a snowfort and having a snowball fight!!!

And last but not least, making snow angels!!! Thanks for the good times grandma! We love you!