Happy Birthday, Ella!

It is so crazy to think about Ella being a year old! The past 12 months have absolutely flown by and watching her grow and figure out the world around her has been a wonderful experience for Bryan and I.

Day to day with Ella is a blast. She LOVES "Jack's Big Music Show" on Noggin, I think it's her favorite. And Bryan discovered that the movie Hairspray will stop her in her tracks. I think it's all the music and the movement... she's also a bit obsessed with Beyonce's video for "Single Ladies." We have lots playdates with our friends and Ella's such a social butterfly. She has never met a stranger and has no problem waving and talking to people she's never seen before, in the grocery store, at the ball games, wherever we happen to be. She now says "hi" when she waves but I don't think she knows what it means, just thatwe say it to her when we see her. So she's just a little copycat. She's really good at waving good bye. Every night when Bryan gets home from work he'll pick her up to say hello and she immediately starts waving bye to me. Pretty much like, "see ya later lady, the fun guy's here now." And she'll get really upset if Bryan doesn't take her with him to change. I think at the end of the day she's had enough of my face and is ready for a change of scenery.

I'm always amazed at how her mind works, these days if you ask her where her hat is she'll pat her head and always points up when asked where the light is. You can say, "where's your blankie?" and she will go find it (provided it's a reasonable task) and bring it to you, also we can say "take it to Daddy/Mommy" and whatever she's holding will be given to the appropriate person. She's a genius right? Ha!

Her party today was a smashing succes, with a speedbump in the middle. We had a good showing of all her little girlfriends and our families with a cake from Dewey's, of course. She didn't do too much damage to her cake though. Ella is really weird about textures, she really doesn't like to pick anything up and put it in her mouth unless it's hard, like a cookie or a cracker. So the mushy icing was not really a big hit for her. Once she tasted it, she liked it, but she was just pinching off tiny bits with her thumb and forefinger. So dainty! We were kind of hoping for the big messy display of most first birthdays but our little princess had a different plan for the day. I have lots of pictures from the day and will post them later this week for you to enjoy.

Happy birthday pretty girl, mommy and daddy love you!