Life With Ella

Over the past few months, Ella has been looking at signs or words in a book or wherever, and really trying to sound things out on her own without us prompting her to figure things out.  She has been doing a great job and is learning how to read words.  Lately, she has also been really interested in writing.  She writes her letters really well (for a 4 1/2 year old) and she has many words mastered like cat, bat, hat, fat, rat, mat…she makes “rhyming books” and is moving beyond her “at” words.  Whenever she wants to write a “shopping list” or a card for someone, she asks us how to spell the words, and we basically just sound out the letters in the words with her and most of the time, she gets it correct.  Just during the past few weeks, she has been trying to write words on her own.  I know that at CDS, they teach inventive spelling where they encourage the child to spell their words the way they think they should be spelled.  I am all for that, but lately Ella has been asking us if her words that she has done completely on her own are correct.  I usually say, “That’s totally right for what you are doing…trying to sound it out”…and then Ella says, “But is it spelled right?”  and I say, “it’s not really spelled right, but you are doing such a great job trying to figure out your words”.  I hope I am responding correctly to her because I want her to continue to write on her own and take pride in what she’s doing.  Here is a really cute example…Today was Ella’s last swimming lesson with her teacher Yat.  Ella wanted to make him a card to thank him for teaching her.  We sounded out all the words together that are in red – Ella really figured it out letter for letter with me sounding like a strange phonics machine.  Then she drew some pictures and I was upstairs getting ready so when I came down, she had added a few words to her artwork.  I will post the card now. This is sweet Ella really proud of her card. This is the front of the card.  The person that she drew with the brown skin and curly hair is Yat.  He is from India and has dark skin.   We thought that was really cute and cool. So we did the red words together by sounding out the words and then Ella wrote the green words all by herself.  The first one, “sun” was great…the second one, “tweet” was fantastic.  The third one…”Letee buggs” makes total sense, lady bugs of course.  This is so exciting to watch Ella reach this level that is going to open up a whole new world for her.

Today was Milo’s birthday  KJ is going to celebrate his first birthday next Tuesday!Ella and Ron – that have such a beautiful thing going on.

Here is a Happy Birthday video from Ella to Milo.  We love you Milo!  See you next week.  Happy first birthday.

Ella’s sleepover at the Kim/Arena house was wonderful.  The girls played hard all night.  At one point, Helen and Ron peeked in on the girls and they were playing a game that they made up called “Senior Center”.  They made it up from the movie Ponyo where one of the characters works at a senior center.  I will post the senior center pic that Ron took first.  On Sunday, we woke up, and finally at around 9ish knocked on Helen and Ron’s door.  We found the whole family (including Ella) sitting around the table having breakfast.  Ella was wearing a Supergirl costume.  She kind of said hi but didn’t really care that we were there.  It was so beautiful to have her feel so secure with herself and with the Kim/Arena family.  A little while later, we took the kids to the Alta Plaza Park where everyone had so much fun – including KJ who is almost ready to take off running!  After school today, the 3 of us went to Pier 39 – Ella wanted to do a little bungee jumping.  We did that and then went to this crazy Spongebob 4-D movie.  Ella was a little freaked out…it was a pretty rough ride.  Tonight we had dinner with Phyllis and Michael at Pasta Pomodoro.  We all had a really sweet time. Here is the senior center shot.  All 3 girls were sitting together with a blanket on them.  Stella and Juliet had two other friends over.  One played the doctor and the other played the “orderly”.  These kids are too much. The kids were having so much fun doing everything in the park.  KJ even got in on the big kid action. Ella was doing some serious climbing.  She is a confident climber. ON the “zip line” building upper arm strength. Just really happy. Stella on the zip line. Ella was chasing Juliet around the park.  They were playing “prisoner” and Juliet was an escapee… Ella was calling this huge sandbox a pool, so she was jumping into the pool. Ron teaching KJ how to use the big shovel. This is a drum that Ella made today at camp.  They had a little dragon parade today that I got to see when I picked up Ella. Bungee fun! My girls on the crazy Spongebob ride.

One of Ella’s classmates had her birthday party at Lemo’s farm today.  Ella had such a great time…not only did she get to go on pony rides, train rides, a hay ride, play in a bouncy house and play with animals at the petting zoo, she also got to hang out with a bunch of her classmates who she really likes.  She had a huge smile on her face all day.  This evening, Ella went over to Stella and Juliet’s and Sunny and I went across the street to see Paul McCartney.  We had a great time at the show – it was really fantastic.  They did so many Beatles songs.  Ella is having her first official friend sleep over.  She is spending the night at the Kim/Arena house.  Helen and Ron -Thanks so much for taking such great care of Ella!  I hope she sleeps in.  Next time we take all 3 kids.  Good night – sleep tight. Ella practicing karate earlier today. I came downstairs to find Ella helping mommy get the dog hair off her sweater.  So sweet. I love this photo. Ella is so gentle with animals. Ella loves these crazy little rides. Our one handed pony rider. Peaceful easy feeling.Ella and Brickelle – so happy to hang out with each other. Ella and her buddy Luke.  They have known each other since they were around 2…they went to My Gym together before CDS. Ella and Macy – they took this right before we took a little train ride.

