The Most Wonderful Time Of The Year...

this is one of my favorite times of year, i guess it probably is for most people.  this year has been especially fun, because we have a very excited toddler in our house.  it is so much fun to have kids during holidays!  we've gone driving around looking at lights, and everything to her is "awesome!".  she points out every snowman, penguin, santa, reindeer, and christmas tree that her little eyes see.  (and continues to tell you until you acknowledge her). 

this will be our first christmas just the three of us.  i was super excited to not have such a long day juggling both of our families.  but, as we get closer, i've gotten a little sad.  i'm going to miss all of the festivities and traditions that we shared with our families (and definitely miss the food!).   but, it's been fun for us to decide what traditions we want to keep and start on our own.

st. nick made a visit to our house on december 6th.  and st. nick also visited gram and gramps, and they made sure to send the goodies along to us.  mae loves her new boots.

and of course he brought christmas jammies!

i love decorating my house for holidays.  its taken me a while to decide where i like things to go in this house.  and of course i find little surprises that mae leaves for me like santa wearing a tiara 

or sleeping beauty and some of the seven dwarfs visiting the nativity.

one of my favorite christmas memories is decorating sugar cookies!  you knew it was the day when you saw the big mixing bowl in the fridge (unless your younger brother then ate the WHOLE bowl of cookie dough and you had to wait another day).  i always knew i wanted to do that with my kids, and i figured this was the year for mae.  boy was i right.  this girl was in decorating heaven.  the mini m&m's were her favorite.  and surprisingly enough, she didn't figure out she could eat them until the very end.

she pretty much decorated all the cookies herself.  she did a good job for a 2 year old.  she did not like mixing the colors of sprinkles or m&m's...ocd much?

and of course we had to watch them bake!

i love our library, they always have lots of fun things going on.  last saturday, they had santa.  so we decided to head over there.  this is mae waiting in line...

 

and this is her when we got to the front of the line...not having it.  she was terrified.  i tried to go with her, nope.  she seriously wanted cody to hold her the rest of the time we were at the library.

 

she still has tears in her eyes in this picture.

not having grown up with girls, and not being the most sensitive girl myself...it has been quite the ride with a girl.  and this is only the beginning!  not sure how two girls, especially when they're teenagers is going to go for me.  luckily i have a husband who is sensitive and the best dad to little girls. i guess Heavenly Father figured as long as they have him for a dad they should turn out okay!

aunt mattie

one of our favorite people came to visit this past week!  aunt mattie found some time off from her busy new job to come spend a couple of days with us.  and mae loved every minute of it.  it's always fun to have people come visit, but it's especially nice when they help entertain your active 2 year old!

mattie and mae went for morning jogs, and did ab exercises

then we hit up one of our favorite places to run around Zilker Park.  mae loved having someone to run around and kick the soccer ball with!

these two had a blast climbing all the rocks and running around.

if you can't tell, this little lady loves her aunt mattie.

 

 we went to the outdoor mall to check out the giant christmas tree...mae loves anything and everything that has to do with christmas.

 

mattie got lucky with some serious cuddle time from mae.  one night mae actually fell asleep on the couch cuddling with her...that is the first time that's ever happened!  we want aunt mattie to come more often to wear this little kid out!

 

thanks to erich for sharing your wife with us for a few days!  we always have a great time with mattie.  it's so awesome when your best friend is married to your brother!

thanksgiving

this year for thanksgiving we had a mini baldwin reunion!  kasee got home from her mission (yay!) the week before thanksgiving, so cody's parents surprised her with a trip to the Great Wolf Lodge is Dallas.  where we all met up for an awesome trip.  i have some pretty amazing in-laws, i am so blessed!

i decided to try my luck at making a craft with mae for thanksgiving.  it might have resulted in a meltdown when the paint had to be washed off hands and feet, but otherwise it went really well.  and i think it turned out cute!

get ready for picture over load.  i took a bunch while we were there (per the request of my parents).  it was such a fun trip.  the lodge was awesome, the best part was the indoor water park.

 the little kids area was mae's favorite.  and while she climbed on everything and went down the slides, her favorite thing to do was just float with her puddle jumper on.  she's gotten pretty good at it.

