the cold

i was told that we would be wearing shorts through november when we came to texas.  and for the most part we did.  this last week however, was seriously cold.  even for virginia standards.  we had some seriously cold nights, and we had to go buy fuzzy jammies for mae because it was so cold!

this was the before the cold front came.  mae has made it her life mission to climb on top of these things.  she still hasn't made it yet, but she has gotten pretty darn close.

 

this kid loves the playground.  she climbs, hangs, and swings on anything she can reach.  i'm glad we made so many trips to the park the week prior to the cold.  because last week, we seriously were inside all week.  one day we walked outside from the car to the mall and mae yelled "yay outside!!".

 

friday was supposed to be warm..er.  but it wasn't.  but this girl could not handle being inside anymore.  after some tears, and some bundling i let her go outside.  she swept the driveway for probably 30 minutes.  and as you can see, we are the only souls outside!  but, it made her happy.

 this kid loves to sing.  whenever we're in the car, or when she's playing she sings to herself.  last sunday i caught her trying on my shoes singing to herself.  i love hearing her sing.  she does a pretty mean version of "happy birthday", and recently has added "row, row, row your boat"

 cody has been great at getting us out and doing something fun on saturdays. it's been a lot of fun for us to do things together, and to explore austin.  this past saturday we decided to head downtown to the capital.  neither of us had been there.  it was really awesome.  you can just walk around and see all the rooms.  which, is totally not what happens when you go to any museum or building in DC.  so, it was a really fun experience for us.

mae loved it too.  i have to say, this girl does really well when we travel, and try new things...for the most part. she's a trooper.

if possible, i think this girl might love pizza as much as her daddy.  friday night is usually pizza night in the baldwin home.  last week, i just made a frozen pizza, and the light in the oven had to be on the whole time so she could watch the pizza cook.  i love when she gets excited about things!  it reminds me to stop and enjoy the simple things.  love her

Pregnancy Update

28 weeks.  sometimes it's hard to believe i'm that far along.  and others, i can't believe i still have 12 weeks of this left!  this has really been the hardest thing i've ever had to do.  this little girl just wants to make sure that i don't forget she's there!

the nausea is almost gone.  i still have bad days, and times of day.  but at least i don't have to take medicine all day every day just to make it through.  there are still things i can't eat or think about without gagging.  poor cody ordered a new smoker for himself for christmas, and all he wants to do is smoke meat.  and i can barely handle typing smoked meat, let alone think about eating it.  lucky for him, my dad comes into town soon, and he'll go with cody so he can eat smoked meat to his hearts content.

i was having some bad contractions for a few weeks, not of the braxton hicks variety.  the real thing.  so they had to run a bunch of tests.  everything is fine.  they're just stress induced.  so i need to stress less (shouldn't be a problem right?), and rest more.  i have a hard time with that one, especially with a very vibrant active 2 year old.  but, i'm trying to take it easy.

this past week my sciatica has been so bad i could barely walk some days.  the other day i was sitting on the floor playing with mae while cody was changing after work, and it hurt so bad to get up i just started crying.  mae kept saying "mama sad", and gave me hugs.  bless her sweet little heart.  it keeps me up at night.  my doctor gave me stretches to do, but even those weren't helping.  so, i've been given a recommendation for physical therapy.  i start later this week.  hopefully it will help!

this little girl is proving to be just as active as mae.  mae kicked and moved a lot in my belly, and if possible, this girl does even more.  there have been a few nights where her kicks have woke me up. 

with everything i've gone through this pregnancy (and apparently will continue to go through), i love this little girl more every day.  i can't wait to meet her. i can't wait for mae to meet her.  i'm so nervous about having another person to care for, but i feel so blessed that Heavenly Father would entrust me with another of His precious spirit children.  this girl is supposed to be in our family.  and i'm so grateful that she will be here soon!

fall fun

all i can say is day light savings is terrible.  mae was finally sleeping in (and by that i mean later than 5:30), but that's over! 

mae loves to line things up.  it doesn't really matter what it is.  and her favorite place to do it is the bench at the kitchen table.

