Tuesday, March 30, 2010
To Follow Us on Twitter
To follow our exploits on Twitter, send the text message "Follow CrazyWoodburys" to the number 404-04.
Sunday, March 28, 2010
A Twittering we will go
I've recently been touched by several people who have asked me to forward them our airplane itinerary so they can pray for us this upcoming week. This makes me think two things. 1. Maybe I whine too much, but I really am worried about these crazy, long, exhausting flights, and 2. How many wonderful friends and family I am blessed with. Because I do believe in the amazing power of prayer and because I really do think we need the help this week, I asked Taylor to set us up a Twitter account so we can "tweet" where we are and when we're getting on planes and you can pray for us if you feel so inclined. Apparently the tweets will be added to our blog so you'll be able to read them there or if you want to follow us on your phone you can receive the tweets as text messages. I don't have any clue how that works but Taylor says you need an unlimited data/text plan or you have to pay for each tweet just like a text message. Anyways, we hope you all have a great holiday week and we wanted to say thanks again for all of our wonderful friends and family supporting us.
Saturday, March 27, 2010
Neighborhood Easter Egg Hunt
This morning was the neighborhood Easter egg hunt. It's planned and put on by the ward but all the neighbors are invited. And of course nothing can be basic here so they didn't just use one or two lawns to hide the eggs. They started at one house and hid hundreds of eggs 10 houses to the north, 10 to the south, and opposite of that on the other side of the street. Literally 20 houses worth of front lawns full of eggs! It was utter chaos with kids running up and down and across streets and lawns. So much chaos that this is the only picture I snapped. Ethan was too excited and too fast for me to catch up to. Isaac would have been faster if he hadn't been so excited to talk to every person he saw and tell them about his eggs in his basket. "Yook, eggs!"
Ethan was slightly upset that the older (faster) kids had more in their baskets, but I'm glad he only found what he did. We certainly don't need more candy in this house. They were cute to watch opening all the eggs to examine their surprises and then (much to my disapproval) opening all the candy wrappers to examine the chocolate inside. Somehow they didn't understand they should wait to open them until it was time to eat them, and I was distracted feeding Miles in another room. Oh well, they had a great morning.
Ethan was slightly upset that the older (faster) kids had more in their baskets, but I'm glad he only found what he did. We certainly don't need more candy in this house. They were cute to watch opening all the eggs to examine their surprises and then (much to my disapproval) opening all the candy wrappers to examine the chocolate inside. Somehow they didn't understand they should wait to open them until it was time to eat them, and I was distracted feeding Miles in another room. Oh well, they had a great morning.
Friday Night Traditions- New and Old
For the past few years our Friday night tradition has been to make homemade pizza. I love this because it's more of a family cooking experience instead of just me in the kitchen cooking alone. Okay, I also love it because my only job is to chop up the toppings and Taylor does the rest. So kind of a night off from cooking. In DC we just grabbed whole wheat dough from Trader Joes but since Utah has none of them, Taylor has taken to making his own dough from scratch. It's delicious and he's now perfecting his "throwing" technique to stretch it out.
Last night Ethan was inspired by Taylor's kneading and rolling and decided that he and Isaac needed to join in on ALL the fun and not just the eating alone. So he dragged out the playdough and they rolled and kneaded and made their own pizzas. Looks like this may become a permanent part of our Friday nights.
I realized this morning that I didn't get a picture of any of the finished product. Guess I was too distracted eating it!
Last night Ethan was inspired by Taylor's kneading and rolling and decided that he and Isaac needed to join in on ALL the fun and not just the eating alone. So he dragged out the playdough and they rolled and kneaded and made their own pizzas. Looks like this may become a permanent part of our Friday nights.
I realized this morning that I didn't get a picture of any of the finished product. Guess I was too distracted eating it!
Friday, March 26, 2010
Morning surprise
We've had beautiful weather the past few days up into the 60's even. I was so tempted to let myself think it might really be springtime but then we woke up to snow this morning.
