Ella's 1st Birthday!

Part of my "Catch-up Series" was Ella's 1st birthday party on April 10th!



Ella and her little buddy Jake Redder. We were pulling them around in this laundry basket and they were havin a good ol' time before her little party.



We gave Ella her own little cupcake and at first she just picked at it and didn't put any in her mouth then when she finally took a taste she went to town!











By the end she started just smushing it all over her face and up her nose! It was so funny!







She loved her birthday cupcake!



All happy and sticky!



After giving her a bath we gave her a huge stuffed animal bunny present that she LOVES!



When i was shopping with her at Walmart she saw this bunny and just started getting so excited, I just had to get it for her for her b-day.



She seriously loves this bunny she kisses it and hugs it and snuggles with it.





It's so cute cause she tries to carry it around with her but it's about double her size so she is always like grunting and tugging to try to bring it along with her.



Here's the video that we took of Ella eating her b-day cupcake.




All done with her cupcake and rubbing cupcake all over her face!

Playing Catch-up!

Our lives have been pretty busy and crazy the last couple of weeks! Here's a the low down of what we've been up to...
I decided that I'm going to divide some of the events into separate posts because i realized i have a lot of pics and it will take me too long to do one huge post.



Ella is just a little character.... she's constantly becoming more and more independent and hilarious. She loves to do everything on her own, it truly has to be her idea to do pretty much anything in order for her to do it. For example I will try to put a cheerio in her mouth and she will refuse it but if i put it on the couch or something for her to grab she will take it and eat it. She is so funny, I'm just learning to accept my child has a very strong little personality and letting her become her own little individual independent self.



How do you like those tonsils!

The last week we were in Idaho we tried to get together with as many of our friends as we could to say good-bye before we left for Texas for the summer! So Ella and I went on a walk/visit with Hayley and Jake Redder and Dulcie and Camrie Clayton. It was a lot of fun. ( I miss you girls!)

Another fun experience I had was throwing my sister-in-law, Diana's baby shower! I had a lot of fun with preparing it and putting it all together, plus I had a lot of great friends who helped me accomplish it! Thanks again everyone!



I made my first diaper cake for my gift and a center piece for the shower. It really wasn't too hard at all. I used a baby shampoo as the center core to build around.

It was a lot of fun...i started looking up how to make them on the internet and how much people were charging for them and I kinda thought maybe i should get in on doing some of that....well i don't know how well they sell but if people are buying these things, some for like $600 that are seriously so simple that I'm thinkin I'm going to start a business!



I also made her some headbands which i had a lot of fun with! Ella won't wear any of hers anymore because she pulls them out, she won't even let me put a little barrette in her hair, she just rifles around in her hair until she finds them and yanks them out! I'm so sad because i made her a bunch of cute hair accessories and i can't use any of them anymore. That little stinker!



Angie, Chad's sister was our great little photographer while I was hosting.



We played this candy bar game where they had to guess which phrase about having a baby went with the name of a candy. For example baby's poopy diaper went with "Milk Duds". :) It was fun! We played some other games as well but this is the only one i have a picture of.



Cute little preggo Didi opening her awesome gifts she got at the shower.



So i forgot to take pictures of my tables before everyone came so after everyone left i kind of tried resetting them up so i could have somewhat of an idea of what they looked like, so they're a little sparse but here's an idea of how they looked.




This was the food table and pretty much all of it was gone when I took this pic...but oh well. Lots of yummy food, it was great!



Here's the Henkel family gals, look at those hot mamas! And isn't Diana such a cute preggo girl!



So i know this picture is totally out of focus but it was the only one we took that was all of us Henkels together and for some reason my camera was taking blurry pictures when i put it on timer. Weird huh?



Angie was reading to Ella and she was just loving it. Any book that has animals in it
and in particular dogs she has a hay day!

Well that's all i'm going to post for today but hold on to your seats they're still more I need to catch you up on!

