Zahra's 6th Birthday

Here's Zahra on Friday morning, her 6th birthday. Can you tell this is before I fixed her hair for school? She opened her gifts when we came downstairs in the morning. One of the things she wanted was a flashlight, so here she's happily testing it out. She opened some other things from Nana Mommy and Auntie Sis before we got ready for school.

Since Valentine's Day was on Sunday, the kids had their celebrations at school on Friday, which also happened to be Zahra's birthday. The kids aren't allowed to pass out candy or sweets, so they just exchanged little Valentine's Day cards. As it was good practice for the kids to work on their handwriting, the kindergarten teachers requested that all the Valentines be addressed by the students themselves. Since I knew this would be quite a bit of work, we began the project on Superbowl Sunday and got a good majority of them done. She worked on them some more during the week and turned them in on Wednesday, when they were due. So not only did the kids have Valentine's Day stuff, Zahra got a special birthday crown to wear all day. We also donated a book to the classroom ("Are You My Mother?" by P.D. Eastman), one of Zahra's favorites. It's one that we own, so she's asked me over and over again to read it to her. I found a little board book version for $5 at Barnes and Noble, so that's the one we gave to her class. (The school requests no sweets, so they suggest giving out pencils to the class or donating a book that the teacher reads first thing in the morning.)

Here we are, right after school, arriving in the parking lot at Disneyland. I wanted to get a picture of Zahra in her birthday hat, before it came off. Little did I know, she would wear that hat for the rest of the day, and the next day, too!

Ever since we got a little umbrella stroller, Zahra has been eager to push Max around. (She wanted to do this with our other stroller, but since it's so much taller, she can't see where she's going. The smaller size of this stroller makes it easier for her to look where she's going, though that doesn't necessarily make her that much of a better navigator!)

And when Max gets tired of getting pushed around, guess who sits where he is now? Big 6 year old Zahra...

Zahra used to be scared to take pictures with the characters (like the White Rabbit here from Alice in Wonderland), but now she runs right up and gets ready to get her picture taken. I even remember when she would be scared if she was even being held in your arms.

Here are Willie and Zahra waiting in line to ride Big Thunder Mountain Railroad. This was definitely one of my favorite rides when we visited Disneyland when I was a teenager. Since Zahra is now 40" tall, she can go on more roller coasters like this one and Splash Mountain. Also, most times she can ride them twice because of the Switch Pass. She'll wait in line, like she did here with Willie, and then they get a special pass, since we have Max (who's not big enough to ride yet). After she gets off the ride with Willie, he can come out and watch Max, and Zahra and I get to take that pass and wait in a much shorter line.

Also, for the first time on Friday, she rode Space Mountain. What a fun birthday! Since we were so excited for her to ride Space Mountain for the first time on her birthday, we were willing to wait the hour and a half in line, while Willie kept a sleeping Max in the stroller. So we went to the end of the line and asked for a Switch Pass. Because it was her birthday, the employee also gave us a Fast Pass which let us wait in a line that only took about 10 or 15 minutes instead. We were so lucky! We got on the ride and Zahra seemed excited to try something new, wondering only really where a safe place for her glasses would be. Usually, I try to look over at her while we're riding, because watching her face is more fun than the ride itself. It's great to see the smiles and expressions as the ride zooms around. However, with Space Mountain, since it's in complete darkness, with only simulated stars, I couldn't see anything! I was worried that she was scared because you couldn't see the track or know where the ride was going. I held tight to her little hand (she couldn't hear me when I kept asking "Are you OK, Z?") and just enjoyed the ride. As soon as the ride stopped, she yelled, "That was fun! I wanna go on it again!" and because we had the Switch Pass, she got to go again with Willie, immediately after she and I were finished.

But all that excitement was too much! I knew she was going to fall asleep on the ride home, so I brought her pajama pants and had her change into them in a bathroom stall before we went to the car. I took this picture because I thought it was funny how her arm and hand were raised up, even though she was sound asleep.