Ethan and Isaac decided the appropriate response to snow was to drag out the blankets and pillows and curl up on the floor. I couldn't agree more, especially if they would stay this way all morning and we could add a little hot chocolate and some good books.
Miles had previously been left (by me) on the floor with some toys so Ethan was kind enough to include him although I don't think he got the memo on sleeping.
Maybe just one more snow day isn't so bad. But no more please! It's almost April!
Ethan and Isaac decided the appropriate response to snow was to drag out the blankets and pillows and curl up on the floor. I couldn't agree more, especially if they would stay this way all morning and we could add a little hot chocolate and some good books.
Miles had previously been left (by me) on the floor with some toys so Ethan was kind enough to include him although I don't think he got the memo on sleeping. 
Maybe just one more snow day isn't so bad. But no more please! It's almost April!
Wednesday, March 17, 2010
Happy Grandpa-Patricks Day!
Yesterday Ethan came home from school and explained to me that he needed to wear green today or someone would pinch you. He more explained this with his hands because he didn't really have the English vocabulary to explain but I got the jist. And then he declared that this was because it was going to be "grandpa-Patricks Day". He does have a Grandpa Pat (my dad) and so I think the cute little child didn't know what a Saint was and was trying to make word associations from Spanish to English and so this makes sense in his little head. So today is (in our house at least) officially "Grandpa Patricks Day"! We're all wearing green and I even died the milk green to celebrate!
And just a few pictures to make the blog more fun. Yesterday Isaac, Miles and I ventured out to the zoo with some friends to enjoy the 60 degree weather. We got there right at 9 when it opened and all the animals were so lively it was amazing. Definitely worth the early hour to see them all jumping and playing. How cute is the baby elephant? She was climbing on balls and kicking bins around and then she'd go scratch her bum on her mother's leg. Adorable. Of course Isaac was more interested in running up and down all the stairs but I had fun watching.
Okay so I was enamored with all the baby animals. The baby giraffe just sat and stared at us.
We even tried out the carousel which at Christmas Isaac threw a fit on and screamed until he could get off. This time Alicia was smarter and let him sit on a seat that didn't go up and down and he loved it. Apparently going around in a circle is fine. Around and up and down at the same time- not so fine.
This was not posed- I swear. I walked in on him brushing his teeth. He certainly has his own sense of style.
And just a few pictures to make the blog more fun. Yesterday Isaac, Miles and I ventured out to the zoo with some friends to enjoy the 60 degree weather. We got there right at 9 when it opened and all the animals were so lively it was amazing. Definitely worth the early hour to see them all jumping and playing. How cute is the baby elephant? She was climbing on balls and kicking bins around and then she'd go scratch her bum on her mother's leg. Adorable. Of course Isaac was more interested in running up and down all the stairs but I had fun watching.
Okay so I was enamored with all the baby animals. The baby giraffe just sat and stared at us.
We even tried out the carousel which at Christmas Isaac threw a fit on and screamed until he could get off. This time Alicia was smarter and let him sit on a seat that didn't go up and down and he loved it. Apparently going around in a circle is fine. Around and up and down at the same time- not so fine.
This was not posed- I swear. I walked in on him brushing his teeth. He certainly has his own sense of style. 
Monday, March 15, 2010
A Big Thanks to Kristina
A great big hug...
For sending me the pattern to make these cute fabric baby shoes. I've always just bought the little stretchy shoes until they can walk and need real shoes, but since I couldn't find any that would match Miles' little tux, Kristina's pattern was a lifesaver.
Seriously- how cute are these??? The satin stripes even match a satin stripe down the pant leg.
And super easy and super cheap. It took me maybe 2 hours time total from cutting to trying them on (and that was with breaks to do laundry, feed Miles, entertain Isaac, etc) and maybe cost a total of $1 per shoe.
Even Miles looks pleased with them. Pleased enough to jump up and tap dance- if only he had the leg strength and balance. Thank goodness he doesn't!
