Jennifer Woodbury

Day in the Life

2013 has been a quiet year for my camera so far. I have taken significantly fewer everyday photos this year than in years past, probably because I've been too preoccupied with all the major changes going on in our lives to remember to pick up the camera on a regular basis. It's not something I've stressed out about, but I am really glad that back in February I decided to follow along with Ali Edwards' Day in the Life project. I took more photos during that day than I had during the entire month.

In addition to taking photos I also kept a detailed log of our activities throughout the day. Hopefully someday soon I'll actually compile everything into a template and print it out. Here are a few photos from a day in our life on February 28th (and yes, I was also inspired by Ali when I labeled these photos): 

Ali is doing a Day in the Life once a month for this entire year. If you want to give it a try, you can join in next Tuesday, April 30th. I'll probably participate at least one or two more times later on in the year.

It's Good to be Five

For a girl who has only ever wanted to celebrate her birthday at home with family, it seemed fitting that Claire should be the last person to celebrate a birthday in our old house just one week before we moved. 

On her actual birthday, a Wednesday, she woke up and asked if the birds and butterflies were here now since it was also the first day of spring. Sadly, there was still snow on the ground. I took her out on a lunch date to Panera Bread (her request) and then we got our nails done together just like last year. I asked her if she wanted to invite a couple of friends from school to come with us, but she just wanted it to be me and her. "Maybe for my six-year-old birthday," she said. That evening she opened up her presents: a ballet bag, a heart locket with a picture of Mom and Dad inside, and a two new fairy books. It was exactly what she had asked for.

On Saturday we had our family celebration. Even though life was a bit crazy at the time, I tried to make it special for her. But I didn't order the edible butterflies for her cake in time, so the mailman ended up delivering them just a couple of hours after we ate the cake. But who really cares about edible butterflies anyway when you have an entire edible cake to eat?

I made a variation on last year's rainbow cake. This year's version was four layers in varying shades of pink.

After cake we headed into New York City to have afternoon tea at American Girl Place. It was ridiculously overpriced, even by New York standards, which led Matt to declare that this was "truly a once in a lifetime experience." (It wouldn't have been so bad except for the fact that I think we were hungrier when we left than we were when we arrived, if that's possible.) The highlight for Claire was getting her new doll Caroline. I was rooting for her to choose my personal favorite Kit (I guess Lucy is my last hope on that front), but Claire fell in love with that curly blonde hair. The next day she declared: "I am really loving Caroline because she has such beautiful hair." She's slept with Caroline next to her every night since.

She's in for exciting things this year. She's learning how to read, kindergarten starts in the fall, and she's about to lose her first tooth. It's definitely good to be five.

Here is this year's birthday interview. It's really interesting to compare her answers to the ones she gave last year and see which ones stayed the same (she still wants to be a mommy when she grows up) and which ones changed (American Girls have replaced Hello Kitty for favorite toy):

My favorite fruit is: strawberries.
My favorite TV show is: Full House (the girls are hooked on re-runs).
My favorite thing to eat for lunch is: a peanut butter and jelly sandwich.
My favorite outfit is: all of Ella's old dresses (the barely worn ones that I just pulled out of storage).
My favorite drink is: soda (said with a sly grin because she very rarely gets soda). Alternate answer: lemonade.
The toy I love to play with most is: my American Girl dolls.
Something that makes me scared is: loud noises.
My favorite animal is: a pig... no, an elephant!
My best subject in school is: art.
The thing I do the most awesomely is: numbers.
If I could go anywhere in the world, I’d go to: Florida beach.
My favorite color is: pink.
My favorite thing to do on the weekend is: read my fairy books.
The snack I could live on is: goldfish.
My best friend is: Hope and Rian.
If I had one wish it would be: to stay with my family all the days.
When I grow up, I’m going to become a: mommy.

The Move

"I think I made the wrong choice."

That's what Ella said as she sobbed last Saturday night after a long day of packing up boxes and watching the movers come and empty out this little old house that has watched our family grow for the past six years. Even with all my planning and organization (including a detailed packing log), I was not prepared for how exhausting and emotional this whole moving process would be.

Ella has been dying for her own room, and we promised her that she could have one once we moved. As the moving date got closer, I tried to convince her to wait until the second move into our new house to make the switch, but she was adamant that she was ready now.

