Life With Ella

This is going to be another entry full of pictures.  This weekend, we hung out in Noe Valley, went to a picnic at CDS, went to a birthday party, took one of Ella’s buddies to a baseball game, played in the park by our house and ended the weekend out to dinner with Debby and Toby.  Today Ella had school and then we had some dinner with Amy.  Ella is doing so well.  At the birthday party, she ditched me to go and play games with her classmates.  She participated and had a blast.  At the game, she sat with Brickelle in their own row.  At the end of the game, another classmate, Leo and his brother came down to sit with us.  Ella ended up on Leo’s lap.  It’s so great to see her go into the next stage of socialization.  Here are some great pictures.

Ella in her peacock shirt.  We did drive all the way to the zoo but Ella was sleeping by the time we got there and the fog was very thick.

Beautiful child concentrating on coloring.

Ella and Brickelle after their faces were painted at Eli’s birthday party.

Ella doing dramatic exercices.

Taking it all in.

Playing the accordian.

Getting ready to go to the game.

Posing with all of the fun things in the AAA club level.

Does this look like a fun day or what?!

Brickelle, Renel and Ella.  Renel is the announcer for a the Giants and a good friend of Sunny’s.  The girls got a special treat after the game and were able to hang out with Renel.

What a jumper!

Going to school today.  It was 93º.  Ella got to wear a sundress and no jacket.

Running down the hallway.

Meeting Amy for dinner.

Drawing at Pasta Pomodoro.

We’re all back in the swing of things.  None of us really had jet lag.  Ella is such a trooper.  The weather has becoming warmer and warmer every day and Ella loves to stick around when school gets out and play on the structure and swing on the swings.  I have taken quite a few pictures and some video of Ella over the past few days.  The video will be up in the next day or so.

Ella singing one of her Cinderella songs before dinner.

Running around in the hallway.

Ella’s new way of swinging/flying.  She pretends she’s Kiki from Kiki’s Delivery service.

I spent 3 hours this morning being Stella’s special friend at her school.  We had a great time together.  We blew bubbles, made play dough muffins, made origami balloons, listened to music, and ate a great home made lunch.  Stella was wonderful and included me in everything.  Her teachers were really sweet too.  I had a lot of fun with Stella this morning.

Ella/Kiki doing that special thing on the swings.

Ella is trying out a new sport – hula hoop.

Wehad a great dinner tonight with our friends Candace and Courtney.

Lots of jumping in the lobby in a tutu.

I am finally catching up on things here.  Here is the last batch of photos from NJ.  We all had such a great time and are looking forward to our trip in June.

Ella slept until 11:00am on this day!  What an angel.

Check out Ella’s new shoes.

Ella and her buddy Emma.  Emma is my childhood friend Cheryl’s daughter.  She was amazing with Ella and Ella had a blast with Emma and…

Emma’s brother James.  Ella had a great lunch and shopping adventure with Emma and James.  Really sweet kids.

Back at Fireman’s Park

Trying to get the ball into the basket.

Bouncing on the rocket ship.

Ella’s buddy Hudson who is the son of a childhood friend of mine and the grandson of a childhood friend of my mom and dad.

Hudson with his sister Stella and brother Gibson.  Ella loved playing with the 3 of them.  It’s cool to watch older kids play younger ones.

Ella following Hudson across the balance beam.

Ella’s new buddy Stella who is Hudson’s big sister.

Hugs and fun with twins Stella and Gibson.

Lots of love and laughs with grandma and papa.

Here are some more pictures.  I think they cover Thursday – Saturday.  The internet was down at my parent’s house and I got all backed up with photos.  I have one more batch of east coast pictures to post after this one.

Here are some shots that Sunny took of Ella on their adventure to Trader Joes in Edgewater.  Trader Joe’s has kid sized shopping carts and Ella loved pushing hers all around the store.  The last shot is of Ella looking over at Manhattan from Edgewater.

All of these shots are at Fireman’s Park.  This park is actually perfect for Ella now.  She can pretty much do everything on her own except slide down the pole and use the monkey bars.  Normyn really loves this park too.  She runs and runs forever.

AJ,Ella and Uncle Michael before the second sedar.  Look how beautifully pregnant AJ is.

Ella and Uncle Michael doing some yoga before the sedar.

Here are some shots from around the sedar table.  I missed a few people…I want to give a shout out to Carole, Herb, Donna and Jay.

On Friday night, Carol hosted a book party for Sunny.  It was an amazing night full of wonderful people.  Thank you KK!

Ella and her new ladybug rain gear.

Driving over the Brooklyn Bridge in the rain.

Ella with Tina and Baby…notice the cute cat head at the bottom of the shot.

Sweet Ella.

Life has just been very busy.  We are now in Leonia for Passover.  We had a very sweet sedar last night.  The week before we left, my parents were in SF for an ophthalmology conference.  Ella was able to spend some quality time with grandma.  We also had a really fun dinner with the Fines.  Ella made friends with Irene, Howie and Vicky’s 7 year old grandaughter.  We had a great dinner at Acme with my parents, Howie and Vicky, Eddy and Liz and Irene.  Ella and Irene danced with each other and had a blast.  Charles from Acme snuck us into the Giant’s stadium and the girls played around in the dugout.  Now we are back in NJ and getting ready for the second sedar.

Grandma and Ella going out to lunch.  Notice Ella’s badge and ribbons.

What’s a visit to SF without a ride on the carousel?

Getting ready to go out to dinner.

Meeting Irene outside of Acme.

Having dinner next to Irene and on Irene’s lap.

Busy painting.

Dancing at Acme.

Playing around at the ballpark.

Karate on the street.

Getting nails done with grandma in NJ.

Helping to set the table for Passover.

Ballerina Ella getting ready for the sedar.

Ella and her cousin Normyn.

Cousin Georgia.

Cousin Brownen and her dad David.

Ella enjoying her grape juice.

Three beautiful cousins on Passover.  Georgia,Ella and Bronwen.  The girls got along really well and had a fun time together.

Lots of work this week and not enough time to post anything.  Here are a few pictures that I have taken over the past few days.  Ella has been doing really well…she is growing up and changing so much.  She is such an incredible love.

I took this one right before school on Monday.  We were playing around in the hallway.

Ella and Sunny cracking each other up at Amici’s.

Here is a drawing that Ella and I did of Chicago.

A close up of the police officer that Ella drew.

Today was a sweet day.  Ella had a fever but it was a beautiful day out and she wasn’t feeling sick so we took her to lunch at the Java House and then played at the little park behind AT&T Park.  Sunny and I went to a CDS fundraiser tonight.  Here’s a funny thing that Ella said to me the other day… Ella has this new thing that she does.  If she bumps herself or if something hurts, she says that she needs a band-aid and she keeps it on for a little while and then takes it off and says that she’s all better.  Anyway, Ella was in our bedroom and bumped her leg and she said, “I need a band-aid.”  She walked into our bathroom, opened the cabinet, got a band-aid, opened it up and put it on.  She was collecting the garbage and I said, “Give it to me, I’ll throw it out.” Ella looked up at me, picked up the garbage, went over to the garbage can and said, “Don’t worry about me – worry about yourself.”  Nice!Here are a few pictures from today at the park. Ella added this red ribbon to her dress. Walking the wall.And now, for the big jump!