December & Christmas 2017

December was a month I was both looking forward to and dreading for the past 6 months. I've been so excited to celebrate Tatum's first Christmas, and also so sad that she's already 10 months old.

I'm getting ahead of myself though. Towards the beginning of the month, we had my grandma's 90th birthday party. It was the major source of a lot of stress and frustration for me for many months, but not as much as the last month leading up to it. I had done a lot of planning over the previous 6 months, most of which was changed at the semi-last minute. My dad and stepmom were coming in to town secretly, and I had invited two of my grandma's best friends (one of over 60 years), one of which was able to make it. On the actual day of, the party went smoothly and it was worth every second of frustration and secret pillow screaming to see how happy my grandma was on the day of. I think it was mostly due to her friend, Betty's, secret arrival at the restaurant. I can't remember Gramma ever looking as happy as she did sitting and chatting with Betty. My uncle's recommendation of Alfano's Restaurant in Clearwater was phenomenal and I would highly recommend it. It was so fun spending the remainder of the weekend with my dad and stepmom after we decorated Gramma's Christmas tree on Saturday, and Betty even met us out for breakfast that morning before the tree shindig. We exchanged Christmas presents with my parents and Gramma. Brian and I were spoiled with the new Series 3 Apple Watches and Tatum got many presents, her favorites being a mini leather armchair with its own footstool, a V-Tech cell phone, and a ball pit.

A little update on Tatum... She is officially walking! She started getting to the point of actually calling it walking about three weeks before she turned 10 months and had it down by 2 weeks before, but it's crazy to see how much better she's gotten since then. She hates shoes though, so it's kind of frustrating trying to let her walk when she won't keep them on! 

She loved everything about Christmas, except for Santa. I'll include her Santa pic in here.. Great story about that actually. The Santa we went to has been playing Santa for 42 years and was a pro. We got her pictures done before we left for Utah for the holiday and she started screaming the moment I sat her on his lap, so he got her binkie, told the photographer to give him a 3-count, and pulled it out as she snapped the picture. You'll see the result, it's awesome. 

We got super lucky and got on the new non-stop flights from Tampa to Salt Lake on Delta. As soon as we heard it was happening, we got the Delta AmEx card and used our air miles to pay for the trip. Before we flew out, we opened presents together at home on the 22nd, and I was FINALLY able to give Brian his big Christmas present: A PADDLEBOARD! My mom and stepdad and Brian's parents pitched in and we got a $750 paddleboard for about $220. Best. Deal. Ever. I've been hiding it for months and with the help of my uncle going to get it for me, we successfully hid it for 2 1/2 months without Brian ever suspecting anything. Luckily we have 12 ft. vaulted ceilings in our apartment to store it. Of course, we brought back the cold weather from Utah so as soon as our 75 degree days return, we'll be taking it out! We talked to my mom and stepdad on the phone that night and exchanged presents with them at the same time. It's sad being away at Christmas but I know we'll see them all soon for Tatum's birthday in February! Also, Brian and my's big present for Tatum was an interactive rocking horse that has buttons that light up and it sings songs and makes noises. We let her pick it out in store and I still think it's her absolute favorite present. She won't leave it alone when she's in the same room with it!

Once in Utah, we were going going going. We landed, picked up our rental car, and immediately dropped Tatum off and headed to the movies to see Jumanji with Kevin, Amanda, Braxton, Corbin, and Dylan. After the movie, we ran and grabbed Tatum and headed out to grab ice cream with Brian's friend Glen and his new girlfriend that we finally got to meet! That night we had the annual Baldwin Family Christmas Party and it was so fun to catch up with everyone.

Christmas Eve was spent church hopping. We really miss our old ward in Clinton and had to go back to see everyone! It was so nice, but since we only had Sacrament meeting since it was Christmas Eve, we went to church with Brian's parents also. We got to see some family that evening and it was great.

Christmas Day was a blast, a nuthouse, and exhausting. The kids woke us up at 5:30 AM (and that was after Amanda threatened their lives for an hour beforehand) and we opened presents, followed by a big breakfast with both sets of grandparents on Brian's side. We relaxed most of the day, played in the snow (Tatum's first time!!), and then went to see the Ogden Christmas Village that night as a family. We were so happy to wake up to a white Christmas! After we got the kids to bed, Brian and I went with Kevin, Amanda, and Braxton to see the new Star Wars movie. I'll admit I fell asleep every 5 minutes but still don't feel like I missed anything. Every time I woke up, I could still follow the plot line without all the added mumbo jumbo. This is the second Star Wars movie I've slept through... whoops.

