Life With Ella

Today was a fun filled day.  In the morning, we went to a mother’s day celebration at mommy’s office.  It was a beautiful celebration for women and their children who are survivors of domestic violence.  After that we headed over to Ella’s school for the annual Country Fair.  It was a lot of fun – Ella played with her friends, got her face painted, listened to a 6th grade girl band who was great and practiced a little on the monkey bars.  We were there for about 3 hours and then we went to the T-ball game.  Ella surprised us and told us that she wanted to be the catcher.  She was the cutest catcher in the world.  The thing that she was most concerned about was whether her face paint came off or not.  Tonight, Sunny and I went to the Giants game (great win in the 9th) and Ella got to hang out next door.  She was so excited to hang out with the girls, KJ and Helen.  This morning, KJ pointed to Ella and said, “Ella noo-nah”.  Noo-nah is the way for a boy to say big sister in Korean.  Ella loved that. Face painting. Ella and one of her favorite people in the world – Ms. Alicia. Country Fair fun with Emmi and Brickelle. A very happy Ella running to the T-Ball field. Cutest catcher in the world! Ella playing around with her friend Dillon.  Dillon looks pretty intense in the last shot and Ella looks like she just doesn’t care! Ella and mommy sharing a moment on second base. At the end of a long, fun day.

This has been a really busy week and tomorrow is going to be even more packed with stuff, but I wanted to share an e-mail and photo that Alicia sent us today.  The e-mail said this “I was busy so I put her to work reading to others.”    How cool is that!?  Ella’s reading has been getting better and better.  We don’t have her sit down and read, but every once in a while, we’ll be looking at a book or one of her magazines and she’ll say something like, “Let me read this page OK?”  so we let her give it a shot and she’s been doing so well.  After school, we asked Ella about reading to the other kids and she said, “Yes – I did read a book and it wasn’t one of those ‘BOB’ books – it was harder than that.”  She was really into reading to some of the other kids.  She told me later that some kids left in the middle of the book and other kids stuck around to hear the whole thing.  She didn’t mind that some kids left.  Thank you Alicia for encouraging Ella to go for it! Ella is now swimming the entire length of the pool. Monkey bars after T-ball practice.

Ella has had a great week.  On Monday, Ella and 5 other students went to Bi-Rite with the 3 preschool teachers after school.  Ella loved going with Alicia!  She was in a terrific mood when we went to ballet.  On Tuesday, Ella had her usual Tuesday playdate with Brickelle which she loves and today Ella was a little disappointed that she didn’t have her Stella/Juliet Wednesday playdate but it was Juliet’s birthday and they were going out to dinner.  HAPPY BIRTHDAY JULIET!  Today it was super hot out so I took Ella to Bi-Rite after school and then we came home, Ella changed into this Tutu bathing suit and I dumped water on her in the zen garden.  We had a blast.  Ella was laughing and laughing.  Here are some pics.Lots of fun at ballet class.  The last shot is of Ella pretending that she was asleep. At Bi-Rite after school. Fun in the zen garden.Finding a ladybug.

Ella went to two birthday parties today back to back and had a costume change between the two.  The first party was Ella’s classmate Tessa’s birthday party and the second party was Ella’s next door best friend/sister, Juliet’s birthday party.  Ella was so excited about the whole day.  She loves these parties.  At Tessa’s party, there were acrobatic clowns helping the kids work the zip line, teaching them how to spin plates, balance peacock feathers, get face painting and do some other acrobatic stuff.  It was a lot of fun – the kids had a blast.  Juliet’s party was a princess fantasy.  Justin and Julie’s back yard was transformed into a princess tent.  The Real Princess Belle came to the party and hypnotized the girls for 2 hours.  Ella was in heaven.  Let’s let the pictures do the talking. Ella loved flying around on the zip line. Blalncing and playing around with peacock feathers.Waiting for the face painter. Balancing plates. WOrking the romper stompers. Ella and her buddy Macy. Beautiful girls having lunch. Now at Juliet’s party jumped right in and made a crown. Sweet “sisters”MOmmy hanging in the back yard. THe real Belle makes her entrance. Little princesses thoroughly enjoying princess Belle. KJ wanted to get in on the action.Waiting for more face painting. Mommy and Ella love. Getting face painted by Belle. The princess group shot.

