Jennifer Woodbury

Reflections on Starting 2nd Grade

Ella started second grade today, and while there will be pictures forthcoming once I dig myself out from under all the vacation photos, I couldn't resist putting together this little video of Ella sharing some of her thoughts about school over an after school snack of milk and cookies.

2012 Photos | Week 32 | Aug 5 - Aug 11 (PART 1: California)

The Disneyland castle: smaller and older than other Disney castles, but with loads of charm... sort of like my own house.

Alright, brace yourself for loads of vacation pictures. I had to break this week into two parts. This first part features photos from our time in Southern California.

*DAY 1*

We hit Disneyland right as it opened that first day, and tried to get on as many rides as possible before the lines started getting too long. Ella is my thrill ride lover. Splash Mountain and Big Thunder Mountain are her two favorites (that's Ella and Matt below in the back of the log on Splash Mountain).

Claire, on the other hand, had a much different Disneyland agenda. Her only request while we were there was to "meet princesses." So when I heard that Rapunzel would be in Fantasyland at 11am, I made sure we were in line at least 20 minutes early. This was the point in our vacation when I learned that Claire's emotional state is quite fragile when she is hungry and thirsty.

Rapunzel was late showing up, Claire was tired of waiting in line, and she almost burst into tears several times. It was at this point in time that I wondered whether I was just unintentionally torturing her by making her stay there and contemplated forgetting the whole thing altogether. But I made her stick it out, and when I saw the huge smile on her face as she finally got to sit down next to Rapunzel, I knew the potential heat stroke/dehydration/starvation (that Claire would have you believing was imminent) was worth it.

Showing off her Rapunzel pin.

Even though Ella is not a princess kind of girl, she's not one to miss out on a photo opportunity. And she was really excited when Flynn Rider showed up just as we were leaving. These are the very last pictures taken with Ella's top tooth intact because right after this we headed to lunch, where Ella promptly lost her fourth tooth eating, of all things, a bean and cheese burrito. (By the way, next time you are at Disneyland go here and buy a bag of cinnamon chips for me, will you?)

Toothless in Disneyland.

After lunch we happened to run into Cinderella and her Fairy Godmother. Check another princess off the list for Claire...

Usually we save souvenir buying for the end of a trip, but Ella had been waiting for months to buy a Tigger stuffed animal and could not wait a second longer (she had brought her own money and everything). Of course that meant Claire also couldn't wait one more second for the Minnie doll she had been dreaming about:

She kept saying: "I just can't stop looking at her!"

And thus Claire was set up for the highlight of her day, and possibly the highlight of her entire trip: meeting Minnie Mouse while wearing what she called her "Minnie Mouse dress" and holding her new Minnie Mouse doll. The part I loved the most was that as we moved through the line, Claire kept hiding behind either me or Matt so that Minnie would not see her dress before we got to the front.

The pinnacle Disney experience for Claire.

You won't see Lucy in many character photos because like most 2-year-olds, she was petrified of all of them. (It reminded me fondly of when Ella was terrorized by Mary Poppins at Disney World several years ago.) Lucy preferred her Disney characters in stuffed animal form. She picked out the same Minnie as Claire, and also finally got a pin purse to match the ones her sisters got on our last Disney trip. We had many people comment on how Lucy was the youngest pin trader they had ever seen.

Lucy passed out with Minnie and her new pin purse.

Can I take a moment to warn you about renting strollers at Disneyland? Okay, good. Here you go:

WARNING: YOU CANNOT RENT DOUBLE STROLLERS AT DISNEYLAND.

You may foolishly think like we did that since they rent double strollers at Disney World, naturally they would do the same at Disneyland. And so you may leave your own beat up but still perfectly good (and most importantly, FREE) stroller in your hotel room thinking it would be better to rent a double stroller so that only one child at a time can complain of being tired of walking. But if you do that, you will sadly discover that there are no double strollers, and since your own stroller is back at the hotel you will be forced to rent the single stroller anyway. And that, my friends, is how you throw $15 right out the window.

With that said, we walked almost 9 miles that first day (as calculated by my pedometer) and I hardly heard one complaint from any of the kids the entire day.

Waiting for the shuttle bus back to the hotel after a long day.

She started the day by shrieking at the top of her lungs from our hotel room all the way down the elevator and through the lobby, but redeemed herself by being delightful for the rest of the day. (By the way, when she performed the same shrieking act the next morning at the hotel, a lady in the elevator told me she thought she recognized her crying from the previous day. Proud mother moment right there!)