And an even bigger hug to Kristina for giving Arty a Book of Mormon a few years ago when no one closer to him had the nerve to do it. Then all it took was a good bishop checking up on him, a good ward to fellowship him, a call to teach Elder's Quorum where he met his future brothers-in-law who were impressed enough with him to introduce him to their little sister, and of course meeting the right girl at the right time. And in 3 weeks time they'll be an eternal family and you (Kristina) will have fulfilled a dream of my husbands that I don't think he even let himself dream until a few months ago. So thank you again. We can never thank you enough!
For sending me the pattern to make these cute fabric baby shoes. I've always just bought the little stretchy shoes until they can walk and need real shoes, but since I couldn't find any that would match Miles' little tux, Kristina's pattern was a lifesaver.
Seriously- how cute are these??? The satin stripes even match a satin stripe down the pant leg.
And super easy and super cheap. It took me maybe 2 hours time total from cutting to trying them on (and that was with breaks to do laundry, feed Miles, entertain Isaac, etc) and maybe cost a total of $1 per shoe.
Even Miles looks pleased with them. Pleased enough to jump up and tap dance- if only he had the leg strength and balance. Thank goodness he doesn't!
And an even bigger hug to Kristina for giving Arty a Book of Mormon a few years ago when no one closer to him had the nerve to do it. Then all it took was a good bishop checking up on him, a good ward to fellowship him, a call to teach Elder's Quorum where he met his future brothers-in-law who were impressed enough with him to introduce him to their little sister, and of course meeting the right girl at the right time. And in 3 weeks time they'll be an eternal family and you (Kristina) will have fulfilled a dream of my husbands that I don't think he even let himself dream until a few months ago. So thank you again. We can never thank you enough!
Wednesday, March 10, 2010
Preparedness Central
For the month of February I was basically in "freak-out" mode trying to imagine how we were going to manage the upcoming wedding flights. We leave Wednesday the 31st at 10am and have a 4 hour flight to Atlanta, then a 2 hour layover followed by a 9 hour flight to London. We arrive there at midnight SLC time but 7am London time. We're hoping our kids will sleep a little on the plane and then crash most of Thursday at our hotel. We're not even trying to convert to time zones, we'll just sleep when we can and try to have presentable kids when we're in public.
Then Saturday we have a 7 hour flight that leaves at 2pm and arrives in Dubai at midnight their time. All of these flights are during the daytime (mostly) and seem manageable (again mostly) with our kids. Tragically the only flights we could get leaving Dubai all started after 10pm their time. So we'll have mostly adjusted to their timezone between Sunday and Tuesday and then we'll board the plan on the 6th in Dubai at 10:30pm and fly 15 1/2 hours STRAIGHT to Atlanta arriving there at 6am Eastern time. Then we'll have a 2 hour layover where we get to go through customs and drag our dog-tired selves and children onto our last plane which is another 4 1/2 hours long. That's a total of 40 hours of flying in one weeks time and that's not including arriving early, security, and any delays we might hit. I think my month of freaking out was justified.
And then I decided to make the best of it and try to be prepared. So I've turned my free-time (nap and evening times) into make-it-plan-it-pack-it time. One of my dilemmas was whether to bring a boppy or not. It would help so I don't have to hold Miles the whole time and would make me feel better about sleeping (I'm afraid I'll drop him off my lap if I'm really exhausted and don't have something to prop him on) but the boppy is so huge and would take up almost an entire carry-on bag. Amazingly I found this infant "hammock" online and thought it looked easy enough to make so that was my project last night and this afternoon and here's the finished product. I was talking to my sister and confessing my guilt for stealing someone else's idea and she said it was okay as long as I passed along the wisdom to others. So if you're traveling on a plane with an infant under 6 months here's a great idea for you. Let me know if you want me to take specific measurements, etc.
Sorry, couldn't get the picture to turn. The straps on the top sides hook onto the tray table and then you close the table back up.
It's called a "Flyebaby Hammock Sling" if you want better pictures of kids actually in them on planes. It cost me about $10 between material, straps, and buckles but they're $50 online.
