A Month of Celebrations!

At the end of July, gorgeous little Ellis turned 1! We couldn't believe it!! 

How did he go from this...

 to this...

 to this...

to this...

to this... in a blink of an eye!

Yep, that's him climbing out of his new prezzie from Granny and Grandad - apparently doors are for babies! and this boy is certainly not a baby anymore!

He celebrated in style with a fabulous pirate party! 

and loved being the centre of attention! and getting fire truck rides from Granny!

Ella turned out to be a pretty cute baby girl pirate!

and Ellis obliged for a pic of the cousins with Auntie Mara for about 0.5 seconds, he does not stay still for long ;)

Neither baby was up for posing by this point so we took what we could get!

Daddy Arne BBQ'd up a feast for all the guests!

and no Jones gathering is complete without cupcakes! courtesy of Mummy Mel and Auntie Mara...

complete with pirate flags!

and smarties cookies made by me.

Ellis was totally delighted with everyone singing Happy Birthday to him, and he had no idea that the best part was still to come!

the CAKE! Here he is savouring every last bite...

until he realised the best thing to do was just stuff it all in at once! He definitely has Jones genes running through his blood with this picture!

He had lots of adorable little Pirate pals at the party who loved all the fun and games in the garden!

and even his Oma from Belgium, who came over especially, got into the pirate spirit! 

He showed us some of his latest dance moves!

and then he tackled his mountain of prezzies!

He got so many books, he will be able to open his own library!

and he was especially loving his little monkey stool - what a cutie!

He got an impressive selection of pirate themed cards too!

We headed back to the garden for him to test out the slide that we bought him, but he wasn't especially interested so Ella tried it out for the first time thanks to Uncle Arne.

Safe to say she loved it!

Ellis came along and said that's not how you do it! This is how you do it! and slid down head first! and there I was wondering if he'd be able to manage the slide or if he was too little still! That told me!

The next day Uncle By came to catch up on some Ellis lovin' since he'd been at commonwealth rugby the day before and missed out on the party!

There's nothing Ellis likes better than tickles!

and being chased!

Aren't Uncles the best! Ella thinks Uncle Arne is pretty great too!

and let's not forget what else Ellis love? that fire truck! I think it will go down as most loved present! It even shot real water out of it and everything!

He is such a happy outgoing little socialite and we loved celebrating his special day with him!

The following week we headed to Birmingham to celebrate Lucy's wedding.  Tash was very excited about meeting Ella for the first time!

as was Lucy! Look how beautiful she looked! Ella wasn't really sure what was going on...

but apparently she was loving Lucy's flowers!

Our little 'extended' psychology crew from all those years ago at Reading Uni!

She had an amazing cupcake tower...

how cute are the ones with bunting on top! I loved all the vibrant colours!

Even Ella's highchair got it's own bow - how cute is that!

and she got spoilt with the cutest bag of goodies that kept her thoroughly entertained (and the rest of our table!) for the whole of the reception!

She has literally not put this shaker toy down since she got it, she can't get enough of it!

and bubbles are always a big hit!

I was dying over how cute our place settings were! Each jar had been handmade by Lucy and Dave and a few helpful friends! hand painted, and lovingly tied with ribbon and a name tag! I love these little personal touches at weddings!

The very stunning bride and handsome groom! I don't think they stopped smiling the whole day, it was such a lovely day!

They had a Barcelona inspired wedding since that is where Dave proposed so we ate some amazing paella and even had churros for dessert - I was loving it!  

 and is this mini postbox for their wedding cards not the cutest thing ever! 

It was a busy month of travelling and moving and we put a lot of miles on our car that's for sure! but there's nothing better than celebrating special events with the ones you love - we wouldn't have missed them for the world!