12 month stats

Ella's trip to the dr. was this morning. It was a LONG appointment. We were there for 2 hours! Jeez.... She now weighs 21 pounds, 13 ounces (75th percentile) and is 31 inches long/tall (97% percentile). That was the easy part. We met with the dr., which went better than our last visit. Ella is starting to get over her stranger anxiety I think, but she was still a little scared. The dr. is still concerned about her neck/head. She wants us to visit with a physical therapist to look at her neck muscles. Ella has a tendancy to hold her head to the side. The dr. isn't sure if it's due to the neck muscles or if it's an eye issue. She also wants us to meet with a pediatric eye dr. I guess we'll see....not too excited about these. Then came the dreaded shots. On top of those, Ella had to have her blood drawn (boo) because of those lovely chicken pox. They took her blood to confirm she now has the immunity to the chicken pox. We'll get the results in about a week. Hopefully she has the full immunity. If not, then Ella will have to go back and get the vaccine (yuck!). To make matters more difficult, Ella appears to be a bit dehydrated today. She's not having many wet diapers so far today, and she woke up this morning with a completely dry diaper (unusual). When they finally found Ella's little vein for her blood draw (oh man, that was NOT fun) Ella's blood just dripped ever so slowly, so it took longer than any of us wanted it to take. :( Hopefully some Pedialyte and maybe some watermelon at lunch will help.

So, that's that. Enjoy the weekend.

Happy Birthday Ella!

She's One. Unreal! I never believed this past year would go by so fast. I have learned a LOT about babies (acid reflux, colic, even the chicken pox!) Times flies. I could say I've loved every minute of it, but let's get real here - some days were (and are) too crazy to even get into. But Ella is a sweet little girl and a blessing to Jay and I that we're very thankful for. I can't wait to watch Ella continue to grow & learn new things!

To celebrate Ella's first birthday, we headed to the Mall of America this morning for a little shopping & strollering (Ella LOVES to people watch). Ella took a ride on a mini-merry-go-round. We had lunch at Chili's and headed home for some relaxing (and a few more Minnie Mouse pictures....see below). It's been a fun past few days of spending time with family & friends. Tomorrow it's a dose of reality - back to work! Ella's One Year dr. visit is on Friday morning - check back for her stats.

Ella's First Birthday Party

I can't believe it's over! Yesterday went SOOO fast. We had a fun-packed day of party craziness - Minnie Mouse syle. I was so excited for this party I could hardly wait for everyone to get here - and neither could Ella!

I think this picture is hilarious. She's sitting there with her party balloons like "what in the world we doing?!?"

So the long anticipated cake situation. If you follow the blog, you know about the test cake I did a few weeks back. The icing is and was my enemy. I got all freaked out about doing that cake for her actual party (What if it didn't turn out!) So....I compromised with myself. I made cupcakes and left icing the "big" cake to the professionals. Turns out, we didn't even NEED the cake - I had enough cupcakes. I think they turned out super cute & everyone said they were delicious. I used a new frosting recipe with marshmellow creme (super yummy!) If I have to make future cakes, I will be using this recipe - it was super easy to make & spread perfectly.

Cute right?! I used pre-made fondant for the mouse cutouts! (but I wish I would have had time to frost pink bows on these!)


(this is the "professional cake" with my cupcakes)

I also baked & frosted Ella's "smash" cake. I made buttercream frosting for this one, which was more difficult to spread, but I did my best!

Enough about the cakes, let's see some party pictures!!

Wait - where are your ears?!?!

Okay - that's better!!

Everyone attending the party had to wear the mouse ears for pictures with Ella. It was a lot of fun & everyone was a good sport about it.

A few pictures of Ella opening gifts. She wasn't too into having to rip the paper, or really do much of anything related to the gift opening. She had some pretty comical expressions throughout and was sort of frustrated with the whole thing. But, she's been having fun checking out new toys.

Happy Birthday to you....happy birthday to you....

