they are precious in His sight...

my precious children were holding hands in the car the other night! too sweet!!!

thursday thirteen

happy 28th birthday to my hubby, tim! i wanted to use this thursday thirteen to list 13 great things about my awesome husband!!! (you'll probably need a tissue or garbage can after reading this depending on your cheesiness tolerance!)

1. he's a phenomenal father to sarah and drew! i knew from the moment i met him that he would be the best daddy in the whole world, but he has surpassed my expectations a million times over!

2. he's the sweetest husband! he lets me get away with murder sometimes (ok, most of the time!). he is so patient when i am stressed out, or being ocd, etc.

3. he's a wonderful christian man. he's such a good example to his family, friends, and co-workers.

4. he's a computer genius! he can fix any computer problem...somehow he has ALL the pop up screens memorized and can talk you through any computer problem over the phone!

5. he's a hard worker! when i make him a list (remember how i said he was a great husband?), he works and works and works until he gets all his "honey-do list" done.

6. he's a loyal friend. he keeps in touch with friends from elementary school even! he loves his friends with all his heart.

7. he's a huge flirt! i know that sounds like a weird thing for a wife to love about her husband...but, he can make any situation comfortable. whether he's "flirting" with a 2 year old, 32 year old, or 92 year old, they all love him in minutes!

8. he's a loving son. as i've said before, one of my favorite and first memories of tim is him hugging his parents good bye at disciple now in 8th grade. he puts his family above all else.

9. he's a big goof. he has the same silly, immature sense of humor as me!

10. he's a closet "girlie tv/movie" guy! he will sit down while i am watching gilmore girls or 10 things i hate about you and totally get sucked in...and ask a million questions about what he's missed in the show! AND, he loves hannah montana on disney! what?!?

11. he's a night owl AND a morning person (not really his choice!)! he'll stay up late with me, and let me catch an extra 30 minutes of sleep in the morning after i get up and feed drew! he tries to help out in other ways since he can't nurse!!!

12. he's a romantic at heart! he's always doing sweet things for me!

13. he's tim. i'm just so thankful that tim is my little timmy! he's the greatest! i am so blessed to have him in my life! i hope you have a wonderful birthday sweetie!

sanity saver!!!

have i told you about my weekly sanity saver?!? my WONDERFUL in-laws (better known as nana and pop pop) come to our house EVERY tuesday night and do the most fabulous thing...they pick up sarah and take her home with them!!! sarah spends tuesday night and all day wednesday at their house! on wednesday's, nana has both sarah and sarah's 2 1/2 year old cousin, nicholas! wow! its awesome that the 2 cousins get to spend time together every week! i never got to see my cousins that much growing up (or now for that matter)! and nana and pop pop don't look TOO tired when we get sarah back on wednesday evening! this fun "tradition" began about the time that sarah ended preschool in may. it was perfect for sarah to have something super fun and "just for her" to do all summer long! and mommy and sarah do better to have a break from one another every once in a while! i just thought i should brag a little on my amazing in-laws! they will never know how much i appreciate the chance to let drew be an "only child" for one day a week!

she's never met a stranger!!!

so, we went to walmart today...i know, what a great blogger story :) all four of us went. we started with lunch in the walmart mcdonald's...what a glamorous outing, huh? sarah was so excited! whenever i ask her what she wants to eat, 9 times out of 10 she says, "apples and nuggets"! so, sarah thoroughly enjoyed herself...and baby drew happily gnawed on his toy while we ate. then we shopped, and shopped, and shopped!!! we ran into so many people we know! and sarah made several new friends along the way! while we stood in the 6 MILE LONG LINE to check out, my friend from methodist germantown hospital, monique, played with drew. and sarah showed off all her best tricks for the sweet (stranger) lady in line behind us. it ended up that the nice woman gave sarah her shopping list and pen (who takes a legal pad to walmart as a grocery list?) for sarah to draw. sarah had so much fun coloring while the adoring stranger praised her every move. as we were leaving, the lady said, "its a shame that she doesn't have a more outgoing, friendly personality!" sarah definitely has personality to spare!!! she gets that from her daddy :) sarah was so sad to leave walmart! she always loves to be the center of attention!!! but now, we are back home, all the groceries are put away, both kids are asleep, and i'm enjoying a little quiet after the storm!!! just what every saturday afternoon should be like!

thursday thirteen

thirteen random things about this last week...

1. a HUGE storm blew through germantown this afternoon...very unexpectedly. i was in drew's room nursing him to sleep and i heard an extremely loud crash. the umbrella in our patio set lifted out of its stand and came crashing down into our glass top table! yikes!!!