 

cody and i wish that we had an indoor waterpark in our backyard.  mae took the longest nap she has ever taken in her little life while we were there.  

 

she also really loved the lazy river.  she and cody took many a trip around it.

 

 

there was also an arcade.  she just wandered from game to game pushing as many buttons as she could reach.

 

she and cody won some tickets.  and she liked the tickets more than any prize she could have gotten with them.  she kept them in her little purse (which, if you look for it, you will see make an appearance in a lot of pictures.  she got mad at us because we wouldn't let her take it to the pool.)  and they are still in her purse.  cody also found a ticket in her diaper...we aren't too sure how it got there.

 

another wonderful thing...free soda and icee refills!  i'm sure i drank my weight in caffeine free diet coke.  and mae definitely had her fair share of icees (only on vacation right?)

 love this little kid

 

living the life...

 

mae loves her cousins.  noah was so sweet with her, helping her in the arcade, and playing games on the ipad.  during some down time, she and tessa watched frozen.

and of course yucee (that's how mae says lucy) was there.  these two crack me up when they are together.  so glad that we live close enough that she can grow up knowing her cousins.

 brittany designed some pretty awesome shirts for us for the trip.  and of course we had to have some shots taken while we all had them on.

here's grandma neely with the kids, i just laughed the whole time we tried to get pictures of the kids.  this is a crazy bunch.

 grandma with the kids.

 i'm pretty sure mae didn't smile for one picture that day.  every family has that kid, maybe ours is going to be mae.

 i love this picture.  no child is paying attention to anyone trying to take a picture.  there's a giant blow up crayon blocking half of them, and a stuffed animal mid-flight.  pretty much sums up trying to take pictures with kids.

like i said, i have some amazing in-laws.  i love each of these ladies so much!  and am so grateful for the relationship that i have with each one of them.

 thank you grandma and grandpa baldwin for an amazing trip!  it was so wonderful!

gramps

i'm a really lucky girl.  i have an awesome dad.  and what's even more awesome, is to see him as a grandpa.  gramps came to visit this past weekend, and we had so much fun.  he usually comes with gram, but she didn't make the trip this time (i'm not sure how often that will happen anymore, she was a little jealous).  but, i'm so glad that mae was able to have that time with gramps. 

i thought it would take her a while to warm up to him, but right away she wanted to hold his hand, sit near him, play with him.  it was so great.  i love these special moments!

 we had some rainy weather while my dad was here...i'm talking monsoon style.  so we were inside most of the weekend.  we made lots of trips to random stores, here mae and my dad are attempting to play the video games at best buy.  i'm not sure who was better...

mae likes to dip things in sauce...and then just lick the sauce.  i'm not sure how many french fries were actually consumed, but the amount of ketchup was significant...there's tomatoes in ketchup i shouldn't feel that bad about it, right?

of course we made a trip to get some texas bbq.  gramps always does research on where to eat around here before he comes.  he found a new jem.  that i am sure we will be visiting again!

this girl did great in the car.  as you can see she has the perfect set-up with her ipad (sadly, she doesn't say pipad anymore).  

and a few naps were taken in the car.  on her arm you can see her purse.  she did not want to go anywhere without it this weekend.  

this little lady had lots of smiles for her gramps, and we took lots of pictures to send to gram.

she has her moments (like today where we had an epic meltdown that lasted about 35min, or when she's up from 3-5am), like any 2 year old does.  but overall we are blessed with a pretty happy munchkin.

it's so fun to have people we love come to visit.  it makes our time with them extra special.  we're so glad that my dad came to visit.  he's one of the best guys in the whole world.