{WHW}: 1st Birthday Partying

You may be tired of hearing about Ella turning 1, and if you are...sorry (I'm only a little sorry). This was a big milestone in our lives, and our girl's life and it was just crazy how quickly the year went by. It's so cliche, but it's incredibly true.

Ella's birthday weekend was busy busy busy but oh-so worth it! Everything came together perfectly, and even though Ella was a little overwhelmed by everyone being around and was kind of a stage 5 clinger to mommy and daddy, it was a great day celebrating our favorite girl!

So, let's get to the details and pictures!

My BIL has a bouncy business on the side, so they offered to put one up for Ella's party. I figured she wouldn't really use it, but girl LOVED IT!

She got in a lot of bouncy time before the party started and her cousins were more than thrilled to play with her:

The cakes turned out even better that I had imagined! Believe it or not, these are both Walmart cakes and were incredibly reasonably priced (in fact the smash cake was free):

 Birthday banners--the bottom one is Ella's 12 monthly photos from her first year. It was so fun to see how she grew and changed each month!

 We had quite the spread of food and beverages. We may have gone overboard because MG and I took home 7 bottles of wine with us (oops)

Everyone started arriving a little after 3, which was perfect because Ella napped until 3 on the dot (she must have known she was needed haha). 

The pink tutu and headband only lasted for a little while, but they were cuter than cute!

Lots of photos were taken through the afternoon:

We opened the mounds and mounds of gifts that were brought (so generous!)

After eating and chatting, it was time to sing happy birthday and see our girl's reaction to her first bites of cake.

Surprisingly, she was very dainty about it, taking tiny bits of icing and eating it. I helped her dig into the cake part and she happily shared it with me--including my face and my hair lol

We sang happy birthday again a little bit later around her big, fancy cake and at the end Ella clapped (and then screamed lol):

All too soon it was time to clean up, pack up allllllll the gifts, and head back to my in-laws' house.

It was the perfect day, with the most beautiful weather we could have hoped for, surrounded by our family and family friends. We are so blessed to have this loving family--Ella doesn't even know how lucky she is :)

Ella is ONE!

Just like that, my baby is one year old.

This was the fastest, craziest, awe-inspiring year of my life. I'm so thankful for this adorable little being who made us a family, and brings so much light and laughter to our lives.

Watching you grow and learn over the last year has been so incredible. There's rarely a day that goes by where I don't stop and think about how blessed we are to have you in our lives.
I couldn't love you more, Ella bear, and I'm so looking forward to your shining personality coming out more and more over the next year.
Happy Birthday, lovebug!

Weekending (Late): Easter Edition

I'm recapping our weekend a day late, which is pretty much my norm lately anyway, but I had my TBB Asks post yesterday. If you missed it, check it out!

This weekend was a lot of fun and seriously flew by!

The highlights included:

~My one SIL, youngest niece and MIL getting into town late Thursday night, and staying up much later than we should have!

~A low key, fun morning all together, then meeting MG for lunch since he'd taken a half day. Followed that up with a trip to Mount Vernon since my SIL and niece had never been. The weather started off suuuuper warm and nice and then clouds and wind rolled in, so this smart girl with her short sleeves was a liiiiiiittle chilly.

Ella giving Martha Washington the side eye--especially when she told us that 18 month olds used to be put into corsets!

~MG and Ella left after about an hour and a half since it was chilly, starting to rain, and Ella needed to get down for a nap, while the rest of us stayed and toured George Washington's house, and the museum afterwards before heading home.

~Went out to dinner at Clyde's that night and Ella was a riot! She ate probably a grown man's portion of food (I don't know how!) and was begging for french fries (squealing with her little fists all tight). It was hilarious! The whole meal was delicious and we had so many laughs that by the end of it, we were all saying how our faces hurt!

~Put little miss to bed once we got home, and then rented Jumanji which all of us had already seen with the exception of MG. It was still hilarious the second time around!

~Saturday morning Ella slept in a little bit and apparently all of that extra energy encouraged her to start dancing anytime she hears music. If you saw my instastory, you saw our girl getting down with her bad self. Now, she wiggles to any music that she hears which is freaking adorable.

~Everyone left mid morning to head back home and MG and I ran some errands with Ella and then went for a family walk since the weather was nice. A low key pizza night in for dinner was perfection to wrap up the day.

~MG and I binged some more on Poldark (Obsessed!!)

~Sunday morning was Ella's first Easter. She had her first little Easter basket of things, and enjoyed pulling everything out of the basket haha.

~Ella happily represented some Easter bunny ears (for the photos before pulling them off), and there are about 6 different photos that were all too adorable for words:

this one ranks up there with the reindeer antlers from Christmas--I can't help but smile when I look at it :)

~That afternoon my mom came and our neighborhood had a little Easter egg hunt for the kids, that we went to. Ella found her two eggs and was happily content to sit and put them in her mouth while the other kids ran around collecting the rest. 

~MG made Creamy Shells and Beef  in the InstantPot for dinner, which was delicious.

~Ella spent some more time with my mom before bedtime and then my mom headed home too.

~More Poldark was watched and then we wound down for the evening before gearing up to head back to work this week.

I have to say, the past week, especially this weekend, Ella's little personality has just been coming out more and more and it's so fun to see. She's so interactive with other people, and the dancing is just the cutest thing ever. As busy as she was last week, and it was tiring, I miss being at home with her and seeing that personality blossom every day!

Hoping your weekend and Easter, if you celebrate, was awesome too!