Ellie Grace: 1 year!

This post is long (about a month) overdue! We had a wonderful time celebrating 1 year of life with our sweet Ellie girl. On her actual birthday we invited friends and family over to our place for a little shindig. We kept it low key with a meal, cupcakes (of course), gift opening, festive decor, and hanging out. It was a beautiful sunny (and warm!) fall day, which was great to be able to have some of our 22 guests spread outside to eat. Family came up from Eugene, and down from Kalama, and we even had Jake's aunt here from Nantucket. Ellie seemed to really enjoy herself. She wasn't too sure about her cake (I made a no sugar banana cake with no sugar cream cheese frosting) at first, but once she got a taste you couldn't stop her from digging in.

Some highlights from the last month include:
-Ellie blows kisses and makes a kiss face with her lips and leans in when you ask for a kiss
-She has discovered her tongue and likes to make LLLLL noises
-Ellie will stroll around the house with a little walker. At first she looked like a little old lady: booty stuck out and slowly taking giant steps.
-One of my new favorites is Ellie holding up her hands with her palms facing her when you say "where is...."
-I love that Ellie will hear the slightest noise in the hallway and know when Jake is home from work. She starts pointing to the door and saying Dadada.
-She had a little cold that lasted about a week.
-She now has 4 teeth: 2 on the bottom and 2 on the top
-She is still breastfeeding 5 times a day and has two naps.
-Ellie is healthy and sweet as ever. She measured 29 3/8" tall and 20 lbs 6 oz at her 1 year check up.
-Now we're gearing up for our trip to Thailand in the beginning of November