October Random Happenings

 I love the crisp, fall air and the anticipation of all the holidays.  We started off October with General Conference.  I always say it, but I sure do love General Conference.  This year, we continued our tradition of doing our "word=treat" game, bingo, and coloring packets.  Ellie was loving the candy, but had a hard time remembering to only eat the candy when the speaker said the word.  Oh well, maybe she'll understand it in the next 6 months.

Ellie loves candy.  She kept peaking up to make sure there was still some left.

The next weekend we were able to go to the Utah State vs. Wyoming football game in Logan. Our good friends, Kaydee and Tyler Emmett came from Enterprise to go with us and brought their friend Annie too. They were able to come to our house on Friday and on Saturday we went to the game in Logan. We met Shane in Logan and went to lunch and did some shopping. Kaydee and Tyler left their two kids at home and our girls came to Logan and then rode back with Jill.  She watched them and put them to bed for us. (Jill was already in Logan for Spencer's football so it worked out great!) The game was great, but Wyoming kind of forgot to play, chalk one up for the Aggies. After the game we grabbed some dinner at Texas Roadhouse and then headed back to Ogden. We had a fun night and were so glad we got to spend time with our fun friends!

Shane, Annie, Kaydee, Mia, and Tyler at good 'ol Cafe Rio.

Later in October we had more visitors.  My mom and my sister, Megan and kids, came down for my oldest sister, Nikki Sue's birthday.  We went to Park City for the day, shopped, and ate at Kneaders.  It was lots of fun to celebrate. 

Grandma Baldwin and Ellie

Sydney, Jill, Me, Ellie, McKenna, Grandma Baldwin, Nikki Sue, Megan, Mia at Kneaders...yum.

Eating out again!  Hugh, Candace, Grandma Baldwin, Michael, Jill, Spence, Me, Megan

After all the fun, Mia started to get a fever and a cough.  Later the night, she got croup...the worst she has ever had it before.  I was worried about her all night and we took her to the doctor the next morning.  Her oxygen was pretty low and she was miserable.  We had to do some breathing treatments and some antibiotics and eventually she started to feel better.  It is never fun to be sick...poor girl!

Poor sweet girl.  She was plain miserable.

Ellie was able to escape the sickness this time around, but she was very curious about what Mia was doing with the breathing treatment machine. 

Ellie loves books!  They keep her occupied, especially when her partner was not feeling good.

These girls love to play pretend.  They wore these mask for almost an entire day!  Each time Mia would have to do a breathing treatment, Ellie would run and grab this mask. :)

For a whole year, we had been trying to plan a trip with our good friends, Jake and Gretchen Walker.  We finally made a plan for an October weekend in Jackson Hole, Wyoming.  We booked a hotel, drove to Idaho, and dropped our kids off at Grandma and Grandpa Baldwin's.  This was the first time we had left the girls for overnight and we were a little worried, but we knew they were in the best of hands.  Jake and Gretchen drove down from Lovell, dropped their kids off at her parents in Shelley and we all met up to go to Jackson.  It was so fun to finally get to spend some time with our best friends!  After checking into our hotel, we headed for the hot tub and played cards until late into the night.  On Saturday, we drove around Jackson, walked around all the shops, and ate some great food.  We are so lucky to be able to have great friends like them!  In high school, Jake and Spence were best friends and in college Gretchen was pretty much my sister, so when we ended up marrying these boys from Lovell, we were so excited.  While we were at BYU-Idaho, we lived next door to each other and now we miss it so much!  There are lots of days when I wish we lived closer...maybe someday.  As for now, we have decided that we are going to make a annual trip with each other.

Our one and only picture of our trip to Jackson.
Spence, Me, Gretchen, Jake

Cheeseballs and Princesses

 One day as I walked into the kitchen, I discovered somehow Ellie had pulled the stool in front of our pantry and gotten down the cheeseballs.  This girl loves cheeseballs.  She was so excited but couldn't get the lid off.  As soon as I got it off for her, she dove right into them! Yum!

Mia was quick to jump in too!

 Most days after the girls get ready adn I do their hair, within 30 minutes they both look like this...in dresses (thanks to Mia), hair undone, and dancing in the living room.  They have the life

Mia as Repunzel and Ellie as Aurora. 
This is according to Mia. :)

These girls have lots of fun together and hopefully they will continue to be best friends!:)

Hugh and Candace's Idaho Reception

After getting home late on Thursday after the wedding/Utah reception, we got a quick nights sleep and headed to Idaho the next (early) morning.  The Idaho reception was held in my parent's backyard.  It looked fabulous. Of course, with my mom around we wouldn't expect anything less. :)  We arrived in Idaho just in time to help in the effort of putting up tents, tables, and decorating.  Spence is always an amazing help and it quickly all came together.

 My mom always makes everything so nice.  She didn't disappoint and planned a buffet for refreshments.  There were so many yummy food!  A few of my favorites were: almond balls, banana cookies, fruit pizzas, chicken sandwiches, cinnamon rolls, chocolate chip cookies, brownies.  Yes, there was plenty to choose from!  My mom had great help in the kitchen from some neighborhood friends and it made it easy for my mom not to have to worry about the food.

