Life With Ella

Wow – I have a lot of pictures to show, a lot of beautiful things to say about Ella, a lot of people to thank for making it such a beautiful evening and I am just so exhausted. Seriously – today was a beautiful day and night. Ella woke up a little early (7:30) this morning. She has been sleeping through the night like a champion ever since we cut out the night time bottle. The three of us went downstairs, lit a candle in a cupcake, sang happy birthday to Ella – she loved it, and then had Ella blow out the candle. Sunny and I took Ella to the park to swing on the swings, then we went to the other little park for a while and finally met Becca and Tucker for a little lunch. Ella walked Tucker home for a little bit.

Here are the pictures from the beginning of the day…

One very happy birthday girl on the swings

Second happy swing shot

Playing on the anchor by the water

Walking Tucker on King Street.

Here are some of the cupcakes that I made. I baked a total of 60 cupcakes (12 were a trial run) and the other 48 were legit birthday cupcakes. They were pretty good.

Ella took a nap after lunch, Sunny and I got our act together for phase 2 of the party and with so much help from Helen and Ron, we made it over to My Gym and were ready to roll. As you will see from the pictures below, the evening was very busy – full of activities. All of Ella’s favorite little people and some of her favorite big people were there. I put a video at the very end of all this. It’s only one small part when Ella made her birthday girl debut and then everyone singing happy birthday.

Look at them, displayed in such a beautiful way. Maybe this is my calling…

Ella went down the slide on her belly

And Stella went down head first! What a daredevil

Here’s an action shot of Sunny playing around with Ella and Stella

Here’s Ella walking on the hot dog all by herself!

Ella is enjoying the balance beam before her party officially starts

Here we are doing the beginning exercises for the party.

I love this shot of two sets of sisters…just beautiful

Here are Ella, Stella and Juliet on the trampoline

Look at those two beauties

Getting ready for the puppet show

Wow – look at all the people!

Ella watching the puppet show

Here are Ella and some friends under the parachute

Ok – so here comes the cool part…Ella is now being dragged around the room wearing her tiara and carrying a magic wand. So sweet.

Ella looked beautiful in her tiara

Here is Ella hanging with some of her friends trying to show off her beautiful smile.

Here’s part of the party crowd

One more picture of Ella smiling while wearing her tiara.

Happy birthday Ella!!!

And we’re blowing out the candle…

Oh yeah – that candle is just about out

Pretty good picture of Sunny and me, but Ella seemed very busy

Chillin at home after the party in her brand new Dora tunnel wearing her coolest new UGGS

It’s so wild to us that Ella is going to be two tomorrow. We had a really mellow day…it was raining and we are all recovering from our colds so it was a great day to just enjoy the great indoors. The other day, Sunny ordered this learning tower thing. It basically is this “tower” that Ella can climb up on and be level with the counter. It has sides so it’s safe for her to be able to hang out at the counter with us on her own. She really likes it. There is a video at the end of Ella on her tower, talking, eating and dancing.

Ella in her new hat

So focused

Here I am doing a practice run, baking cupcakes for Ella’s party

Tonight, we were just finishing up dinner – Ella was eating pomegranate seeds and a tofutti cutie, and we looked over at her and she was taking her arm out of the sleeve of her shirt and putting it back in. She kept doing this and then she was pulling on her shirt in all different kinds of ways. Sunny and I just pretended that we didn’t see anything going on, and a few minutes later, Ella took her shirt off. She took out one arm, then the other and then she pulled the shirt over her head. I know this may not sound like a big deal to most, but it’s pretty cool to us when Ella does things for the first time.

Ella’s birthday is coming up on Sunday and she has been getting some presents in the mail. Last night, she got a very fancy coat from her uncle Danny (see pictures below) and tonight she got a very special photo book from grandma and papa. It is a regular photo album, but when you push a button, each photo has a recorded message. It’s really beautiful. Ella was kind of blown away hearing grandma and papa talk to her from the book. At one point, papa asks her a question about a stop sign and Ella answers him (caught on video…see below).

Here is Ella in her very fancy jacket. We just have to get the rest of the outfit right. She really did not want to take the jacket off at all! I finally got it off of her when she was so sweaty that she couldn’t take it anymore!

Would anyone like to join me at the opera?

Here is the very short video of Ella responding to papa