Happy 6th Birthday, Ella!

It's hard to believe that my Ella is already 6 years old!! It sounds so much older than 5 did! She is also graduating from Kindergarten tomorrow and is so excited about her busy, fun week with her Birthday, Graduation, and her party-it's almost too much excitement for her! It seems like more of my time on the blog has been focused on Seth or Sophie, probably because they are home more with me, so I am going to use this post to talk about my BIG girl. I also went through some older pictures of her to blog since I wasn't blogging when she was a baby. (They are all out of order though.)

Ella is so sweet and the BEST big sister! I can't wait to have her home with me ALL Summer! She will be such a big help and even though it will be busier entertaining all 3 of them, I know it will be lots of fun! She puts up with Sophie so well and is hardly ever mean to her. If Sophie tries to tell me that Ella hit her, I know it's not true because I don't think she has a mean bone in her body! She loves to play with Seth and make him laugh!

Ella at 6 months old-this was the earliest picture I could find on our hard drive today. I'm glad I used to print ALL her pictures and have 4 photo albums from her first 3 years. This blog is my new photo album/scrapbook and I can barely keep up with it! We called her our little orange baby because she LOVED orange food (carrots, sweet potatoes...) She was such a sweet and happy baby too!

This was one of her 1 year photos!

3 year old pic of her playing at the Beach

I think this was her 3 year old Preschool Valentines Day Picture

This was a picture of our little family of 3 in front of our Christmas tree-I remember Mom took this picture of us! We were so excited to have Ella that year and wanted a baby so bad!

This was a pic of Ella in her frog swimsuit Aunt Ginger bought her-I think we were at the lake with friends here.

Another sweet 1 year old picture-we had her picture made at Garven Gardens and have the sweetest collage of her pictures framed.

Some pics we took of her when she was 18 months old!

18 months

2 years old at the Beach with Daddy (Mom bought her this cute sailor dress that she wore for Easter and to Uncle Josh and Aunt Sarah's wedding the week after we went to the Beach)

More 2 year old Beach pics-I'm sensing a Beach theme, I think we take a lot of yearly pictures at the Beach (and we usually go right before Ella's Birthday)

Seeing these pictures from this Beach trip was a tough one for me because my Mom was so sick and we almost didn't make the trip! She insisted that we go despite the fact that she was in the hospital, Gabby and Ginger came down to be with her. I was taking care of her in our house and never really wanted to leave her. She lived with us for about 9 months and went to Heaven at the end of the Summer. She LOVED Ella so much and I am so glad she was able to live with us and spend so much time with her!! Ella still talks about her Me Me living here every now and then.

My big 6 year old looking too grown up!

Ella's Beach pics from this year

2011 Beach pics

Ella is my sensitive and sweet child who always wants to do well! She had a great year in school this year and is already reading small books! I remember asking her Preschool teachers to let me hold her back so she could stay home with me since she had a Summer Birthday and they said No! They were right, she was SO ready and loves school.

Ella is VERY social and likes to play with friends at every chance she gets. She loves to play outside and has made several neighborhood friends that she wants to play with all the time! She likes to swim, play softball, take dance or gymnastics and loves to watch cartoons or TV. She loves to be busy! She will be at one activity and ask me what she gets to do next. I know my Mom is laughing at this because she used to tell me that I did the same thing!!

I took popsicles up to her class today for her Birthday! She was so excited. She can't wait for her graduation tomorrow and Birthday Party this weekend!! We love you so much Ella Faith!!