And then on that first night in the rental as I was in Claire and Lucy's new room trying to make up their beds, Ella came in, looked at me for a moment, and burst into tears. These weren't your regular "I scraped my knee" tears or "my sister got a bigger cookie than me" tears, but real, gut-wrenching tears. Having her own room lost its appeal after she was confronted with the reality of sleeping in a dark room by herself without her constant companion of the last five years.

I cried right along with her that night. It may seem trivial in the grand scheme of things, but this was probably the first time in her almost eight years on earth that she's had to face something really hard, scary, and seemingly overwhelming for her. If I hadn't felt like I was literally going to collapse from exhaustion in that moment, I would have moved her bed back in with Claire's by myself that very night. Instead I did my best to calm her down and told her we'd figure it out the next day. She later told me that she stayed awake staring at the door with tears rolling down her face all night long. It broke my heart.

After that I was sure that she would decide to move back in with Claire, at least for the next couple of months until the next move. So the next evening when she told me that although she would miss Claire ("she really was a good roommate"), she was no longer afraid and still wanted her own room, I was the one who ended up crying. It just felt like too much change all at once, and I was worried that they would start to lose their close relationship. So all week long Ella's been writing me notes to try to make me feel better about things, filled with memories of sharing a room with Claire like "falling on your pillow," a game they apparently liked to play that involved standing at the foot of their beds and falling face first onto their pillows.

The day after our move was Easter. Despite being completely unprepared (at least the Easter Bunny still managed to find us), I was able to scrounge up some Easter-ish outfits for the girls - two out of three wore hand me down outfits that I pulled out of a bin minutes before we walked out the door - and we headed to our old house to say our final goodbyes and have an Easter egg hunt in the backyard.

Afterward, Matt loaded the girls into the car and I stood by myself in the kitchen, staring for the last time into the empty living room with tears rolling down my face this time.

I didn't expect to be so emotional over the whole thing, but it felt a little bit like the end of an era. I just couldn't stop thinking about two of my babies coming home to this house from the hospital, Christmas mornings, the girls playing in the backyard, hearing their footsteps on the squeaky stairs as they came downstairs to ask for just one more thing before falling asleep, Lucy yelling good night to her sisters from across the hall, first day of school pictures in front of the white fence, the girls sitting on the kitchen counter while I made dinner, and the list goes on and on.

In that moment I really just wanted to call the whole thing off and forget about this selling our house business. But on Monday the papers were signed and we handed off the keys to a family with two boys who will hopefully make many more happy memories there.

Just as the morning brought a fresh perspective to Ella, a few days of distance (and some sleep) has helped my own emotions to subside. I do know that this was the right decision for us and that it was time to move on. And I'm looking forward to finally moving into our new house.

We have settled into life in our rental house. None of us can quite bring ourselves to call it home; even Lucy calls it simply "the rental." I have to drive by our old house at least once a day on my way to drop off Claire at school, and my heart drops a little bit each time we pass by. The good news is that Lucy is thrilled to be sharing a room with Claire. That first night she was so excited she screamed and started hugging all the furniture in the room. Claire seems content with both living arrangements. "I just want to share a room with all my sisters," she tells me. 

The other night however, things in Claire and Lucy's new shared room got a little too rowdy, so I pulled Claire out and told her to go into Ella's room until Lucy fell asleep. A few minutes later I peeked in and saw Ella reading a book to Claire, the two of them snuggled up together on Ella's bed, and for a moment all was right with the world again.

There may be a lot of change afoot in our lives right now, but at least I can count on some things remain the same.

Hibernation

I have received a few comments about my absence in this space over the past couple of months. The truth is, if you look back over the history of this blog, I tend to get much quieter in the winter.

This marked my 7th New England winter, and over the years I've actually come to really appreciate and enjoy the quiet that January and February brings after a whirlwind holiday season. The only problem with this winter is that I haven't really been able to hibernate the cold months away like I normally do (although I did spend a good portion of February watching all four seasons of Parenthood).

First of all, we put our house back on the market (you may remember that we tried to sell our house two years ago without success) at the end of January and it sold in one day. This was great news, but it has meant that we've been scrambling to find a short-term rental to move into while also searching for a new home to buy (thankfully we just signed contracts for a place we're really excited about last week). And on top of that, we've been juggling a couple of other pretty major things that have taken up a lot of our attention as well. It's mostly all good, but it's meant that I've been a bit distracted, to say the least.

But spring is officially here now, and for the first time in a long time, I finally feel ready to come and revisit this old blog of mine. Things are about to get pretty crazy for a while (moving day is just a little over a week away), but hopefully I'll be here a little more often from here on out.

