Ella's 1st Birthday Party

We held Ella's 1st birthday party on June 27th, 2010 at Granny's house.

My kids' birthday parties always seem to go by so quickly...

A months worth of planning and sewing and crafting and going over details with Jaclyne is over...

Everything goes by in a blur until we're sitting there,

under the moonlight in my Granny's backyard

and my feet are throbbing so much I can almost not stand it anymore...

My wonderful husband, Eric, the lovely and VERY gracious aunts and my parents who stayed and helped us to clean it all up and wipe away every last detail of the party are there with us, reflecting on the days events, hugging and kissing my babies, chatting with us while my 3 night owls are swinging

and running around at midnight among the crickets.

There, in the midst of all that, I see that my birthday girl and her siblings are

and for that I am forever grateful.

They spent another day with the people they love.

They had a fun, memorable time.

Yeah, Ella won't remember any of it.

But she sure will adore looking at her photo book years from now and see how happy

she was in the nearly 2000 photos we took just of her eating cake for the first time.

It means a lot to do this for them because their lives and each day

they are with us, is SO worth every needle prick from sewing a zillion fabric flowers,

every argument in the month prior to the event, every late night

spent gluing, painting, punching and cutting...

Thank you, J, for doing this for her. For our little bear, Ella.

Thank you for loving us.

It is worth it all...

With that, I leave you with a few snippets of our day celebrating Ella Grace...

(I took a few photos and so did J, but the rest of the shots are soon to follow

as we have to wait to get them back from the photographer...)

I made the cake topper myself...

Charlie & company stuffing their bears...

The kids decorating their bears' t-shirts

The girls drawing on the cement

Ella was a happy camper until we all started singing happy birthday to her...
She kinda got a little spooked but thank goodness Grandpa
came to the rescue.

But she thoroughly enjoyed eating cake for the first time.

A few shots of the birthday princess and her adorers.

 Ella in her bounce house

and that was our little Ella's first birthday.

The professional family photos should follow as soon as I get them.

I'm so thankful to God that I was blessed with such

an amazing little family and all the people I love so deeply who love us back.