Jennifer Woodbury

2012 Photos | Week 35 | Aug 26 - Sep 1

First day of second grade. 

We were all very happy that the start of school was not delayed by a hurricane this year.

Traditional first day of school cookies.

The cookies are a very calculated tool to help get Ella talking so that I can get the low down on the first day. If you didn't watch the video of Ella's thoughts on second grade that I posted a couple of weeks ago, you can see it here.

Matt had one of his fantasy football drafts this week and brought this monstrosity home with him afterward. If you take a close look at the back, you can see that Matt has had a pretty good streak going in this particular league that he's in with a bunch of friends from his MBA program. (PS: The name of the trophy is some sort of inside joke, and has nothing to do with where Matt actually went to school.)

I actually had this trophy sitting on the mantle for a day or two before I took it out to the garage. When Ella saw it out there she asked Matt if he was offended that I moved it. His response was that he was surprised I hadn't done it sooner.

Claire drew this violin as part of her first violin lesson this week. I'm excited for her to start playing, but also slightly nervous about now having to supervise two practice sessions every day.

On Friday night we celebrated the end of summer with a town-sponsored movie night at the beach. It's evenings like this one that make me fall in love with where we live. Sometimes I do a double take when I realize that my children will grow up calling this little corner of the East Coast home, a place so different in many ways from where I was raised, but then I'm reminded that different isn't necessarily a bad thing.

What made the night even better was that we had family there with us. Matt's sister, her husband, and their five kids just moved into town from London. It has been almost six years since we've had family less than two hours away from us, so it is surreal to think that my kids will now have five cousins just minutes away. We shared a pizza dinner on the beach and then Ella, Claire, and cousin Brooke got to work building a seashell fortress.

Later on Aunt Ashley took the kids down near the water to explore.

Lucy found a new buddy in cousin Will.

Am I the only one who thinks they could almost pass for twins? I can already tell this is just the beginning of a beautiful friendship.

Project Life: Project Real Life Winner

The randomly selected winner of a seat in Becky Higgins' Project Real Life class is:

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

If you didn't win, you can still register for Project Real Life through October 10th. Class starts on October 4th. I hope to see you all there!

2012 Photos | Week 34 | Aug 19 - Aug 25

Our bedtime stories ritual always seems to be changing and evolving. Lately we have started taking turns picking out books to read aloud at night (yes, Mom and Dad get a turn too). When it is her turn, Ella likes to read the books aloud herself, which of course means Claire wants to do the same thing when it is her turn. Since Claire doesn't read yet, sometimes Ella will sit next to her and whisper the words in her ear while Claire repeats them out loud... and other times Claire will just make up a very imaginative story of her own to go along with the pictures.

Teacher assignments arrived in the mail and Ella was so excited that she got the teacher she wanted. "I want to start tomorrow!" she screamed. When I asked why she wanted that teacher so badly, she replied that "she just seems nice." She also really liked the "BEE Binders" she saw in this teacher's classroom when she visited at the end of first grade and wanted one for herself.


Matt and I celebrated our 13th anniversary this week.



We went to a fabulous little restaurant for our anniversary dinner. If you live in the area, I can't recommend it enough. You wouldn't think apricots and ricotta cheese on toast would be life changing, but it truly was.


The oil delivery truck arrived this week, which means summer is really coming to an end and cooler weather (and depressingly high oil bills) must be right around the corner. The cost of oil heat is one thing I don't think I'll ever get used to about living in this part of the country.


School starts on Monday which means our pool days are almost over. These striped towels have been a staple this summer. Ella always claims the blue one, Claire the purple, and Lucy by default is left with red.

While Ella was trying on a pair of new school shoes, I worried out loud if she would grow out of them too fast. "Don't worry Mom, I stay small for a long time" was her response, which is completely accurate... I think Claire will catch up to her shoe size sooner rather than later, even though they are almost three whole years apart!

(Disclaimer: photo taken with Matt's Blackberry)

Ella and Claire got to attend their first NFL game at MetLife Stadium on Friday (a pre-season Giants game against the Chicago Bears). Matt was invited to the game by a work colleague, and I was originally supposed to go with him but couldn't find a sitter on short notice so he took the older girls instead. I have never been to an NFL game so I was a little jealous, not so much about the game itself but about the fact that they got to sit in Commissioner's Club seats with a gourmet buffet (including lobster, filet mignon, and fresh sushi) and all the snacks and treats they could eat.

