Life With Ella

Happy Mother’s Day to all the moms reading this…happy mother’s day again mom.  Love you!  Today Ella went with the Kim/Arena family to Stella’s dance recital and Sunny and I went to the Giants game.  Ella had a fantastic time and we had a fantastic time!  The Giants swept the Rockies.  Ella loved watching Stella dance so much and she loved all the different costumes that the kids were wearing at the recital.  When Ella came home, Helen came with her and asked if Ella could play for a little while – the girls were all going to get into some dance clothes and dance over at their house.  Ella went upstairs and was up there for about 5 minutes.  She came down with an outfit that she invented – she was ready for some serious modern dance.  She was so cute and loved her outfit.  Tonight we had dinner with Phyllis, Michael, Hannah and Naomi.  It was a really great dinner at Out The Door.  Phyllis took pictures so maybe she’ll share some with me to post. Ella and Juliet before the dance recital. Ella’s costume change.  The things on her legs are old school leg warmers.  We got them for her a long time ago and she remembered! Ella’s going out to dinner outfit.

Today was a fun filled day.  In the morning, we went to a mother’s day celebration at mommy’s office.  It was a beautiful celebration for women and their children who are survivors of domestic violence.  After that we headed over to Ella’s school for the annual Country Fair.  It was a lot of fun – Ella played with her friends, got her face painted, listened to a 6th grade girl band who was great and practiced a little on the monkey bars.  We were there for about 3 hours and then we went to the T-ball game.  Ella surprised us and told us that she wanted to be the catcher.  She was the cutest catcher in the world.  The thing that she was most concerned about was whether her face paint came off or not.  Tonight, Sunny and I went to the Giants game (great win in the 9th) and Ella got to hang out next door.  She was so excited to hang out with the girls, KJ and Helen.  This morning, KJ pointed to Ella and said, “Ella noo-nah”.  Noo-nah is the way for a boy to say big sister in Korean.  Ella loved that. Face painting. Ella and one of her favorite people in the world – Ms. Alicia. Country Fair fun with Emmi and Brickelle. A very happy Ella running to the T-Ball field. Cutest catcher in the world! Ella playing around with her friend Dillon.  Dillon looks pretty intense in the last shot and Ella looks like she just doesn’t care! Ella and mommy sharing a moment on second base. At the end of a long, fun day.

This has been a really busy week and tomorrow is going to be even more packed with stuff, but I wanted to share an e-mail and photo that Alicia sent us today.  The e-mail said this “I was busy so I put her to work reading to others.”    How cool is that!?  Ella’s reading has been getting better and better.  We don’t have her sit down and read, but every once in a while, we’ll be looking at a book or one of her magazines and she’ll say something like, “Let me read this page OK?”  so we let her give it a shot and she’s been doing so well.  After school, we asked Ella about reading to the other kids and she said, “Yes – I did read a book and it wasn’t one of those ‘BOB’ books – it was harder than that.”  She was really into reading to some of the other kids.  She told me later that some kids left in the middle of the book and other kids stuck around to hear the whole thing.  She didn’t mind that some kids left.  Thank you Alicia for encouraging Ella to go for it! Ella is now swimming the entire length of the pool. Monkey bars after T-ball practice.

Ella has had a great week.  On Monday, Ella and 5 other students went to Bi-Rite with the 3 preschool teachers after school.  Ella loved going with Alicia!  She was in a terrific mood when we went to ballet.  On Tuesday, Ella had her usual Tuesday playdate with Brickelle which she loves and today Ella was a little disappointed that she didn’t have her Stella/Juliet Wednesday playdate but it was Juliet’s birthday and they were going out to dinner.  HAPPY BIRTHDAY JULIET!  Today it was super hot out so I took Ella to Bi-Rite after school and then we came home, Ella changed into this Tutu bathing suit and I dumped water on her in the zen garden.  We had a blast.  Ella was laughing and laughing.  Here are some pics.Lots of fun at ballet class.  The last shot is of Ella pretending that she was asleep. At Bi-Rite after school. Fun in the zen garden.Finding a ladybug.

Ella went to two birthday parties today back to back and had a costume change between the two.  The first party was Ella’s classmate Tessa’s birthday party and the second party was Ella’s next door best friend/sister, Juliet’s birthday party.  Ella was so excited about the whole day.  She loves these parties.  At Tessa’s party, there were acrobatic clowns helping the kids work the zip line, teaching them how to spin plates, balance peacock feathers, get face painting and do some other acrobatic stuff.  It was a lot of fun – the kids had a blast.  Juliet’s party was a princess fantasy.  Justin and Julie’s back yard was transformed into a princess tent.  The Real Princess Belle came to the party and hypnotized the girls for 2 hours.  Ella was in heaven.  Let’s let the pictures do the talking. Ella loved flying around on the zip line. Blalncing and playing around with peacock feathers.Waiting for the face painter. Balancing plates. WOrking the romper stompers. Ella and her buddy Macy. Beautiful girls having lunch. Now at Juliet’s party jumped right in and made a crown. Sweet “sisters”MOmmy hanging in the back yard. THe real Belle makes her entrance. Little princesses thoroughly enjoying princess Belle. KJ wanted to get in on the action.Waiting for more face painting. Mommy and Ella love. Getting face painted by Belle. The princess group shot.

Today was a great day.  This morning I took Ella to Bug Day at the Randall Museum.  After the museum, we came home and had lunch with mommy.  After lunch, I went out for a little while and mommy and Ella went to the gym for TaeKwonDo.  Tonight, Stella came over and hung out with us while Juliet had a special night with Ron and Helen hung out with KJ.  We all had fun tonight.  Here’s the funny story from Bug Day.  Ella was sitting at a table making a bee crown (you’ll see it in the pics).  There were a bunch of 20 something volunteers at the event helping the kids out.  Ella told one of the volunteers that she was studying bees in her class.  The woman then said, “I don’t know a lot about bees so maybe you can teach me…what does a drone bee do?”  Ella looked at the woman and giggled.  She said, “Well the drone really doesn’t do anything except give sperm to the queen.”  The lady looked shocked.  There was another kid sitting next to Ella and she said, “What is sperm?”  At this point, the volunteer was speechless.  I turned to the kid and said, “The queen needs sperm to make her eggs turn into baby bees.”  That seemed good enough.  Ella looked around and said, “nevermind!”.  Funny stuff. Bug Day! Ella participated in the Bug Olympics.  At the end of the 6 events she had a choice of a bug stuffed animal or a piece of chocolate.  She chose the chocolate. Making the bee crown and chatting aboug sperm. The bee crown! Ella made a butterfly with a proboscis. Jumping on the tire “flowers”. Fun at TaeKwonDo.

Ella had a great week.  I didn’t really take a lot of pictures this week which is why there has been a lack of blogging.  This weekend is going to be really busy with birthday parties and bug exhibits so there will be a lot of stuff to see over the weekend.  In the meantime, here are a few shots from the week. Ella and Juliet from Wednesday night before we all had dinner together.  Ella and I also had dinner with the Kim/Arena girls + KJ on Thursday night.  It was a lucky week for Ella! Ella taking Towby for a walk on Thursday afternoon. Ella’s class getting ready for the bee expert who came in and taught the class about bees.  Ella said that she loved it and really learned a lot from the bee expert. Ella and one of her classmates learning about salt marshes from one of Ella’s favorite people Tess at the school’s sustainability fair. Warming up at T-ball practice today.  Ella must be telling mommy a joke. Ella owns these monkey bars now. We’re feeding Max the cat again this weekend.