All the yummy food in the buffet...I ate a little too much that night.  My belt was a little tighter by the time the night was over. :)

More food!

 Lots of people came to the reception.  It is always fun to see old neighbors, ward members, and people that haven't been seen in a long time.  The weather could not have gotten any better.  In fact, in preparation for the reception, all of my sisters tried their "darnedest" to convince my mom that she needed to book a reception center.  We just knew it was going to be freezing cold and we have to go inside the house.  But my mom said it would fine and we learned our lesson...our mom is always smarter than we are and it really was a perfect night.

We were assigned to make the pom poms to hang from the tent.  It looked great with the lights!

I love the smiles on Hugh and Candace's face.  They are so happy!

Gift center.  Spence had to put this beast together but he did a good job...and he even wrapped the lights around it.  Where did this guy come from? :)

Handsome Hughie and my mom.  She is amazing!





As Hugh and Candace left, the kids lined the walkway with sparklers.  So cute!

Off on their surprise honeymoon!

It was an eventful weekend.  We were exhausted by the time it was over but it sure was lots of fun and memorable.  I love weddings.

Hugh and Candace's Wedding/Utah Reception

On September 24th, we were SO excited to attend the wedding of my brother, Hugh, and his beautiful bride, Candace.  We had anxiously awaited this marriage for 4 years:) and good 'ol Hugh came through for us.  They are the cutest couple together.  Candace is absouletly gorgeous and so creative, smart, and kind.  I could go on and on about her...and my brother isn't too bad himself. Needless to say, we sure were excited when this big day came around.  We joined them at the Salt Lake temple for their wedding.  The older grandkids, Jaden, Conner, Sophia, and Kenadee were in charge of kids at the temple.  As I looked back at these 4 kids in charge of about 15 little kids it kinda made me giggle and hoped they all survived.  The ceremony was awesome and it was  so great to see all my family in the temple.  The temple is a marvelous place and makes me realize how important the gospel is in our lives.  After the ceremony, we learned the kids did great and were excited to see the newly married couple.

"Just Married" couple walking out of the temple doors.  Her dress was so beautiful!  She really could be in bride magazine...or any magazine. :)

Wahoo!  They finally did it! 

Baldwin and Draper Family and friends at the temple.

Chase, Mia, Emma, and Sydney.  They ran all around the temple grounds holding hands and catching each other if they fell down.  Oh the joy of cousins!

 The kids had lots of time to run around (I was slightly scared about the temple workers having to come out and tell us to please control our kids :)) and have fun.  Mia loved the nice weather and all her cousins for sure!

Nikki Sue, Jill, Me, Ashley, Marie
Nicholas, Hugh, Candace, Mom, Dad, Nathan
We were missing Megan who had to run and grab her kids from her sister-in-laws.

After the temple we headed to an amazing luncheon at Texas Roadhouse.  It was delicious food and great company.  Candace's family is so kind and everyone of them is just as gorgeous as she is!  We felt so comfortable around all of them and it was fun to be with them for the special day.

After the luncheon, we made our way to the reception.  The reception was held at a beautiful greenhouse.  It looked fabulous.  It could have come out of a magazine too!  Candace has such an amazing style (and so does her mom!). Her colors were brown, cream, green, and burnt orange.  My sisters had found dresses for the girls...cream layered ones, which were adorable.  They didn't have sizes for the two smallest, Ellie and Olivia, so we found some brown and cream dresses for them online.  Marie had a green and brown necklace made for all the little girls and found cute brown ties for all the boys. My sister-in-law, Ashley, made flower headbands for all the girls.

Baldwin Family
minus Brenna, Jackson (on a mission in Mexico), and Damien

All 9 kids plus Mom and Dad



All 9 of us plus our better halves, besides Damien (and that is only because he wasn't in the picture! Ha...Ha..)



We had lots of waiting time during pictures, but the kids were pretty patient.  All the girls looked so pretty in their matching dresses!

McKenna, Addison, Mia, and Eden

Sophia, Sydney, Mia, Ellie and Grandpa Baldwin
Grandpa is always the best entertainer.  He had kids by him on this swing pretty much as long as he was on it.  Mia and Ellie sure love their Grandpa!

After taking pictures, the reception started with lots of people coming to greet Hugh and Candace.  The greenhouse was an open area, so there was an outside area where the kids could play.  We saw lots of family members and had a fun night eating lots of yummy refreshments!:)

Soon after the line dwindled down, the music started.  For everyone who knows the Baldwin family, they know we aren't the most talented or brave dancers, but I must admit we did break out some moves.  Right before the dance started, Mia was running around outside and tripped and hit her head on the cement...hard!  She was plain exhausted from the day, but this did her in.  She held in for a few dances but she was hurting pretty bad.  Ellie fell asleep right before and could not be awoken by any sound. So the McArthur crew was alittle ill represented, but I tried to hold my own! :) All of the grandkids loved the dance for sure!