2012 Photos | Week 52 | Dec 23-31

Finally... we are up to the last week of 2012! Let's start with Christmas Eve.

Of course there was the traditional Christmas Eve program in New Jersey. With Matt's sister and her family joining the East Coast ranks this year, there were lots of extra performers.

Ella played her violin and despite our wild applause, burst into tears afterwards because she forgot the ending. That sweet kid just breaks my heart sometimes. She is truly becoming quite a lovely violinist and I assured her that she should be proud of herself.

Claire, on the other hand, refused to perform her "violin demonstration" at all. Stinker. And since she's only two, Lucy got a pass to just sit, look cute, and fawn all over her baby cousin Lily.

Matt and I truly stepped up our acts this year. I wrote (with Matt's help) and recited my own version of "The Night Before Christmas." Usually Matt just sings "Jingle Bells" with the girls, but this year he performed a vocal solo of "Santa Claus is Coming to Town" using a different accent for each verse. It was somewhat politically incorrect and completely hysterical. Lucy pulls up the video on my iPhone every chance she gets and it brings me to tears pretty much every time I watch it.

After the program and our second annual Christmas Eve BBQ dinner (shipped straight from Texas), it was home to leave milk and cookies for Santa and go to bed.

Christmas Day is one of the few times where I take hardly any photos. This is one of the only pictures I have from the day of Lucy wearing the fairy costume that was a gift from my mom (she put it on immediately upon opening it). It was a lovely, happy holiday though, despite the lack of photographic evidence. Ella's favorite gifts were her Nintendo DS and LEGO Creator set. Claire loved her jewelry box and fairy book. And Lucy was mostly just thrilled to rip open presents regardless of what was inside. And honestly, my kids loved staying in their pajamas all day more than anything else. It's one of the things they look forward to most about Christmas!

The day after Christmas, we left Lucy with a sitter and headed into the city to see Annie on Broadway.

And to end the year, we finally got a little bit of snow. It wasn't much, but it was enough to go sledding in the backyard and make snowballs with our new snowball maker (which was surprisingly effective!). I think this was the first time that Lucy actually enjoyed the snow. She loved screaming at the top of her lungs every time she went sledding down the hill with Matt.

2012 Photos | Week 51 | Dec 16-22

This week we had our annual gingerbread house making day. I made the big house above, and the girls each worked on their own individual little houses:

The finished products:

This week I also got to go into Ella's classroom and help out with the class holiday party. Somehow I have managed to be in charge of doing a holiday craft in Ella's class every single year since kindergarten. In September, parents usually sign up to help out with celebrations throughout the year, and I always tell the teacher that I will fill in any open slots. It appears that holiday craft volunteers are hard to come by in our neck of the woods.

I actually love being in the classroom, but trying to come up with a holiday craft is usually a bit stressful for me. This year my process went something like this: 1) Spend hours searching for ideas on Pinterest, 2) Choose a really adorable but overly elaborate project for a classroom full of 23 second graders, 3) Go to Michael's to buy supplies and become completely overwhelmed, and 4) Decide to take the easy way out and end up buying boxes of pre-made gingerbread men for the kids to decorate instead. When it was all said and done, the cookie decorating was a huge hit and I was amazed at how creative the kids were.

I love that Ella wore a Santa hat to school for the entire week leading up to the holiday break.

I got to observe Claire in ballet class performing various dances from the Nutcracker:

And we finally went to see Santa:

In a repeat performance from last year, Lucy wanted nothing to do with Santa, so in order to get a picture with all three girls Matt had to sit on Santa's lap too:

Sharing their wish lists with Santa: 

Claire told Santa that she didn't know what she wanted for Christmas. Santa replied that he couldn't fit "I don't know" in his bag, but asked if it would be okay to surprise her with something special. She agreed that it was a good plan.

2012 Photos | Week 50 | Dec 9 - 15

It was a mostly quiet December week around here, at least until The Elf Emergency of 2012 occurred.

On the day Buddy created this M&M message for the girls (by the way, you should know that Buddy steals all his ideas from other elves posting on Facebook and Pinterest), Lucy touched him. Anybody who is familiar with Elf on the Shelf lore knows that an elf loses its magic if touched. As soon as it happened, Ella burst into tears. I suggested writing a letter to Santa to explain the situation and she got right to work. Since Buddy would not be able to fly back to the North Pole that night to report to Santa, she made sure to include her own report on "Thursday's attitude." Note that the only person she gave a smiley face to was herself. In order to speed the process along, I also sent Santa an e-mail and he had some "Magic Elf Dust" (thank you Google) waiting for us in our mailbox the next day, so all was right in the world again.

