And the Baby verdict is.....

...nope, sorry, had you fooled there for a second with the pink but nope- no girl. Number 3 will be another boy. I have to admit I had my hopes up that this next child would be dressed in these cute outfits that I've been saving since Ethan's baby shower. Especially since the Marriott's, Chinh's, and Nemelka's all went from 2 boys to a girl.

I'm starting to think maybe holding on to these clothes for over 4 years is jinxing us. Seriously. This little crocheted pink outfit was given to me by a sister I worked with in the temple while I was pregnant with Ethan. I should never guess at a person's age but she had to have been at least in her 70's. Her mother passed away a month before Ethan was born and she brought this tiny little pink sweater and cap to me soon thereafter. Apparently she had been cleaning out here mother's home and found this outfit in an old hopechest. So she tells me she's the only girl that was born in her family and she's only had boys and her sons have only had boys so she assumes her mother was saving this to pass down to the next girl in line only there haven't been any for 3 generations! And since we were having a girl (or supposed to be) she gave it to me. It almost made me cry (which isn't hard to do when you're pregnant) but seriously the picture doesn't do it justice, it's really the most delicate, beautiful little thing and I was so excited for our first child to wear it... and then somehow our "girl" that we'd seen in 2 different ultrasounds became a "boy". Surprise! So I'm thinking maybe these pink clothes are cursed and I'd like to know if that sister's family has since had a girl or not since they passed the cursed sweater onto our family. Any takers??? Just kidding, I still can't part with them.

I'm actually really fine with the news. Taylor's parents came with us to the ultrasound since we were all in town for graduation. No one was watching the screen as the nurse made the gender announcement, they were all looking at me waiting to see if I'd cry. But in the true spirit of having been raised a cheap Kitchen, the first thing that pops into my head is "Oh well, it's not a girl, at least now I won't be conflicted with buying pink clothes or buying a house". And since I already have 2 boys that are VERY skilled at jumping off couches and throwing balls off the balcony, I think a 3rd won't be too much extra work. I am excited to be settled someplace where I can finally paint and be able to decorate- even if it's blue.

Now all we have to do is find a good name. Girls are easy- I've been collecting ones I like over the past 4 years. Boys, not so much. And since we seem to be collecting vowels, Taylor has decided maybe we should continue that theme. So far we have an E and an I. If our last name was MacDonald I think we'd have to go for another E so we'd end up with E,I,E,I,O. But since tragically our last name is Woodbury we'll not be taking that path. We will be accepting all votes and opinions. My mother has requested that we please not name him something that ends with AN. So far, of her 8 grandsons, she has an Ian, Ammon, Ethan, Nathan, and Evan. But hey mom, Owen ends in EN right? That won't be hard to remember when you get senile right?

So for now, baby O says hi! Quite literally! This is my favorite shot of him from the ultrasound. He was quite entertaining during the whole appointment. He'd curl up his arms and feet like he was going to do a backwards somersault and then lay back out flat. He refused to turn over no matter how much the nurse pushed on him and she even made me get up at one point to jump around the room hoping he'd change positions. Of course he didn't so we'll be going back for another one since they couldn't get a good shot of his abdomen to check his heart and other organs. Not a problem for me- I'll just make them check one more time that he's really a boy!

Taylor's Graduation

After a long, sometimes grueling, but in the end wonderful 4 years at George Washington University, Taylor finally graduated. He earned both a JD as well as an MBA so in escence he got both a masters and a doctoral degree. He would have been happy to skip the ceremonies but there was no way that either I or his mother was going to let him miss out on the experience. His mother also has an MBA and a doctoral degree so this was an amazing day for her to be with her first child. We had dinner Friday night before heading over to the first of 3 ceremonies and Taylor got up and started getting dressed in his robes in the corner of the restaurant. He was having a hard time until his mother jumped up to help.

Does she look like she minded helping?

Not one bit!!!

Friday, May 15th was the Business school's ceremony. Everyone lined up in the Smith Center on campus and the speeches as well as the walking and name calling lasted almost 3 hours. It was so nice not to have kids as well as to be so far up in the bleachers that we could talk the whole time and not disturb anyone who really wanted to listen. Taylor was somewhere in the middle right but my camera's zoom isn't that great. I got pictures of his two teammates who walked just before him but just as he was starting to go, the people sitting in front of us decided to leave and blocked the whole shot. Oh well, I really could just post any of those walking pictures and tell you it was Taylor and you'd never know. We did get to see Jacky and Elise and Elijah for just a minute and it was so nice to feel like we were back home amongst friends.

