Life With Ella

A couple of months ago, Stella and Juliet introduced Ella to a video called “The Letter Factory”. It teaches phonics. All of the girls love the video. Ella was checking out Stella and Juliet’s blog the other night and we came across a video of Stella singing the alphabet song the way they do it on The Letter Factory. This has inspired Ella to sing her phonics too! She is learning so much and can recognize almost all of her letters. Today, we were hanging out and Ella was playing with this Leap Frog phonics bus that she has. She was singing along with the bus and I caught it on video. There is a video at the end of this entry showing a little bit of her phonic enthusiasm.

Ella is totally cool about wearing pants under her sun dress. Now we have to work on a sweatshirt and normal shoes.

Ella has totally been into watercolors since Monday night. She gets so serious when she is painting.

HERE’S THE PHONICS VIDEO

Ella slept for 12 hours straight! She woke up and actually looked tired from sleeping so much! Grandma, Ella and I headed into NY at around 10:45. We met up with AJ and uncle Michael and went to a kid’s park in Washington Square Park. Ella had the most fun on the swings. First she went on the little kid swing and then she told AJ that she wanted to go on the big kid swings. She yelled “higher, higher” and AJ pushed her pretty high. Ella held on tight and did a great job. This was the first time that she spent a long time period on the big kid swings. She’s growing up! She liked the rest of the park but was pretty unimpressed with the sand all over the place. I guess the park was too messy for Ella. After the park, we all had lunch at a restaurant on the corner of AJ and Michael’s block and then went back to their place. AJ gave Ella a beautiful sundress with velcro butterfly wings and Ella fell in love with it. She posed in the mirror, flapped her arms and tried to fly, jumped up and down, and just looked so adorable in it. After spending some time with Uncle Michael we headed uptown to the Manhattan Children’s Museum. This is a really cool place that we would go to a lot if it were in SF. There was also a whole floor dedicated to Dora and Diego – I guess it’s an exhibit that’s at the museum for a while. Ella loved it. She really explored everything and played with some kids and also held her own against some pushy kids. After the museum, we headed back to NJ and stopped over to see my grandmother. Ella was really beautiful and sweet to my grandma. We explained to Ella that she was really old and didn’t talk at all and Ella was wonderful. Ella also had a good time with Gail who takes care of my grandma and had a fun time walking around the apartment and looking at everything. We ended the night out to dinner with grandma and papa. We went to Dante’s in Leonia and after eating a lot of ziti with butter and cheese, Ella passed out at the table – literally. She slept for about 45 minutes. When we came home, Ella watched the Backyardigans and Dora with grandma and papa and then I put her in her crib. She has been entertaining herself and yelling things out for the past hour! Oy vey – I hope she sleeps tonight. Mommy comes tomorrow and we are so happy. We love you!

Ella giving Normyn a kiss.

AJ pushing Ella on the baby swing.

AJ and Ella going down the double slide. They both had me take the sand off their slides before they went down.

Check out how happy Ella is on her big girl swing.

On the way down the curvy slide.

Checking out Uncle Michael’s Dr. Seuss horn.

Checking out her new butterfly sun dress.

Giving Uncle Michael a kiss goodbye. Hope your shows are great!

Walking down the street.

Enjoying the musical instruments at the Dora exhibit.

Laying down in Dora’s bed.

Driving a car, a firetruck and a bus!

Walking over a bridge.

Hanging out with Gail who takes great care of my grandma.

Ella gave the lollipop to her great grandma.

Back at grandma and papa’s house – papa and Ella have on the same color again. I wonder if papa has wings on the back of his shirt.

Asleep at Dante’s!

Here’s a little video of parts of Ella’s day

Today was a beautiful day. We spent the afternoon in Golden Gate Park at a barbeque for a co-worker who is moving. Ella was shy and tired at first but then she woke up and we had fun. Tonight, we had dinner with Debby, Toby and Rachel. It was a really sweet dinner. Ella has a thing for Rachel. We came home and Ella insisted on doing ballet with her leotard, tutu and red ruby slippers. It was a really sweet day and night.Ella listening intently to a fish story at Fairyland.Emily and Stella hanging out.Ella and Stella waiting on line for the ferris wheel.Ella and Juliet joking around in the tunnel.Look at these big girls!Emily and Ella having a blast together.This is mommy pulling Ella down the hallway in a box. A few minutes later, Ella told mommy to get in the box and tried to pull her down the hallway!Ella becoming one with nature.Mommy helping Ella to climb a tree.Rachel, Ella and mommy at dinner.Now this is what I call copping a serious lean.Our beautiful ballerina at the end of the night.OK – here’s the Fairyland video. Sometime last September, Julie and I took the girls to Fairyland and we put Juliet and Ella on the Ferris wheel together. Neither of them were two years old – Juliet had actually just turned 1 in May. Their ferris wheel experience was not such a great one. They both stood up and cried. There is an archived video on this site if you want to refresh your memory…it’s from 9/7/07 and it’s pretty funny. Yesterday at Fairyland, Ella went on the ferris wheel twice – once with each sister, and they went around 4 times. The video has highlights from the rides. I think at the end of the ride with Stella, Ella must have been pretty dizzy because she just kind of stood there. It was so funny.

Today was a really fun day. First of all, Ella peed on the potty this morning – at exactly 10:46. Hopefully, she is starting to get the hang of it. We have to be patient and persistent. We met up with Stella and Juliet at the carousel in the early afternoon. The girls had a lot of fun together. Tonight, Ella, mommy, Helen, Stella, Juliet and Helen’s friend Emily and I hopped on the train and went to see Kung Foo Panda. This was Ella and Juliet’s first movie at a movie theater. Stella has been to a few. The three girls did a great job! They all made it through the entire movie. Afterwards, we took the bus home – another first for Ella (and for me).

Here are the girls sitting in the dragon chair on the carousel. Juliet was trying to sneak a bite of Ella’s granola bar.

Such amazing friends!

Here are the girls pretending to be dragons.

Here is Ella riding a giraffe all by herself. She told me not to touch her or the giraffe so I told her that she needed to hold on with two hands. She did a great job and was really proud.

Here are Juliet, Emily, Ella and mommy riding the train. Again, Ella wanted to sit all by herself.

Here we are walking out of the movie theater.

Ella hanging out on the Po statue.

The gang playing around near Po.

Two big girls riding on the bus together.

Ella had a great time at my gym today. I had a great time playing with her and filming some of it. After My Gym, we went to get our grilled cheese sandwich, went downtown and did some shopping, came home and played around. Tonight, we went to Stella and Juliet’s for dinner. We had a lot of fun. At one point, all the girls left the table and Helen, Sunny and I just sat at the table and watched them and their dynamics. Instead of intervening, we let them work their stuff out and for the most part they did a great job. We are so lucky to have the Kim/Arena family next door!

Ella after My Gym. This would have been a perfect picture but Ella wiped her face with her hand stamp and she has this blue mark on her face.

Ella hanging out in the garden waiting for the dogs to do their thing

A CUTE MY GYM VIDEO