Ella and her much sought after Tigger at the end of the day. We marveled about how she entered Disneyland with a tooth in her mouth and left the park without it. (And yes, the Tooth Fairy did find her that night.)

*DAY 2*

The next day we went to California Adventure to check out the newly opened Cars Land. If you know how much Ella loves cars, you will understand how excited she was about this moment.

We got there right as the park opened to try to avoid long lines, but apparently everybody else had the same idea. The crowds were crazy. The hot new ride there is Radiator Springs Racers:

Matt and Ella got in line right away but it was still about a 45 minute wait, which wouldn't have been so bad if the ride was actually running. They had to stop the ride several times while they were waiting. After almost two hours in line, the end was in sight when the ride broke down yet again and Ella declared she really had to use the bathroom and didn't want to wait anymore. Matt talked her off the ledge and they did end up going on the ride. Ella enjoyed it (although she was mad about being put in a purple car), but she didn't care to wait in line to do it a second time.

Ella and Lightning McQueen.

After Cars Land we went to find some other rides that we could all enjoy. Toy Story Mania! is one that even Claire loves (Dumbo the Flying Elephant, Small World, and Buzz Lightyear Astro Blasters at Disneyland were three others... she grudgingly tolerated Pirates of the Caribbean and Haunted Mansion).

A few family photos at Paradise Pier in Disney's California Adventure.

We left the park early this day and drove over to Balboa Island.:

We stopped for a frozen banana (me) and some ice cream (Matt and the kids). There are two places on Balboa Island almost next door to each other that lay claim to being the home of the "original" frozen banana. I tried one when I came to California in March, and I tried the other this time around. I couldn't tell a difference (both were excellent).

Of course the only logical thing to do after eating ice cream was to go load up on even more sugar at Balboa Candy. Their salt water taffy is seriously good stuff.

After we had sufficiently overdosed on sweets, we made a quick visit to the Pacific Ocean. And no, Lucy's feet did not touch the sand even for a second.

Corona del Mar

*DAY 3*

This was our last full day in California, and also the day I took the least amount of photos. We were pretty wiped out from the previous two days, so we got up a little later than usual and headed over to Disneyland one more time. We got a few pictures with Tigger and Eeyore while we were there:

Claire was upset because just moments before we got to the front of the line, Piglet left. Apparently they switch up the characters at this particular spot every hour or so. Just like McKayla, Claire was not impressed.

We stayed for the fireworks (which both Claire and Lucy slept through), and that wrapped up our trip to California.

Next stop Portland, OR...

2012 Photos | Week 31 | July 29 - Aug 4

Evening walk.

(I know Claire needs a helmet. But if you could only see how she walks next to her scooter like it is a pet dog on a leash 75% of the time and then rides it at a pace *barely* faster than walking the other 25% of the time, you would understand why the helmet hasn't quite made it to the top of my priority list.)

I hardly took any pictures this week. Sometimes that happens. It was just one of those lazy weeks where nothing much was going on. At one point when I realized I had hardly any photographic evidence of the week, I even resorted to taking an iPhone photo of my deli sandwich. (I didn't think anybody would really want to see it, but it was a ham and swiss with spicy mustard if anybody is interested. It's always been Matt's favorite and over the years I've adopted it as well.) But that's sort of the beauty of ordinary weeks. More everyday life ends up getting recorded, ham sandwiches and all.

I broke out the iPhone at the pool as well:

That photo of Lucy on the right makes my heart swell. I just love that kid. Yes, she is getting ready to dive into a 9 inch pool of water here. She does this thing where she gets a very serious look on her face, stretches her arms out straight in front of her, then bends her knees, swings her arms back, and jumps into the pool. It's pretty much my favorite thing on the planet right now. 

At the end of the week (Saturday) we did have a little excitement...

... as we boarded a plane and flew across the country. It's the first time we've been to the West Coast as a family since 2009, before Lucy was even a figment of our imaginations.

Being trapped on a plane with an irrational 2-year-old for six hours was the most daunting part of the trip. She actually did pretty well aside from the 15 minute tantrum early on in the flight (I'm still not sure exactly what she was so upset about). Thank goodness for episodes of Olivia and Max & Ruby on the iPhone.

Somewhere between Kansas and Oklahoma. It's at about this point in the flight when you start feeling like it's never. going. to. end.

Eventually we did make it to Southern California (part one of our West Coast trip).

