Life With Ella

Tonight, Sunny, Ella and I took BART to Pleasanton to meet up with an old friend of Sunny and Phyllis, Debi.   Phyllis also met us out there. Ella had a great time hanging out with the girls.

Ella playing around with Auntie Pie (Phyllis)

Thank you Debi for taking this picture of the 3 of us.

Three South Side girls and beautiful Ella

Sunny and Ella had their beautiful Monday together. They took the train to Acrasport and Ella did a great job in the class. Sunny reported that Ella did an especially great job climbing. Sunny had to leave to go do some work so I came home from work a little early. Not 10 minutes after I came home, Stella and Juliet were knocking on the door. The girls played hard together. I had to go out for a minute so I left Ella with the girls and Helen. When I came back, Ella and Stella were wearing ballet skirts. Stella loves ballet and she always runs around in a leotard and ballet skirt and ballet slippers, but this was a first for Ella. We had a great dinner over at the Kim/Arena household and then the girls played a little more. Sunny came home in time to do some yoga with Ella and to give her a bath.Ella about to do a ballet leapHere are the girls having a lollipop party – Juliet has one too, you just can’t see it in the pictureThis picture was taken about a year and 4 months agoI can’t believe how much they have grown!Having a blast with RonElla doing yogaLook – I’m flying!Check out Ella’s bath hair

We all know that Ella LOVES singing and she does a great job at it.  She often mumbles over lyrics or makes up words that don’t exist in the English language.  Yesterday, she did the cutest thing in a song and I had to share it.  She was singing the song Tomorrow from Annie at the top of her lungs and it was going really well…”The sun’ll come out, tomorrow, bet your bottom dollar that tomorrow…there’ll be sun.  Just thinkin’ about tomorrow, clears away the cowboys and the sorrow”… Yes – she substituted cobwebs for cowboys…you just have to love this child.

Tonight, Sunny cooked a delicious dinner for the 3 of us and Helen, Ron, Stella and Juliet.  We had a lot of fun.  Ella and Stella had fun playing the piano and singing.

Here is a video that I made in the end of last January.  Its really the first video of Ella walking by herself.  Check out how young Ella Stella and Juliet are.  What a trip!  It’s almost 3 1/2 minutes, but check out some of it.

We had a really sweet night tonight which I will talk about in a moment. Now for the milestone…Sunny was getting Ella ready for bed tonight. Ella was sitting on Sunny’s lap without a diaper on and Sunny was reading her a book. Out of nowhere, Ella looked at Sunny and said, “I have to pee”. Sunny said, “OK, let’s go to the bathroom and sit on the potty”. Ella jumped off of Sunny’s lap, walked into the bathroom, Sunny lifted the lid to Ella’s potty and Ella sat down. First Ella said, “Psssssssss” and then all of a sudden, she peed. Then she wiped herself and walked away as if she owned the world.

So tonight, Sunny Ella and I took a walk to the Ferry Building to grab a bite to eat. Ella walked about 3/4 mile there all by herself, and about 1 mile back. She’s so beautiful and full of life. We had a great night tonight just all being together.

It was actually a beautiful warm night, but Ella wanted to wear her 2 different gloves.

Here’s Ella about to go for a ride on my back. She’s almost getting big enough to hold on by herself.

Here is Sunny trying to teach Ella how to skip

Mother and daughter hanging out

Our happy girl!

Ella started out her day as a normal day. At around 2:45 everything changed. Right before music class, Ella turned into an elephant.Last year in music class, Ella was a bee. She wasn’t walking yet and she hardly had any hair. I took a picture last year where Ella was a bee and she was sittng next to her friend Tyler who was dressed up as Winnie the Pooh. Here is the picture from last year…Check out Ella and Tyler one year later…During music class, Ella kept her costume on for quite a while but then she looked so hot and sweaty that we took her head part off and un-velcroed her top. Here she is playing the castanets and just looking beautiful.After music, we went to the ice cream store and got some ice cream for Ella. Then we sat in the lobby and hung out with some neighbors.Soon after that, we hooked up with Stella, Juliet, Helen and Ron. We all headed over to a party over at a building not too far away from us. Stella was supposed to be an elephant along with Ella and Juliet, but she got this really cool Tinky Winky costume and she loves it so much that she ditched the elephant.Ella carrying around two big pumpkins as we arrived at the party.And here she is with 2 little pumpkinsHere’s the gang at the party. They are getting less and less cooperative at group posed pictures.Mommy and Ella at the partyElla and Juliet looking at a bubble machine. I don’t know who is who.Here are the 2 sweet elephants on a wagon rideElla washing down all of the candy and cookies that she ateAfter the party, we all went to Acme for some dinner.Ella getting sleepy…but soon after this picture was taken, we all went trick or treating in our building. The kids had a blast. We had a blast too but it was a super-tiring day.

It’s been a whole week since the last entry. Well…be ready for lots of pictures. Sunny, Ella and I went to Los Angeles to visit Jesse and Heather and Robbie, Aaron and Izze. Robbie is my first cousin, Aaron is her husband and Izze is their beautiful almost 3 year old daughter. We stayed with Robbie and Ella and Izze had a really nice time bonding. Izze was terrific and shared her toys and bath and a whole bunch of stuff with Ella. Ella was really sweet with Izze but I’m afraid she shared her cold with her. The morning that we were leaving to go on the trip, Ella woke up with a cold. By the time we left, Izze had a cold and so did Jesse and so do I. Besides her cold, Ella was a trooper.

