Now back to the star of this blog and her big day.

What birthday would be complete without a few of your good friends?

And of course cake! Ella was much neater this year, but messy enough to enjoy it.

To see the rest of the pics from the day see Daddy’s flickr page.

Present opening was punctuated by Ella saying, “happy birthday to me.” After eating cake and opening presents, Ella decided it was time to do it all again. She climbed into her highchair and instructed everyone to sing Happy Birthday to her — three more times. She also had us all sing Ba Ba black sheep — it’s such a good song — why not?

If you care to get a snipit of the day, you can check out some of the action here. Nothing exciting happens. I promise you.

This one is of our trek to the sledding hill.

This one is of one of her bundled up rides down the hill (don’t worry she was about six feet from the tree even though it looks much closer).

And this one is just another fridged run.

The weather was amazing for November and Ella took full advantage. Click here to see the movie.

She had lots of time to be cute.

And spent some quality time with her cousins — check out all the action here.

Ella played much nicer this time with Anthony, and even let Mommy hold him.

Grandma and Grandpa took her to the Children’s Museum where she got to do all sorts of fun things.

But nothing was as cool as riding the big horse — check out the movie here. At the time she didn’t seem that into it, but horses have since ousted pigs as the second coolest animal on the planet — after dogs — of course.

After an all night drive home we had to go out and cut down our Christmas tree — why waste time — who needs sleep?

You can check out all the boring play-by-pay action here, here, here, and here (the second one is kind of funny. Listen for the thud of Daddy’s head as he almost knocks himself unconscious bringing the tree in the door).

Daddy took some amazing Christmas portraits

And we even went to visit the big guy. Ella was pretty nervous this year and needed Mommy to come with her in the sleigh. She wouldn’t even accept Santa’s offering of a candy cane (one of her favorite treats).

However, once he was on the other side of the glass it was a different story.

We visited the reindeer again this year, but it was too cold to wait to see Santa outside.

Grandma and Grandpa Chapin came up for Christmas this year and spent a week mostly snowed and frozen in (-35 below windchill and 10+ inches of snow! They’re never going to move back now). Christmas Eve was lots of fun and Ella got lots of love.

Finally, the big morning arrived and The Bug took it all in with eyes that quickly glazed over, completely overwhelmed. This picture pretty much sums it up.

MERRY CHRISTMAS TO ALL AND TO ALL A GOOD NIGHT!

We are enjoying a rare fall with warm temperatures and no snow (well it started snowing today, but it was 70 a few days ago!) Ella’s doing all kinds of fun fall things like visiting apple orchards with Grandma and Grandpa. Unfortunately, Grandpa thought the admission covered the cost of the pick-your-own apples and he was very unhappy with the $50 worth of apples he had to buy.

Grandma stayed extra long and helped us get ready for winter. Ella especially loved raking the leaves!

The Bug couldn’t have crammed more into Halloween– with pumpkin carving, a parade and of course trick-or-treating or as she likes to say “trick treat.”

The paper took her picture above at the Halloween parade. The parade is a chaotic event that involves hundreds of kids in costumes marching once around the football field. As many of you know, our little Bug marches to the beat of her own drum. Half way through the parade she decided that it would be much more fun to run out to the middle of the football field by herself and dance– and she did. Then it was back home for a quick outfit change.

Death never looked cuter. And the whole family was off for a marathon trick-or-treating session. I say marathon because the Bug ran the entire way–a good 10 blocks. She got the concept immediately, but it wasn’t until halfway through that she started saying “trick treat.” By the time we got home she couldn’t get enough candy so she sat down at our bowl and started shoveling it into her bag.

She started our trek to San Francisco with a red-eye flight. Not wanting to waste an opportunity to make friends, Ella ruled the terminal playing peak-a-boo with anyone that would look her way and even commandeered the lap of a total stranger with a copy of Good Night Moon in hand (and yes, the stranger read it to her straight through).

After spending the night in a somewhat questionable hotel Mommy booked online Ella was read to GO!

We met up with Aunt Christina and headed off to the sights of Chinatown, The Fisherman’s Wharf and a memorable ride on San Francisco’s cable cars.

First things first, Ella had to make herself feel at home in the new hotel room (really guys, it looks better this way).

Then Aunt Christina led us all down a dinge Chinatown alley on a hunt for a mysterious fortune cookie factory. The “factory” turned out to be two guys and and a Bunsen burner, but they sure were good!

The Bug made lots of new friends with various statues for sale in Chinatown. Mom can we buy these guys?

We stopped by the Fisherman’s Wharf where there was a really cool Merry-Go-Round, which Mommy did not let the Bug ride because of tourist congestion.

Mommy and Aunt Christina worked off all the calories they consumed in the last week taking turns pushing Ella up a very long, steep hill!

We wrapped up our first day with a ride on a cable car. A long wait, but completely worth it for two reasons…a bunny and Starbucks! Ella enjoyed the ride, applauding the cable car’s ability to stop after making everyone (except the Bug) scream down the big hills.

On day two it was off to wine country. Aunt Christina scoped out some kid-friendly vineyards and the Bug enjoyed Cakebread, St. Supery and Domaine Carneros.

St. Supery had lots of ripe grapes on the vine and Ella couldn’t get them in her mouth fast enough!

The Bug thoroughly enjoyed the grounds of Domaine Carneros, which recently released Ella champagne, which Mommy had to buy of course!

Aunt Christina also booked a fabulous lunch at Greystone where Ella was the perfect big girl and enjoyed a two-hour outdoor lunch.

On the way home we made a slight detour to get some spectacular views of the Golden Gate Bridge

The Bug was very impressed with the bridge and let out a big “OH WOW” as we went over.

As if all of that wasn’t enough we still have day three — Ella’s favorite day. It started with a trip to “The Rock” Between the boat ride and solitary confinement Ella thought she had found toddler heaven. In the eyes of a one year old Alcatraz is one giant playground.

But the highlight of the trip was yet to come. When Ella saw the Pacific Ocean she headed straight into the waves.

For most babies this whirlwind day would be enough, but not our Bug! We went off to the Japanese Garden and Tea House where the zen surroundings nearly toppled the stroller.

Finally we ended our trip in San Francisco with Sushi and Ella’s new favorite eating utensil — chop sticks!

Another uneventful red-eye home and the Bug was up and ready to GO! again this morning. For Aunt Christina’s take on the trip check out her travel blog here.

There was hiking. The Bug walked two miles — by herself!

There were lots of pretty waterfalls that made Ella say “OH WOW!”

Ella learned to say mosquito and when asked about them, much to our surprise, she said “I kill them!”

Digby came too and Ella took good care of him.

She tried new things like hot dogs and eating without a table.

She reminded us repeatedly that the fire was HOT!

And Daddy showed her the most important reason to have a fire.

When can we go again!?

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