A Birthday for Ella

I know. Old news.

Too bad.

Prepare yourselves for an entire weekend of celebration, with way too much sugar. 

On Saturday morning, we went to breakfast with Landen and Adam to this delightful little restaurant downtown called Texas French Bread. We had a Groupon and we got a whole array of things, none of which were a disappointment (the eggs, the French toast, and the pain au chocolate were especially excellent). I was worried it’d be packed on a Saturday morning, but it wasn’t overly busy and we didn’t wait at all. Also, it was lovely to eat our pastries while we waited for our hot dishes to arrive.

As we were finishing up our food, we sang Happy Birthday to Ella, who was so thoroughly excited by the whole thing, that she started flailing her arms around in excitement. Neither Bart nor I have ever seen her quite so excited.

Landen and Adam headed home, while the three of us made our way to the children’s museum. We had some free passes that were about to expire and Ella is just about the right age to really enjoy it there (I think the Austin children’s museum really taps out at about age six).

Then home and a nap for Ella, followed by a trip to the pool. It has been so warm that the pool was really more like a giant bathtub and I could feel my face just FRYING the whole time. Fortunately, thanks to some serious sunscreen, no one actually got burned, just very very warm.

And then . . . CAKE! We’d attended a little first birthday party some five or six weeks ago and Ella was absolutely enamored by the cake and the candles and the singing. However, she doesn’t love huge groups and we didn’t want it to be too overwhelming, so we invited over three couples that she really loves (with only one child total), and had a very small celebration.

On Monday, her actual birthday, I got back from my run to a still-snoozing child, so once we heard her moving around in her room, we gathered up two presents and a large cup of milk and went in, singing Happy Birthday (you guys, she’s still talking about this). She opened a darling little dress from my parents and also a pop-up tent and tunnel from them.

She proceeded to spend the entire morning sitting in the tent, bringing in play food, and crawling through the tunnel. Best present ever, is what I’m saying.

We picked up lunch at a restaurant near Bart’s office and met him there for a little lunch, where Ella fell in love with the breakroom and spent a lot of time chasing around ping pong balls. She also opened two more presents (a book from us and another outfit from my parent).

That evening, we had two families that have children around her age over for a very casual dinner with one final round of Happy Birthday singing and some cupcakes.

I’d say it was a birthday success.