Life With Ella

What an exciting few weeks we have been having!  Not only were we going to work and school and schlepping Ella to ballet and musical theatre and drum lessons and swimming lessons, soccer, taekwondo…we have had to arrange our lives around going to the playoff games!  Now we can breathe and get back to normal life and enjoy the beauty of the season that the Giants gave us.  This morning, we treated the day as a normal day…Sunny went to play golf and I took Ella to a strange pumpkin patch with her friend Marlowe.  The girls had a blast.  We spent a great day getting ready for the big game tonight, did some laundry, took some walks and then at 5:00 our friend Arnie and his sons Eli and Harry came over and were later joined by the 4th beautiful member of the Levinson family, Liz.  We all watched the game, the kids played their own games and then THE GIANTS WON THE WORLD SERIES!  We all walked outside and got in the mix with the crazy happy drunken people.  Ella wanted to go in so we did, but it was pretty crazy!

 Ella on a very strange little horse.

 What’s a pumpkin patch without a huge bouncy slide?

 Bouncy house fun!

 Riding on another strange horse.

Here we are right after the game.  We headed downstairs and joined the happy crowd for a few minutes.  What a great experience to have with my beautiful family.

Here is a shot from Saturday night when Ella went to the Halloween party with the beautiful Kim/Arena clan.

Ella has been incredibly busy in first grade building her reading muscles and becoming a writer.  Yesterday, Sunny and I joined all the other parents in the Owl class for a publishing party.  Each student shared their first book with their parents and friends.  Here is Ella’s first book.  Ella read it to us and she was so proud of her work.  We are too!  What a fantastic book.  We can’t wait to read more stories by Ella Schwartz.

Ella had a great week.  She’s been working on head stands, hand stands and cartwheels at school.  Here are some shots from Friday morning.

 Hair down at soccer practice.

 Glow sticks and friendship.  Stella and Juliet slept over on Saturday night and then they spent most of the day with us today.  Ella loved it.

 Well hello there girls!

Ella played really well in her soccer game Saturday.  The Black Widows played French American.  One of Ella’s friends Hannah goes to French American.  We didn’t know that they were playing each other.  Ella was so happy to see Hannah and when Hannah scored a goal against Ella’s team, Ella gave her a high five and a hug.  What beautiful sportsmanship!

Here we are in the beginning of game 6 tonight.

 And the Giants takegame 6!!!!  Can’t wait for tomorrow.

The Giants post season baseball continues and we have been having a blast.  Sunny and I went to the game on Sunday night with some friends while Ella hung out with the Kim/Arena clan.  After Sunday’s loss, we decided that we needed to take Ella to the game tonight.  We took her and the Giants won!

 Ella and Panda outside of the ballpark on Sunday afternoon.  The weather has been beautiful here.

Here we are at Sunday’s game.  WE were a little nervous for the Giants.

Pixie sticks at the ballgame.

Feeling good about the game…Ella is with us!

 Pure happiness.

Ella is so dedicated to her homework that she insisted on doing her reading after we came home from the game.  First she read the book to herself and then she read it to Sunny and me.  She’s becoming a great reader.  So happy that she loves doing homework.

This week flew by!  It was great to have a 3 day weekend.  It made this 4 day work week tolerable.  I took Ella to work with me on Tuesday (she was off from school) and she had a great time.  We are really excited that the Giants are in the playoffs and we’re getting ready to go to the game tomorrow.  Ella is going to hang out with the Kim/Arenas.  I think she is just as excited about hanging out with them as Sunny and I are about going to the game.

 Here is Ella with one of my special needs students.  Ella is helping her with the lyrics of Twist and Shout.

Beautiful Ella after her musical theatre class.

 Having so much fun at soccer practice.  Ella made her shirt at the CDS after school program.  She LOVES it!

 Ella and her fur brother Panda.  They really love each other.

 Ella and our neighbor Hector Sanchez – one of the SF Giants catchers.  He’s a really sweet guy.

 We went out tonight to hear some music at Yerba Buena gardens.  Here is beautiful Ella  walking around above the MLK waterfall.  We had a great night.

Grandma and papa came in on Thursday night.  Ella was so excited but we wouldn’t let her stay up because they were coming in pretty late (Ella time).  Ella was up at 6:45 am waiting at their door to hear any signs of them being awake.  She was so excited to see them but didn’t want to wake them up.  I peeked in and saw grandma’s iPad light.  I sent Ella into their room and she jumped into bed with them, so happy that they were here!  On Friday, Ella cut school and spent the day with grandma and papa, going to the Academy of Science and hanging out.  We all had dinner with Abigail and Ray on Friday night at Nama.  It was great to see everyone.  On Saturday, grandma and papa came  with us to watch Ella’s soccer game.  Ella played really well and was a fantastic goalie.  After soccer, we had lunch and then Ella went to Taekwondo.  Grandma and mommy met Ella at the gym for the last 30 minutes.  On Saturday night, Sunny and I went to the Giants game (too bad they lost) while Ella, grandma and papa had dinner at the Burger Joint and t hen took Panda on a walk with Ella on roller skates.  It was terrific having grandma and papa here and we can’t wait to see you at Thanksgiving!  We love you.  On Saturday night, Ella went to the Kim/Arena home to hang out while Sunny and I went to another disappointing Giants game.  The kids did some wild dancing!  I will try to attach a video or at least a link to the video.  It’s hysterical.  Here’s the link    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I64tQk32e_s&feature=youtu.be

Ella is becoming a soccer star!

 Beautiful people.

 LOVE.

I know I have not been so great at the blog but I am doing my best.  Here are some shots from this weekend.

 Ella had her first Black Widows soccer game of the season.  She scored 2 goals!

 Emmi came over after the game and slept over.  Here are Ella and Emmi sharing some  coconut water.

 On Sunday we took the girls to the Oakland Zoo.  The girls had a great time.

 On Saturday, I took eight of my 8th grade students to play at a benefit for Little Kids Rock – an organization who supports us and donates instruments to the music program.  It was a great night.

 On Monday, Ella brought home her first homework assignment.  She was so excited to do it.  They take homework home on Monday and return it to Friday – they need to figure out if they want to do it all in one night or pace it out during the week.  This week, Ella is very excited to hand in her homework on Thursday because she’s cutting school on Friday to hang out with grandma and papa who are coming in on Thursday night.  We all can’t wait!