Happy First Birthday, Ellie!

As the night draws to a close, a very tired Princess is upstairs, her crown, wand and tutu retired for the night and working hard to keep her eyes open just one more minute. The hours are winding down for her first birthday. What a fun (and tiring) day we (she) had.

We went to church and Ellie had a great time visiting with everyone and listening to the singing in the sanctuary. She hasn't been in there in a while as she normally goes to the nursery. She became quite tired during church and we were happy that she fell asleep on the way home. We definitely wanted a nap before her party!

Mad preparations were finished up for her "little party" (what we dubbed her event) with friends and family continuing to be invited up until the last minute. I had picked up her cake yesterday in the middle of tornadoes landing everywhere. Sadly, her "free" 7" cake for her to eat didn't quite turn out (they forgot it and then didn't have anyone to make a "right" one) so I decided I would make her her individual cake last night. Inspiration smacked me and I made her a yurt. For those unfamiliar with what a yurt is, it's a portable, tentlike structure used by nomadic populations in Central Asia. We have reason to believe that Ellie was born in a yurt.

Josh blew up all the balloons and helped us tie the string on them. We prepared the food and got Ellie dressed while we were anxiously awaiting our guests. The first guests started arriving a little before two and we were so excited and blessed to have our friends and family who love Ellie to be on hand to share our excitement. Ellie felt like the paparazzi as there were three cameras and a video camera going pretty much the whole time.

When cake time came, we were surprised that Ellie didn't get any more "into" her cake than she did. She didn't eat much and was fairly well dainty about it. She was MUCH more interested in her presents. I've never seen a little one so excited to dig into presents. She honestly enjoyed the presents, bags, tissue paper and cards pretty well equally. All things party makes her happy!

There are so many photos that I want to post, so I think I'm just going to do a photo post. Thank you to MeeMee and Ms. Betty and Jennifer who took pictures, Kathryn who helped out videoing, Dianne who managed to figure out how to cut the ginormous (is that a word?) cake and who cleaned up, Katie who brought me a butterfly picture and helped Ellie open her presents and who helped me cut out the names for the table (see a separate post for more information on what the names were for), and to all the other party guests who helped make our day special: Dee Dee, Linda, Callie, Carson, Al, Sharon, Case, Clay, Reed, Iris, Dee'Anna, Addalyn, Susan, Dawn, Emily, Aunt Jeanne, Uncle Wayne and Jonquil. You all blessed us so much with your presence in our home today.

After some play time with Addie, Ellie and Josh spent some one on one time playing. Ellie then took a bottle and a nap. I'll admit her mom fell asleep with her in the rocker, and we had a short nap. I'm told both Kevin and Josh lay on the couch as well. We were all exhausted.

Around 7:00, Uncle Steve, Aunt Angie and cousins, Danielle, Lauren and Emily showed up to visit and bring Ellie a gift as well. We had pizza (I'm really going to explode from all the food I've had today) and a nice time visiting and playing with Ellie and Josh. Danielle really wants to take Ellie home with her because she's "just so cute".

And now, it's nearing ten and I'm so very tired. Tomorrow we are headed off for Ellie's one year check up and some shots. Poor baby; I'll be wearing her tomorrow in the sling. She'll feel so badly.

Happy Birthday Ellie! We are so very, very happy that God choose us to be your family and that we were willing to walk out in faith and to trust that God would work the miracle that He has in all our lives.

Stay tuned for photos of the big day!