Ella and Claire were super excited about the bunk beds at the hotel (if you ever take a trip to Disneyland, we highly recommend the kid suites at the Orange County Hyatt Regency). Of course, the first order of business is always setting up their stuffed animals on the hotel bed.

We're home from our trip now, and what I lacked in pictures here I will more than make up for when I post next week's pictures. I am always a little overwhelmed with photos whenever we get back from a vacation. Hopefully I'll be back here sooner rather than later.

Project Life: Plastics Giveaway Winner

The randomly selected winner of the plastics giveaway is...

Congratulations Cindy! I'll be in touch to let you know how to claim your prize. Thanks to Becky Higgins for sponsoring this giveaway!

Project Life: Plastics Giveaway!

Before I get to the giveaway, I wanted to share a little something for anybody who has ever come here and asked themselves "What in the world is Project Life?!" Take a look at this quick video - it's literally just over a minute long - that explains in really simple terms what Project Life is all about.

And now for the fun part. If you are familiar with Project Life, you will know that a whole bunch of new page protector and photo pocket page designs were just released (If you want more details on any of the new products, check out Becky's detailed post on her blog).

Here's your chance to give all these new products a try for yourself:

If you want to enter to win, here are the details:

1. Since these products will be shipped directly from Amazon, the winner must be a U.S. resident.

2. To enter, leave a comment on this post.

3. I will close the comments at 9pm Eastern time on Tuesday, August 14th and select a winner then.

Before I go, here are a few Project Life pages that I haven't shared before. I am actually surprisingly caught up even though summer is the time I tend to start falling behind. I have my album up to date through the first two weeks of July, but I haven't had a chance to photograph those pages yet.

This is Week #17 (April 22nd-April 28th):

And this is Week #19, the week of Mother's Day:

Good luck to everyone entering the giveaway!

2012 Photos | Week 30 | July 22-28

Sunday sidewalk chalk.

I love this smile. It's even better when she adds in a nose scrunch (I'm still trying to capture that one on camera).

A big family hug is the last thing we do almost every night before the girls go to bed. For some reason we call it a "triple hug" (Matt thinks it's because he started this tradition with the older girls before Lucy was born). We always love it when we finish and Lucy says "One mo' time!"

I had a really gratifying moment this week at dinner when all three of my kids actually ate and enjoyed broccoli. None of them have ever been great vegetable eaters (I fully blame myself for this), and this small achievement somehow made me feel as if I had succeeded as a parent in some little way. Who cares if the main course was mac 'n cheese? Broccoli has a way of making any meal virtuous, or so says this post from one of my favorite cooking blogs.

While I have loved being a member of a pool club for the past two summers, I have to say that I really miss all the time we used to spend at the beach before we had a pool at our disposal. We are so lucky to have two beautiful beaches in town. A huge renovation project was just completed at our main beach with a brand new bathhouse and concession stand (in addition to the big playground they put in a couple of years ago), and I can't believe today was the first time we've been to the beach since it was finished. We met a few friends there and the girls had an absolute blast digging a huge trench and generally making sandy messes of themselves.

The girls started up their own "cupcake" stand...

... and they even had a couple of customers.

Lucy has a well-documented sand phobia so I was really proud of her for actually walking on the sand, even if she did keep her shoes on the whole time. She was sitting in her pink beach chair looking longingly at her big sisters and their friends playing over at the water table. You could tell she really wanted to join them, but every time she would slowly start to put her feet down, she would stop just before they actually touched the ground, look at me with huge, frightened eyes and say, "I can't do it!" It took a few tries, but eventually she found the courage to get up and join the fun. It was a big moment for her.

We ended our beach afternoon with a stop at the swing set.

On Friday night we had our own little Olympics party to celebrate the opening ceremony of the London games. When I mentioned the word "party" to the girls, I was mostly thinking about just having a few snacks and letting them stay up late. But when Ella asked where the party plates were, I knew she had bigger plans in mind.

Thankfully I save all the leftover tableware from birthday parties so I had some festive plates, napkins, and cups on hand (in red, white, and blue no less) to put on the table. We made brownies and I printed out an international flag bingo game to keep them interested during the Parade of Nations (there was a full pack of Starburst at stake). When I also made them a simple Olympics-themed coloring book with coloring pages printed out from the internet, they started screaming that it was going to be "the best Olympics party ever!" I absolutely love their enthusiasm. They are pumped up to watch the games and have been perfecting their "U-S-A" cheers.