Jennifer Woodbury

Chi-Town (And Daddy and Daughter Take on NYC)

I had such a great time in Chicago with these girls this past weekend. Since I am apparently the world's slowest blogger and I don't want to be completely repetitious, you can read all the details already posted by Heather, Raven, Brandi and Kris. In a nutshell, Friday we toured around downtown Chicago, which actually reminded me quite a bit of New York, and met up with some more friends for dinner. Saturday we hit the CHA show. You can see Heather's top 10 list here. How she managed to come up with a top 10 list when she was absolutely sick to her stomach the whole day is beyond me. I think all of us were drooling over the new Martha Stewart Crafts products, especially the Halloween goodies. I am now totally planning a huge Halloween party in my head, which is hilarious because I am so not the party throwing type. But I might have to change my ways for Martha. Or just throw an elaborate party solely for my own little family.

Heather and her family were such amazing hosts from start to finish, even though Heather and Jack came down with a nasty stomach bug while we were there. From chauffeuring Claire and I back and forth from O'Hare and all over Chicago, to the adorable welcome gifts left for both of us on our beds when we arrived, to the delicious cooking (I've been dreaming about the steak kabobs grilled for us by Heather's husband Tom), they made us feel so welcome. And Claire didn't have a chance to miss Ella at all since she was showered with attention from Heather's two adorable girls. Kenzie kept calling Claire "Clarabell" all weekend long. So cute, and it definitely beats Richard!

Claire was amazing the entire trip. I think the only time she even cried was when we were driving home from CHA, and that was my fault because I waited too long to feed her. I love this baby.

While Claire and I were in Chicago, Matt was showing Ella the time of her life back at home. This was actually the first time he has been home alone with Ella overnight, and he did not allow for one second of boredom. On Friday he took her to practically every retail establishment within a 10-mile radius in an attempt to escape the oppressive heat and humidity. They hit Wal-Mart, Costco, Home Depot, Sports Authority, Barnes and Noble, and ended the evening in the indoor play area at the mall. Ella played there for almost an hour, and when Matt gave her a ten-minute warning, she proceeded to just run laps until it was time to go, high-fiving Matt each time she completed a circle. I think I have discovered a new mission in life: to discover where it is exactly that three-year olds get their energy.

On Saturday, Matt and Ella headed into New York City. In case you didn't know, Matt's idea of a perfect weekend is anything involving a trip into the city, even if it's just to drive around and say you were there. During the two years we lived in Manhattan as newlyweds, we would often just hop on a city bus and explore. But Matt and Ella didn't just drive around this time. They stopped off at Matt's office first, which Ella described as "so cool." Then it was off to the Central Park Zoo, with a stop for lunch at the Leaping Frog Café. After lunch they walked to FAO Schwarz on Fifth Avenue where Matt bought Ella her very own toy taxi, complete with working doors and trunk. In case you didn't know, Ella is slightly obsessed with taxis. Whenever we drive into the city, she loves to point them all out. So as you can imagine, we hear a lot of "There's a taxi!" and "Hi taxi!" and "Go taxi, go!" during our trips into the city.

After purchasing the toy taxi, Matt asked Ella if she wanted to play with the trains in the store. Her response? "No, I want to go ride in a taxi." So, as Matt had promised her earlier in the day, they left the toy store so that she could take a ride in a real taxi. (The story would be better if this happened to be Ella's first ever taxi ride, but unfortunately she has ridden in a taxi before.) There was a taxi waiting right on the corner as they came out of FAO. As luck would have it, it was a brand new taxi and as Ella got in she exclaimed, "This is so nice!" She also made sure that everyone was buckled up. Then she made Matt unwrap her new toy, and was therefore playing with her toy taxi while driving in a real taxi. It doesn't get much better than that, at least not in Ella's world. The taxi took them to their car (actually, a little bit past the car as Matt wanted to extend the ride for Ella since she was having so much fun), and they finished their day in the city with a visit to Billy's Bakery for cupcakes.

Ella has barely let her taxi out of her sight since Saturday. She even insisted on sleeping with it that first night, and Matt could hear her opening and closing the doors and driving it around for about two hours after he put her to bed. She has also relived her taxi ride repeatedly while reading this fun book that Matt bought for her. When I came home on Sunday, Matt told me it was one of the best weekends he's had in a long time. I'm quite sure Ella would agree.

Evolution of a Nickname

Matt comes up with nicknames for everyone in the family. It's sort of his thing.

Ella has been Bubs or Bubsy pretty much since birth. So when I was pregnant with Claire, Matt started calling her Bubs Lite.

Then after she was born, she became the ever popular Claire Bear.

