Happy Birthday Ellie!

I can't believe my baby is one! It was a beautiful evening, so we had her party outside. Just us and Grandma. We figured the cake would be messy, so we started with dinner then presents and cards. Ellie enjoyed the pretty cards

She had lots of help with opening presents.

Clearly everyone was equally excited about the presents. This is John's favorite part of anyone's birthday party.

This pose made me laugh. It's the same dramatic pose that Daddy does sometimes...proof of where she gets it.

I couldn't get the cake on her tray and back up quickly enough to catch all three blowing out her #1 candle. John and Eve decorated her cake and the cupcakes with sprinkles and strawberries. It was surprisingly well done, and of course, they loved it. Only a few fingerprints on the cupcakes :)

First clean taste (although being the third has it's perks...Ellie is certainly not a stranger to sweets)

followed by a good handfull of ice cream

Gooey yum

Ooooh that's good (this is one of her new favorite faces)

I don't know how she managed to still look so pretty with all this mess on her face.

That's a happy birthday girl.

A year has absolutely flown by! Ellie is such a precious sweet beautiful child! At one year she is 22 lb 2 oz (82 percentile) 29 in (45 percentile) head 18 in (73 percentile). No wonder everyone that stops to speak to us, without fail, mentions her thighs. I love every bit of them and keep telling her "wear them while you can". Almost every day at least one person stops me to say I've got my hands full, and at least one person stops to tell me how beautiful she is. Actually I hear that about all three. I'm obviously biased, but I don't think they're just being nice. Ellie likes to babble a lot and is making lots of sounds, but hasn't related any of them to objects yet (at least not that I've figured out). She likes to eat and is not very patient with her food. She speaks very loudly when she wants us to know something, and is usually pretty good at making herself clear...even without words. She's a drama queen and cries like she's been hurt if someone takes a toy from her or does something she doesn't like. She cruises like a champ, stands without pulling up on anything, squats and almost bounces without support, but hasn't taken more than a pivot step yet. She's had the skills for a while, but always chooses to crawl. She's getting to be too fast for me to turn around for a second and still know where she it. She's making very cute "oooo" faces now (she also makes a similar face when she's crying for drama that's pretty funny), and is back to making lots of raspberries. One of her favorite things to do is climb into the small foam spiderman chair and look at books. She is so proud of herself. One of my favorite things is when John or Eve gets her belly laughing. She's only a little more ticklish that Eve, so she's not a big laugher. Every now and then, though, one of them gets her laughing and it's the best. Usually it's Eve. John is always trying to get her to laugh, but for some reason she thinks Eve is funnier. John is still very affectionate with her. Eve is more worried that she's going to take her princesses, but sometimes there's a sweet sister bond that I see, particularly when they're laughing. She still snuggles with me a bit, but she also enjoys her freedom. She loves being outside and cries when I let John and Eve out in the back yard and she has to stay inside. She's a good eater, but already a little picky. There isn't anything in particular that I've noticed she doesn't like (although she's not crazy about goldfish and peanut butter, so I'm in trouble), she really just likes to have lots of variety with each meal. For a while she's been eating whatever we eat that her 2 little teeth can handle (pretty much everything but steak and certain candies). She is so smiley and gets so excited about things. She dances and bounces when she's happy, which is almost all of the time. She's such a delight and I just love her to pieces! Happy Birthday little Eliza Jane!