The ceremony was followed by lots of pictures and a reception. Taylor's aunt Mindy and uncle Bill (okay so really it's his dad's cousin so I don't think that makes them his aunt and uncle but whatever) came in from Costa Rica to see him graduate. He spent a semester living with them in High School and they have a special love for him. L to R is Uncle Bill, Sarah, Taylor, Jeff (his dad), Sonia (his mom), and Aunt Mindy.

Saturday we got to relax a little since there weren't any ceremonies planned. We had an amazing breakfast at the hotel with our friends the Gilberts and then spent the morning walking around Arlington Cemetery (the last time we'd done that it was 3 days before I had Ethan and Taylor really wanted to not have to take 2 tests scheduled for that week so he made me go on a forced march around Arlington for 4 hours in the pouring rain, BTW it didn't work and Ethan ended up being born on the day of his tests but only after Taylor had stayed up until 1am studying and then I woke him up at 5am when my water broke).

That afternoon we went to a BBQ at one of his Business school teammates homes. It was great to see the 5 of them together again- telling stories and laughing about old times. He really did have an amazing group to work with. They were randomly assigned the first day- 1 girl from Argentina, 1 girl from Hershey, PA, 1 boy from India, 1 boy from Arkansas, and 1 Utahn. They had to take all their classes together his 3rd year and had to do almost all papers and even some tests as a team. Amazingly they all just fit well together and they had a great time. Taylor will really miss them.

Saturday night we attended a law school reception at the National Air and Space Museum. It was great to see old friends and fun to walk around the museum without masses of people and strollers. After that it was dinner again with his aunt, uncle, and cousin.

Sunday morning was GW's school-wide commencement. It poured rain most of Saturday afternoon and all that night but miraculously stopped Sunday morning (notice all the blue GW ponchos). The chairs were still wet but Taylor was grateful that the temperatures were in the 60's so he didn't roast in his robe and that it wasn't still raining so they could be outside on the mall for the ceremony. 4 years ago when he graduated from undergrad the ceremony was on the White House elipse so it was nice that this time it was on the mall with the Capitol building as a backdrop. Taylor got to sit with his law school friends and had a much better view on the 2nd row. His sash is different because he has 2 degrees. That ugly brown is actually the Business school sash and underneath is the purple Law School sash.
This is the view we had- yeah for jumbotrons.

And here's Taylor's much better view of Raum Emanuel.

His brother Mack came down from New York for the ceremony and it was great to talk to him.

Sunday afternoon was the Law School Robing ceremony. We had much better seats and were pleasantly surprised to be just a few feet from where Taylor sat. Of course he spent most of the ceremony playing games on his ipod (he's the one leaning forward in the picture) but I guess I can't blame him since they put them all in alphabetical order and he didn't really have friends to talk to- and it took 4 hours!

Here he is walking. Sorry for the wobbly camera holding.

Grandparents vs. Graduation Ceremonies? No Contest!

At the beginning of the year when we were planning out our finals/moving/graduation schedules, we discovered we'd have a full 2 1/2 weeks in between finals and graduation. It seemed silly to pay rent and all our other expenses just to stay around for graduation. So we left the end of April and moved out to Utah. Taylor started work on May 4th and I spent a week unpacking and recovering from bad colds. Taylor's parents were gratious enough to offer to pay for our flights back to DC and accomodations since they wanted to attend graduation so then we only had to figure out what to do with the boys. I mean seriously- what 4 year old and 17 month old wants to sit through a 3 hour Business school ceremony as well as a 2 hour school-wide commencement as well as a 4 hour Law School ceremony as well as all the dinners and receptions in between. (I guess that question could apply to this 30 year old also but I did it anyways and it was really nice- almost relaxing, since there weren't 2 kids to entertain the whole time).
My parents were nice enough to agree to watch the boys so the 3 of us flew from Salt Lake to Chicago on Tuesday and we spent 3 days hanging around so that they would be familiar with the house and my parents and not feel so abandoned. Ethan is old enough to understand and even to talk on the phone so he didn't mind too much being left. Isaac was quite another story.
Grandma Tina and Grandpa Pat made sure that every night ended with a fun bath in their whirlpool tub followed by either a rousing game of Wii sports or story time. My mom swears there's something about the 2nd remote that causes you to lose (apparently Ethan beat her several times).
Grandma also took them to IKEA to get extra train tracks so they could build huge tracks. Don't ask about his expression. I couldn't explain it if I tried.