There's a basic car seat harness to make sure the kid doesn't fall out the sides and another strap at the bottom to put around yourself. His legs and bum end up basically sitting on your lap during the flight, but at least I'll have my hands free to do other things and I won't drop him if we nod off.
This is how it would look on the back of a tray table. All the straps adjust so they have a tight fit.
And here's Miles modeling it for you. He is already a fan of the slack in the front straps. I plan to clip on a few toys with those plastic linky things so he has easy access to them and so I don't have to keep picking them up. You can see he's leaning to the right but if he was really hanging I think the material would just mold to him like a hammock does (let's hope).
As an added bonus, this works as a high chair. Miles can't sit up yet so we still have to drag his entire car seat into restaurants or else we have to hold him the whole time. Now we can just ask for an extra chair, strap this thing to it, and Miles to it, and we're good to go.
I'll let you know how it works.
Then Saturday we have a 7 hour flight that leaves at 2pm and arrives in Dubai at midnight their time. All of these flights are during the daytime (mostly) and seem manageable (again mostly) with our kids. Tragically the only flights we could get leaving Dubai all started after 10pm their time. So we'll have mostly adjusted to their timezone between Sunday and Tuesday and then we'll board the plan on the 6th in Dubai at 10:30pm and fly 15 1/2 hours STRAIGHT to Atlanta arriving there at 6am Eastern time. Then we'll have a 2 hour layover where we get to go through customs and drag our dog-tired selves and children onto our last plane which is another 4 1/2 hours long. That's a total of 40 hours of flying in one weeks time and that's not including arriving early, security, and any delays we might hit. I think my month of freaking out was justified.
And then I decided to make the best of it and try to be prepared. So I've turned my free-time (nap and evening times) into make-it-plan-it-pack-it time. One of my dilemmas was whether to bring a boppy or not. It would help so I don't have to hold Miles the whole time and would make me feel better about sleeping (I'm afraid I'll drop him off my lap if I'm really exhausted and don't have something to prop him on) but the boppy is so huge and would take up almost an entire carry-on bag. Amazingly I found this infant "hammock" online and thought it looked easy enough to make so that was my project last night and this afternoon and here's the finished product. I was talking to my sister and confessing my guilt for stealing someone else's idea and she said it was okay as long as I passed along the wisdom to others. So if you're traveling on a plane with an infant under 6 months here's a great idea for you. Let me know if you want me to take specific measurements, etc.
Sorry, couldn't get the picture to turn. The straps on the top sides hook onto the tray table and then you close the table back up.
It's called a "Flyebaby Hammock Sling" if you want better pictures of kids actually in them on planes. It cost me about $10 between material, straps, and buckles but they're $50 online. There's a basic car seat harness to make sure the kid doesn't fall out the sides and another strap at the bottom to put around yourself. His legs and bum end up basically sitting on your lap during the flight, but at least I'll have my hands free to do other things and I won't drop him if we nod off.
This is how it would look on the back of a tray table. All the straps adjust so they have a tight fit. 
And here's Miles modeling it for you. He is already a fan of the slack in the front straps. I plan to clip on a few toys with those plastic linky things so he has easy access to them and so I don't have to keep picking them up. You can see he's leaning to the right but if he was really hanging I think the material would just mold to him like a hammock does (let's hope).
As an added bonus, this works as a high chair. Miles can't sit up yet so we still have to drag his entire car seat into restaurants or else we have to hold him the whole time. Now we can just ask for an extra chair, strap this thing to it, and Miles to it, and we're good to go. I'll let you know how it works.
Friday, March 5, 2010
My Recent Projects
On one of the Christmas posts I mentioned that Taylor's brother had recently gotten engaged and that they were planning to have quite an intense "destination" wedding. Intense being weddings in both London and Dubai including 2 separate civil ceremonies, 1 temple ceremony, 1 reception, and at least 1 luncheon. And all this scattered over just 4 days. Anyone know a better word than intense???
