Life With Ella

Tonight we were at Acme and Sunny ordered Dungeness Crab. It was an appetizer – only the legs or claws or whatever you call them… Anyway, Ella saw the crab and looked curious. I tried to get her to hold a leg and she had a very funny look on her face – not really a happy one. After a few moments, she was kissing the crab leg. Luckily, it was caught on film.

No!

OK – maybe I’ll hold it

Well hello there…

Big kiss – I love you crab leg

Today, we tried to get an early start on the day and went to the Bay Area Discovery Museum. It was a beautiful day in SF and the girls had a really good time. At one point during lunch, Ella was letting us know that she remembered who she was there with before…out of nowhere she started yelling, “Hi Stella, hi Juliet, hi Helen”. It was really sweet. The girls both fell asleep in the car on the way home and then took pretty long naps. After the naps, we hung around a little bit and then took another walk around the ballpark. The weather was still beautiful, but a little crisp. We had dinner at Acme where Ella discovered that she loved the tea that I drink there. There are some cute pictures.Sunny, Ella and Clara playing with the fishiesClara went around and collected lots of fishHere’s Ella in her bee vest. They have a lot of little things that the kids can wear there. Ella also put on a skunk and a spider. Clara put on a ladybug.Honey – look at the big butterflyElla playing with watering cans – she was really into the pretend gardenBig huggie behind the ballparkHaving a beautiful moment of happinessPure blissA sweet picture of Dan and ClaraI love you mommyDrinking tea and coffee togetherCheers!

We all want to wish everyone a happy Thanksgiving. Hope you all had a great day. We all certainly had a fun filled day. We took a nice walk around the ballpark and walked along the water. Clara and Ella played hard in the playground and then we had some grilled cheese and french fries. After lunch and the park, we came home and the girls took naps. We had an early Thanksgiving dinner – Sunny did a beautiful job preparing the food. After dinner, I made cupcakes, we had dessert and then the girls took a bath together. They had a blast. Then we watched a little bit of Ratatouille and read lots of books. The girls are now sleeping soundly.

Ella and Clara playing on Lou Seal – they were in the middle of making seal noises

Sunny and Ella strolling to the park

Playing on the boat at the park

Clara climbed up this structure and Sunny helped Ella get up to the top for a sweet kiss

Dan and Clara coming home on their way home from the park

Today is Bug’s 13th birthday. Happy Bat Mitzvah Bug!

Here I am telling Ella a secret and Towby is pretending he didn’t hear it.

It’s dinner time! Look at the Thanksgiving dinner that the girls had on their plates. About 5 minutes later, they asked Sunny for mac and cheese and of course, super mommy made it.

Nothing like a yummy cupcake at the end of a Thanksgiving meal

Playing with toys while sitting in the toy chest

This afternoon, Sunny’s nephew Dan and his daughter Clara arrived from Denver for a Thanksgiving visit. Clara will be 4 in a couple of months. The girls hit it off right away. Ella loves older kids and she was very exited to share her toys and books with Clara. We all went across the street to Amici’s for dinner. The girls shared some pizza, noodles and spaghetti. They both did a great job eating dinner and then found a place in the restaurant to dance around, sing and of course play ring around the rosie. After dinner we walked to the ice cream store and the girls had ice cream. We came home and all hung out watching videos from Ella’s adventures. Clara decided from watching the videos that she wanted to go to the Bay Area Discovery Museum from watching all the videos. We will go there on Friday. Here are some sweet pictures.

Hmmm…what should we get to eat? What do you recommend, Ella?

Here are the girls holding hands and both giving me their version of a smile.

Here they are having a blast. You can just hear Ella’s laughter looking at this shot.

This is a cute picture, but I really put it in because I wanted you to notice Ella’s silver glittery shoes. They were a gift from her fairy godmother Helen. Ella loves them so much that she woke up this morning asking for them.

Here are the girls at the ice cream store

Here is a sweet picture of mommy and the two beauties.

First of all, last night, Ron, Sunny and I went to a pre-school to hear about their philosophy on diversity. Helen took care of the girls. We really enjoyed going to the school – we all really like the school but the girls had an amazing night. They all had dinner together, played games, had a pony tail party, a sock party…Juliet showed Ella how to vacuum – so much more. Ella didn’t go to sleep until around 10:45 last night. She woke up at 8:50. We were a little late to a play date at their friend Tyler’s house. (Tyler is that cute little guy who was Pooh last year and a seal this year). We finally got there at around 10:30 and picked up two other friends on the way. The kids had a great time at the play date. There were times when they were playing together, other times that they were parallel playing, at other times they were trying to steal toys from each other. Tyler has a little thing for Juliet and that was captured with a kiss. Then at the end of the play date, he tried to plant one on Ella.After Tyler’s our 3 girls went home to our respective houses, had lunch and the girls took naps. At around 4:00, Stella and Juliet came calling for Ella. They had mac and chesse and painted. After the painting, they each got their baby strollers and were running around the hallway. At around 6:30, Sunny and I took Ella to the gym. Sunny is still on the mend from a very bad strain of the cold, so I took Ella in the pool by myself. We had dinner at the pub and came home, played, read books and put Ella to sleep.Here is Ella hanging out at Tyler’s house and feeling happy.Here’s Ella in the Thomas the Tank Engine tent. At one point, all the kids were in the train tentHere’s Ella hanging out of the side of the tent having a good laughThis is the point where Tyler made his move.Ella gets very serious when she is creatingHere are the girls having a stroller parade in the hallwayOFF TO THE POOLHere’s Ella surfing around on her kickboardHere we are very relaxed in a super-warm poolWe’re both feeling happy. Life is beautiful.

So today, I thought it would be a good idea to take some pictures of Bug, Towby and Ella together. What I realized was that I can either photograph doggies or a toddler but doing it both together is pretty difficult.

This could have been a great one…where are the doggies going?

Well…now the dogs are cooperating but why has Ella decided to start singing?

The different shirts are pre-nap and post nap. She also has a post-nap ponytail. Here are a few more shots.

Look at the froggies!

I love this picture of Ella. Her shoes are too big, but she insisted on her “ORANGE CROCS!”

Here is our little lollipop addict.

I have to credit Ron for the photos from the blog tonight. We met up with Ron and the girls at McCovey Cove. The cove is a block from the house – AT&T Park and the Bay Bridge are in the background. Here is a series of amazing shots.After all the activity at the cove, we went back to Stella and Juliet’s house and played in the bouncy house!