Life With Ella

Today was a gorgeous day. Ella had a playdate with Rebecca, her friend who she went to Fairyland with a few weeks ago. We spent the morning and early afternoon at the ballpark, and the little park behind the ballpark. The girls get along really well and they had a lot of fun together. During the middle of the day, I dropped my camera and broke it. Good thing I have another camera and that I bought the extended warranty for the one I dropped. After Ella’s nap, we played around the house and then we took a walk over to Becca’s house to hand out with Becca and Tucker. It was a great day and night. Here are a few pictures from today.

Here’s Ella having of fun

Ella and Rebecca walking towards the trolley at the ballpark

Ella and Rebecca sitting on the trolley – looks like the sun was in their eyes

Here are the 3 of us with the sun in our eyes

The field of dreams

Ella is growing up every second! She amazes us every day. Today she was busy, busy, busy. After a great night’s sleep, Ella started off the day reading books, doing art projects, doing ballet and playing with so many toys. We had a visit from Phyllis in the afternoon and Ella had so much fun with her. We took out the tunnel and Ella, as she was going into the tunnel said, “Bye bye – I’m going to LA” and then she would come out of the tunnel and say, “I’m back”. Then she would go back again and say, “I’m going to New Jersey…I’m back…I’m going to New York…I’m back…I’m going to San Francisco…I’m back…I’m going to the aquarium…I’m back…” If you asked her what she saw at any of her destinations, she would tell you a whole story about it. After Phyllis left, Ella played with rubber stamps and paint and then it was bath time. After the bath, Kate came over for dinner and Ella had a great visit with Kate. She played with this shape thing and then decided to take all the pieces and put them in Kate’s hand. She kept saying, “Here you go…thank you…here you go…thank you…” Nothing like a little repetition. Ella is sleeping soundly now. She’s just an incredible little person.

Look at this face

Ella rarely lets us keep her hair back, but she looks so sweet like this

Hello – is anyone there?

Check out Ella in her PJ’s and with her cool car that she can finally ride by herself

After Ella’s exciting morning, she decided that she wasn’t going to take a nap. She stayed in her crib for about an hour and just kept saying, “I’m awake – I’m awake – I’m not tired!” She also played with all of her stuffed animal friends. I asked her what she was talking to them about and she said, “Happy thoughts”. There’s a song from Yo Gabba Gabba that talks about thinking happy thoughts. I’m happy she’s learning beautiful things from that show. When mommy came home from work, we went to the gym to go swimming and have dinner at the pub. We haven’t been swimming in a long time because Ella has had a perpetual cold this winter, but she’s healthy now. We had a great surprise tonight. Ella can stand on her tip toes in the pool all by herself! She can only do it on her tip toes, so she’s not comfortable walking around, but I think it was exciting for her to be independent in the pool (at least for 10 seconds). I know it was exciting for us.

Check out the look of determination – Ella is out to find eggs

I found 2 more!

Ella looking up at the clouds

Ron and Stella looking up at the clouds

Now this is pretty amazing – getting 10 kids to line up for a picture

Even better – now we have 12 kids!

Stella and Juliet running down Tall Mountain

Here’s the gang.

Complete happiness

Tickle face

Ella standing in the pool all by herself!

Today, we took Ella to her friend Hariel’s birthday party. Hariel loves golf (he’s 2) so his parents threw him a party and the kids got a little golf club, tee and ball for a party favor. Hariel is actually an amazing little golfer. His dad told us that all Hariel watches on TV is golf. Check him out…

Hariel getting ready to tee off.

Ella checking out her new golf club

Mommy trying to give Ella a golf lesson

Ok – so maybe Ella would rather her golf club be a baseball bat

Ella getting a huggie from her friend Tyler

Ella thoroughly enjoying the birthday cupcake. She actually only ate the icing.

Ella is sneaking around the table trying to steal another cupcake. She didn’t succeed.

On the way home from the party, we bumped into Stella, Juliet, Helen and Ron. Ron just came back from NY. He brought all the girls back a Yankee shirt. This is the best picture I could get of all of them.

What a face.

Ella never took a nap today. She just fooled around in her crib for about an hour. She was a little cranky in the afternoon. At around 5:00, she told us that she wanted to watch Ratatouille. I asked Sunny to bring me up some popcorn for the movie. Sunny brought up 2 little boxes of popcorn, one for me and one for herself. Ella looked at me and said, “I want popcorn, I love popcorn”. I put my box out for her to take some and she took the box. She sat down in her seat and wouldn’t let me have my box back.

Ella has a cold (again) so we decided not to send her to My Gym. It was a pretty nice day so we went to Yerba Buena, went on the carousel, did a little shopping at the store and walked around the garden. The playground was closed, so we did a lot of walking. Ella likes to go on the dragon chairs these days on the carousel. She told me that the dragon licks the horses with his big tongue. Here are a few pictures from yesterday.

This is from a few nights ago. We were all playing in the Dora tent. Ella was giving me pieces and I was trying to make a very tall tower.

This is from yesterday morning. Ella let me make a ponytail but of course she took it out a few hours later.

Here is the green dragon with the long tongue. Ella also rides on the blue dragon.

Ella checking out her new friends. She loves these little rubber guys that go on her fingers. The newest one is purple guy.

Happiness…