On Saturday, Ella headed into New York with her good friend Will and his family to see the Christmas Spectacular at Radio City, so I promised Claire and Lucy we would do something fun at home. Baking cookies seemed to fit the bill. Ella even got home in time to decorate a few herself.

Matt strings lights on our second tree of the season.

Saturday was also the day we brought home Christmas tree #2. A couple of days after we chopped down our first tree, we somehow forgot to water it for 48 hours and it never really recovered from the neglect. It probably would have hobbled along until Christmas, but Matt determined that we should just cut our losses and get another one before things got any worse. So we undecorated tree #1 and hauled it outside, then headed down to a local nursery to pick out a replacement. When Ella got home from the Christmas Spectacular she immediately declared that she hated the new tree, and although my sentiments weren't quite as strong, I have to admit that I really missed the original too.

2012 Photos | Week 49 | Dec 2 - 8

Claire @ Lincoln Center.

The director of Claire's ballet studio arranged an outing to see a performance of The Nutcracker by the New York City Ballet, so I turned it into a mother/daughter outing.

Claire on the subway platform.

We rode the train into the city and then took the subway uptown. By the way, when you're patting yourself on the back for how well you know your way around New York, nothing humbles you like getting on the express train when you actually needed the local.

Our first stop was brunch at The Smith. Claire got a buttermilk waffle and ate the entire thing, saving the whipped cream for last.

Then it was time for the show. Afterward, Claire and I both gave it two thumbs up.

Claire on the train ride home, wearing her Nutcracker souvenir.

I let Claire pick out one souvenir each for herself and for both of her sisters. She chose a wooden nutcracker for Ella, and this tiara for herself and Lucy (even though I tried to direct her to an adorable mini snow globe instead). You don't want to know how much I paid for that tiara, but I tried to tell myself that it was all part of the experience. It wouldn't have felt like a trip into New York City if I didn't grossly overpay for something.

Back at home this week, I managed to get the tree decorated.

Our elf Buddy showed up, albeit a bit later than usual (Ella complained that several of her friends at school had elves who arrived last week). Buddy left a note explaining that he had been caught in "elf traffic," which seemed like a plausible excuse to the girls. All week he was up to typical elf antics such as getting into a tin of cookies and toilet-papering our tree.

I spotted this sweet bookmark on Ella's nightstand.

Lucy was feeling a bit under the weather this week, and then Matt came down with a horrible version of the stomach flu that left him knocked out for several days. Once he finally felt like he might be able to stomach something, he sent me the following grocery store requests via e-mail:

From: Matthew Woodbury
To: Jennifer Woodbury
Date: Fri, Dec 7, 2012 at 3:25pm
Subject: Wish List

Don't laugh.

1) Chicken in a Biskit
2) Gatorade (yellow or orange)
3) Sour Patch Kid popsicles
4) Ginger ale
5) Sour cream and onion Pringles

I only laughed a little... I guess there's nothing like sour cream and onion Pringles to settle an upset stomach. :)

2012 Photos | Week 48 | Nov 25 - Dec 1

Heading off to school. Every day Lucy insists on taking a backpack with her in the morning just like the big girls. Inside the backpack is a lunch box. She follows me around the kitchen in the morning filling it up with every snack food item imaginable.

The Christmas cards arrived. 

The Santa letters have been written. This is Ella's. All Claire wants for Christmas is rosin (for her violin), a "fairy book" (even though she can't read them, she is obsessed with these somewhat insufferable Rainbow Magic books), and a charm bracelet, so Santa is going to have to be a bit creative.

On Saturday, we went with the Shontzes on our 2nd annual Christmas tree hunt.

It was absolutely freezing outside (a bit different than last year), and I couldn't feel my toes by the end, but we found our tree! Never mind that we managed to kill it within two weeks of getting it home by forgetting to water it, but I suppose that's a story for another blog post.

Ella helps carry the tree to the car.

