Life With Ella

Here are some pictures from last night.  At the end of this post is the video of Ella’s class singing their Spanish song.  The whole thing is almost 3 minutes long, but if you have the time, it’s worth watching.  Hope everyone is having a great long weekend.

Here are 2 photos from the assembly.  Just a little preview…

Ella and Juliet have been so sweet together lately.  Here are the two of them lighting the shabbat candles.

Stella checking out the whole candle thing.

Here is Sunny doing magic for all of us.  Sunny the magician has a huge fan base on King Street.

I think this is a great picture of Helen…she has that special glow.

I’m not sure if this is “Ring Around The Rosie” or Ron playing the prince for our little ballerina princesses.

Here I am about to take a big bite of the delicious banana pudding that Helen made.

My gorgeous and delicious birthday cake.

Ella has been coming up with the most entertaining things lately.  I put an example of this at the end of the post in a little video.  Here are a few sweet pictures from today.

Ella celebrating the completion of a puzzle.

Ella has become quite a little shutterbug.  These are a few of her shots from tonight.

Ella asked me to take this picture.  It is beautiful.

Our little beauty.

We have been super busy these past few days, and having a lot of fun.  On Thursday night, we met up with Phyllis, Naomi and Michael for dinner to celebrate Naomi getting into Berkeley.  Ella had so much fun and went to dinner in her leotard, tutu and silver shoes.  Max’s (the restaurant) had a mirror and a railing that Ella used as a ballet bar.  Here are some pictures of Ella doing her thing.

Ella gave us each an individual lesson.

Ella and Naomi putting french fries in a glass.

On Friday night, Helen and Ron went out to dinner and we had a special dinner and movie night with Stella and Juliet.  They came over wearing Cinderella dresses and of course Ella wanted one.  I pulled out one that I claimed to have thrown away.  The three girls had a great night together and ended the night watching Wall-E.  There is a video at the end of the post showing their dance moves.

Nothing like a good Backyardigans episode during dinner.

Today, we started the day at the Children’s Day School Country Fair.  It was raining and I didn’t take any pictures.  We had fun for the hour that we were there.  After the Country Fair, we came home and Ella changed into her sparkly dress to go meet her buddies for a modern dance performance.  It’s Juliet’s birthday on Monday and Helen planned a special day for Juliet and her friends.  We met up with Helen, Ron, Stella, Juliet, and their big girl friends Ella and Julia.  Our Ella was in awe of big Ella and wanted to hold her hand all day.  The kids did a great job watching the performance and when it was over, we went to the Farimont for high tea.  It was a lot of fun and tasted really good.  The girls had a blast running around the Farimont.  Here are a whole bunch of pictures.

The Kim/Arena family crossing the street to meet us at the Yeurba Buena theater. Ella and Julia are with them.

Juliet, Ella and Ella.

Getting ready for the performance.

Ella was very excited.

The girls after the performance.

Ella climbed up here for a picture with the colorful Keith Haring sculpture.

Ella and Stella fooling around at the Fairmont.

Running around on the rooftop garden.

Beautiful Ella.

The two Ellas.

Beautiful girls having a fun day out.

In the past week, Ella has made 2 decisions on her own.  The first one is that she decided that she doesn’t need a night time diaper anymore.  One night, she simply said, “I can sleep in my underwear, I don’t need a diaper” and that was it.  So far, no accidents.  Her other decision was about her pacifiers.  On Sunday night, she took a handful of pacifiers, walked to her bathroom, opened the garbage can and threw them away.  “I am a big girl, I don’t need my binkies anymore”.  Well…that was a really great idea and she is working on it, but Ella had trouble falling asleep and woke up in the middle of the night for 2 nights.  Tonight, I gave her a pacifier to fall asleep because we all need some sleep.  Ella told me that the binky fairy needs to come soon to take the last binky away.  Maybe we’ll try it on the weekend.  It’s so amazing that Ella feels confident enough to make her own life choices.  We love it.

This picture is from last week when the weather was beautiful.  We were out with the Kim/Arenas and stopped by the ballgame.  Sunny and Ella went into the free area and watched a few batters.

Ella calls the steps in our building the secret stairwell and sometimes likes to take it in the morning on the way to school.

Ella in one of her crazy getups onour way out to dinner.

Fun with chopsticks at Nama.

Just want to give a happy birthday shout out to Nikki B.  Happy Birthday!   Hope you have a beautiful day.

I miss you guys – hope today is peaceful and easy.  Can’t wait to see you next week.  We had dinner with Abigail and Ray tonight.  It was sweet here are a few pictures.  When we came home, Ella was running and running around the island and she finally stopped and went straight for the potty.  Then she started singing “Do A Deer” at the top of her lungs.  Hopefully it will make you laugh.  I love you all.

Hanging out before dinner.

Very serious at Acme.

Deep in conversation with Aunt Abigail

Aunt Abigail and Uncle Ray at dinner.

Here is Ella singing Do A Deer.  She was on the potty while she was singing it and the video is very dark, but it’s so cute.

My grandmother died early Thursday morning.  She had been suffering from Alzheimers for about 9 years.  I hope that she is at peace and in a better place.  She was an incredible woman – she had a lot of life and fight and love in her.  She was a survivor and lived life to the fullest.  I am so happy that she was in my life and that she was my grandmother.  Tonight, Sunny asked me if I wanted to light a candle for grandma Miller.  Ella overheard Sunny and said, “Yes – let’s light a candle for grandma Miller”.  Ella picked out a candle asked Sunny for the fire (a match) and lit the candle.  We all just stood around with our eyes closed and put our beautiful thoughts out to the universe.  Here is Ella with the candle for Grandma Miller.  We love you – thank you for loving us!

Tonight, we opened the door to take the dogs out and there was a card with 3 chocolate hearts at the door.  It was a Valentine’s Day card from Stella and Juliet for Ella.  Thank you so much for the beautiful card you guys!  Ella loved it.  You will see in a moment on the video that she loved it so much that she danced with it!

This picture is from the other day after school.  I just can’t believe  how big Ella looks here!

On the way out to breakfast this morning.  She’s too cute.

Ella is getting so tall – she can push the G button on the elevator.

Now for a very sweet video…