Ringing in the New Year

happy new year!  mae got to do some sparklers on new years eve and i think the look on her face sums up how she felt about that.  thanks to netflix for putting those countdowns on that you can play anytime.  ours was at 7pm.

well, 2016 came with a bang around here...and not in a good way.  mae got pink eye and a bad cold/flu.  fevers, coughing, snot everywhere.  and of course, izzy got it as well. luckily cody and i didnt get pink eye, we did however get colds/sinus infections, bleh.  i was confined to my house for so long, i thought i was going to go crazy.  not only that, the whining was out of control. 
she would be up coughing all night, so during the day this would happen...

 we're on the mend, and for the most part we are all better.  except little miss mae has gotten so used to mommy coming in during the night to try to soothe her when she was sick, that now she expects it all the time.  it has become a real problem in the baldwin household.  if i don't lay down with her or sing with her when i walk her back to her room every time she comes to our room (which has pretty much always been at least once a night, but recently has become 4 or 5), she is a screaming, crying, throwing herself on the floor, clawing at your arms, holding on to your leg while you try to walk away nutcase. but, we've decided we aren't going to soothe her everytime she gets up.  and it has been a STRUGGLE. i ended up crying this morning it was so awful.  we've started to give her warnings and chances to calm down, and if she doesn't there are consequences.  like, last night, if she didn't calm down bunny would get taken away.  well, bunny got taken away and this is what happened when she tried to grab him from cody...

 seriously?! what am i going to do???  we bought a night light, and we've had a couple of talks today.  hopefully it will start to get better?  i already went through sleep training with this kid when she was a baby and it was awful.  never thought i would be doing it when she was almost 3 and a half. love her though.

anyways, enough of my complaining.

another exciting event happened last week.  cody turned 30!! 3-0, where the heck has the time gone?  i still can't believe that's how old we are...well, how old he is.  i've still got a couple of months.  so, we decided to make sure his day was extra special.  the girls and i went out early and got donuts for him for breakfast.  and after he left for work, we went to the store to get balloons to put in his car while he was in the office.

 mae loved it.  she got to pick out the ballooons, and had a blast doing it.  izzy was terrified of them!  she cried just looking at them.  so i had to put them in the front next to me so she couldnt see them.

 cody got a cool new saw from me and my parents, and i picked up this selfie stick randomly at the store for him.  and i'm pretty sure he and mae have had more fun with the selfie stick. i have to get his phone and download some of the selfies he and mae took.  hilarious.

 cody's favorite cake is german chocolate.  now, the last time i made the amazing homemade icing was for uncle david's birthday when i was living in las vegas.  and it was a disaster.  the icing didnt set, and it just ran all over and off the cake...it was however quite delicious.  you just had to like scoop some up and put it on your bite of cake.  so, needless to say i was a little nervous about making it again.  but, it turned out amazing.  i don't really even like german chocolate cake that much and i'm pretty sure i ate half of the cake.

 mae loved singing happy birthday to daddy and helping him blow out the candles.  what a special guy we are so blessed to have.  love this man so much!

 and it has begun.  mae has been wanting to take a dance class. so i signed her up for one at our local rec center.  she is in heaven.  it's a tap/ballet class.  it's adorable to watch.  she likes the tap, but loves the ballet even more.  i'm so glad that we're able to sign her up for these classes and she can have these experiences.