2. sarah is farsighted and has an astigmatism. she is getting glasses to correct her vision. we are really talking up how special glasses are because they are like daddy's.

3. i bought a new pair of pants for work on sunday (tax free!). i washed them ONCE and the hem fell out on one leg. yuck!

4. drew learned to jump in his exersaucer. he thinks he is so cool to bounce and squeal in delight...LOUDLY!!!

5. drew is almost sitting up independently. he just gets so excited and tumbles over!

6. i worked for the first time since 2 weeks before drew's birth on wednesday. i work again tomorrow.

7. i work at a nursing home/rehab facility now. different job from before drew.

8. on the elevator at work, i asked a resident how she was doing. she replied, "i've got a bad heart, my hip is broken, and my daughter's out of town so i don't have any clean underwear". i forgot what it was like to work with the elderly.

9. my brain is getting overloaded with our schedule for this fall. my calendar has an event almost every day!!! our activities somehow quadrupled by adding 1 more child!

10. we got our flowerbeds cleaned out and mulched. our yard looks amazing!!!

11. sarah is already trying to stall bedtime. she asks, "where'd ______ go?" about a million times, asks for more milk, asks for more kisses, asks for more hugs, asks for whichever parent isn't putting her to bed to come, etc. didn't realize that started SO young!!!

12. tim and i went to a sunday school class on sunday for the first time in YEARS!!! somehow a long time before we had sarah we got suckered into keeping the nursery with my parents, and we never made our way out again!

13. my pharmacist told me i was his hero. seriously. he was so impressed that i fought our insurance company to get sarah's medicine covered. i thought that was hilarious!!!

that's what's going on in our lives. in a nutshell...

cute play date pics!!!

here are some cute play date pics!!! i've been trying to get blogger to load these since my last blog, but apparently blogger didn't think they were as important as i did!!!

cutie brother and sister bonding moment...aiden and hannah!!!

apparently my house has the PERFECT built in stage. aiden arranged the chairs and tried his hardest to get all three girls to sit for his performance...when that failed, he joined the audience!

drew was the brave little one in the midst of the chaos!!! he enjoyed watching the action!

fun times in the woodard's playroom!!! carter, aiden, hidden hannah (behind "house"), sarah, and drew!

tim thought the kids were playing musical chairs in this pic!!! they are just so busy!

can you spell OCD?!?

so today my friends maribeth and kristina came over...with their kids. maribeth's two--carter and miller--and kristina's younger two--aiden and hannah grace. her older two started school today--chad and bailey. well, now that THAT'S all cleared up...so we had 6 kids under 5 at our house for the majority of the day! the older 4 (drew and miller really can't participate yet) played together beautifully! it was great! they all had so much fun and us moms had a good time talking in between changing diapers and quickly referee-ing minor incidents. the REAL fun began when the younger 4 all went down for naps at the same time and the older two retired to the couch for a movie. the three moms got WAY OCD!!! we were cleaning up the toy room (basically every room in the house!) and they kept asking me where to put the toys. i told them repeatedly to just put the toys wherever. i mean...i have mellowed out a tidge...well, most of the time!!! anyway. neither of them believed me, so they started REALLY organizing these two bins. they found stuff i haven't seen in drew's entire life! (so see, i really haven't been as anal lately!) we put EVERYTHING EXACTLY in its place! my play room looks fabulous!!! we just laughed and laughed and laughed because none of the kids were in the room playing and the adults were having so much fun with the kids' toys! cleaning up was the highlight of our day :)

thursday thirteen

a quiz for "friends"-lovers only :) today's thursday thirteen is 13 quotes from "friends". whoever gives the most correct answers to who said each quote wins!!! (i really think that only my friend maribeth will play...but i still love "friends" enough to devote this blog to it!)

1. "could i be wearing any more clothes?"

2. "I KNOW"

3. "you could try...but you would not be successful"

4. "his legs flail about as if independent from his body"

5. "did you know richard has a twinkie in the city?"

6. "yep...we were in the i hate rachel green club"

7. "my sister is pregnant with my baby"

8. "you went on and on for 16 pages...front and back"

9. "you fell ASLEEP?"

10. "the chipper? why do i think that's not as happy as it sounds?"

