This is Elly's new favorite food...

Isn't it good to be one year old and get to eat real food?

First Birthday, First Zoo, too!!!!

Brandon and I took Elly to the Fresno Chaffee Zoo for her birthday; she liked it. I mean, she wasn't jumping up and down screaming for excitement, but it was a good time. We thought she could've been just as happy at Mima's with the doggies, but whatever- we had fun.

Looking at the Monkeys!


Elly and Brandon are looking at something VERY interesting in this one...


Check it out!!! Later on two tigers had a fight where they were standing on their back legs clawing at each other with their front paws, it was wild- but I didn't get a picture because there were people standing in front of me.


Elly liked the petting zoo, but the goats didn't especially like her. They kept running away- too many kids abusing them, I'm sure.


She watched the flamingos with Mommy. (I know, I'm finally in a picture- what? I like being behind the camera.)


The Zoo Map was seriously Elly's favorite part of the whole zoo. She played with it forever...until "Elly, time to go see more live animals...ok you can hold the map...just get in the stroller."


Elly was pretty tired when we got to the last animal "lobos rojos", but they looked like doggies so she was pretty into them.


Good thing we didn't buy this elephant hat for her, because she hated it. But, it was still pretty cute.

The First Birthday!

Here are the pictures you've been waiting for...Elly's First Birthday Party. It was a lot of fun with cousins, Tommy and Isabel, Uncle Erik, Mima, and friends Brooke, Mike and their baby, Eden. We ate pizza (including Elly), had cake, and opened presents. I made this little doggie cake for her to destroy:

Once she got a taste...

it was all over! She probably consumed about an eighth of that whole cake! She was double fisting it for most of the time. It was hilarious. But, she stayed surprisingly clean.


Then, it was time for the presents! She didn't know what was happening at first, but after only one present...

she was hooked and she was so excited to see what was in each one.


Here's Elly with her loot! Of course, we let her play with only one of the presents now, and hid the rest for later. She already has too many toys! We'll do a little rotation.

New Back Yard!!!

We agree, we should've done this months ago (so we could enjoy it all summer long), but we finally did something with our backyard. We just did it really simply; sadly, no pool. This is what it looked like when we moved in.
This is what it looks like now:

back fence:

sideyard:

the tons and tons of sod it took to cover our yard:

Scooting around

Here are some pictures of Elly scooting around the kitchen on her little "car". I don't know what to call it, really. It's not a bike because it has four wheels. I guess I could say it's a four wheeler, but it has a trunk and a gear shift. Anyway, she can go backwards on it only. She likes it until she hits a wall or slips off one of the sides and falls onto the floor. I know, sad. She likes to put stuff in the trunk, usually the ducks she takes in the bath with her.

Meal Time

Elly has started a new phase of her life: the phase where she only wants to eat what we are eating and in the exact way from the exact source. She's been hinting at this for some time, pointing to what we have and grunting. But, it wasn't until a few weeks ago that she became really passionate about it. She now screams and makes a teeth gritting face when we don't let her have our food. I've started giving her baby food as a snack because there's no way she's eating baby food at the table, when we're having chicken and rice, or tacos, or pizza.

This picture is what happened when I tried to cut an apple into bite-sized pieces for her (that was unacceptable):


This is what happened the first time I let her feed herself some mixed cereal (I finally gave in to the teeth gritting). She abandoned the spoon after a few minutes:


She's a lot better at it now:

Header Games

So, you may have seen a lot of changes in the header of this blog. Be patient, I'm playing with it. The one you might see now is a picture of Brandon and me at a super old torn down castle in Romania over looking a little town (we don't remember what it was called). It was excellently taken by our friends Tyler and Kristin Ray (we don't remember which one) "Thanks, guys!" We went back to Romania with them soon after our first year anniversary. So...NO, THIS WAS NOT TAKEN ON THE MISSION!!!

The Bunny

Even though it's the day after Halloween, I took some pictures of Elly in her first costume, the Bunny. See how hard it was for me to decide what she was going to be this year?
For the parties we went to last weekend, Elly was really good, she sat super still while I put eyeliner on her nose and cheeks. But, today was a different story; maybe she knew what was coming this time. This was the best I could do:


Elly was so tired this morning, you can tell she's ready for a nap:

Every time we go to the park, she wants to swing. She absolutely loves it. (Even when you are a bunny the day after Halloween and all the people at the park think your mom mixed up her days, you want to swing.) She was still so tired, she couldn't hold up her head.