Ella ate a bunch of icing (so it must have tasted good!) but she needed some help to start digging in the cake. Once she got rolling though, it was pretty interesting. She basically started to shovel cake out. A few times she'd get handfuls of cake and then squeeze her hands as hard as she could.....really nice & messy!

Mom...I have sticky stuff on my hand - will you get it off?

Ahhh.....a full tummy & utter exhaustion led to a mid-afternoon nap....

And then, some playing!

I think Ella had a good time! We did too! Now we're looking forward to June 2nd to celebrate with her on her actual birthday - day. :)

Rash Guards

Okay - who's ever heard of a Rash Guard and how long have these been around? Apparently I have not been in the good parent loop on these things. I read about them in a magazine the other day and was like "what are you talking about?!" And then today as I was strolling down Nicollet Mall doing some market shopping, I saw a huge sign in the GAP window about a sale on Rash Guards. THEN, when I got back to work I searched the GAP site to figure out what the heck it is and it seems like it's a shirt to wear swimming. Can't they just call it a swim shirt? I don't get what rashes we're trying to guard...weird!

Tomorrow is a big pre-party day at 1220 Willow Trail. Lots of baking & cooking (and then cleaning) will be going down. Wish me luck. Party photos will be posted this weekend (fingers crossed)!

The Weekend Update

So we've made it through the weekend tending to Ella & her chicken pox. Jay left yesterday afternoon, and Ella & I hung out the remainder of the day/night. I think the chicken pox are making her more sleepy (although not at night!) She's taken really long naps twice a day starting about the time we realized she had the chicken pox. I hope the long naps are helping to heal those spots! I can't believe how many she has now! Going to bed at night has been tricky these past few days though, not fun!!

Saturday morning I started my quest to bake a test cake #1 for Ella's birthday. I wasn't planning to make it myself, however, we're having trouble finding someone to make it (landing on Memorial Day weekend & tons of Graduation parties plus the Farmington Bakery quoted me over $100. Are they crazy?!) Anyway, so I decided I could tackle this cake myself. I mean, really, I love to bake, so it couldn't be too bad right? Well, baking the cake was no problem. The problem comes when it's time to ice the cake. For the test cake #1 I just bought frosting b/c I didn't want to mess around with making my own (nor did I have time!) Well, I ran out of white frosting & I tinted too much of it pink, so I already had an issue. Oh well. It's just a tester right? Icing a smooth looking cake is not easy! I brushed up on all the tricks & nuances of icing online but that still didn't seem to help. I think it's all about practice makes perfect, and I don't have much time left to practice before the big day! So, although I'm proud to say I have accomplished the cake you'll see in a minute, I give it maybe a D. I haven't tasted it yet though so maybe it could get a few bonus points on taste. I also decided to skip all the minnie mouse fondant cutout work for another day - which is why the bottom tier is plain. And because I ran out of white icing, the polka dots (that's what they're supposed to be anyway) on the top tier were supposed to be white, but ended up being pink.

The pox photos

Ella has been doing pretty well with the chicken pox (so far) and here are a few more pictures from this morning showing her lovely spots.

Chicken Pox

Ella has the chicken pox. Yes, you read that correctly. Our 11 month old who doesn't attend daycare, has somehow managed to pick up the pox! I talked to the nurses this morning and they just want us to keep an eye on her behavior and appetite. I guess she can continue to get new spots for up to 6 more days (jeez!) and she's contagious until all of the red bumps have scabbed over. For anyone who cares (and because I didn't know this) the pox start out as red bumps that look like an insect bite, then they turn to blister-like bumps, and then the blisters turn to scabs. I just hope everything is cleared up before her upcoming (and much anticipated) birthday celebrations! Should be...

I'm really hoping we don't have a crabby baby this weekend. Jay is planning to be out of town and so it'll just be me handling Ella & the chicken pox. I'll have to update again later with how she's doing.

Mother's Day 2010 (my first mother's day)