When I asked for a rundown of everything they ate at the game I got this impressive list: hot dog, french fries, "a whole batch of candy," popcorn, soft pretzel, potato chips, ice cream with chocolate fudge, more candy, and one last redeeming item... lots of water. Ella and Claire each got their own "swag bag" as well: an Eli Manning backpack filled with stickers, pencils, pom poms (Claire said she'd always wanted a pom pom), and NY Giants chapstick, among other things. The Giants lost but the girls definitely had a night to remember. I was happy that they got the chance to go, even if it meant that I missed out on free lobster. At least they brought me home a big bag of Swedish Fish! 

Project Life: Project Real Life Giveaway!

There has been so much exciting Project Life news over the past month or so. Becky introduced the new Project Life designs for 2013 (Seafoam & Olive) and debuted the amazing new Childhood Editions. But what I was personally most excited about was the announcement of the new Baby Editions.

Did you know none of my girls has a baby book? Ella does have an album with a collection of various digital scrapbook pages I completed when she was little, but it is not a full picture of her babyhood by any means. Still, Claire sees it and asks why she doesn't have one too. Needless to say, I plan to order the Project Life Baby Edition x 3 and knock those baby books out!

As if all that wasn't enough, Becky Higgins herself will be teaching a comprehensive 12-week workshop over at Big Picture Classes called Project Real Life.

You can read all about it in the class description, and Becky also posted a great Q&A on her blog if you want more details. It sounds like it will be a great class for everyone - new Project Life users, seasoned Project Life users, or even someone who has never even scrapbooked before. I am really excited to take this class and I hope some of you out there will join me too.

In fact, Becky Higgins and Big Picture Classes have given me a spot in Project Real Life to give away to one of you.

If you want to enter to win, leave a comment on this post. I will close the comments at 9pm Eastern time on Wednesday, September 19th and select a winner then.

And now, a couple of Project Life layouts from earlier this summer. I think last time I posted about Project Life I told you I was all caught up? Well don't worry, our end of summer vacation threw me off and now I am way behind. I'm sure I'll catch up again... eventually.

Here is Week #24, the end of the school year and the start of summer vacation:

You can't see it too clearly (I should have taken a close-up), but in the top left photo on this page I scanned in a note that Ella wrote to her first grade teacher and incorporated the scan onto the photo using one of Cathy Zielske's Tiny Templates. I really like how it turned out, and I especially like the fact that I didn't have to include the entire piece of paper she wrote on in the album. I am all about trying to streamline extra inserts this year.

Here is Week #25, the week of Father's Day. I included the drawings Ella & Claire made for Matt as inserts as well as the card Ella brought home from school.

Good luck to everyone entering the giveaway!

2012 Photos | Week 33 | Aug 12 - Aug 18

Have I ever told you that I have a thing for biscuits? I'm not sure why; maybe it has something to do with my dad's Southern roots. Or my affinity for carbs. All I know is that I love biscuits.

I still remember a completely unmemorable trip to San Diego that I took 10 years ago for a public accounting training session (yes, public accounting training sessions truly are as boring as they sound) solely because I ate at a restaurant while there that served amazing biscuits. Drizzled with honey. Those biscuits still haunt my dreams.

So when I heard about this place in Portland, I knew we had to go.

One Pine State Fried Club for Matt. One fruit & whip biscuit for me. One side of fried green tomatoes to share.

One happy girl.

Before heading back across the country, we drove through the Columbia River Gorge (which, in my opinion, is one of the most beautiful places on earth) to spend some time with my dad and sister.

We went on a short hike that turned out to be not so short after all.

But finding wild Oregon blackberries growing along the trail made it worth it. I have told my girls stories about how I used to pick and eat blackberries growing wild near my home as a kid (they literally grow everywhere), so I loved that they were able to experience this in person.

I think Lucy liked them.

The girls with Aunt Emily...

... and the next morning with Grandpa Paul.

And then just like that, our 10-day West Coast trip was over and it was time to fly back home and enjoy the last two weeks of summer before the start of school.

