Life With Ella

Ella is so happy to be back at school.  We were out of town on Monday and Ella missed Monday at school.  She was really happy to get back to her classmates.  Ella’s main teacher, Ms. Alicia is out of the classroom for a few months doing work with the third grade.  They have a great teacher taking her place during that time, but Ella really misses Alicia.  Every day, she tells me if she saw Alicia on the yard or in the classroom.  Some days she says, “I got to give Ms. Alicia a big hug and a kiss.”  Sometimes she says, “I just waved at Ms. Alicia because we didn’t have too much time”.  The kids made a paper chain in the classroom to count down the days for Alicia to come back.  Ella also talks about the chain being very tall and the adults have to take each link of the chain off.  Here are some pictures that I took this morning in the classroom.

Beautiful smile, beautiful Ella, even at 7:50 am.

Ella fooling around with her buddies Clark, Bella and Brickelle before school started.

Now here is a movie that I put together tonight.  Ella’s favorite movie lately has been Annie.  She watches it on Friday nights and loves singing along to the music.  Here is a video of Ella at almost 2 years old mixed in with Ella today at 4 years old.  It was a trip making it.

…unless you’re Ella and had a fantastic time!  We had a great weekend in Vegas with Debby, Toby and Rachel.  We stayed at a place called the Red Rock Resort – about 20 minutes away from the airport and strip.  It was a really sweet place.  It was quiet for a casino, had 16 movie theaters, a huge bowling alley, beautiful pools (too cold to swim), great restaurants and very reasonably priced rooms.  Our room had a king size bed, a pool size bathtub, a living room and a dining area.  We really had a lot of fun.  Ella saw Alvin and the Chipmunks & The Princess and the Frog.  We bowled, had 2 wonderful dinners, a great breakfast in our room and even managed to help the economy by “donating” some money to the casino.  Here are lots of pictures…

Ella and Rachel (and the iPod touch) in the shuttle on the way to the hotel.

HUGE bathtub.  Ella loved it.

Ella trying out all the lounge furniture.  Can’t wait to come back here in the summer.

Having fun around the pools.  There was this one huge pool and then a bunch of little ones.  Ella and Sunny went around and checked the temperature in each of the pools and came to the conclusion that they were all freezing.

Sweet Ella.

Ella and Debby having a sweet time together.

Bowling!  We had a blast.  Check out the scores…Ella beat Sunny.  Only one of us (ME) broke 100.

Very long silverware.

Ella is very serious about her chocolate ice cream.

Hanging out in our living room.

Happy kid fresh out of the bathtub.  She kind of looked like a mermaid in the robe.

View of the mountains from our room.

Ella in the hotel lobby.  She loved all the red things.

Ella the seasoned traveler.

A little Vegas message from Ella…

It’s been a really busy week with work and life.  I haven’t really taken too many pictures of Ella to post.  Here are 3 from today.  Ella had a great week back at school.  Her crying at the drop of a hat has totally stopped and she has been much more reasonable.  She loves school and loves us and is just a beautiful little lover.

Right after assembly today.  Ella was waiting for her buddy Casi.

A very happy Ella in action.

We met up with KJ in the lobby.  Such sweetness.

Not too much to report today.  Ella had a great day at school.  She is constantly making an effort not to exclude anyone and is working on trying to help her friends stop excluding people.  She really gets stuff and it’s so cool to watch her evolve into this beautiful young person.  This is a perfect segue into my photo presentation…Ella’s school picture last year and Ella’s school picture this year.  Last year, we sent a little kid to school every day.  This year we are sending a confident kid to school.

Ella October, 2008

Ella November 2009

Well at least the great outdoors behind our building!  The weather has been spectacular and we have been getting out as much as possible without making a field trip out of it.  Ella is walking and scootering and running and jumping all over the hood.  On Saturday night, it was Helen’s birthday so Sunny and I hung out over at their place with Ella, Stella, Juliet and KJ so that Helen and Ron could go out for an adult dinner.  The girls watched Annie and KJ just hung out and was super cute.  It was really a fun night and hopefully Helen and Ron were able to relax and enjoy each other for a little while.  Today, we met up with 2 other kids who live in our building and the kids rode their scooters to the back of the ballpark where they let you in to play on the slides, cable car and the little baseball field.  They all had a lot of fun.  Ella goes back to school tomorrow and I go back to work after a 2 week break.  Ella was asleep by 8:15 tonight – a miracle!

I love this picture of Ella.  She was having a lot of fun climbing up and down this red thing.

Running down the hall with a big smile on her face.

The girls watching the opening scene of Annie.

Mommy enjoying spending time with KJ.

Ella may have been a little bit jealous.

Meeting up with Max in the lobby on Sunday.  Max was explaining the difference between a scooter with 2 wheels and a scooter with 3 wheels.

Ella is tall enough to go on the little coke slide at the ballpark but she wasn’t interested at all.

Having fun taking turns hitting in the little ballpark.

Pulling the cable car bell.

Our little strap hanger.

Hannah and Ella playing around.

So we were walking behind the ballpark looking out at McCovey Cove and all of a sudden we saw a sea lion swimming in the water.  I got my camera ready and then just like magic – these two sea lions came up and they were kissing.  What a beautiful sight!

I took this picture of Bug today.  Even though she’s 15 and blind and deaf, she really is looking good.

Grandma and papa left our house very early this morning (4:30 am).  We had a beautiful week with them and ended the week with a fantastic New Year’s Eve dinner at Americano in the Hotel Vitale.  We took the train half way there and walked the rest of the way and did the same thing on the way home.  It was a beautiful evening, the food was delicious and the company was wonderful.  We love you grandma and papa.  See you in a few weeks when we head back east.  We hope that everyone who is reading this has a beautiful start to this new year.  Remember that love is everything.

Another beautiful walking down the Embarcadero shot.  We were on our way to have lunch at Norsdstrom Bistro.

Ella doing her first crossword puzzle with the help of grandma – the crossword puzzle maven.

On the train coming home.

A few pictures before dinner.

Grandma and Ella on the train on the way to dinner.

Our little New Year’s leprechaun.

Toasts to a happy and healthy and beautiful new year.

Ella had a great seat right next to a huge mirror where she was entertaining herself all night.

Acting out the frog scene from the princess and the frog.

Telling secrets with grandma.

Learning how to work the hat.

Walking back to the train.

Right before we got home, Ella had a burst of energy and began to run around the front of the ballpark.  I chased her and got these great shots.

Today we hung around the house, began our regular exercise routines again – got back on the Wii fit, and realized that Ella has gotten used to being at home and not at school and some of her behaviors have not been the greatest.  We have been spending some time really talking to Ella and letting her know that crying out of nowhere is not going get her her way and that she needs to talk things out with us and express how she is feeling.  She has been working really hard at this and we think this sometimes difficult process is really going to pay off.