Life With Ella

Today was mommy’s (Sunny’s) birthday. Mommy worked during the day and I took Ella, Stella and Juliet to Fairyland with Emily. The girls had a blast – I’ll put some stuff on tomorrow. After mommy had a facial and massage, we all went to the Giant’s game. Ella, Stella and Juliet polished off a bag of cotton candy – all the colors, and then we sang happy birthday to mommy and had strawberry short cake. Happy birthday mommy – we love you sooooo much! Here are 2 pictures from tonight that Helen and Ron took.Here we are at the game. It was our first game Giants game in a while. Unfortunately, they lost.Happy Birthday Mommy! Can somebody tell me why Ella and I are blowing out the candles and mommy isn’t? We love you mommy!

Today, I took Ella to My Gym in the morning. As usual, Ella had an amazing time there. Her jumping is getting stronger and so is her climbing and hanging. She has such confidence in herself – it’s great to see. After My Gym, I dropped Ella off at home where mommy met us so that I could go work at the 8th grade graduation at my school. Ella and Mommy played ball, had lunch at Maria’s, took a walk to the Ferry Building (where Ella fell asleep) and then I met them at the ice cream place. After ice cream, the 3 of us went swimming. It was the first time that Sunny saw Ella walk all around the pool on her tippy toes with NO FEAR. Sunny LOVED every minute of it. She was blown away. After swimming, we went to Oakland with the Kim/Arenas and went to see the Yankees beat the Oakland A’s. The girls were all wearing their Jeter t-shirts and looked fantastic. We all had a great time. It was fun to see the Yankees win. What an incredible day and night.

Heading outside to play baseball.

I know that I rarely write about work – especially because this is called “Life With Ella”, but today was a really special day. A bunch of 8th graders who Corey and I have worked with for the past 3 years graduated today. I have grown to really love these kids and I wish only wonderful things for them. This picture is of Corey, Luckey and me (obviously). Luckey is the class president and in his speech today, he thanked Corey and I for helping him. I was really moved. It’s nice to know that we can make a difference!

Here’s a picture of Ella and I walking home from the ice cream place after I came home from the graduation.

Here is Ella wearing a lei that one of my students gave me.

Here are our 3 little Yankee fans.

Here are the little sluggers walking up the ramp.

Wearing papa’s favorite player

“I love you Juliet”

Mommy and Ella. Mommy wore a vintage NY Giants jersey.

Ron and Stella running up to the seats.

The weather has been beautiful and Ella has been insisting upon wearing her sundresses. She loves them so much and loves to have everyone see her. She hates wearing a coat or a sweatshirt and it’s sometimes a little battle but that’s OK. Tonight we met Ellen and Joyce for Chinese food. We had a fun night.

Here’s Ella with her sundress and headband.

Walking down the hallway on the way to the car.

Fooling around with Auntie E and Joyce.

A sweet picture of El and El

Tonight, Helen and I took Ella and Juliet to the mall (to do a little Lucky Kid pre shopping), and then we had dinner at Nordstrom Bistro. We had so much fun. The girls were great! Here are 2 pictures from dinner. Ella didn’t sit on a high chair or a booster. She sat on the regular bench and did really well.

Tonight, after a delicious dinner cooked by mommy Sunny, we took a walk around the park with the Kim/Arenas. It’s so great to see the girls grow up together.

I took this picture of Ella when I came home from work today. Her fake smile is getting less cheezy.

Eating dinner while singing the theme song to the Backyardigans.

Ella wanted to take Zoe for the walk tonight.

“Lean On Me”… here are the girls hanging out on the Juan Marichal statue by the ballpark eating peaches.

Here is a fantastic picture that Ron took of Ella jumping. She is getting to be a great jumper as you can see!

Here is the gang playing kick the cup. It was kind of a mess behind the ballpark from last night’s Kenny Chesney concert so the girls were kicking around these plastic cups that were left all over the place.

Another action shot of Ella running towards her buddies.

We had a little bit of a late start today (11:30), but we stayed out all day. The weather was gorgeous and we spent the day walking to the Ferry Building and back. On the way we stopped at Maria’s (The Java House) and of course played around the spider. We met up with Phyllis for a little while at the Ferry Building. Ella spent a while visiting with the live crabs and lobsters. We met up with Becca and Tucker on the way back and Ella requested that Becca come to the park and play with her. We went to the park and Ella played hard for a while. The 3 of us had a great dinner at Acme and Ella passed out at around 7:45 tonight. I really hope she wants to sleep for 12 hours!

Ella insisted on wearing her tutu today.

Ella was having a great time dancing ballet in the grass.

Ella walking the wall with Becca.

Check out this look of concentration.

Our beautiful barefoot kid.

After coming back from paradise, 3 days of work seemed like 3 weeks of work! Thursday has finally come and I was able to enjoy a beautiful day with Ella and a beautiful night with Sunny and the Kim/Arenas. Ella and I started our journey today by going to My Gym. Ella did a fantastic job jumping on the trampoline, hanging from the uneven parallel bars, running up stairs, sliding down the slides both on her back and on her belly, and just being an all around great kid. After My Gym, we went to lunch at Maria’s for grilled cheese and french fries and then we took a walk down town. Ella fell asleep for a little while while I was doing some stuff and then we came home an took the dogs out. At around 3:30, I took Ella to the gym and we went swimming. Ella is so brave in the pool. She walks around on her tippy toes all over the place. She told me today that she wanted to go under water all by herself. I told her to remember to blow bubbles. She did it and did a great job. After the pool, we met up with mommy and went over to Helen and Ron’s for dinner. After dinner, we all took a walk to this new park a few blocks away from our house. The park is in a funny place, right under the freeway, but it has some great basketball courts, a tennis court, and a beach volleyball court. This huge lot is filled with sand. This was a true test to see if Ella would actually put her feet in the sand. Anguilla had the most beautiful soft sand and Ella would not walk on it. Tonight, after a few minutes of touching the sand with her hands and hanging out by the edge, Ella actually walked all over the sand and played in it! Go figure. It was a really fun night.

The sun is finally out here! What a beautiful day.

This is right after My Gym. What a happy kid.

I took these pictures of Ella after swimming while we were letting the dogs out. She did all the poses by herself. I did not encourage them. The last one is like the old ad, “Nothing comes between me and my Calvins”.

This is from this evening. Ella was calling for her buddies to come run on the grass with her.

This was the how Ella began her sand process…she was hanging out on the edge and touching the sand.

In the meantime, here is an amazing role model. Stella was having a blast playing in the sand.

Another amazing role model. Although it was pretty cold and windy, Juliet put on her hood and kept playing in the sand.

With some amazing coaxing and support from mommy, Ella took the plunge and stood on the sand.

And she started walking around all by herself.

By the end of the evening, you would have never known that she had OCD about sand. Thank you Kim/Arena family for helping Ella work through her issue!