Happy 1st Birthday Ella!

The beginning of our family of three

Oh my how you've grown in a year!

Brand new baby girl seeing through those fresh baby eyes

Happy First Birthday Angel Girl!!!!! It's so hard to believe that our sweet baby girl is a year old! I've been so sappy and sentimental these last couple of days just thinking of what was happening a year ago right now. We have been so incredibly blessed to have our wonderful daughter in our lives. Ella you bring us endless joy, not to mention sore cheeks from laughing at you and sometimes with you on a daily basis, dirty carpet from the endless barrage of food tossed on the floor, a constantly rearranged tupperware cupboard, a new appreciation of sleep, a song for nearly every daily task, more "named" toys than we ever thought we'd own, more pink in one house than should be legal, and hearts more full of love for one little person than we ever thought possible!!! What an amazing first year this has been and we can hardly wait for the adventures the next year has in store for us!

We love you more than words can express you little ONE YEAR OLD!!!!

Look at that pretty girl now!

Happy Tuesday

Just a couple of photos of the girl! I have a to do list that's a mile long so I can't post much, but here are a couple pictures from last week. Have a great day!

Little Walker

Ella is walking up a storm! She took her first real steps about 3 or 4 weeks ago. (We're a bit delayed on the video...sorry!) It's funny because we kind of thought she would just start walking one day and walk across the room and that would be it. Well it wasn't like that at all. She got brave and let go of a couch and took two steps one day, and then then 2 steps a few days later and then 4 and now she's walking all over the place! She much prefers walking to crawling and is constantly bouncing from one end of a room to the next just walking, walking, walking. With increased mobility comes increased head bonks and bruises of course. It's hard for a day to pass without a new scratch or bruise or mark somewhere from taking a tumble. It's been so fun to see how proud she is of herself and how excited she gets when she does something new.



First getting the walking thing down!

Playin in the Grass!

She looks so inquisitive in this one, we love it!

We went to the park yesterday, it was such a beautiful sunny day that we wanted to get outside. Ella was in a grouchy mood but as soon as we got her outside and at the park she snapped out of her funk. She swung for a bit and then we let her free in the grass. She LOVED it! She crawled like mad to every leaf and daisy she could see...of course she tried to put them all in her mouth. We got some fun photos, our new favorites in fact!

Inspecting the grass

Speed crawling

Mini Hike

Last weekend we went for a little hike in West Linn. We found this nature preserve right in the city with a 1/2mile or so loop around it....perfect distance for a squirmy baby. We tried out Ella's hiking pack and she loved it! She was laughing and clapping at the birds and trees - that's our girl, loving the outdoors!

Pickles

Sydney the Birthday Girl and her Mom Jill

We went to Ella's cousin's (well my cousin too) 1st birthday party this weekend. It was a fun party and it's always fun to get Ella and Sydney together. It will be nice for them to be so close in age...they are just 4 1/2 weeks apart (should have been just about a week apart but Sydney couldn't wait to come out so she arrive a couple months early!). It was fun to see the cake eating, gift wrap tearing, new toy playing action - it'll be a blink of an eye and we'll be there doing the one year birthday thing too!

Cousins! Talking girl talk already.

I'm never eating peas or apple-sauce again, it's cake for me!

On another note Ella had her first dill pickle this weekend and she LOVED it. We had the camera out and ready for her post-pickle grimace but there was no frowny face to be had. She kept coming back for more and complained when I tried to take it away. Her pickle loving Aunt Merideth will be so proud!

Don't try to take that from me mom! Ella's hangin' on tight!

This is good stuff!

Love That Laugh!

Jason was on the phone and Ella thought he was just hilarious! We just love that laugh!!!