Jennifer Woodbury

Never turn your back...

...on a toddler eating spaghetti. I guess this is her way of telling me she's finished?

Excuse me Mom, I'm on the phone

Ella is seriously obsessed with talking on the phone lately. Now, my cell phone has been one of her favorite toys for many, many months now, but she has really been taking things to a new level lately. She will sit and have entire conversations with herself (I do find it funny that when Matt or one of her grandparents tries to talk to her on the phone for real, she wants nothing to do with it). She will say "hi" at the beginning, and then sit and listen with a very serious expression on her face and say a lot of "mmm hmms" in between (guess that's what I sound like when I'm on the phone?). There's also a lot of babbling and she'll usually end with a "bye bye" too. She prefers my cell phone (or Matt's Blackberry will do also - she's actually into e-mailing on that!), but when we're in the car she'll settle for her play phone. She'll seriously sit in her car seat for the whole ride holding it up against her ear with one hand and pressing the buttons with the other. This girl is a serious crack up.

***Aquarium Trip & New Layout***

I don't think I mentioned here that we went to the aquarium a couple of Saturdays ago. Apparently the entire population of Northern California had the same idea because it was so crowded! You practically had to wrestle your way in to see any of the exhibits. Still, that place really is amazing. As we were paying to get in, I saw some guys there with these crazy cameras and lenses (I'm talking about some of the hugest lenses I have ever seen!). Well, I was very excited that one of them offered to take our family picture, because you never know what you are going to get when a stranger takes your photo. Sometimes you get your head chopped off and other times someone will zoom out so far that you can't even make out your face in the photo, but I figured this guy would know what he was doing since it was obvious he had spent a small fortune on camera equipment. Anyway, here is that picture and some of the other ones from that day (layout credits here):

Happy Fall!

In honor of the fact that it is now officially Fall, I thought it would be fun to take pictures of Ella with some sunflowers. Well, I learned my lesson that staging photos with a 17-month old isn't exactly what I would call fun. I think I need to wait until she is old enough to be bribed to pose for the camera. And no, I don't think I will be above bribery in order to get my children to cooperate for photos. Anyway, this is the one shot I did get before she decided that having a flower within a 10-foot radius of her body was extremely offensive:

After the flower fiasco, I did manage to catch this photo of her in mid-laugh. I just love this one even though it's not totally in focus because it is so Ella. She is just such a happy little girl in general, and she loves to laugh. I don't mean just little giggles, I'm talking full on belly laughs for no apparent reason and I just love them! Because really, how can you ever have a bad day when she's laughing like this?

Here are some recent layouts I have to share. First is this one from when Ella was just a little peanut (credits here):

Then there's this one, which was in the September issue of Digital Artist Magazine (credits here):

And finally this one of Matt and Ella (credits here):

Well, that's it for me. Have a great weekend!

Someone's having a little too much fun...

Highchair Fun from Jennifer Woodbury on Vimeo.

...at meal time. And look at how talented she is with that fork!

Long Time, No Blog

Wow, it's been a while since I blogged. I guess that's because things have been kind of boring around here. I'm not complaining though, it's actually been quite nice.

So, what has Ella been up to for the past two weeks? Well, her favorite word is officially "no". I thought this wasn't supposed to happen until at least two years of age? Apparently not. The most frustrating part about it is that she says "no" even if she wants something. I guess she just likes the sound of the word, although when she really does mean it, you can definitely tell.

Whenever we put her down for a nap or to bed for the night, she now says "bye bye" to us as we leave the room. In the past she has usually just cried in protest for a minute or so after we put her down, so this is a nice change, but it is so hard to leave when she just keeps saying "bye" to you in the sweetest of little voices even after you close the door. Kids are really good at wrapping you around their little fingers, aren't they? 

What else? She is still as into music as ever, and just recently she has added twirling to her dance repertoire (which previously just included bouncing up and down). And she has also adopted one of my old mini purses, and will bring it over to me to help her put it on her shoulder and then walk around with it on. And if it slips off her shoulder, well then she runs right back over to me to put it back on for her. Yep, we definitely have a little girl on our hands.

Since there really isn't very much of interest to say, I will show you one of my recent purchases for Ella:

I am officially addicted to these fun little t-shirts. I saw one that said "i'm a keeper" on my little niece Alex, so I ran out and bought the same one for Ella. Then I had to go out and buy a second one, this "Food critic" shirt. The only other one I really want is the one that says "my mom does nothing all day". That one just cracks me up. Anyway, these shirts cost way too much - I hate even spending that much on a t-shirt for myself - but I've decided that's the problem with children's clothing. They make things so adorable that you can't help but buy them no matter what the price.

OK, that's it for me. I will try to be better about checking in here more regularly.

Can it Be?

Is it really Semptember already? I don't know if it is just me, but the summer went by so fast! I am definitely ready for fall though, even though I guess it won't offically be here for another few weeks. To get into the fall spirit, I scrapped this page using a cute picture of Ella from the pumpkin patch last year (credits here):

In preparation for fall I also drove over 20 miles to the nearest Yankee Candle store (which isn't so near considering there are at least two other malls much closer to me) on Wednesday to buy a bunch of fall candles and tarts. Thanks a lot for introducing me to this obsession Gina. Seriously, who spends $65 on candles? Granted, I had a coupon and I had to spend a certain amount of money to be able to use it, but still that's just ridiculous.

I have one more page to share. I was intending to have this done for my anniversary last week, but it didn't quite get finished on time. Hopefully you can read the journaling (if you can't, click on the image to make it bigger). Matt and I both took a quiz from this Simple Scrapbooks special issue for this page and I really like the way it turned out (credits here).

In other news, I can finally announce that I have been asked to be on the creative team for a brand new digital scrapbooking magazine which is debuting tonight!

I'm really excited to be a part of this project, and trust me you will be blown away when you see the other talented ladies who are a part of this team. So, if you're a digital scrapbooker (or if you're not but you still want to see pictures and layouts of my cutie in the magazine!), be sure to check it out.

OK, that's it for me. Have a wonderful weekend! Matt's not out of town AND it's a long weekend...what could be better?!