2012 Photos | Week 47 | Nov 18-24 (Woodbury Thanksgiving Reunion)

The last time the entire Woodbury clan was together was over two years ago. We tried to organize reunions in both 2011 and 2012, but could never quite decide on a location or date that worked for everyone. A few e-mails had been bounced back and forth trying to get something on the calendar for 2013, but nobody had committed to anything. And then at the end of last summer, the stars aligned. Matt's younger sister and her family were moving to the East Coast after living abroad for the past several years. His brother in New Jersey offered up his house as a place to stay for anybody willing to make the trip East. And before we knew it, Matt's parents plus the remaining two Woodbury siblings and their families had booked airline tickets and the countdown to a 2012 Thanksgiving reunion had begun.  Here's how reunion week went down:

Sunday: The day after everybody arrived, we headed north to Newport, Rhode Island. We broke up the drive by stopping in Mystic, CT for lunch. I thought Mystic Pizza would just be a tourist trap (there are TVs on almost every wall playing the movie on repeat), but it turns out that the pizza is actually really good.

Here's what a hotel room full of 17 cousins looks like (we were short two cousins who were asleep in their own room at the time):

Among the under-10 crowd (on the left), it was mass chaos, while the teenagers (on the right) were engrossed in their media devices.

Monday: We spent the day touring the Newport mansions. The last time Matt and I did this was over 12 years ago, when we spent a weekend in Rhode Island for our first wedding anniversary. It was fun to go back, especially now that we have become Downton Abbey fans (along with the rest of the world). Yes, I realize that these Newport mansions are located on a completely different continent, but they still reminded me of the show. And considering the contents of the gifts shops in these houses, I am not the only one who thinks so. Our first stop was The Breakers:

After The Breakers we headed into town for lunch and a stop at the International Tennis Hall of Fame. We decided not to pay the admission fee to get into the museum and tour the grounds. Instead we wreaked havoc in the gift shop (I don't think the employees knew what hit them... it was a lot of people in a very small space) and posed for a photo in front of the main grass court:

Next up was The Elms:

And our final tour of the day was Marble House:

Tuesday: This was a rest day. It was the one day that I decided to send Ella and Claire to school. Ella's class put on a short Thanksgiving play in which Ella played a pilgrim. She was not excited about her role because she thought she would have to wear a skirt. Thankfully she was able to perform in pants, and she was over the moon excited that her cousins from Utah stopped by to watch her.

Wednesday: On the day before Thanksgiving, we headed into NYC to watch the balloons get inflated for the parade. We went early to try to avoid the biggest crowds and were worried that we wouldn't be able to see much, but were pleasantly surprised that most of the balloons were already blown up.

Claire was enamored with the Hello Kitty balloon, which led off the parade this year, and was adamant that I properly document it.

Here is a view of what the balloons and crowds looked like from a distance:

After seeing the balloons, we walked around the city.

Pictures on the steps of a stranger's brownstone (always one of our favorite photo opportunities).

Britney and Lucy. It was so fortuitous that we ended up having this reunion when we did, because Britney (the oldest of the cousins) will be leaving on an 18-month long church mission to Argentina in February. We wouldn't have had another opportunity to all get together until 2014.

The ubiquitous Times Square shot.

Katie, Britney, and Ella in front of Radio City.

Cousins sitting on a curb in Rockefeller Center waiting to eat the Magnolia cupcakes we just purchased. This picture was taken about 20 seconds before we were asked not to sit on the curb.

Once we relocated to the steps of St. Patrick's Cathedral, everyone was finally able to chow down.

Thursday: On Thanksgiving, Matt's brother Thomas and his wife Melissa were gracious enough to host all 31 of us for dinner. Did I mention we all spent the night at their house that night as well? I'm not sure if they fully realized what they were getting themselves into, but we were grateful for the chance to be together under one roof.

The adult table.

The kids' table.

Loading up the plates.

Grandma Kathy's layered Jello.

Notice how all of their plates consist mostly of rolls and Jello.

Saturday: We made one more trip into the city to see The Lion King on Broadway. It was Claire's first show and she was thrilled to get a Lion King charm bracelet as a souvenir.

Sunday: (This was technically part of Week 48, but I wanted to keep all the reunion photos together.) This was our last day together, and of course it wasn't until the very end that Lucy and her 3-year-old cousin Emalee discovered each other.

Emalee, Britney, and Lucy.

Little monkeys.

Emalee told her mom, "I made a new friend!" Lucy said (of Emalee), "She's pretty cute."

Matt had reunion shirts made for everyone similar to the ones he created for our last reunion to the Outer Banks. This time they were long-sleeved and said "NYC '12" on the front and "Giving Thanks, Woodbury Style" on the back. We all gathered for one last picture in our shirts before heading our separate ways.

Who's ready to start planning the next reunion?