Today was a great day.  This morning I took Ella to Bug Day at the Randall Museum.  After the museum, we came home and had lunch with mommy.  After lunch, I went out for a little while and mommy and Ella went to the gym for TaeKwonDo.  Tonight, Stella came over and hung out with us while Juliet had a special night with Ron and Helen hung out with KJ.  We all had fun tonight.  Here’s the funny story from Bug Day.  Ella was sitting at a table making a bee crown (you’ll see it in the pics).  There were a bunch of 20 something volunteers at the event helping the kids out.  Ella told one of the volunteers that she was studying bees in her class.  The woman then said, “I don’t know a lot about bees so maybe you can teach me…what does a drone bee do?”  Ella looked at the woman and giggled.  She said, “Well the drone really doesn’t do anything except give sperm to the queen.”  The lady looked shocked.  There was another kid sitting next to Ella and she said, “What is sperm?”  At this point, the volunteer was speechless.  I turned to the kid and said, “The queen needs sperm to make her eggs turn into baby bees.”  That seemed good enough.  Ella looked around and said, “nevermind!”.  Funny stuff. Bug Day! Ella participated in the Bug Olympics.  At the end of the 6 events she had a choice of a bug stuffed animal or a piece of chocolate.  She chose the chocolate. Making the bee crown and chatting aboug sperm. The bee crown! Ella made a butterfly with a proboscis. Jumping on the tire “flowers”. Fun at TaeKwonDo.

Ella had a great week.  I didn’t really take a lot of pictures this week which is why there has been a lack of blogging.  This weekend is going to be really busy with birthday parties and bug exhibits so there will be a lot of stuff to see over the weekend.  In the meantime, here are a few shots from the week. Ella and Juliet from Wednesday night before we all had dinner together.  Ella and I also had dinner with the Kim/Arena girls + KJ on Thursday night.  It was a lucky week for Ella! Ella taking Towby for a walk on Thursday afternoon. Ella’s class getting ready for the bee expert who came in and taught the class about bees.  Ella said that she loved it and really learned a lot from the bee expert. Ella and one of her classmates learning about salt marshes from one of Ella’s favorite people Tess at the school’s sustainability fair. Warming up at T-ball practice today.  Ella must be telling mommy a joke. Ella owns these monkey bars now. We’re feeding Max the cat again this weekend.

Ella did her full day of school, Tree Frog Treks and Ballet today.  When I picked her up, she looked really happy and said she had a great day.  Ella is a great traveler and such a great person.  It was raining this morning so Ella wore a new pair of rainboots that I got for her a while back that now fit her.  She really likes them.  Kind of made the rainy day fun. Sweet Ella before ballet class. Action shot in ballet class. Ms. Laura told the girls to dance like they were angry.  This is Ella’s angry dancing face. Ms. Alicia’s beautiful braid. After class, taking a little walk around the neighborhood.

I can’t believe the week is over already.  It has been wonderful being able to see our family and friends.  Today we hung out with Jordin, Kevin and Twyla.  Twyla is a beautiful, cute, sweet baby.   We had a great time hanging out.  This afternoon, Ella spent some more beautiful time with grandma and papa and then their friend Wendy came over.  Grandma, Ella and Wendy played Zingo and the Ladybug game.  Ella kicked their butts in both of the games.  We ate dinner at home and then after dinner, Ella, Mommy and Wendy played Go Fish.  Ms. Ella won again!!  We are going home in the morning. Thank you grandma and papa for another fantastic week.  Love you guys! Sweet Twyla copping a lean. Ella in a tender moment with Twyla.    Twyla and her daddy.  Both girls being wonderful about letting me take another picture.    Twyla and her mommy. Ella has been going wild with the camera lately which is a beautiful thing for her creativity.  It is also a bit annoying when I have 40 shots to download of carpets and toys and Ella’s fingers.  This one is a pretty cool one though.  This is a shot of KK’s bling.  Not sure how Kevin could take it with all these women in the house today! Mommy and Ella trying to catch the raindrops. Beautiful Ella. Grandma, Ella and Wendy playing Zingo.  Taking a break from gaming to take a beautiful picture. Go Fish!  Our sweet card shark.