11. "my friend asked for an onion, not an olive, and i don't know what this drink is"

12. "and just so you know...its not that common, it doesn't happen to every guy and it is a big deal"

13. "the guy says hi and i want to kill myself"

good luck, maribeth!!! and anyone else who is brave enough to go head-to-head with a truly obsessed "friends" fan...me!!! i did this pretty quickly. i could probably make 3 months worth of thursday thirteen "friends" quotes :)

thank you poppy!!!

i know ya'll have already seen a ton of pics of sarah in this dress from the fourth of july...but, i forgot to make a big shout out "thank you" to poppy bill for the precious outfit!!! poppy went shopping (i know--shocking) in paris for BOTH of his grandkids and returned with two cute body suits for drew and a dress fit for a princess for sarah! this is dress #2 for sarah from abroad--poppy brought sarah a dress last year, too. isn't she just the little fashionista?!? sarah, drew, and their mommy are very grateful for the cute clothes that will be such a special keepsake from poppy!!!

i had cake and ice cream for breakfast!!!

here's what's going to happen to me...its just my luck :)

sarah thinks that yogurt is ice cream...i know, i know...i am a horrible mother to teach my child that she is not eating what she thinks she is eating. but, she gets so excited when she thinks she's getting such a fun treat! (and because i am a FUN mom, she does get real ice cream occasionally--well, low fat frozen yogurt, actually) anyway...so we are shopping at walmart the other day, and we get to the dairy section and sarah yells, "ice cream"! i got a bunch of funny looks from the other shoppers! and miss maribeth and my parents keep threatening to tell sarah the truth! oh no!!!

and i give sarah rice cakes as snacks or for breakfast. but, she just calls them "cakes"...

so, fast forward a few weeks to sarah's first day of preschool...sarah walks into school and her new teacher asks her what she had for breakfast. sarah's reply, "cake and ice cream"!!! boy! i'll surely get called into the principal's office for that one :)

hey baby!!!

so, poppy bill always says, "hey baby" to sarah when he sees her. so, now sarah says, "hey baby" to everyone! and she doesn't just greet you when you come over or she first gets to your house. she greets you EVERY time she or you walk into the room. so, i leave to change drew's diaper and when i return, i get a "hey mommy" or "hey baby". two seconds later i leave the room for 3 minutes to get sarah's sippy cup refilled, and i am again greeted on my return. i must hear "hey mommy" and "hey baby" 10 million times a day!!! if it weren't so funny--it would have to drive me crazy!!!

duh-rooooooooooooooooooooooooo!!!

i am so glad that i named sarah's little brother drew...and i am so glad that we live in the south...and i am so glad that sarah is a little southern belle already! sarah makes drew's name last at least 5-10 seconds every time she says it. writing about it doesn't do it justice. she is too funny!

a fun pic!!!

sarah doing her best mommy impression...talking on the phone and playing on the internet!!!

what about drew?

after bragging on sarah in the last blog, i thought i should give drew some blog-time, too! he's turned into a new kid the past week! as i said before, he was SOOOOO good in the car on the trip to and from louisiana! and the whole time we were out of town, he just smiled and coo'ed and talked to all his family! not that drew was a bad kid before, but he's turned into a dream!

a few "big boy moments"...the past 2 nights he has slept 10 hours straight! he has started putting himself to sleep without nursing on occasion. he has fallen asleep in the car without crying at all twice this week (without a pacifier!!!)! he has been taking good naps every 2 hours! he has been a good shopper (a must in the kelly woodard family)!

i don't know if i've mentioned it before, but drew plays with his feet all the time! at first it was just holding onto them, but now he's putting them in his mouth! its too cute! he also has become VERY vocal! he has started saying, "ba.ba.ba.ba" and "da.da.da.da"! he screams in delight a lot! and he just learned to "gurgle"...he gets a little saliva in the back of his throat and goes to town!

i think that about sums up drew's latest and greatest feats! he is trying to sit up on his own SO hard! he's in such a hurry to get big enough to play with sarah!!!

1...2...3

here are the latest of sarah's accomplishments :)

1. we have been working on "remembering" our counting. so, we all hold up the correct number of fingers while sarah is counting out loud. so, she was counting along...1,2,3,4...and then she said, "hi!" she thought i was waving "hi" instead of showing the number 5! what a cutie!

2. the whole time we were in franklinton, we pointed out cows, horses, other random animals in pastures along the road while we were travelling. apparently we said, "sarah do you see the horses? see them?" so sarah has started saying, "see 'em?" she'll say, "my glasses, see 'em?" they really do hear...AND REPEAT everything! speaking of which, sarah has now said, "oh my goodness" and "oh shoot" (for real shoot NOT the bad word) at appropriate times! ok, so its not appropriate for a child to say ever, but she dropped her bag full of toys and exclaimed, "oh shoot"! its so hard not to laugh!

3. sarah is obsessed with flags and airplanes! what?!? its so funny to see passing phases! almost every house on our street has a flag--so we get really excited about every 2 seconds!!! and with a very busy airport in memphis, we see lots of planes as well!!!