The first evening, we hung out and relaxed, had some dinner and went to sleep. The next day we woke up nice and early and Jesse picked us up, and the 4 of us went to Disney. Heather was on a business trip coming home that night, so she couldn’t join us. It was a great day and night. We started the day going to the Nemo Submarine ride. Ella was really focused and I think she really loved the ride. After Nemo, we had some lunch. After lunch, we went on the Haunted Mansion ride. Ella really doesn’t like dark places and it was pretty dark in the beginning of the ride. She was crying and saying, “Go outside, go outside”. Jesse held her and talked her down. She did a pretty good job on the ride. After that, Jesse and I went on the Indiana Jones ride while Sunny got Ella to take a nap. After that, Sunny and I went on a ride called Soarin’ Over California while Jesse stayed with Ella. After the ride, Ella woke up. We went over to A Bug’s Life section and we all went on a caterpillar train. After the train ride, Sunny and Ella went on the beautiful carousel with the white horses. Of course Ella loved it. After that, Ella and I went on the Dumbo ride. I think Ella was getting a little scared while we were on line for Dumbo so I told her that it was an elephant carousel and she was happy. She loved Dumbo. We saw a part of the parade and Ella was mesmerized. After the parade, we called it a night at Disney. We went back to Jesse and Heather’s and had dinner with Heather who just came back from her business trip.

On Saturday, we went back to Jesse and Heather’s house to see their place in the daytime. We had a sweet afternoon and then met up with Robbie, Aaron and Izze at this sweet place called the Grove. They had a little pumpkin patch there and lots of fun stores. They also have a trolley that takes you around the Grove and we all took a train ride. We all had dinner together which was great. It was so nice to hang out with everyone. At the end of the dinner, Ella and Izze had an ice cream sundae party. It was a great trip and we are looking forward to going back. We can’t wait to do Disney with Helen, Ron, Stella and Juliet.

Ella was so happy to see Uncle Jesse. She was all smiles!

The first night we arrived – laying in bed with beautiful cousin Izze

Sleepy cousins holding hands

Here we are on the tram on the way into Disney

Jesse and Ella waiting on line for the Haunted Mansion

Mommy and Ella on line

Ella hanging out on line all by herself

The cool caterpillar train

Ella on mommy’s shoulders in front of the carousel.

Ella and mommy on the carousel – look at the beautiful white horses

This is the actual Dumbo that Ella and I went on

Taking a break to have a chocolate covered banana

Ella on her Mickey Mouse phone

Ella seeing Heather for the first time in 3 months. Ella was so happy to see her

Catching up. The doggie is Jack, Heather and Jesse’s newest family member

Beautiful Ella!

Ella and Izze playing around

Aaron, Robbie, Jesse and Heather at the Grove

Ella and Izze playing around in the pumpkin patch

Beautiful mother and daughter

The 3 of us having a loving moment in the pumpkin patch

Jesse, Heather and Ella – Uncle Jesse looks pretty happy huh?

What a beautiful family

Here are the girls having an ice cream party

What a big girl! Here’s Ella at the airport coming back to SF. She’s carrying her Mickey Mouse phone and dragging the suitcase that Izze bought her.

On the way home, we bumped into Luis – one of Ella’s favorite My Gym teachers. What a great surprise.

Ella is growing so quickly physically, emotionally and mentally. She loves to have us read Dora books to her and she’s learning a little bit of Spanish. She knows how to say bird, chicken, duck, snake, frog, owl, mouse, look, open, let’s go…I’m sure a few more that I’m forgetting. Ella woke up this morning after 11 hours of uninterrupted sleep. That means that our sleep was uninterrupted too (of course we didn’t clock in at 11 hours). Also, when Ella woke up, her hair was kind of down. So far, her hair has been growing up – maybe it’s finally getting long enough to fall down.

This morning, we met Helen, Ron, Stella and Juliet in our back yard – the ballpark. It’s open to the public every weekend during the off season. They have these huge Coca Cola slides (Ella and Juliet are too young to go on them) and a mini ballpark. There is also plenty of space to run around. After the ballpark, we met Debby and Rachel in Bernal Heights and went to the street fair. Ella and Sunny went into a petting zoo. Ella played with some chickens, ducks, rabbits a sheep and a pig. The pictures weren’t so great so you can just use your imagination. Here are some great shots from the day…

Ella in the morning. Notice the relatively flat hair.

Ella and Juliet greeting each other at the ball park

It’s their favorite activity…

Ring around the rosie

Look at the three individuals…all hanging out and doing their own thing

Ella having a tender moment with Juliet

Here we are – check out the Bay Bridge in the background

Ella enjoying her ice cream at the street fair

This morning, we went to Golden Gate Park and met Stella, Juliet and the rest of the family there. Ella is getting so confident in climbing – she really doesn’t want our help. She also told us that she wanted to go down the slide all by herself. There is one slide in Golden Gate Park that none of our kids are ready to go down alone. This is a huge concrete slide that people go down by sitting on cardboard boxes. Sunny and Ella went down the slide. I could barely do it by myself. Ella has finally started napping in her crib. She has spent the past 23 months taking naps in her Bugaboo, so the crib thing is huge. She’s probably much more comfortable in the crib. Here are some pictures from today.

This was taken when Stella arrived at the park. They give each other the best hugs!

Here are mommy and Ella going down the big concrete slide. Sunny was having a blast!

Ella going through the tunnel – notice mommy in the background taking a picture

The look of determination

Climbing into the tunnel. Look at Ella’s confidence!

“I want to slide by myself”

The kiss face and the fish face on the carousel (of course – what’s a morning in the park without a carousel ride!)