With mom and dad

Here are two more of Ella with her parents!

A birthday celebration!

Ella enjoyed eating the cake, but was happiest to smear it all over her face and tray. When we gave her a bath that night I found it all over her little body! This is a progression of how it went... you can see in one of the pictures that she's telling us she wants "more" cake!

Ella likes to text her friends.

She is very technosavvy.

Ella is one year old!

With her birthday on Friday the 13th, Ella celebrated her first year - and a whole year without any illness! And then she promptly caught her first cold. She has tons of new tricks and sounds - like smacking her lips - and is quite convincing with "mama" and "dada" these days. She seems to love bears (hugs her teddy bear all the time and kisses them in books) and dogs and being mobile! She is aching to walk so that she can get into all sorts of trouble. She will definitely keep us on our toes. Here are some recent pictures:

Just a couple more...

Here is a great series of Ella playing with her Grandma Sue's sunglasses in her Aunt Cassidy's arms at the Half-Ironman triathlon the other day... And then some close-ups of the incredible curls that Ella has been sporting lately, thanks to the humidity.

Almost one year!

At 11 months and counting, Ella is busy recognizing and identifying the world around her. She finds great humor in the littlest games and sights and gives great hugs with a "pat, pat, pat" on your back. She has tried all sorts of new foods lately, but certainly loves bananas the best - there have even been a couple occasions where she has eaten two+ bananas in one day! She says "doh" for dog and "boo" for books and when asked what the dogs say, she'll often give a breathy "oof, oof." She had a pretty convincing "daddy" the other day, but says "mama" so often that it doesn't seem to have just one meaning yet... She seems to use it for just about anything she wants, so I'll take that as a compliment. We have had a number of nice visits with family lately - both in person and through video chats. How fun it is to see her face light up when she catches her Poppa and Grandma's faces on the computer screen! She is not walking yet, but is cruising around all the furniture and pulling herself up on anything that'll hold still - and even things that won't. Bianca is a little less excited about being crawled all over these days, so she'll often slip out of the room when little E comes barreling at her. Here are some recent pictures to illustrate the last few weeks.

Ella brushes teeth and climbs stairs

Really, 10 months is just about as amazing as we could imagine. Ella is so much fun each and every day. She is incredibly curious - always wants to touch what you're holding - and always ready to play a game and have a laugh. Here are some pictures of her first forays into brushing teeth and climbing stairs... She is becoming a big girl, day by day.
xo to all,
HM