But the highlight of every day was waiting for Grandpa Pat to get home so they could go shoot "popper balls" outside. A few Christmases ago my dad bought us each a burp gun. He remembers having them as a child. It's basically an air gun with ping pong balls in it. The past few times we've gone to visit them, Ethan has waited patiently for my dad to get home and then he would take the balls and dump them over the stair railing on him as he walked in from work. Apparently their downstairs neighbors could hear that so my dad decided they'd shoot the balls off their back deck instead.

Isaac never could manage to shoot the balls himself but he insisted on holding a gun.

So they'd shoot the balls off and then go down the "pizza stairs" (circular staircase with triangular steps- can you guess who named them the pizza stairs?)

Then they'd go ball hunting in the grass and load up their guns to do it all over again. The boys were in high heaven! Friday morning I flew out to DC to meet up with Taylor and his parents and the boys spent the weekend with my parents. They had such a great time and so did we. Thanks again for making all of our graduation weekends so wonderful!!!

On a sad note, Isaac got pink eye the day before we left Salt Lake. It didn't seem to bother him (no itching or scratching) until Thursday afternoon when goo started to come out of it (yes that's the technical term). Then Friday night he woke up at 1:30 am throwing up and threw up 3 times and endured a few more baths in the middle of the night before he finally passed back out. He only threw up one more time in the morning and then was fine. The pink eye cleared up while I was away too. So my mom gets extra credit for cleaning gook out of his eye and cleaning up his vomit. Her last words to me as I left to board my plane were "and don't worry, I have a wet vac so it doesn't matter where he throws up". Great!!! That makes me feel so much better that you're having to clean up after him instead of me and you're not worried because you have the proper clean-up tools at least. I have a great mom!

Isaac is a real momma's boy (which I love since Ethan was never very cuddly) so I knew he'd have a hard time with me away. It was nice to hear though that he was never really sad over the weekend as long as Ethan was around. They had to wake up Ethan from his nap a few times when Isaac woke up sooner and was sad but then he'd calm right down and run around and play with him. It warmed my heart to hear that at least he had his brother with him and that made things better.

The boys really did have a great time and here's the video evidence of that.

Graduation Trip

It's hard to leave these 2 cuties behind, but for a week of playing golf with his dad in the country where golf was invented, he did!  I'll let the pictures speak for themselves since I wasn't there and couldn't tell you the first thing about golf.

Apparently playing on this shot was hard because Taylor was afraid he'd hit his ball directly into the line of cars on the side.

Taylor and his dad, Jeff.

And since they were in Scotland they decided to stop by London to visit Arty.

Moving on out... to the West Side

We've had 7 wonderful years in DC. The crazy thing is that's the longest I've ever lived anywhere even growing up so it really was home for us. We're really sad to leave all our friends and hope you'll stop in for a visit if you're ever in Utah.
Because we were moving ourselves, we started packing a few things in September, some more in January and then the last 2 weeks of April were the real push. Here's the evidence of that just after a few days (we have way too much stuff I've decided and have no idea how we fit it all into such a tiny apartment). The poor boys were bored most of the time while we were packing but it was rainy anyways so we wouldn't have been outside. Of course Isaac the crazy climber found ways to entertain himself. Yep, that's him up there. He's found a way to climb up and is lounging with his bottle of milk. In the end I had to start stacking things high quickly so he wouldn't climb all around.
And here's what it looked like with most everything gone.

We packed up the truck (with lots of help from our wonderful ward friends- thank you again!) on Saturday and I drove out Sunday afternoon with the boys. Taylor stayed to finish the apartment cleaning and to take one last final Tuesday morning. I got to Chicago on Monday and my mom joined us to help with the rest of the drive. Poor Taylor drove that big truck all by himself the whole way. It ran out of freon the first night just 2 hours outside of DC so he had to stop and wait for repairs. The next day he made it all the way to Des Moines, Iowa but not without one detour right below Chicago. They actually closed I-80 and diverted all traffic because of a huge accident. The rest of the drive was smooth sailing. On Saturday my family came up from Provo to help us move in. Tragically Utah was experiencing monsoon rains that day so everyone and everything got soaked. Here the boys are watching the truck get unloaded as close to outside as we'd let them. You can see the rain pouring down by the roof.

Can you tell who Ethan's favorite is? He'll be happy we're living much closer to Uncle Jeff.

And Isaac has chosen a favorite as well. This is my sister Kristina's first baby, Evan. Ethan maybe looked twice at him but Isaac was enthralled with the baby. Of course most of the time he was trying to steal his binky.

We got the most important rooms setup: Computer/dining room

Living Room

And the kitchen. See don't we look like we got so much done?

Okay so at least we have a few livable rooms unpacked and the rest of this can wait until I find time for it all.

And all this too... did I mention we have too much stuff???