Tatum really got into the spirit of unwrapping presents, and more than once I had to drag her out from under the tree so she wouldn't unwrap gifts that weren't her own. She loved Christmas lights and we saw tons, from Largo Park here in Florida, to all over in Utah. She loves to dance and will do so to any song that comes on around her, even commercials on TV. She's crazy fast at crawling up the stairs so you have to keep an eye on her 24/7. At home we have gates at the top and bottom of the stairs, but in Utah, the upstairs flight was open and she would dart toward them anytime she got an opportunity. 

The next day, I woke up with an awful head cold and we were supposed to visit my cousin and her new baby. Given the new baby, I didn't want to take chances on getting them sick, so we missed them, but we still got to see one of Brian's old mission companions and grab some Smash Burger. That afternoon we got family pictures taken by my super talented friend Aneisa of Calder Photography (I'll post those in a separate post). Randy and Sabra met us at the studio when we were done and Brian and Randy went snowboarding at Brighton while Sabra, Tatum, Zoey, and I walked around Temple Square, grabbed some dinner at Kneaders, and headed home to hang out.

The one thing we meant to do so many times and never got around to was going to the temple. Wednesday we had planned on it, but so much happened that we just didn't get to it. I stopped by my old work, Get Away Today, to see some of my favorite people and bring lunch to my work bestie who I missed so much. That night I had a dinner date with my name twin Jessica in SLC (we went to Zao Asian Cafe and it was amazing), and then we got to see some of Brian's best friends from high school and hang out with his good friend, George. Tatum loves her "Uncle George" and his guitar.

Our last day was Thursday and we spent it returning our rental car, packing, and going to Aroy D in Ogden for the best thai food ever. We missed it so much we couldn't resist making a stop there! I think I just ate my way through Utah this trip back, although there's not as many places that I miss there as there were places I missed here when we lived in Utah, so I guess I'm winning where I'm at.

Tatum was a total champ on the LONG flights both ways, and Delta airlines TOTALLY hooked us up by moving people's seats so that we had an empty seat beside us (aka the whole aisle) both directions! It was nice because we had more space and a seat to lay Tatum on while she napped. Plus the TVs on the back of the seats are 100% the way to travel with kids! They had Frozen and Despicable Me 3 for free, so that was nice.

That pretty much sums up our month, and I'm so happy to be updating this while I still remember everything. Mom brain is definitely worse than preggo brain. I hope you all had a fantastic holiday with loved ones! 

XoXo, The Baldwins

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Hold Up, We're in the Third Trimester!?!

Whoever said the last few months of pregnancy takes forever clearly did not enter their third trimester the week of Thanksgiving! Life is crazy busy right now and I can only imagine time will keep flying this quickly for the next month until the new year. Let's hope January goes swiftly too because we cannot wait to meet our little girl!

To back track to where the last post left off, the weekend I got home from my work trip was our one year wedding anniversary! We celebrated the night before it since our anniversary fell on a Sunday and went to Ruth's Chris Steak House in Salt Lake City for dinner. Best filet mignon I've ever had or probably will ever have in the future! Coupled with their creme brulee for dessert and I was a very happy camper. Brian had asked if I wanted to go away for the weekend to Park City or somewhere semi-close, but I told him I thought after being away from home for 9 days for my work trip that I would want to be at home and I am SO glad I decided that before I went because I couldn't wait to relax and sleep in our own bed. There truly is no place like home!

On Monday, November 14th (the first week day post-overindulgent food trip), I had my glucose test and next check up. Don't ask me why but I somehow got myself so psyched up over this test, I was totally geeking out over it. I was afraid I would throw it up or not get to the appointment in time or something would somehow go wrong and I would have to take the 3 hour test. But to all my pregnant friends coming up on this: IT'S NOT EVEN BAD AT ALL. The drink you have to consume in 5 minutes flat tastes like a slightly sweeter version of those gross plastic barrel juice boxes we all drank as kids, and I did it in 2 minutes flat. Luckily they called me the very next day and despite my over eating and high sugar consumption for the previous week and a half, I still passed the test and the only bad news was that I'm slightly anemic and they want me to take iron pills. Lucky me!

