Life With Ella

We are leaving in about an hour.  We had a great time with family and friends.  It was fantastic to have Ella and Milo together and Ella loves her NJ home.  Thanks for having us here grandma and papa we love you.  Here are some pictures from Friday.  We had some visitors and the grandparents had their 2 grandchildren here again.

Ella with her buddies Emma and James.  She was so excited to see them.

Cheryl (Emma and James’ mom) with Milo and Ella.   Cheryl and I have been friends since we were 7.

Grandma and Ella dancing around.

AJ, Milo, Grandma and Ella dancing to the theme song to “Howdy Doody”.  Fun times.

Ella and Zachary – the son of one of AJ’s oldest friends.  Ella was so sweet with him.

Milo and papa…what a beautiful pair.

Love and happiness.

Sunny and I went out last night to have dinner with friends and Ella, grandma and papa had Friday night movie night.  Tonight it was “A Bug’s Life”…good thing because Annie was already seen twice this week.

This morning, Ella woke up pretty early, got into bed with grandma, and listened to the radio.  On the radio, Ella heard them talking about snow flurries.  Ella then realized that it was snowing outside.  Grandma and Ella put tons of clothes on and went outside at around 7:30 am so that Ella could catch a snow flake on her tongue.  Thanks grandma for taking pictures.  I really appreciate it!  Once we woke up, we went outside with Ella.  We made a little snowman, Ella and mommy made some snow angels and Ella and mommy had a snowball fight.

Grandma’s pictures of Ella when the snow first began.

Fun in the snow!

After all the snow fun, we drove into NY to go to the Children’s Museum of Manhattan.  Our friends Jennie and David met us there for a little while with their 6 month old beautiful daughter Tess.

Dora’s family and Tess’ family!

I am just going to put a whole bunch of pictures of Ella at the museum here.  She had a blast and pretty much covered the whole museum.

Ella had a blast.  After the museum, we took a little walk and got something to eat.

Here we are walking around in my old neighborhood – the Upper West Side.  We all had a really fun day.

AJ, Michael, Milo and Normyn came out tonight to sleep over.  Here is AJ feeding Milo some home made apple sauce.

Mommy and Ella having fun at dinner.

Ella helped uncle Michael give Milo a bath.

 Pretty cool moves.

Beautiful Normyn ready for bed and beautiful Ella not too far behind her.

It seems like when I’m not around to shoot pictures, nobody else really wants to.  I have to make an exception – thank you Sunny for taking 3 pictures today at the park.  I went into New York this morning and spent some time with Jamie and then met an old friend for lunch.  Tonight, Sunny and I went back into NY and had a great dinner with Carol and Jordin.  Ella had a great day playing with mommy, grandma, papa and my parent’s friend Wendy.  Ella has laryngitis and although it’s sad that she has it, her voice sounds really cute.  When we came home from dinner tonight, Ella was in grandma and papa’s room watching Annie.  I caught some pretty cute pictures of Ella and papa dancing and singing to “Together At Last”.

Even though it was around 36º today, Ella really wanted to play at the park.

Ella and papa acting out the final scene in Annie.

We’ve been having a great time here.  On Monday, Sunny gave an amazing lecture at Pace Law School.  It was terrific and we really appreciate our friends who drove in the crazy weather to make it out there.  Thank you Diana, Carol, Jane, Marietta, Jordin and Cori.

Look at this amazing woman doing her thing!  Fantastic.

We came back from Westchester and then I drove with my mom back into NY to take Milo home.  We came back and decided to go to the movies.  My mom and Ella went to see Alvin and the Chipmunks and Sunny and I went to see Avatar.  We were all thoroughly entertained with our movies but Sunny and I didn’t love Avatar.

Today, Sunny had to go back to Westchester to take the law students to the jail where they started the program that Sunny started in SF and Ella, my mom and I went into NY to meet KK for lunch.  We went to the Scandanavian House and had a great lunch and then Ella played in these cool playrooms upstairs.  We came back to NJ after that and then Sunny and I went back into NY to have a great dinner with Nikki B and then dessert at Magnolia.  YUM!

Ella and grandma in an intense Ladybug game.

