Ellie's First Birthday Bash

I can't believe my sweet little potato is officially a toddler now. They say time flies, and it really does. Next year she'll be TWO? Surely not. Ellie had a fantastic birthday and we were so lucky to have so many special family members and friends there to celebrate with us. We had sour cream chicken enchiladas, beef tacos, and chicken quesadillas from Maria's Catering. If you're looking for someone to cater an event in Dallas, I highly recommend them. Dessert was cupcakes. We had the party outside, so I had three tables set up in our driveway in back with bright pink tablecloths. For someone who is not a party planner, I think that everything came out really great. I haven't figure out if #2 (our yet-to-be-conceived second child we call "Dos") will get an equally as large party because this was a pretty big effort on my party to get it all together and an even bigger effort from Lee to get the yard together. Ellie, please do not expect another fiesta for Birthday #2. You will probably be celebrating in the side room of a McDonalds.

Ellie did really well with the cake and loved it when everyone sang to her and cheered for her. She had a pretty big cupcake as you can see from above and ate about 90% of it. It was impressive. She loved the frosting, but once she got past that, she started shoving handfuls of cake into her mouth. If you watched the video that I uploaded on Sunday, you might have seen that she ended the show by urinating on me. She was quite a mess with pink and purple frosting all over her face and in her hair.

Ellie was so tired by the end of the night that she almost fell asleep during a diaper change. Poor kiddo - too much excitement. Everyone left by about 7:45, but Bonnie and Brett hung out for a while and then Mike and Shanon closed the night down with us out in back with a bottle of wine. At about 10PM, the topic of shot gunning beer came up. I really wanted to see Lee shotgun a beer so I said, "Do you even know how to shotgun a beer?". Doubting my husband's ability to do anything is equivalent to the triple dog dare. Faster than you can say "cheap fraternity stunt", he had poked a hole in the bottom of a can and got 12 ounces down. It's like taking candy from a baby. Works every time.

For my first birthday, my parents gave me a rocking chair and a baby doll. Ellie already has a rocking chair, so we gave her a slide and I kept the baby doll tradition going. I think she was a little underwhelmed at first, but since she's had some more time to play with the baby doll (we've named her Emma), I think she really likes her. She gave her kisses on Sunday and it was so sweet. She likes to poke Emma in the eye but this may have taught her some bad behavior because on Monday, Ms. Rosa had to corral her for the last half of daycare due to the fact that she was poking the real babies in the eye. She really likes her new slide, and I'm glad I had it for the party on Saturday because the few kids that were there really enjoyed it. I have a feeling we're going to be spending a lot of time in the backyard this summer.

On Sunday we unwrapped the rest of Ellie's toys and gifts. I've got some video of that I'll try to share by Friday. I'm not going to say that Ellie needed anything, but she was actually lacking in age-appropriate toys and things to play with. It was starting to look a little like the Yearning for Zion FLDS ranch in her room, so the birthday came at just the right time. She got some really great books, a Dr. Elmo doctor kit, a ton of cute summer dresses, a piggy bank, some little People, and one of my personal favorites was Abby Cadabby. I play with this little doll more than Ellie does.

Ellie had her one year checkup on Monday. She's 20 pounds 10 ounces (50th percentile) and 30.25 inches long (85th percentile). I asked my mom to look up my statistics in my baby book and by comparison, I was 24 pounds 13 ounces and 31 inches long. I'm convinced that she was feeding me a human growth hormone. That's pretty big. I feel good that I was not as big as Ellie's classmate, Pork Chop. She's 11 months and 29 pounds. She's one big kid. Ellie had to get her one year shots, but now it's more traumatic because I have to hold her down and she's old enough to know I'm not helping her. She also had a vision test and a blood draw, which was more traumatic than the shots. The doctor called us today to tell us she's slightly anemic so she's on these vitamins now that look and smell like iodine. I mix it in applesauce and she doesn't know the difference. I can't imagine Ellie with more energy because she's already pretty energetic.

So that was Ellie's big birthday weekend. All of the pictures from the party are posted at our Shutterfly account, so enjoy. I think we're going to use this weekend to fully recover. It's a lot of work turning one!