 we love story time at the library.  we usually go at least once a week.  it's great because mae will sit through almost the entire thing now...sometimes.  anyways, they always have fun crafts to make afterwards, and last week she got to make a mask.  she loves this thing.  the day she made it, she would not take it off.  i'm seeing a cape to match in her christmas future.

 again...lining things up.  her baby pumpkins and all the treasures she finds from the yard.

this girl has become a climber.  we still make it down to the lake once or twice a week, just not to swim.  her new favorite thing to do down there is climb the "spida wen".  she loves to climb this thing, and is pretty good at it too.  she's only fallen a few times.  and when i go get her and pick her up, she cries if i take her away from it.

halloween was a lot of fun this year.  we got her all dressed up for our trunk or treat at church, and she loved it.  i'm not sure she really got the trick or treat thing, but she had fun walking around and seeing all the other kids.  on halloween we decided not to take her out.  i was too tired.  but, i think she had more fun when the trick-or-treaters rang the doorbell.  every time it rang she would run to it saying trick or treat trick or treat!  holidays are so much fun with kids!

we set up our tv in our bedroom when i was really sick.  so, sometimes i'll turn a show on for her in the morning while i'm working out or getting ready.  this is how i found her the other day...

whenever i start to bake or cook, this girl has to help.  she gets all the pots and pans she can (and of course lines them up on the bench).  i love it because it keeps her busy so i can cook!

it's actually cooled off quite a bit the past few weeks.  and we are enjoying that it finally feels like fall!  we're getting excited for my dad to come visit soon, i've already got a list of things for him to help me with while he's here!

fall

okay, so it doesn't exactly feel like the crisp fall weather that we're used to.  but, it has gotten cooler!  we have been loving the weather lately.  i can actually go outside after 11am without sweating to death.

every time we pass a pumpkin, mae goes nuts and yells "punkin!".  so i knew that this would be the year that we could take her to a pumpkin patch.  i did some research and found some good ones not far from us.  this little munchkin had a blast.  

the first thing we did was a pumpkin hunt.  you ride a tractor out to the evergreen farm, and get to hunt for little pumpkins hidden throughout the trees.  mae loved the little pumpkins.  i love how excited little things make her.  holidays are that much better when you have a little kid around to get excited with.

 i love this guy

 then we checked out some of the animals that they had on the farm.  i wasn't too sure if mae would really like this, sometimes animals freak her out.  (and when i say animals, i mean taxidermy animals at cabella's, or the fake animals they have at the rain forest cafe.  so, maybe it's just fake animals that freak her out).

 surprisingly she loved the animals. 

 then we played a little bean bag toss

 and we came home very happy and sweaty.  we had a great time.  and she still wants to go outside to see the "punkins" on our front step every day.

i've always loved to bake.  but something about the fall makes me want to bake like crazy...especially things with pumpkin!  so, we've done quite a bit of baking around here the past few weeks.  whenever i bake, mae likes to put on her little apron and get out every pot, pan, bowl, spoon, cookie sheet she can find.  i love it because it keeps her pretty busy!

after general conference, cody and i decided we needed to start some regular family home evening.  and the past few weeks we have had some fhe successes.  we usually do something simple, like this week we talked about the prophet and sang 'follow the prophet'.  that's about as much as mae can handle.  but, it really brings the spirit into our home, and that is a feeling that i want mae to grow up with. 

The Birthday Girl

it's hard to believe that this little munchkin is already 2.  it seems like i was just posting about her first birthday!  a lot has happened since then.

mae is a happy, energetic, fun, excited little girl.  she is so full of life.  she brings so much joy to so many people.  we're so blessed to have such an amazing little girl in our lives.  her favorite things right now are dressing up in her princess dress, throwing/ kicking the ball, lining all of her books up, and then jumping from one to the next.  She loves to swing from the bar on the treadmill, or anything for that matter.  she loves to be outside.  and she loves girls!

when we were deciding what we wanted to do for her birthday, Cody kept bringing up chuckie cheese (i think he wanted to go more for his enjoyment than for mae's).  so we decided to meet up for lunch the day before her birthday.  we were lucky to have sydney in town with us, so she got to join in the festivities!

mae loves merry-go-rounds, whenever she sees one she has to get on it!

she did pretty well with the little kid games.  but there was so much to see and do that she didn't want to be stuck at one game for very long.

 her favorite game was one that you pulled a lever and the wheel started spinning, then you pushed a button to see what number you landed on, and that was how many tickets you got.

 she got so excited anytime tickets came out.  she and sydney actually hit the 100 ticket spot!

 cody spent a lot of time at the skee-ball machine (his favorite).  mae loved throwing the balls up the alley.

this is probably my favorite picture from chuckie cheese. haha i love this guy.

 of course we had to take the obligatory birthday wreath picture.  as you can see, she did not want to take off her princess crown.

