1st Birthday Bash

While Ella enjoyed her actual birthday on Wednesday, November 3rd at home, the big party was on the following Sunday. Fortel's Pizza Den did not know what hit them when over 50 friends and family arrived for Ella's big bash. The zoo-themed party included animal print plates, table toys, cups, party hats and cake.

Ella was in such good spirits for her party. She finished up her morning nap just in time for the party and thoroughly loved all of the attention while there.

We ordered pizzas and sodas for all. Meanwhile, the kids started making animal puppets as a craft project. This was a nice distraction away from the arcade room. After lots of pizza was consumed, we lit Ella's personal birthday cake and sang Happy Birthday. We were all in tune until Ella reached for the candle and burned her little hand. After putting an ice cube on the injury, we indulged in cake and began opening presents...LOTS of presents!

The kids took home party favors of animal crackers and color-your-own binoculars.

What a perfect 1st birthday for a perfect little sweetheart.

Ella Turns One!

After celebrating 364 "un"birthdays with Ella, we finally celebrated the momentus milestone - One Year Old!! What an amazing year. Ella was gracious enough to let us wish her a few "Happy Birthday" whispers when she woke at 2am. After a birthday bottle, she went back to sleep and woke at her usual 6am to begin the morning workday routine with a few deviations to celebrate.

Ella's gifts were wrapped and neatly placed on her high chair along with a mylar balloon (that she loved - and clearly we could have saved money and just bought her the balloon.) With a little help from Mom and Dad, Ella unwrapped her first toddler push & ride car! After finishing our morning routine, it was off to Lubeley's bakery to pick up cookies for daycare and for mom and dad's workplaces. When Ella arrived at daycare, she was greeted with cheery happy birthday from her caregivers.

After work, Mom picked up Ella and brought her home. Now it was time for a second present - a Mizzou cheerleading outfit. Go Tigers! Next, the momentus cake smashing. While a little timid at first, Ella managed to get a few good handfuls of icing and licked chunks of icing from her mini cake. Once she realized how delicious sugar tasted, she quickly caught on to the cause and effect of digging into the cake and moving the hands to her mouth. Just a few minutes into it, Mom and Dad realized that perhaps feeding her dinner first would have been a wise idea.

Mom, Dad and Ella spent the rest of the evening playing and recording Ella with the video camera. What an amazing 365 days.

Ella's stats:
Weight, 17.5 pounds.
Length, 27 inches.
Age, 1 year.
Beautiful and perfect in every way.

Soccer Tourney in Perryville

Hanging at the Clifton's with cousins and watching Lindsey play soccer in Perryville.

First Halloween

Some people only celebrate Halloween one day a year. However, Miss Ella celebrated for a week and a half, showing off her cute costume. Ella's Halloween extravaganza started the week prior to Oct 31 with Boo at the Zoo. This was the Jerrys first time at this event. After normal operating hours, the St. Louis Zoo opened back up for a frightful night. Ella, with a huge group of friends, roamed the grounds, avoiding monsters and zombies, got lost in fog, and watched a scary (not really) kids show at the petting zoo where the entertainers were clearly paid in drugs and not a paycheck.

To make sure she had plenty of treats, the night before Halloween Ella ventured to Perryville. A round of visits to Grandma's and some Aunts and Uncles scored some good snacks. This was much appreciated by Ella's parents as they got to gobble them up!

For the actual Halloween day, stealing tradition from Great Grandparent Nana, Ella's parents opened their house to family to visit with a never ending bowl of chili and unlimited pictures of Ella in her costume (did we mention what a cute giraffe she was?) Many family members stopped by and several great photos were captured.