I’ve been a little behind in the site – I came down with some kind of virus that left me throwing up, having a sore throat and a cold.  Now I feel much better – just have a cold.  Sunny is in the end stages of her whooping cough and I think Ella is relatively healthy – maybe a little cold.  Tonight, Stella and Juliet came over and we had our usual Friday night movie night.  Ella let the girls choose them movie and they chose “The Princess and the Frog”.  They all had a fun night.  Juliet was a little scared of the shadow man and Ella held her hand through a lot of the movie.  It was really sweet.  Tomorrow morning we are going to a birthday party at Lemo’s Farm – should be a lot of fun. The girls before the movie. The girls during the movie. Holding hands with sweet Juliet. I love this.

This weekend, Sunny, Ella and I went to Calistoga and joined about 12 other families from Ella’s school for a really wonderful weekend.  One of the families from Ella’s class has a vineyard in Calistoga and we went “camping” on their lawn.  We had a CDS tent city, on the lawn, right in front of their pool.  The kids ranged from 2 – 14 years old.  The host family made the whole weekend so easy and fabulous.  We ate all our meals together, played in the pool for hours, went to a county fair, had a live blues band for entertainment last night and watched fireworks from the lawn.  Ella had a blast.  There was a small group of younger girls, a very large group of boys from about 4 – 8 years old and then an older group of girls.  Ella loved hanging with the older girls.  Her swimming is getting better every minute.  The pool was 8 feet at its deepest and Ella swam from the shallow end to the deep end all by herself with no help ( I was about a foot away from her at all times).  Yesterday she said that she thinks that we should stay for 6 days instead of 2.  It was great to get away.   These shots were taken after a water balloon fight that freaked out the little ones.  It was too much for them to handle so they got some TLC from their parents. Ella so happy and relaxed in the pool.Posing for the under water shot. Starting to do a little diving into the pool. Tent city – this is our tent that we rented.  Sunny put it up with one of the 10 year old girls.  The reason that there is that funny material on the top because we needed to air the tent out.  It kind of smelled. Kids dinner time! Ella and Tess – an incredible “big girl”. Ella is threatening to get someone with the water gun because the pool cover is on the pool. Our tent at night.At the county fair – turns out that it was almost the exact fair that we had across the street from us a few weeks ago. Eating chips and listening to the blues band. Ella LOVED the tire swing. Ella and Tess on the evening of July 4th.Here is a movie of Ella in the pool this weekend…it’s pretty cool.

Let’s see…Ella started CDS camp and is loving it.  She’s like the big kid in the classroom…a role that is new for her.  She is really interested in whatever they are learning.  This week they were learning about bees.  Things are very exciting in the world of bees.  They are studying honey combs and different types of bees, honey, nectar…all that cool stuff.  On Monday, I had a root canal and when I picked up Ella from school she wanted ice cream.  I thought that sounded great so we went to Bi-Rite and had delicious ice cream.  I have been doing stuff around the house, seeing friends, hanging with Ella and Sunny and watching the Giants loose.  It’s time for our boys to get back into the game.  Today, after school, Ella and I went to see an old friend of mine who is visiting from New Mexico.  My friend Jen has 2 boys, Quincy who is almost 1 and Xavier who is almost 5.  Ella and Zavier hit it off immediately and the afternoon was so much fun.  We ended up going to the Academy of Science and it was so incredible to watch their excitement with every ant, worm, snake, spider, frog…that’s not even mentioning the incredibly awesome sea creatures.  Here are some pics from this week and today.Happy Ella walking back to the car after eating delicious ice-cream.Ella and I had a dinner date on Tuesday.  This is what Ella decided to wear.  Of course people were stopping her and talking to her on the street and telling her how beautiful she looked.  She was very into it. THe princess eating a little bowl of tobiko – enough to make me want to throw up. Ella and Xaye meeting for the first time.  They hit it off immediately and began running. This is Ella saying, “Come on Zaye – let’s go to the park.” We made it to the Academy.  Here are Xaye and Ella talking with Jen. New sweet friends. Let’s not forget about Xaye’s  beautiful baby brother Quincy. I was able to take these beautiful shots just as the museum was closing.  So cool. Xaye and Ella pushing Quincy in the park. Heading home after a long afternoon.What a great day.