In January our plan was to survive this by just bringing Miles along and he was only coming because he's still nursing. But after a few heartfelt requests from family members we agreed to bring Ethan and Isaac along as well. Yes I know, I probably should be committed to an insane asylum for thinking we can handle this. It'll make for a great blog though. See? I'm trying to be positive.
In planning for the many non-child friendly events as well as the very MANY and very LONG plane flights, I saw someone's blog where they had created a little playmat with one road and little sleeves for the cars to fit in. Then you could take the whole thing, roll it up with the cars inside and have a neat little complete plaything. I decided to take it a step further and add houses, driveways, a gas station, and even a little park. I just used felt so nothing frays and it was actually pretty fast and easy. The boys LOVED it so I made a second one so they don't have to share. Normally I encourage sharing but I'm planning to just survive this trip so forget that.
The stitching underneath was pretty ugly so I found this cute fabric that serves to cover that up as well as it's a whole new playmat when they get bored of the other side. I've already tested it out a few times and it works FABULOUSLY. By fabulous I mean it entertains my children for long stretches of time without my being involved. Isaac played with just the car mat and a few cars and some people for over an hour at the doctors office. Which was very helpful since Miles kept trying to roll off the exam table so I couldn't really watch Isaac.
Both Ethan and Isaac are currently obsessed with action figures of any kind. I got a pack of army men from a dollar store and they literally played with them for 3 days straight. Isaac is hilarious making them scream in pain and talk to each other.
Michaels craft store has little tubes of all sorts of figures so I grabbed a bunch and then decided to make playmats for them to use with them. First I made little bags to keep all their figures in and then started in on the actual mats.
Here's the pirate mat complete with the little guys.
And a shot without the guys. I couldn't resist doing waves with the fun stitch my sewing machine makes. Taylor suggested I add an X with a little zipper pouch underneath so you could literally bury treasure and hide things. Sounds fun. Tragically the back was already sewn on so I can't add that. Next time.
Both the car mat and the pirate mat seemed logically best done in 2-D. I was a little more stumped on the knights and dragons. In the end I made mountains with "caves" for the dragons and a 3 sided castle that mostly stays up. Ethan's favorite part is the drawbridge that does with a little luck stay up as well as lie flat.
And a shot with the dragons and knights. I got my ideas by looking at online sites that sell playmats. They're uber-expensive so I'm glad these turned out. Definitely worth the time. And I also looked online to get the dimensions of an airplane tray table so these fit perfectly.
Just more views (these are really just included for Kristina's benefit).
Again I found cute fabrics for the backs of them. And I used another fun stitch to make the trees. My boys won't be impressed but I am. And I don't really care if they're impressed as long as they spend HOURS playing with them on the airplane.
In January our plan was to survive this by just bringing Miles along and he was only coming because he's still nursing. But after a few heartfelt requests from family members we agreed to bring Ethan and Isaac along as well. Yes I know, I probably should be committed to an insane asylum for thinking we can handle this. It'll make for a great blog though. See? I'm trying to be positive.
In planning for the many non-child friendly events as well as the very MANY and very LONG plane flights, I saw someone's blog where they had created a little playmat with one road and little sleeves for the cars to fit in. Then you could take the whole thing, roll it up with the cars inside and have a neat little complete plaything. I decided to take it a step further and add houses, driveways, a gas station, and even a little park. I just used felt so nothing frays and it was actually pretty fast and easy. The boys LOVED it so I made a second one so they don't have to share. Normally I encourage sharing but I'm planning to just survive this trip so forget that.
The stitching underneath was pretty ugly so I found this cute fabric that serves to cover that up as well as it's a whole new playmat when they get bored of the other side. I've already tested it out a few times and it works FABULOUSLY. By fabulous I mean it entertains my children for long stretches of time without my being involved. Isaac played with just the car mat and a few cars and some people for over an hour at the doctors office. Which was very helpful since Miles kept trying to roll off the exam table so I couldn't really watch Isaac. 
