Ella turns one

Our little Ella has turned one, and Shelley and I are left wondering where the time has gone. Ella would have come into this world a few minutes earlier than she did had the doctor not been stuck in traffic and instructed the nursing staff to keep the baby from being delivered. But what started out as a nightmare experience for Shelley has resulted in us being able to raise a really sweet little girl.

At her one year mark, Ella is on the cusp of standing and walking all on her own. She can handle a few seconds of standing on her own before she falls over. She loves her shoes and uses the stroller as her personal walker as much as we use it for her carriage. She's developing quite a loud voice and exhibits random moments of extreme volume in the most unfortunate of places: airplanes, church, inside of cars and during family prayer where her loud voice really reverberates. She has learned one word from Anthon, "Don't," which sounds more like Homer Simpson's "D'oh." She says it quite often and at times can come across emphatically. She can follow a few songs with simple hand gestures and will even supply a few words here and there to songs that she loves. She's just in a great learning phase.

We celebrated her first birthday in Beijing during our trip. We found a local bakery, bought the only small cake they had, only to find that Ella had no interested in it at all, and wanted nothing to do with the peaches or the cake. But we sang and celebrated nevertheless. A pre-birthday celebration took place with Shelley's family when they were visiting us a few weeks back. Ella devoured her chocolate cupcake - it must be a chocolate thing.

We feel blessed to have such a cute young little girl in our lives. She brings a bit more of a feminine balance to the family, which is helpful considering Anthon is 100% boy. Anthon's a great big brother and is adored by Ella who seems to have a special smile and laugh reserved only for him.

Click on the pictures to see a small gallery of shots of Ella from her first birthday. As always, I've posted a video of her "party."