Gabriella's First Birthday

Happy Birthday Ella!

Gabriella turned 1 in June and I completely spaced putting her birthday pictures up.  Sorry!

Gabriella enjoyed her chocolate cake with chocolate icing.  Oddly enough, she is the first of my three children to actually have a chocolate cake on her first birthday.  Much easier to see chocolate frosting than white or strawberry frosting! Lol

Messy Messy Face!

 For her birthday, she got a 3 little pigs play set, some tumble balls, and a book. This little girly is spoiled compared to the first two!

 A year ago, Ella was still living with her birth mom. We'd learned of her birth and that she was healthy and strong.  Her birth mom wrote an email to me later saying this about her first few days/weeks:

"Her birth weight was 8lbs, 11oz, but dropped down to 7lbs, 15oz by Monday and the doctors were worried about the amount because it was more than the 10% that should have been max weight lost and because she hadn't started gaining yet. On Monday, the lactation consultant came in and had me weigh her on a very precise scale, then feed her, and weigh her again just to get the weight of the milk she took in (it wasn't much). By the next morning she had started to gain (like 1/2 and ounce) so they felt confident my milk had come in and she was again gaining weight and okay to go home. I ended up staying in the hospital the full 4 days (mostly to get my rest) and I'm glad I did so that we could be confident that she was on the road to gaining weight. We saw Dr. Oswald on Wednesday to make sure that she was in fact gaining weight. Dr. O wasn't worried at that point and declared her to be quite healthy. She did however recommend shots for whooping cough because it had been going around.

After she came home, I slept on the couch for the first two weeks with her on my chest. She and I just cuddled. The night didn't start that way- I just ended up on the couch from about 1:30am until 3am. That would get us through a good feeding (and I would sleep some too). Then during the day, I would hang out on the couch a bunch too, making sure she had plenty to eat. Besides eating, she really enjoyed sleeping all bundled up in her swing."

 

Ella didn't come to our family until August 5, when she was almost 2 months old.  I suppose we'll do something to celebrate that day as well.  But I'm so grateful that she came to our family. She has been such a blessing to us and we couldn't be happier with her! 

 

Right now she's focusing on learning to walk.  She has improved so much in the last month.  She started taking her first steps right around her birthday but hasn't really gotten to walking until this last week or so.  She's walked 17 steps at one time before giving up and crawling.  Crawling is still her preferred method of movement though.  She has figured out how to push herself to standing in two different ways, which shocked us to watch! I thought it would take a little longer for her to figure that out. 

 

I can't wait to see what else my beautiful girl learns this next year!