Pajama Party!

Here are a few shots from Ellis' pajama-themed birthday party.  It was a hit.  And there were A LOT of kids there.  I counted 22 kids, plus at least as many adults.  Whew.  Next year and probably every year following, we will be combining the girls parties.  It was fun, but it was also a LOT of work.

She smiled and clapped while everyone sang to her

And very deliberately ate all of her pumpkin muffin with whipped cream

This is how we entertained 22 kids (and a few adults)..

This party-goer especially loved the Ariel bouncy house

Later we dove into presents

Leyton was a big help unwrapping and showing Ellis how to play with everything

But all good things (like bouncy houses) most come to an end...

(sidenote: all these pictures where taken the same day.  Leyton is wearing 3 different costumes.  Scroll back up and see if you can find all three!)

Happy Birthday Ellis!

My sweet baby Ellis.  Daddy and I love you more than you could possibly ever know.  It has been our blessing to watch you grow this year.  There has not been a day that you have not made us smile.  You are funny, sweet and mischivious and you fill our hearts up with love.  You are a beautiful little mess and we wouldn't trade you for the world.  We love you!

And, guess who took 5 steps on Monday!  

Happy Birthday sweet Ellis!

These kids are into EVERYTHING!

Sweet baby Ellis is only an official baby for a few more days.  She will switch to 'toddler' on September 18.  Today she switched to a big girl carseat.  I am slowly getting rid of all the 'baby' stuff.  Am I sad?  Nope.  Not yet.  I keep waiting for it.  But I just FINALLY had two nights of 8 hours of uninterrupted sleep.  Babies are exhausting.  Good luck to all yall who just keep popping them out.  I'm busy enough with these two.

She gets cuter with age

If you were to ask Ellis what her favorite thing to do is (and if she could talk) she would certainly say that she loves to play in the dishwasher.  I made certain she can get in and out safely... she hit her head twice on the door and then learned not to go that way... so I let her play in there while I load and unload.

She is NOT allowed to stand though

Leyton is back in soccer.  She moved up to the beginner class sans Mommy.  She was a handful for the coaches.  In this picture, instead of kicking the ball to the blue cone, she ran to the blue cone, took off the blue jersey, put it on, and ran around.

She had fun though and it was fun to watch

Just when I thought I had made a HUGE mistake having them so close together, the girls are finally starting to entertain each other.  Here Leyton is dressing Ellis in different hats.

And giving her a sweet kiss

Silly kids

I was quickly running out of time for her 11 month photo shoot, so I just grabbed the sticker and camera one night before our walk

It was too sunny, so we had bad shadows and squinty eyes

CRAZY HAIR!

She had a fit because Ellis got to wear a sticker.  She cried until she tackled her sister and got the sticker.

Eating what I hope is grass.  This kid puts everything in her mouth. And the other day I caught her licking the potty.  Ugh.

Leyton grabbed the sticker from Ellis' hand, stuck it to her hair, and ran away

Ellis can stand for 30+ seconds now and she walks very well when holding onto something.  But she has yet to take a step on her own.

still standing..

Doing an air squat...

And stand back up... skills!

Ellis loves to eat.  Especially chicken.  We put bananas, sweet potato, cheese and chicken on her tray and she ate ALL the chicken first.  Amazing.  I gave her this snack cup to see if she could figure it out.  She shook all the snacks out and then ate the Cheerios off the floor.  Genius.

Love my silly girls!