The Chronicles of Emery and Elle: Elle's First Birthday

Happy 1st Birthday Elle!!

Photos taken by Shannon Ellis, Mulvane, KS.

May 5, 2012 our sweet Baby Elle turned ONE!! What a milestone! It seems like just yesterday I was extremely pregnant with her, hauling Emery in the wagon around the block trying to jump start contractions! lol! Many many memories have been made in the last year in our little family. Starting when I woke Patrick up at 3 am the morning of May 5, 2011 telling him we needed to head to the hospital...then when this sweet girl was born, she came out shocking the whole room with her size. All the nurses were so surprised at what a chunk she was when she weighed in at 9 lb 14.6 oz Almost a 10 pound baby! I still can't believe sometimes that I was able to deliver her! We brought her home and Emery took the big brother role on right away, never skipping a beat. The dynamics in our house changed, but the foundation remained the same and it was far easier to adjust to adding a second child to our lives than it was when Emery joined us! :) She never had her days and nights mixed up, she slept and ate well from the beginning. Our only struggles of the first year was getting her to sleep through the night, and finally, the day she turned 7 months old, she slept all night and never looked back. Elle is such a learner. She's an observer and you can tell she loves soaking her brain full of knowledge. She could wave hello very early on, she said "Hi!" at an early age, and she can already say about 12 words. She can also point to her eyes and say "eyes," and point to objects in the house and call them by name (lights, clock, fan, etc). One unique thing about her that is different from other babies is her disinterest in needing to crawl or walk. It took her several months to roll over, several more months to army crawl, and at her first birthday she still couldn't crawl like normal babies do on all fours. Forget cruising furniture, standing unaided, or using a push behind toy...she's no where near that! She is quite content to sit on her bum, play with toys she can reach, and observe the world around her. At first I was concerned about her...maybe something was wrong? Then I had moments when I would be jealous that babies younger than her were reaching these milestones before she did. Then, one day, I realized that I should embrace her uniqueness and realize that it meant she was an extremely happy and content baby. She had no need to cause to try and crawl and that was just fine with her. I realized it was easy to have a baby that wasn't mobile, and it most certainly kept her baby little baby girl for longer! :) In the past year we have gone on fun trips, spent holidays together and with our family, laughed lots, played lots, and learned lots. I hope she loved it as much as I have!!

On her special day, her Godparents Lauren & Reid and their son Jack came to Wichita to spend the day with us. We went to the Zoo for lunch and had pizza for dinner. It was a really fun day for Elle!

Singing happy birthday to the birthday girl!