Ella's Big Day

Ok, it's official. The full-time-working-mom life is in full swing, and I don't have much time to blog. I hate that. Throughout the week, I keep experiencing things and think to myself, "I should blog about that", but I never get around to it. So forgive me as I share a whole lot about what's been going on in our lives over the past month.

On August 6th, Ellasyn turned one. I swear I was in shock that it had been a full year since that beautiful baby entered our world. Although I have a hard time remembering what our life was like before Ella, I certainly realize how crazy it has been since she arrived. The first few months were full of excitement and learning (most of which is still a blur), the middle 6 months were full of transitions ... daycare, baby food, holiday celebrations, traveling and getting to know our sweet and sassy little girl. The last few months have been full of so much change.

Ella has mastered people food and sippy cups and is getting more and more comfortable standing and crusing on her chubby little legs. She is starting to figure out that things have labels and she'll point to Marley and say "dah" and pick up a ball and say "dah" and will gaze at her daddy and say "dah-dah". In fact most things she identifies are "dah", so that's really her only word. It cracks us up when she picks up thing off the floor and hands them out to us, saying "dah". It's like "dah" also means "hey mom and dad, check this out!" She points to objects and creates her own little name for what they are, she repeats words like "uh-oh", she imitates silly noises with her mouth like clicking her tongue and smacking her lips, she gives great big open mouth kisses when you ask for them, she can sign "more" and "all done" with her hands, and she is starting to flip through board books and point to objects on the pages. She amazes us everyday with the new things that she is learning.

We celebrated her milestone with a big bbq party at our house. Having our family and friends there was really special - everyone who helped us transition into parenthood and became such a big part of Ella's life. We went all out for this one with a pink and green monkey theme. Pink and green just made sense because it was the color scheme from one of my favorite baby showers and the colors we used in Ella's nursery. Ella is a banana-loving crawler and climber, so it's only natural that monkeys be part of her first birthday theme. We had monkeys on the invitations, money balloons, monkeys on her cupcake toppers, a monkey pinata, and monkey hats and necklaces for the kids. Ella's birthday attire consisted of a monkey onesie and an adorable pink and green tutu that my mom made for her. A friend of my dad's entertained everyone with a magic show and balloon animals. Ella entertained us by devouring almost an entire chocolate birthday cake - we actually had to cut her off from it! All in all, it was a fabulous time and a wonderful way to celebrate our baby girl.     

the chocolate cake she couldn't stop eating

Yessiree ... I made these puppies myself. My friend Francie made the adorable toppers.

I saw one of these on etsy.com and decided to make one myself ... saved about $20!

one of my favorite pictures of my two babies