My Grandpa Lamb's funeral

A couple of weeks ago Ella and I went down to Vegas for my Grandpa Lamb's funeral. It was good to see all of my family that I hadn't seen since my wedding almost 2 and 1/2 years ago. Even though it was a sad time we were all relieved that my grandpa was no longer in pain. He had been sick for awhile and so it helped to know that he had gone to a much better place. The funeral was beautiful and the things everyone said to commemorate my grandpa were wonderful. I was thankful that I was able to go down for it and that I was able to talk to my grandpa on the phone one last time before he passed away. I am just so thankful to have the knowledge I do about life after death and the plan of salvation...i truly think that life would be so depressing if all I knew was "until death do us part". We miss you and love you Grandpa.



I couldn't find a better picture of my grandpa but I wanted to put one up of him...so here's one with him in it at our wedding. (He's right above Chad's mom on the right hand side) He's so cute in his sunglasses!



My brother Tyler and my Grandma Lamb.



Aww precious.... :)



A bunch of the Lamb cousins at the luncheon after the funeral.



All the kids my Grandpa Lamb had except Uncle Shane (he had already left.)
My Uncle Russell, my Dad, Uncle Randy and Uncle Kevin.



Me, my sister mallorie and my momma!



While I was down in Henderson I also visited my Grandma Lucille.
There was this dog at her house that Ella just LOVED. She pretty much loves all animals but dogs are her favorite.



My youngest brother Cody's birthday was on the 28th of March so we had a little party for him while we were in Henderson. My mom had made some cupcakes and I was standing by them talking to my someone while holding Ella facing out and I turned to look at her and realized she was able to reach the cupcakes and she had dug her hand in one and shoved it in her mouth as fast as possible! It was so funny!



Boy did she love that cupcake!



Me and my brother Tyler. He's 21 and he's pretty funny...we have some good times together.



Aww, my parents, I just want to send out a little shout out for them, they are just so amazing and have been such great examples to me, I am just really thankful for them... love you mom and dad!

Ella's daily routine.

So Ella has a daily chore that she feels she must accomplish before doing anything else...



First she must pull out everything in the entertainment center...



Then she must take the phone off the hook... (look at those eyes, caught in the act!)



Then she has to pull all of the paper out of the printer (which daddy accidentally forgets to take the paper out of)...



The funny thing is even if i clean it all up she feels like she must pull it all back out...she does her duty very well that's for sure...gotta love our little mess-maker!

Happy Easter!

Ok i know i'm a little late but as usual i'm behind on my posting! These were taken on Easter Sunday.



Playing with her Easter balloon.



We were really excited about easter!



Our little Henkel Family.

The rest of these pictures are just random but i thought they were cute.



We just got gates for our stairs a few weeks ago and Ella loves to stand by them and shake them.



Chad and I were playing Phase 10 and Ella was his teammate. You'd be surprised at her quick draw skill.



This is Ella and her FAVORITE teddy bear, she snuggles with it when she sleeps. I caught her hugging it one day while she was playing in her jumparoo, it was so cute!



Chad decided to put Ella in a Cheez-it box...Don't ask me why. The thing I love about this picture though is her hair...i had put her hair in pig tails the day before and this was how it looked when she woke up.



Whenever i take out the camera Ella likes to try to touch it, so she scurries over as fast as she can to attack. This was her right before she grabbed it.

HER BOOTS WERE MADE FOR WALKIN'!

About 2 or more weeks ago Ella started walking on her own! We started just having her walk back and forth between Chad and I and she just loved this game! I truly wonder if we would have tried it earlier on if she would have started walking earlier, it seems like all she needed was a little encouragement! It's crazy how much she has progressed even from when we took this video two weeks ago. Now she pulls herself up to standing on her own without holding onto anything and she is just walking everywhere, hardly crawling at all anymore! It's amazing how fast babies develop and learn. We're proud of our little walker!