To cap off Halloween, when darkness fell, Ella went out for her first offical trick-or-treat in the neighborhood. Thanks to Dad and his history of trick-or-treating in St. Louis, she was primed with her jokes - "Why aren't griaffes invited to parties?" ...Wait for it... "Because they are a pain in the neck!" Ella only visited a few next door neighbors to say hi, but it was a ton of fun for Mom and Dad, meanwhile a bit awkward when the neighbors clearly saw it was them begging for candy since Ella was too young to enjoy the sugar and popcorn balls.

During all of these festivities, it was quite memorable reliving last year's Halloween events - as Stef started contractions at a friend's house party, went home thinking she was just crampy and not long after called Tim (who sobered up quicker than anyone's ever seen!) to let him know the contractions were 5 minutes apart and it was time to get to the hospital. We immediately rushed to the hospital. It was there, that we spent a few days drugging up Stef to stop the labor. Then our determined little Ella decided it was time to grow on the outside. : )

Fall Family Photos

Fall family photos in Forest Park, taken by Emma's mom.

Nothing is Safe

Ella is very mobile these days and we're quickly learning nothing in the house is out of her reach - electrical outlets, power cords, picture frames, cat's water bowl, and even the cats themselves. Thankfully she has patient cats and semi-patient parents.

Rib Fest

Last Sunday, we enjoyed our 4th annual (Ella's 2nd annual - in utero last year) rib fest at the Famous Bar. No, this is not a department store, it's a bloody mary and martini bar. The fest is outdoors in their parking lot. There are 10 rib contenders that compete for attendees' votes for the best sauce and best rib. We enjoy the atmosphere (especially when the weather cooperates as it did this year, 80 degrees and sunny!) Our friend, Derek, lives a convenient 2-block walk away so we partake in a little NFL on the tube and then head out to the rib fest. We rarely make it back to his house as we're usually full and tired.

Fall Fun

Enjoying the Autumn outdoors in her new tree swing and riding the tram at Grant's Farm with Mom!

Crawling, Teething and Pulling Up!

Ella has completely amazed us (again!) over the past week with her sudden strength and coordination to get around the house. She started to crawl (army style), had a tooth puncture through the gums and is pulling up from a sitting to standing position! My two new favorites are seeing her come home from daycare filthy (apparently she now mops their floors with her pants while she crawls) and watching her play independently while we get ready for work. When the silence sets in you know she's either filling her diaper or perfecting her new talents (in the case of this morning, it was both). After leaving her to play on her bedroom floor for a couple of minutes this morning while I fixed my hair, I returned to find her standing against her toy box, reaching in and grabbing each toy, one by one, and plopping them on the floor. I think I captured the guilty, yet proud, look on her face. What do you think?

P.S. we have a great video of Ella crawling, however the file size is too large for upload. Once we reformat, we will attempt uploading again.

11-month pictures by Aunt Stacie

Go Cardinals!

Take me out to the ball game, take me out to the crowd. This is what Mom and Dad were singing Monday night when they took Ella to her first Cardinals game.

Thanks to a lucky raffle win at the Panera picnic, we had 2 tickets to the Sept. 27 game against the Pittsburgh Pirates. With the playoffs on the line (the Cardinals had to win each remaining game in the season at that point) we were excited to go. The weather was perfect and included a crisp breeze as Autumn started to arrive. The seats were situated in right field just a few rows from the fence, so we were able to get some nice shots of the stadium. And joining us in good company, was Panera co-worker, Cathy, and her husband Jeff Todisman.

Ella was sporting her team gear (one of many Cardinals onesies she had to select from). Ella found the game most entertaining when she realized the row in front of her contained open seats that she could try to climb into all night.

Surprisingly, Ella made it through the 5th inning, which was well past her normal 7pm bedtime. When we left the stadium the Cardinals were losing. However, Ella knew they had it in them to win so she was ok with leaving. Lo and behold, when Ella awoke the next day, she found the Cardinals had pulled out a victory... yeah! (note: the Cardinals were promptly eliminated from the playoffs the next day - it just wasn't their season, probably because of all the effort they had put in to make sure that Ella's first game was a winner).