The following weekend I had to work Saturday and then Brian and I went out Christmas shopping and got so much done! I was so happy and it's a good thing I was feeling accomplished because the entire following week I got hit with the worst head cold I can ever remember having. Maybe it's just because I'm pregnant so my immune system already hates me or maybe it's because you literally can't take ANYTHING for the stuffiness, sinus headaches, or sore throat except like Mucinex and Tylenol which doesn't help at all. (Don't get sick, preggo friends. You'll hate your life).

But it was Thanksgiving week which means lots of business, family functions, and craziness. We spent this Thanksgiving in Utah since we'll be headed home to the east coast for Christmas but it worked out well because Kevin & Amanda and the kids came up and we got to spend lots of time with them which was awesome. We celebrated Dylan, Jaxton, and Sophie's birthdays all at Chuck-E-Cheese on Wednesday, had the huge Baldwin family Thanksgiving shin-dig on Thursday, and Amanda and Lindy threw me a family baby shower on Saturday morning. Baby girl got lots of fun stuff and we are so blessed for all the family and friends who came out to support us! I have to post pictures of the shower too because Lindy and Amanda decorated so dang cute, it was basically like you stepped into a Pinterest board.

Friday marked 28 weeks with baby girl! I cannot believe we're entering the third trimester! She's grown so much over the last 4 weeks (25- rutabaga,26-eggplant 27- cucumber, 28-head of cauliflower.... These vegetable sequences don't make any sense) and is a moving, grooving fool! She loves the sound of her daddy's voice, especially when he sings to her. We're now only 28 days from Christmas and I cannot wait to go home for the holidays and for the snow!! I'm really loving winter clothes and weather since I'm this pregnant. It's so much more comfortable than summer was! I think that's all for now, but I'll try to be more prompt with the blog since I'm sure I'll fall behind again when baby girl gets here! We are so excited and so blessed to be surrounded by such loving family and friends!!

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The Start of a Crazy Summer...

May is already showing how busy this summer is going to be. I feel like Brian and I are always running all around the place trying to manage our crazy lives and still have time for fun! 

The first week of May, Kimberly and Austin were back in town for another wedding, so Brian and I were lucky to steal some of their time and have lunch with them one day. That same day, Sabra and I went to PaintNite in Layton! I have always wanted to do one of those events and I had a great coupon for it, so it seemed like a great time to stop making excuses and go. For those who don't know what PaintNite is, you go to their website, choose your location, and then look through all the different paintings they have. You choose one you want to learn to paint on a day and time that works for you, pay the fee, and then go to the class you signed up for. They have all the paints, brushes, and utensils you'll need already there for you. It's a fun atmosphere (although I didn't particularly like the location), and you leave with a canvas and knowledge you didn't have before. Sabra and I chose a sunflower painting; I'll include some photos at the end.

On May 4, Brian and I caved and bought another guinea pig (haha, it was only a matter of time right?). We decided that Winston was probably getting lonely hanging out alone while we were at work every day, and since research told us guinea pigs are very social creatures, we had to get him a friend. Because neither of us want to deal with baby guinea pigs, we got another male and named him Schmidt, obviously because what else could we name him? (I guess I shouldn't say that, Ferguson was in the running too....) He's very squeaky and much more active than Winston, so his name suits him for sure.

Our excitement over the newest member of the family was short lived, as disaster struck our house again on Mother's Day weekend. We went grocery shopping so I could begin the process of making 150 cake pops for the Baldwin Family Mother's Day party, and when we got home, we walked in to see a huge puddle of water on our living room hardwood, which was obviously coming from the dripping in our ceiling. We went upstairs to discover that our washer (which is conveniently *sarcasm* located between our master bedroom and the larger of the two spare bedrooms) had not drained properly. We still don't know how it happened, but it resulted in the water leaking into our laundry room, under the linoleum, through the flooring, into the ceiling below, and emptied through the smoke detector. The upstairs hallway was also flooded, and the water had seeped under the walls to the two bedrooms on either side. As a result, we had to suck out via steam cleaner 6-8 gallons of water out of our carpets (thanks Lindy), cut and pull up our brand new carpet (just installed with brand new padding 7 months ago), rip out all the wet padding and throw it away, rent two big industrial sized fans to blow the carpets dry, rip out the linoleum in the laundry room, and drill big holes into the laundry room floor to tape a shop vac in there to blow the ceiling dry.

I have to insert here that it could have been so much worse. The downstairs hard wood didn't get warped because we got home in time to mop it up. The carpet all dried in a matter of 2 days, and Brian has already replaced all the padding he had to rip up. The bad news is we don't know what's wrong with the washer and we'll probably have to replace it to be on the safe side. We laid the carpets back down over the new padding, and we'll deal with having them stretched and put back in when we get back from our big trip (starting this week, yayyyy!!!)

