First Birthday Party

We had Ellie's first birthday party on December 31 since it was a Saturday instead of on her actual birthday, the 1st.

Long long ago, I decided to have this party be ALL pink, because who knows if I'm ever going to have another girl, right? I might as well pink it up all I can while she's little and doesn't have much of an opinion! :D

Ellie had been having a hard day all morning, and just wasn't up for much of anything. After having a good lunch and playing a bit, we finally got her to take a really good nap. She woke up just before her party started, at 2:00.

We got her dressed in this adorable outfit and guests started arriving. She got a cute little bus from her Grandma and Grandpa Grigsby, and she was obsessed with it, and wouldn't stop playing with it.

Ellie wasn't sure what to think when everyone was here, and she was being SO shy, which is really unlike her. We started opening gifts, and she still didn't know what to think, or even seem to care about what was going on.

She finally started getting into the presents a little more, but really didn't want to do much with them.

After presents were over, we grabbed her adorable little cake, made by Tabitha (her aunt) and lit the candle. We sang to her, but she didn't even know what to think!

Big cake for the guests.

We put her in the highchair, thinking she'd devour the cake, when instead she just daintily picked at the frosting, putting some in her mouth. She wasn't really interested in the cake part of the cake at all! She had already had ice cream before, and she just grabbed it and started eating that when we put it on her tray. After a while, though, she got really sad about how cold it was making her hands and was done with all the attention, cake, ice cream and everything else.

Inside of the big cake.

Luckily, she calmed down quickly and played with her cousins and all her new toys!

She had a great first birthday party, and we had a lot of fun having so many friends and family join us to celebrate her special day!

12 Months

Ellie is 12 months old! I can't believe that a year has gone by with our little sweet pea! It sure went fast, but we've had lots of fun with her throughout the fastness!

At Ellie's 12 month appointment this Monday, we found out that she had terrible ear infections in both ears, and I felt bad for her because she had had a hard day on Sunday, so I figured something was up. Her doctor looked her chart over, and when he realized that this was her 4th ear infection in 4 months straight, he decided it was time for tubes (HOORAY!)! He gave us a referral, and I called that evening and got Ellie an appointment for Wednesday. I was excited to get her in so quickly, because I knew the sooner we got her in, the sooner she'd start to feel better and stop having ear infections!

Anyway, her 12 month appointment was good, but she is on the small side. Dr. Nielsen isn't too worried about that though, because she's been consistent with her small-ness! She's currently 19 lbs 13 oz which puts her in the 27th percentile for weight. She's 29 inches tall and in the 43rd percentile for height, and her head is 17.6 inches around which is the 37th percentile. She's very small, and this is the smallest she's been with weight in a while.

We started giving Ellie whole milk a few days after she turned one, but she didn't really like it until lately. She's still figuring it out but definitely prefers nursing still. She is a good eater otherwise, but has started to become a bit picky.

Anyway, here are more things about Ellie at 1 year old!:

• She's wearing size 12 month clothes, but still some 6-9 month jammies.
• She wears size 3 shoes, but is getting close to growing out of them.
• She Loves to play with all the new toys from Christmas and her birthday, especially her puppy, activity table, corn popper, and school bus oh and her blocks, too!
  
• She takes 2 naps a day, but I can tell the morning nap is going to fade out soon!
• She goes to sleep at about 7:30 and wakes up around 7 or 7:30.
• Her favorite foods are blueberries, sweet potatoes, string cheese and saltine crackers, but she eats almost anything we give her.
• She LOVES to play with our neighbor's baby, Lexi and the are the bestest friends.
• She can say, dada, daddy, mama, na na (banana, or food in general) and hi. She doesn't say mama very often, but she'll come around ;)
• She loves to drink water from our camelbak water bottles.
• Bath time is still probably her favorite thing to do.
• She is hilarious all the time, and loves to be silly and dance to any music and sing the beginning to the Backyardigans theme song.
• She's the cutest little one year old there ever was, and we love her to death!

Look for another post about her 1st birthday party, which was of course ALL PINK! :D

But here's a sneak peek of what she looked like at her party!

We sure love Ellie, and we've had such a fun time being parents to her. She's the best decision we ever made, and I'm glad we took a leap of faith to start a family, because I would be so bored without her in my life!

Lights at Temple Square and Fun with Friends

Last night, we got together with some of our friends in Salt Lake and we had a blast! We all met up at our friends Cam & Lindsay's house and had tasty soup & bread bowls for dinner & a GREAT cheesecake dessert. Then we left their house and headed up to Temple Square to see the Christmas lights!

It was pretty cold outside, so we had Ellie bundled up as much as we could.

We stopped at the Visitor's center first to see the Christus Statue, and Ellie loved the mural on the walls and ceiling. She just kept pointing to all the stars, clouds and to the statue of Jesus. It was super cute.

Then we bundled her back up in the stroller and headed outside. She loved looking at all the lights and was pretty well behaved the whole time.

All bundled up with a cold nose!!

Our little family!

This was just 3-4 weeks before Ellie joined our little family! Crazy to see how much has changed in just one year!

Picture of the whole group!

Comparing December 2010's picture to this year's is crazy (though we did have an extra 2 couples which made this year's picture seem even bigger!)

Once we finished looking at all the lights, Ellie started to get a little ornery, and I think it's because she wouldn't keep her hands inside her blanket, so her fingers were FREEZING. So, David quickly went back to the car with her and I walked back with all of our friends. We got to the car and it was super toasty, which was nice. Then we changed Ellie and put her in pj's so if she fell asleep on the way home, we'd just have to put her in bed. I fed her before we left, and she fell asleep about 5 minutes into the trip. When we got home, she woke up but went right back to sleep once we got inside and put her in her bed.

Thanks for a great time, friends! It's always good to hang out and visit! Seeing the lights on Temple Square is one of my favorite Christmas Traditions, and I'm happy that we were able to see them this year and take Ellie with us!