Ella girl is 12 now, and one of the ways she celebrated was hosting brunch for the Canberra family last Monday (a public holiday), our first cold bleak day of the season.
Present giving takes a lot of thought for teens and pre-teens. Angus took a lot of care to choose this one......
Lego was on Ella's wish list - and this set .......
ticked all the boxes .............
These sweet kids put in a few hours building this most amazing ship in a bottle Lego - from scratch! Just as well it held their interest as it was not much fun playing party games outside on this cold grey morning.
It was a serious business, involving great teamwork..........
Abi didn't feel as much part of the Lego team - which was nice for us as she put in a lot of time with Maxie and me instead telling us all about whale sharks (and other creatures).
Ella makes all the cakes in the family now - although she's a bit over it at the moment after making 72 birthday cupcakes for her school friends.
I tried to get a good group shot of these gorgeous kids - but only two of them are friends of the camera... I take what I can get!!
This might be my best shot!
Happy birthday dear sweet Ella girl!
This post is a celebration of Ella on her eleventh birthday. She's still the gorgeous, talented, bright and funny girl we've known for over a decade, but a lot taller now ........ always on the move ......... and always heading in the right direction!
This was the big birthday present this year - one for the whole family to share .......
Ella's birthday yesterday was also marked by the installation of her first (small) set of braces. They only affect her back molars at this stage so hopefully her megawatt smile will be unhindered by the new hardware.
We were able to see Ella's two and half hour gym session last night (no slacking off just because it's her birthday). She does some very scary stuff - and beautifully too!
Ella can walk the full length of this floor mat on her hands!
Happy Birthday beautiful Ella!
I started this blog with a post on the 8th May 2007 - in readiness for the arrival of baby Ella (which didn't actually happen until 21st May). It's hard to believe that was a decade ago - and Ella is now 10 years old already (today!)
This beautiful pic was taken when Ella was 3 months old (at Ollie's 3rd birthday).
At seven moths old.......
On her first birthday.......
On her second birthday.......
her third birthday........
her fourth..........
her fifth........
her sixth.........
her seventh.......
and eighth........
her ninth...........
And now her tenth birthday! ......
Ella had such a cool and fun party last night with a few special friends - very low key, but beautiful food, "The School of Rock" (excellent movie) with lots of popcorn - then plenty of jokes and competitions after wards. Ella made her own cake from scratch. It was a super happy birthday for this gorgeous girl - what a wonderful decade!
Abi's had a big week too. Kindergarten ran their first assembly at school so Abi performed for that and then today (Sunday) she performed in the Canberra Japan Club Extravaganza at Cook Community Hall (singing a very cute Japanese song about a turtle - with actions!). We can't believe that Abi used to feel quite shy about preforming in public - she's loved it al this weekl!
It's hard to believe that this sparky fun loving and talented girl is nine already!
Eight of Ella's friends helped her celebrate yesterday at the Rock Climbing Centre at Hume. We were all "roped" in too, acting as belayers for the young ones while they scaled the walls (of varying difficulty), having lots of fun and laughter in the process!
Of course the four year olds wanted to join in too (eventually)!
This is the first year Ella has designed and made her own birthday cake. We made the chocolate devil's food cake (Donna Hay) before school on Friday morning and then did the icing on Friday night. Ella did a superb job of all the piping on top of the cake then it was our challenge to convince her to "let it show" and not crowd it with all the other decorative effects she had in her lively imagination.
She loved the way the cake ended up looking like a Cadbury's block of chocolate (complete with purple ribbon). Go girl!
Abi loved helping Ella unwrap her presents afterwards, and was very taken with some of them herself.
This was our nine year old girl this morning - about to head out to another birthday party - looking very stylish and grown up. Go girl indeed.
Lego was on Ella's wish list - and this set .......
ticked all the boxes .............
These sweet kids put in a few hours building this most amazing ship in a bottle Lego - from scratch! Just as well it held their interest as it was not much fun playing party games outside on this cold grey morning.
It was a serious business, involving great teamwork..........
Abi didn't feel as much part of the Lego team - which was nice for us as she put in a lot of time with Maxie and me instead telling us all about whale sharks (and other creatures).
Ella makes all the cakes in the family now - although she's a bit over it at the moment after making 72 birthday cupcakes for her school friends. 
I tried to get a good group shot of these gorgeous kids - but only two of them are friends of the camera... I take what I can get!!
This might be my best shot!
Happy birthday dear sweet Ella girl!