 

that night our town was doing a "frozen" sing a long.  they had all kinds of treats, and Elsa was there for you to meet and take a picture with.  we figured this would be an awesome way to end mae's birthday.

so she got all dressed up in her princess dress.

 she was so excited to meet Elsa.  there were TONS of people there.  i have never seen so many little girls dressed up as a disney character anywhere...and that includes halloween and disney world.  it was a little crazy, but mae was loving life.

when it was our turn to take a picture with Elsa, mae walked right up to her and sat on her lap.  but she would not smile!  i'm not sure why, but she was trying so hard not to smile.  it was so funny.

needless to say, this little lady had an awesome birthday.  thank you to everyone who wished her happy birthday and sent her gifts, she was very spoiled by our favorite people.  she is one lucky girl!

one of my favorites

this past week, one of my favorite people was here to visit.  i'm a pretty lucky girl to have really great relationships with my cousins.  i grew up with them, even roomed with one of them in college.  but, my cousin sydney and i have always been really close.  she's more like a sister than a cousin.  since i graduated school and moved from utah, i haven't seen her nearly as much as i would like.  so, when she told me she was coming for a visit i was super excited.

to say that mae was enamored is putting it lightly.  she absolutely adored sydney, or "shyd".  and sydney is so amazing with kids.  she and mae had a blast.  which was awesome, because i got to sit back and watch!

this picture was taken maybe an hour after sydney got here and mae was already attached.

 of course we made the obligatory trip to downtown austin.  it's fun to have visitors and visit downtown.  i never go down there otherwise.

 mid-airplane ride.  this girl was in heaven with all of the attention that she got while sydney was here.  she was glued to sydney's side.  she even cried when sydney closed her door to change one morning.

 while sydney was here, we were able to make a trip to the san antonio temple.  i hadn't had the opportunity to go to this temple, so it was really wonderful to be able to go.  lucky for me i have an awesome husband who watched mae while sydney and i went to the temple.  i love the temple and the uplifting, happy, peaceful feeling i get as i make the effort to go.

 

another fun thing about having visitors is a break from the norm!  some days i feel like mae is just bored of our routine.  so it's nice to one have someone else to add variety, and two switch up the activities!  

of course we made some shopping trips.  which surprisingly, mae was a well behaved child during.

 and we made trips to the park, which are a must in this household.  although, i'm pretty sure mae won't want to swing by herself after this!

we had so much fun with sydney.  she is such an awesome person.  it was so fun  just to sit, watch movies, and catch up with her.  i've missed her so much.  and am so lucky that we have been able to keep our friendship going strong even though we are so far away from each other.  thanks for coming shyd.  we love you

hook 'em horns

since living so close to UT, it's hard to not jump on the longhorns fan wagon.  especially during football season.  seriously, UT stuff is everywhere you go.  it's a lot of fun  and boy do they love their football down here.
this past weekend BYU came and played UT.  so, of course my parents decided they wanted to come out so they could go to the game.  and they treated us to some good seats!  cody found the seats online, and when he was picking them out my dad said, "i dont want a view of the city from my seat", so we got some awesome seats.

 6th row!  

we were right in on all the action.  and if you saw the score, there was a lot of action on the BYU side of the scoreboard.

 cody and i decided to root for the longhorns.  they got worked bad, but, this is our new home and we want to embrace it! 

of course before the game my dad and cody had to pregame with some texas BBQ

mae had a blast while gram and gramps were here.  she was definitely spoiled.  i love to watch her with them, and to see how much she loves them.

we had to get a picture of mae supporting uncle reid in her utah state shirt!

we love when my parents come to visit!  it's hard to say bye to them, but it makes seeing them even more special.