The Olympics in London may have ended while we were away, but they were still going strong in our house after we returned. Here are the girls playing Olympics gymnastics in their swimsuits. Ella was the coach, and Claire and Lucy were gymnasts Jordyn (named after actual Olympic gymnast Jordyn Wieber) and Lily (named after actual baby cousin Lily), respectively. I kept overhearing Ella in the living room instructing Claire and Lucy to put chalk on their hands and do "double twists." Hello cuteness.

On Saturday, after having a few days to recover from our travels, we decided it was time to head into New York for the day and visit the Met, something we haven't done before with the girls.

We took a tip from Design Mom and stopped at the gift shop first to let the girls pick out a postcard. Then while we went through the museum, we had them try to spot the original from their postcard.

Ella was especially into this idea. She has loved Van Gogh ever since she learned about him in preschool when she was three years old, and was very excited to find this self-portrait from the postcard that she picked out. After the museum we had dinner and dessert at a brand new bistro/bakery, Sugar & Plumm, on the Upper West Side. And with that, another summer week was in the books.

2012 Photos | Week 32 | Aug 5 - Aug 11 (PART 2: Oregon)

While we were in Oregon, the girls mostly just wanted to stay at Grandma's house and play. My mom had out all of my childhood toys and my kids absolutely could not get enough of them. We are talking about an entire collection of vintage Fisher Price Little People, my American Girl doll Samantha (which you can no longer purchase) and all of her accessories, and all of my old stuffed animals, including a killer whale that had this inscription written in my own 7-year-old handwriting on the tag: "This is Baby Kandu born June 22, 1987, at Sea World." What are the chances that my own 7-year-old Ella had actually asked for a killer whale stuffed animal at the beginning of the summer? Of course, we had to bring Baby Kandu home with us at the end of our trip. 

We did manage to drag the girls away from Grandma's House of Fun for a few outings, however.

Claire has has been dying to see an elephant in person (she was very disappointed that there were none at the Central Park Zoo when we visited last month), so I knew one of our first stops once we got to Portland would be to take her to visit the elephants at the Oregon Zoo. I know there are elephants closer to home, but I grew up visiting Packy and friends so I couldn't pass up a chance to bring Claire here. After the elephants, the giraffes were her second favorite animal there.

Haystack Rock, Cannon Beach, OR

One of the most iconic places from my childhood is Cannon Beach on the Oregon Coast. On the countless trips I took there with my family, our first stop was always the Cannon Beach Bakery. Without fail, my sister and I got doughnuts (chocolate iced for me), my dad got a cheese stick (or two), and we would get a bag of seagull food for the beach. The bakery is now in a different location and doesn't look anything like it did when I was a kid, but I still can't make a trip to Cannon Beach without stopping there first. They no longer sell seagull food, and I got a cheese stick (or two) this time instead of a doughnut, but it still felt like old times.

Meanwhile, my kids all got chocolate chip cookies roughly the size of their heads. After the bakery, it was time to head down to the beach.

Sweatshirt weather in August... only in Oregon.

Clockwise from left: (1) Matt and Ella walking on the beach, (2) a heart drawn in the sand by Claire, and (3) my seashell and rock collector.

Beach twirling.

One morning, we got up and headed straight to downtown Portland for breakfast.

We had to be tourists and make a stop at Voodoo Doughnut, since I've heard so much about it.

The line was about an hour long. We were told that the only way to avoid a line was to come at 4am. There was a crew from the Travel Channel filming a show while we were there (not sure exactly which one, but it is supposed to air sometime in December). They interviewed the man standing right in front of us, so maybe we will make a cameo as well?

After our long wait (thankfully my kids had been trained to stand in lines at Disneyland earlier in the week), we finally got our doughnuts.

Matt and I each chose the bacon maple bar, Ella and Lucy got the "Marshall Matters" M&M doughnut, my mom opted for a classic French crueller, and Claire decided on the very pinkalicious Dubble Bubble doughnut...

... of which she enjoyed every. single. bite. And afterwards she even shared the piece of bubble gum in the middle with her sisters.

Matt and I haven't been to Portland in over three years, and the whole time he kept commenting on how all those episodes of Portlandia we've watched now make so much more sense to him. There's definitely no place quite like it, but I think that's a good thing. And all I know is, it will always feel like home to me.