To make things more annoying though, our air conditioner decided to quit working the night before the washer fiasco. Luckily, Brian's awesome cousin ordered the part we needed and came and installed it for us the next week before it got hot again. The bad news is that he also discovered some of the wires had gotten fused together and started a fire in the wall in the garage. We still don't know why our house didn't burn down, other than the fact Heavenly Father is reeeeallllyyyyyyyy watching out for us it seems. We are so blessed that through all of these trials, we've actually not had anything too serious happen to us.

As previously mentioned, Mother's Day we had a big family dinner we attended. That week at church we also got a new Beehive join our class! I taught about the prophets Mother's Day weekend and about Patriarchal Blessings this week since we'll be gone the rest of the month! My Aunt Mary and Uncle Joe are visiting from Florida and cousin, Kimmy, from DC for Maddie's 4th birthday, so Brian and I went to Provo for dinner yesterday and got to see everyone and hang out. I'm so glad we decided to plan our tropical vacation this fall with a trip to Florida to see all my family!

Kimmy will be headed back to DC this week, so we'll get to see her a few times while we're home visiting my parents and I am so excited!! This week before we go will be super busy trying to get the house clean and laundry done (I can't leave knowing I'll come back to a dirty house), packing, and making sure everything church related is taken care of before we head out! We have a mother-daughter luau planned for Mutual this week that will be a blast, I'm happy I'm not missing it while I'm gone. When we head out, we're headed to Vegas to see Kevin & Amanda and the kids and then flying out of Vegas. If I haven't mentioned this before, flying out of Las Vegas is sooooo much cheaper (and it's a win-win because we get to see family!). 

Now before I wrap this up, I have to brag about my incredible husband for a minute. I think I wrote before about how he's taking a full load of summer classes that span the entire summer, but he's also still working and had applied to a lot of summer finance internships. I admit we fell a little behind the curve when he started looking at internships because most of them had deadline dates from before our wedding, and we definitely weren't on the lookout for them then. However, Brian found a great internship with Northrop Grumman's finance department in Salt Lake City. After many phone interviews and finally an in-person interview, he got an offer last week to join their summer internship program! Not only does it conveniently start after our vacation, but it pays really well, especially for a summer internship! I am so so proud of all the handwork he's put in and his dedication to getting school finished up in the next year, while prepping his resume for grad school ;). I'm one lucky wife!

I'll have many more posts when we get back with all our adventures, so I'll wrap this up now! Happy beginning of summer, everyone! :)

Now we just need the weather to warm back up...

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New Year's Day & A Private Flight!

2016 started off with some physical fitness, aka snowboarding for my out of shape self. Brian and I finally made it up to Powder Mountain to get our season night passes and Randy and Sabra came with us for the night. It was my first time back on a board since partially tearing my MCL last season, and my first time with my new board. Let's just say I was on my butt a lot more than I was boarding.

I've always been pretty active, ever since I was a kid. Basketball and track kind of keep you running 24/7 so I've never had much of a problem tackling any sport I was offered.

But then I got old, apparently. About midway through summer last year (probably when Brian and I got engaged) I let my workout routine lapse and never really got back into it. After months of virtually no exercise and a weak knee, I could barely make it halfway down a slope before I'd have to land on my butt to rest my knee before it gave out on me and sent me hurling down the mountain face first. I guess this is my subtle hint that I need to start working out more again, so that's about to happen. *please note, this is not a New Year's resolution that I'll stick to for a week, this is one of those slap in the face moments when you realize your body doesn't rebound from an injury like it did when you were 17 and now you have to work for it. Depressing.*

Despite the delay, Brian was very patient with me, Sabra did awesome for her first time snowboarding, and a good time was had by all. 

The next day, January 2, Brian and I got the special privilege of flying with our friend Tyler Rigby. Tyler is a flight instructor/cargo flyer trainee who took us up in a private plane. He taught us how to turn, in the air and on the ground, what all the gauges and such were, and he even let me take off! I was surprised at how easy the actual take off part is, but then again he did all the hard setup stuff for me :) It was super exciting!

Unfortunately, that's all the news I have for you right now. Brian and I have gotten to the point where we think it's cool to spend our weekends running around trying to accomplish stuff like adults. It feels  good to be accomplished! But that leaves little time for exciting things to write about in my blog. Oh well, 2016 is starting great!

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