4. sarah is such a big helper!!! she will get the diaper bag, unzip it, get out a diaper, get out the wipes, try to undress drew, and try to help wipe drew's bottom! she is a little mommy! she also loves to "hold" drew right now. she will try to keep him entertained while he is lounging in her lap on the floor!

5. and perhaps my favorite new thing...sarah has started saying, "hold you" whenever she wants me to pick her up and hold her! i think its too precious that she says that instead of "hold me"!!!

sarah is a constant source of entertainment! of course, we think she's the greatest!!!

Oops!!!

sorry about the long break between blogs...i'm sure the 2 of you who read this have been desperate for some woodard entertainment :) we have been very busy around here. tim has been out of town for two weeks...sarah, drew, and i went to louisiana for 6 days...sarah has cut 4 teeth...drew has learned to sit up propped on his arms...etc, etc, etc!!!

sarah, drew, and i stayed home alone for the first 4 days daddy was gone on his business trip, then we loaded up the van with mimi and poppy and headed south! my beautiful cousin emily married steve on the saturday we were in louisiana (the original purpose of the trip). i listened to the ceremony from the church lobby as sarah yelled, "dance" every time music was played! at the reception, sarah was the first wedding guest on the dance floor! she loves to groove to the music! the whole trip was soooo much better than anticipated with a 5 month old and a 22 month old! they were excellent on the car ride--all 7 hours! sarah talked THE WHOLE TIME! she is a chatter box! and drew was a dream! the rest of the visit was great, too! we spent time with almost all of my mom's and dad's families. sarah added many more names to her "roll call"! she was especially excited about g.g. and pawpaw's dog, daisy, and aunt annie's dog, tippy! when we got back to memphis (we cut the trip to 5.75 hours on the return trip), we had 3 more days until daddy got home! his much anticipated return occurred at 5:45 today!!! so, we have had a lot going on! mommy's brain doesn't work too well when she is the only adult in the house...aka, unable to formulate thoughts for a blog! hopefully i'll be a more frequent blogger again now!

thank you mimi!

i just wanted to leave a huge public "thank you" to my mom, mimi! she was a trooper today. sarah has been running a fever for a few days (already went to the doctor...its apparently JUST a fever). today sarah was really really pitiful. she just wanted mommy to hold her all day long. no problem...except she has a 4 month old brother who is exclusively breastfed. well, mimi came over about 11 am and stayed til 6 pm! she did everything!!! including washing our sheets (minor throw-up incident about 5 am...we just put towels over it and attempted to keep sleeping), doing additional laundry, pacifying drew the majority of the day, and comforting sarah when i fed drew. the day could have been managed without mimi (i only would have been a little pitiful), but it was totally great with her help! sarah got the attention from me that she needed and drew didn't have to cry on the floor all day long. i know, i know...i am spoiled rotten. i am so blessed to have family in town. AND to have their help so often. i just wanted mimi to know how much she is appreciated!!! she's the best!!!

thursday thirteen

so, i'm hoping i'll remember to do these "thursday thirteen" each week. i think they are fun!!! here's this week's list (i LOVE lists!):

THIRTEEN OF MY FAVORITE TV SHOWS: (past and present)

1. Friends--all time favorite!!!

2. Grey's Anatomy

3. Gilmore Girls

4. Boston Legal

5. House

6. CSI trilogy

7. Without a Trace

8. Criminal Minds

9. American Idol

10. The Bachelor

11. Scrubs

12. The Ellen Degeneres Show

13. LOST

i really am not positive that these are my favorite of all time. really friends is the only show that is not current. so, this list should probably be called "my current favorite tv shows". oh, well...

mmm...mmm...good!!!

happy 4th of july!!!

happy 4th of july!!! we had a very big day around our house! we had about 14 people at our house for a poolside celebration of our independence! everyone seemed to enjoy themselves...how could we not when we were all stuffing our faces all day long?!? we all pitched in to create a delicious (huge) array of snacks and main dishes! mr. josh brought his super-duper special camera and captured some great shots of the kids! thanks josh!!!


drew looking awfully cute!!!

sarah isn't too sure about sharing her pony with carter!

trying to get a perfect picture of sarah and drew is tricky business!

sarah looked precious in her new dress that poppy bill brought back from paris! (irony of wearing french dress on usa independence day duly noted!!!)

4 of the cutest kids i know :) sarah, drew, carter, and miller hanging out on the bed in their 4th of july finest!!!

i'm still trying to get the hang of this picture posting-thing...hopefully these will all work out ok! oh, yeah...adults were also present at the 4th of july celebration, but they aren't nearly as cute to photograph!