On Thursday, mommy, Ella, grandma and I went into NY to meet KK for lunch at Isabella’s. We were planning on going to the Museum of Natural History to see a new dinosaur exhibit after lunch, but Ella was more interested in going to a little park across the street.  Ella played at 2 parks and then we went to Harry’s shoes where Ella got some new shoes.  On Thursday night, Sunny and I celebrated our 11th anniversary in NY with AJ and Michael and our friends Priscilla and Chris.  We had a great night out.  Grandma, papa and Ella also had their own great night out.  They went to see Rio!  They all reported that the movie was great.  I can’t wait to see it when we get back to SF.  Ella had a fantastic night with grandma and papa.  Today, we went to Monsey NY to visit mommy’s brother, Uncle Jerry and see 2 out of his 4 kids (who are beautiful young adults).  We spent a really sweet afternoon with Aliza and Elisheva, Jerry, Barbara and Elisheva’s 2 kids Uri and Simmon.  Ella had a lot of fun meeting and re-meeting her cousins, uncle and aunt.  After we visited for a while, we went to a little carnival in Monsey.  It was one of those roadside yucky carnivals with dangerous rides, but Ella really liked it.  She went on a mini rollercoaster for the first time by herself and did a few other things.  We were definitely the only 2 mom family there.  We came home and AJ and Milo were here.  Milo was taking a nap and Ella was really looking forward to him waking up.  As soon as Ella heard a peep in his room, she ran upstairs with AJ and greeted Milo.  Grandma’s friend Adrianne came over with her grandson Zach and all the kids played.  Ella and Milo took a bath together after dinner (not posting any pics) and now we are having Friday night movie night, watching Tangled.  It has been wonderful being here.  Tomorrow we are going to NY to see Jordin, Kevin and Twyla. I forgot to mention, on Thursday morning, grandma’s friend Doris came over with her grandchildren.  Ella had a lot of fun playing with Stella, Gibson and Hudson. Playing in the park after lunch.  This is what happens when you give Ella the camera to play with.  Milo playing with his little train set on Thursday night while we were waiting for Iya to get there.  Happy Anniversary beautiful Sunny.  I love you. It was also Michael’s birthday.  Happy Birthday Michael!  It was great to hang out.  Priscilla and Chris – thanks for sharing a special night with us. The 3 of us getting ready to head to Monsey to see our Schwartz family. The beautiful Schwartz women plus 2 sweet boys. Thanks for taking this picture Uncle Jerry!    Mommy and Uncle Jerry – little sis and big bro. Here we are at the carnival. Ella getting ready to ride on the rollercoaster.  Riding on a motorcycle thing.  AJ and Ella…sweet love.  Papa and Ella having some fun with Milo.  Grandma reading to Zach.  Pure love and joy.

We arrived in NJ late on Sunday night – it was actually Monday morning.  Our original flight was cancelled so at 4:00 on Sunday morning, we had to book a new flight on a different airline for later in the day.  Ella was absolutely fantastic the whole day and night. Ella was so excited to get here.  She ran off the plane into grandma and papa’s arms.  On Monday, we took it easy… we went to the park and then had a sedar at night.  It was a small and really sweet sedar.  Ella was also so excited to spend time with Milo.  She is so great with him…super patient and so full of love.  On Tuesday morning, Ella went into NY with grandma, AJ, Milo and Michael.  Ella went to Milo’s music class with grandma and AJ.  Ella told us that she had a great time and the adults reported that it was really sweet.  Sunny and I stayed here and relaxed.  On Tuesday night we had a much larger sedar with a lot more kids.  Ella had a blast.  She had so much fun with her cousins.  Today, Sunny and I went and had massages and Ella went to get her nails done with grandma.  We spent the rest of the afternoon playing Hungry Hippo and hanging out.  Tonight, Sunny and I went to NY and had dinner with Nikki B.  Ella, grandma and papa had a special night together here.  Tomorrow night we are going out with friends again and Ella gets to get see Rio with grandma and papa.  It has been so wonderful being here.  We love being with the family. Ella showing papa some of her tricks on the monkey bars. Ella has mastered the monkey bars at Fireman’s Park.   Ella is getting super strong. Placing flowers in the Vicky Ann sculpture. Ella was telling grandma all aboug the movie Hop. Grandma, Ella papa love before the sedar.   Mommy looking on as Ella studies the Haggadah.  Cousins! Fun at Music Together with AJ, Milo and grandma.  Thanks for taking pictures grandma! Ella has been really helpful.  Here she is beginning to set the kids table.  I was drawing some pictures for Ella and Milo.  They look so serious because they were trying to figure out what I was drawing.  Ella loves playing on the baby grand.AJ and Milo enjoying their soup.  Cousin Cliff with his sweet sons Jack and Sam. Ella had a blast with cousins Bronwen and Georgia.