Walking to KK’s apartment.

Ella drinking lingonberry juice.

Ella and KK in one of the playrooms.

Check out this cool space.  Ella had fun “ice skating” on this lake.

Ella had a lot of fun here.  We had a lot of fun watching her.  It would be cool to have a place like this in SF.

We arrived on Saturday night – late for NY but not so late for SF.  Ella was amazing on the plane and couldn’t wait to see grandma and papa.  They were just as excited to see her as they met us at the airport.  We had dinner at around 10:30 and Ella was up until 12:15.  She was so happy and it was like watching a kid in a candy store.  Everything here was new to her.  Ella finally fell asleep and slept for a good 10 hours…something rare for her.  AJ and Milo came over during the day and we just hung around, played, took lots of pictures, had a great dinner and of course watched Annie.  Today was a great day.  It ‘s great being here.  Tomorrow, I am going to watch Sunny give a lecture at Pace Law School.  I am excited to see Sunny lecture.

Sweet Ella at the airport on Saturday morning.

Ella on the airplane.  She has us rent Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs for her on the plane.  She seemed like she enjoyed it.

AJ and beautiful Milo.

Ella and Milo – sweet cousins.

Milo and AJ at dinner.

Ella in her paper bag princess disguise.

Bath time for Milo.

Grandma, papa and the loves of their lives.

Milo was much more cooperative than Ella.

Its been a busy week and we are getting ready to go to NJ/NY tomorrow.  Our friends Courtney and Candace came over tonight and we had dinner and of course movie night.  Surprise surprise – we watched Annie.  Ella has gotten so good at acting out the movie that it’s a little scary.  The other day I asked her if she wanted to take acting classes and she said, “I want to go to acting Annie classes so that I can go to a theater and be Annie”.

Today Ella’s school had an all school MLK assembly.  Ella’s class made a poster.  This picture is Ella’s little part of the poster.  She said that it is a drawing of her and Brickelle.  I asked her what she knew about Martin Luther King and she said, “He had a dream that everyone would get along with each other.  He wanted everyone to be treated the same”.   I thought that was pretty terrific.

Ella and mommy made No Pudge brownies tonight.  Ella loves to eat it before it’s cooked.

Courtney is studying Chinese Medicine and she was taking Ella’s pulse.  Ella was really into it.

Candace and Ella watching Annie.

For those of you who live in the Bay Area, you know that the weather has been pretty crappy the past few days.  For those of you who don’t live here, it’s been pretty crappy out…nothing crazy, just a lot of rain and wind.  Ella decided on Tuesday that she would wear pants, a shirt and a sweater to school because she didn’t want her dresses to get wet in the rain.  Ella has looked totally adorable and I took a few pictures today.  We are leaving to go back east in a few days.  Ella is hoping for snow…we are not!

Ella and her doggies this morning.  Check out the outfit.

Sweet Ella…the rain is all gone but the rain gear is still on.

We have had a great and busy weekend.  On Saturday, Sunny and I went to see Avenue Q in San Jose with a bunch of friends.  Ella stayed home and watched Annie (for a change).  When we got back from San Jose, Sunny, Ella and I went over to Debby and Toby’s to hang out for a little while and to spend time with Rachel before she left to go back to college.  Ella had a blast – especially with Toby.  They were in another room just laughing hysterically.This afternoon, we met Michael, Phyllis and Zani at the Westfield and then Phyllis, Michael and Zani took Ella to the Metreon to see the Princess and the Frog (time #3).  Sunny and I went to see “Up in the Air”.  Then we all ended back at our place and were joined by 2 of Ella’s classmates, Brickelle and Julia.  The kids watched Annie – Ella was the only one who was really into it, had dinner and played around.  The girls all had a great time but of course Ella had a melt down at around 7:45.  We’re not exactly sure what it was all about, but whatever it was, it went away after a while.  2 of the kids wanted to sleep over so I guess altogether, it was a great night.Ella this morning…got to love her accessories. Ella and Zani having fun together.Zani painting Ella’s nails. Ella and her buddies from school. All the girls starting to watch Annie. Eating dinner and watching the movie.Goodnight