We had the monumental first birthday party over the weekend for Ella. I loved that we celebrated with our closest friends and family on her actual birthday. We made it a cupcake-themed day complete with cupcakes in the shape of a '1' (thanks for your help, Grandma June!) and a cupcake-shaped cake that I even surprised myself with making. Ella wore a cupcake outfit with a cupcake knit hat. Here are a few of my favorite pictures from Ella's 1st birthday. 
Oh, we also had some family fun time playing Rock Band II so my goofy brother, Daniel, played the guitar while I assisted on the drums. It was a good time! As you can tell by the pictures- we're naturals! :)Thank you to EVERYONE for being there on her special day. Even my family traveled 4 hours to be with Ella on her special day!
As an update, here are a few of our 1 yr old's recent achievements:
Ella is still crawling and cruising. She can stand independently for short spurts of time and does put one foot in front of the other in attempt to walk when supported, but hasn't taken her first independent steps yet. We're gettin' there!Ella has a few words in her vocabulary now including: ma ma (mommy), da da (daddy), ki ca (kitty cat), a da (I think Addy), bye bye, and hi. We're working on 'up' and 'more' and a couple other significant first words. Ella only eats table food now and has been on whole milk for the last week. She's down to just 2 bottles a day and after her 1 yr check-up on Thursday, we will switch exclusively to her sippy cup.Ella started her first class at the Y last week. She loves to sing and dance!Ella gets a kick out of peek-a-boo still... oh, and she still LOVES to play the fetching game where she'll purposely drop something off her highchair table and wait for me to replace it.We love you, Ella Bella Butter Bean. It's been the SWEETEST year with you in it!