Both Ethan and Isaac are currently obsessed with action figures of any kind. I got a pack of army men from a dollar store and they literally played with them for 3 days straight. Isaac is hilarious making them scream in pain and talk to each other.
Michaels craft store has little tubes of all sorts of figures so I grabbed a bunch and then decided to make playmats for them to use with them. First I made little bags to keep all their figures in and then started in on the actual mats.
Here's the pirate mat complete with the little guys.
And a shot without the guys. I couldn't resist doing waves with the fun stitch my sewing machine makes. Taylor suggested I add an X with a little zipper pouch underneath so you could literally bury treasure and hide things. Sounds fun. Tragically the back was already sewn on so I can't add that. Next time.
Both the car mat and the pirate mat seemed logically best done in 2-D. I was a little more stumped on the knights and dragons. In the end I made mountains with "caves" for the dragons and a 3 sided castle that mostly stays up. Ethan's favorite part is the drawbridge that does with a little luck stay up as well as lie flat.
And a shot with the dragons and knights. I got my ideas by looking at online sites that sell playmats. They're uber-expensive so I'm glad these turned out. Definitely worth the time. And I also looked online to get the dimensions of an airplane tray table so these fit perfectly. 
Just more views (these are really just included for Kristina's benefit).
Again I found cute fabrics for the backs of them. And I used another fun stitch to make the trees. My boys won't be impressed but I am. And I don't really care if they're impressed as long as they spend HOURS playing with them on the airplane.
Love at first "lick"
If you've never tried these before you really must (for your baby I mean, I personally have tried them and they taste very bland- but perfect for a 4 month old). They're basically baby rice cereal baked into a little cracker like thing that feels like styrofoam and literally melts in their mouths. The doctor told us that since Miles is sleeping so well we should wait until he is 6 months to start him on solids. Fine with me! Much less messy! Unfortunately not so fine with Miles. He's been drooling (literally) over our food every time he sits at the table with us- even if he's just eaten and is full.
So I gave in. I won't start him on solids for a while but I couldn't resist letting him have a cracker. And he went nuts for it. The bugsy eyes even returned he was eating it so intensely. Every time he dropped it I would hold it up for him to grab and he cracked me up all through dinner with his lightning-quick grabs. He doesn't move that quickly to get anything else. But these he loves. Real-people food! Sort of.
And the only hard part is trying to unclench his little fists so he can get at the last little bits.
This is what you call FOCUS.
So I gave in. I won't start him on solids for a while but I couldn't resist letting him have a cracker. And he went nuts for it. The bugsy eyes even returned he was eating it so intensely. Every time he dropped it I would hold it up for him to grab and he cracked me up all through dinner with his lightning-quick grabs. He doesn't move that quickly to get anything else. But these he loves. Real-people food! Sort of.
And the only hard part is trying to unclench his little fists so he can get at the last little bits.
This is what you call FOCUS.
Thursday, March 4, 2010
Happy Valentines Day
I've been meaning to do this post since the day after Valentines, but I forgot to take a picture of the cards I made and gave them away before I realized it. I've been waiting for Taylor to remember to bring his home from work so you all can see them.
We have afternoon church this year (yet again we miss DC) so we had lots of time for a fun family breakfast. Ethan and Isaac ate the heart toast but were not impressed with the eggs inside. Oh well. Not really a surprise for my picky eaters.
And inspired in part by Miles, we gave out these Valentines this year. The best part: we mailed one to my parents so I had fun picturing her opening it up and laughing her head off- which she later said she did.
Nice to get to spend the whole day with my 4 Valentines.
We have afternoon church this year (yet again we miss DC) so we had lots of time for a fun family breakfast. Ethan and Isaac ate the heart toast but were not impressed with the eggs inside. Oh well. Not really a surprise for my picky eaters.
And inspired in part by Miles, we gave out these Valentines this year. The best part: we mailed one to my parents so I had fun picturing her opening it up and laughing her head off- which she later said she did. 
Nice to get to spend the whole day with my 4 Valentines.
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