Life With Ella

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!)

There was a knock on the door tonight at around 5:50. I was upstairs doing some work and Ella was in the living room “reading books”, and Sunny was downstairs working. Sunny opened the door and let out the happiest shriek! All of a sudden we heard, “Ella – come downstairs!” Ella went downstairs and her two buddies were waiting at the bottom of the stairs with a big surprise. Check out the pictures…A herd of dancing elephants! Helen got the girls the same costume as Ella! (Notice in the right hand corner that Towby has an orange crayon in his mouth. Beagle caught on film!)They all fall downElephant huggieElephant kissLook at Ella’s happy eyesCan you identify the children under those elephants?Check out the focusHere is Ella at Stella and Juliet’s house about 10 minutes after the photo shoot at our house. She once again did not want to take her costume off. Luckily, Stella got very hot in her costume (Juliet ditched hers right after she left our house) and she took it off and Ella followed her lead. Stella is a great role model.

We came back yesterday on a very early flight and we just tried to stay up all day. Ella did really well. She took a nap at a relatively normal time. We went out to dinner and then we crashed. Today, we did business as usual. Sunny got up early and went to the gym, then we all went to a birthday party of one of Ella’s friends from My Gym. The party was a lot of fun. Ella did a great job. After the party, Ella took a nap and then she did some painting. We all played around the house and then Stella and Juliet came home from LA. The girls had a sweet reunion. Ella fell asleep at around 9:00 so hopefully she is back on her regular schedule. We’ll see if she sleeps through the night.

Ella and the birthday girl Isabelle.

Our little Picasso.

Is she a lefty?

Playing around in the tunnel

The Three Musketeers are back together again

Mommy is very entertaining!

Ring around the rosie…

So this is what they mean by parallel play

Here’s Ella in a rain outfit that the Tuckers gave us during our baby shower. It finally fits her and it is soooo cute!

Today – Sunny and I took a ride up to New City to visit Sunny’s dad. We had great surprise up there when we were able to see Sunny’s brother Jerry and two of Sunny’s nieces, Elisheva and Aliza. We all caught up on each other’s lives and look forward to having Ella meet her cousins. Ella stayed home with grandma and papa – she’s still on SF time and slept super late. Last night, we had a great visit with AJ, Michael and Normyn. AJ and Michael brought a bunch of presents back from Japan for Ella so she had a great time opening them. Her favorite was an Elmo umbrella. It will soon be rainy season in SF so Ella will be able to run around town with her little Elmo umbrella. Today, Ella collected acorns with grandma on the terrace, went to the park with grandma and papa and played all around the house. We are leaving early in the morning and will be back in SF tomorrow. We had a great visit back east.
Ella with her Elmo umbrella

Brushing teeth with AJ and Ella’s new duckie toothbrush

Looks like grandma and mommy are enjoying the blocks more than Ella

Ella and AJ sharing some love

Finding acorns – just like in Totoro

Look at the acorns I found!

Walking home from the park with papa

Reading with grandma

Even grandma and papa like Yo Gabba Gabba

Sunny Ella and I arrived in NY last night. Ella was so happy to see grandma and papa (so were we). We had a great flight – we flew Virgin America for the first time. It was a lot of fun. We pretty much relaxed today – we all went to the park with Ella, and we rested up because tonight, AJ (Jamie) had her album release party at Joe’s Pub. I have to say – this isn’t a big sister talking either – but Jamie was INCREDIBLE. She sang to a sold out crowd – I think the venue holds like 160 people or something and she was up there like she had control of the universe. Ella was mesmerized. She watched AJ so closely – she sang along to the songs that she knew. The show didn’t start until 9:30 and she stayed up for the entire thing and only had to leave one time. We all loved being at the show. We didn’t take any pictures of AJ because we didn’t want to distract her, but there are a couple of pictures from the night. It was also great seeing so many people who we love all in one place. Ella really misses Stella and Juliet and was screaming tonight (Well really at 1:00 am) that she needed to watch Stella and Juliet on the computer. We showed her a few videos and now she is sound asleep.

Ella after her evening bath about to get ready to go to AJ’s show
Brushing teeth with Papa…one of Ella’s favorite pastimes

Ella right before we left to go to the show

Here we are mesmerized by AJ’s music

Ella eating a lollipop that Irv Singer gave her. It really kept her busy for quite a while. Thans Irv.

Today, we left the house early to go to Half Moon Bay to a pumpkin patch. This was the first time Ella has been to a farm/pumpkin patch and she loved it. We met Stella, Juliet, Helen and Ron there and the 3 amigas tore the place up. Besides running around and touching pumpkins, there were 3 main events for Ella. First, we went into a feeding/petting zoo. The goats were crazy and seemed like they were starving because they just rushed everyone who walked in. One goat bit Sunny on the finger. The feeding frenzy did not seem to bother Ella at all. She also fell for a baby goat who was really cute. After the feeding frenzy, we all waited on a very long line with very uncooperative parents to go on a train that went through a mini haunted village. Ella especially loved going through the tunnels. The last thing that we all did at the farm was a pony ride. Because it’s so crowded during this time of year, they have this thing rigged up so that the ponies walk around in a circle – about 8 ponies at a time. This means that the children have to go on the ponies alone. We were hesitant and didn’t even know if they would let Ella go because she’s so small, but they did and she had a great time on the pony. Stella and Juliet went at the same time Ella did and it was so cool to see the three amigas all riding together.

Ella trying to feel the energy from the pumpkin

Ella and Sunny in the middle of a feeding frenzy

Getting to know the baby goat

This picture was taken when Stella and Juliet arrived. Look at that big huggie!

It was a little difficult to get them all to pose for this one

Going on a train ride

Ella making the horsie noise

Ella and Juliet going around the ring

Ride ’em cowgirls

The three amigas

Look at our little pony rider

Sharing a kiss with mommy

After the farm, we went home, the kids took naps and we reconvened at a club called Slims. There was a fundraiser called Soundcheck for the Women’s Re-entry Center and it was an evening of live music. The place was pretty loud, so we took the girls up to the second level. Nobody else was up there, so it was like they had their own club. They loved the live music and danced the night away. Great job to everyone who had anything to do with the fundraiser. It was a great event.

Ring around the Rosie a pocket full of posies…ashes ashes…

they all fall down!

Girls night out

Here we are at the end of a beautiful night