Eventually Matt shortened it to just CB.

That somehow turned into CB Richard Ellis. (Yes, Matt tries to make his nickname references as obscure as possible.)

And that has now been shortened to, you guessed it:

Richard.

I should have known something like this was bound to happen. After all, one of Matt's nicknames for his sister Ashley is Jack the the Ripper, or just plain Jack. So if somehow we are still referring to Claire as Richard in 20 years, at least she'll know where it came from and who she can blame.

Paradise

That's where we just came home from. A few months ago Matt and I talked about taking a vacation this summer. Not just a trip to go visit family, but an actual vacation. We haven't really gone on one since the famed Maui trip of 2002, before we had children (FYI, my definition of vacation here does not count Disneyland or Disneyworld, as much as I love both of those places).

We kept tossing out ideas (North to Cape Cod or Martha's Vineyard? South to the Outer Banks of North Carolina?), but we couldn't commit to anything we were really excited about, so I figured this would probably just become another example of something we talk about endlessly but never actually do.

But I just couldn't get out of my head the vacations my family and I took to the Gulf Coast of Florida when I was younger. The ultra fine, sugary white-sand beaches and the warm turquoise water...that's the kind of vacation I was dreaming about. So I booked a condo and plane tickets, and the rest is history. Wonderful history that I hope will repeat itself next year. Except for the part about Matt getting his flip flops stolen. We don't need to repeat that. Or watching a woman on a bike get hit by a car. Thankfully she was okay, but just so you know, it's really not a good idea to attempt to cross 9 lanes of traffic on a bike when the red hand on the other side of the crosswalk is already blinking. Or even if you do decide to try crossing the highway under those conditions, once you get to the median and the traffic light for oncoming traffic has just turned green, DON'T KEEP GOING!

Aside from those two incidents, our trip was wonderful. Our daily schedule generally consisted of the following: beach in the morning, a quick lunch at the condo, pool in the afternoon, baths and showers, out to eat, and a sunset walk on the beach before putting the girls to bed. We rarely deviated from this schedule. It was perfectly relaxing and low key, especially with a three-month old baby in tow.

Claire spent her mornings lounging on a beach chair, dozing off occasionally. Not a bad life for a baby. Then she napped at the condo in the afternoons while Matt and I took turns playing with Ella at the pool. Claire was so good, I felt bad that sometimes I forgot she was even there. I think having Matt there 24/7 to help out with the childcare workload had something to do with that as well. Can you believe that although she had a swimsuit on almost every day, she didn't touch a drop of water aside from her baths during the entire trip? I guess when you snooze (literally), you lose.

Ella was a little fish. As long as she was in the water, she was happy. She turned many heads at both the beach and the pool with her charming, exuberant personality. She played hard all day long and then crashed hard at night. We definitely wore her out on this trip. Today was our first full day back at home and she fell asleep on the couch in the middle of playing with her cars this afternoon. The last time that happened was...never.

Some other photos from our trip (there are some additional photos and commentary in my Photo a Day album too):

Now it's back to real life and a nasty summer cold that fittingly hit me hard yesterday morning as we woke up to catch our flight home. Hopefully I'll recover in time for my Chicago trip this weekend!

Scrapbooking Fraud No More

In just over two weeks, Claire and I will be heading to Chicago for a girls' weekend hosted by my friend Heather. In addition to hopefully doing a little sightseeing downtown and just hanging out and having fun, we will also have a chance to go to CHA, which for those who don't know is a huge scrapbooking trade show. I wasn't sure how I was supposed to show my face there given the fact that I hadn't actually done any scrapbooking in almost 5 months. Yes, I've been busy being hugely pregnant and then taking care of a newborn and adjusting to life with two children, but that's really no excuse. So I remedied the situation by actually finishing a page (credits here, click the image to see a larger version):

See, I am still a scrapbooker after all. And now I won't have to be embarrassed around all those scrapbooking celebrities. (What, you didn't realize there were scrapbooking celebrities? Oh yes, it's true.)

I loved going back over all these pictures from Ella's first year. And I was blown away by how much Claire and Ella look alike. They each have their own distinct features, and Claire definitely has more hair than Ella did at her age, but the similarities between them are truly striking. Occasionally, I would come across a photo of Ella with a certain expression that would take my breath away because it reminded me so much of Claire.

And speaking of Claire and taking my breath away, can you believe that exactly one year ago today, she looked like this...

...and now she is an adorable, happy, smiling, gurgling three-month old who just learned how to roll from her belly to her back yesterday? The magnitude of that miracle never ceases to astound me.

Claire:Belly to Back from Jennifer Woodbury on Vimeo.