First dance for Hugh and Candace.  Notice the kids in the background...hilarious!

Grandma and Grandpa Baldwin having a little dance of their own :)





We are so grateful to have Candace in our "offical" family.  Hugh did great when he married her!

Jimmermania

Jimmer.  Oh Jimmer. I am the first to admit that I was part of Jimmermania and BYU last season.  Although, I have to just say, I was a fan of Jimmer from the beginning.  My dad told me about him when he was only a sophmore and I had liked him ever since.  In prefence to this post, Spence doesn't love Jimmer as much as I do.  In fact, the more I started to like Jimmer, the less Spence did.  Therefore, alot of the following teasing will be an effort just to make Spence smile a little bit more about my love for Jimmer. 

One weekend in September, our niece Kenadee was coming to stay with us for the weekend while her parents were away. We found out on Friday that Dick's Sporting Goods in Layton was having their grand opening the next day and as a special guest, Jimmer would be there. My heart dropped and started to beat a little faster.:) We just had to go! Luckily, Kenadee was always a huge Jimmer fan as was my other niece, Sophia. After a solid "no" from Spence, the girls decided that we must try to see him. I acutally thought it was just a hoax for the store to get people to their opening and really thought that maybe we would see a cardboard cutout of him or something. And if he was really there, I was just sure the line would be crazy to see him. But to satisfy our curiousity and my lifelong goal:), we headed out at 8:00 the next morning.

Standing in line to see Jimmer.  We were all decked in our Jimmer gear.

We arrived to meet a long line.  We got in line and tried to contain our excitement.  To our horror/ha...ha.., the policeman came up with about 5 people behind us and tied off the caution tape.  They were not allowing anyone else in line.  Jimmer would only be there for 2 hours and they had to allow only enough time for people in line to see him.  The policeman told us that as long as we reached the store front with 30 minutes remaining we would get to see Jimmer.  Mia and Ellie were excited, but not sure why.  They just thought it was fun to be entertained by Kenadee and Sophia.  The girls went into the store and came back running and screaming that "Jimmer REALLY IS HERE! "  Again, my heart quickened.:)  Then a little while later, Jimmer's dad came out and started talking to people in line.  I couldn't believe that he was really there!  After waiting for about an hour, we made it to the store front.  After about another 15 minutes we were just around the corner from him.

Holy Criminey! 

 In all of my excitement of the morning, I didn't realize my camera was about dead!  I thought it would be fine so we could get a couple of pictures.  But with one person in front of us, it DIED!  Luckily, I had my I-pod and the nice picture lady was patient with me.  As we were the next people to see Jimmer, a man told us to have all of our things ready for him to sign and before we knew it, we were walking to meet him.  Oh boy!

Sophia was smart enough to bring her shirt instead of wear it.  He signed hers first. Then he signed Kenadee's.

Then it was on to Mia.  She was a little nervous about what he was doing to her back, but she just giggled.

After he signed Mia's shirt, he asked her "Does that tickle?"  Oh Jimmer!

Then it was on to Ellie's shirt.  She was super nervous, but Jimmer was quick and patted her back when he was done.

Our best picture with Jimmer. 

I being the 26 year old married girl that I am, refrained from having Jimmer sign my shirt, arm, leg, or anything.  But I just had to post this picture.  You kind of can't see it, but I have my hand on Jimmer's back-for about one whole second.:)  I must admit that he smelled really good, too! :) He..He..
I really do love Spence though!

All in all, we only really saw Jimmer for about 30 hurried seconds.  But it was a fun experience, especially to be able to do with my girls, Kenadee and Sophia.  We had lots of laughs along the way and we will remember it for a long time!

Idaho State Fair

The Idaho State fair has always been a love of mine.  I love the smell, the heat, the food, and the people.  The fair is always on Labor Day weekend and goes through the following week.  Since Ellie was born the previous year and was only 4 days old when the fair started we had to miss the fair that year.  So for the next year, I committed Spence that we would go Labor Day weekend for the opening of the fair.  We had planned to go, but when we heard news of Grandma McArthur's passing, we, of course, knew where we should be.  But Spence was kind enough to let me and girls go the following week to spend a couple days in Idaho and at the fair. 

We were able to meet Ashley, McKoy, Carter, Addison, and Eden there also.  Grandma and Grandpa Baldwin were huge helpers with the kids, as always.  We were sure glad we had our strollers to carry all of our stuff. We were later joined by Megan, Madeline, McKenna, Mallory, and Jace.  We also got to hang out with Nathan, Meggan, Ledger, and Phoenix.

Our first priority was the Indian relay races.  They are fabulous!  I seriously get chills with each race. They are one of the my favorite things about the fair.  Ellie was a little concerned with all the yelling and screaming, as was Mia, but they got used to it by the end.  After the races, we got to walk around the fair, eat food, and see the exhibits and animals. 

Mia, our cute pioneer girl.

The church has a nice booth and set up outside were these fun pioneer things.  I honestly can't imagine being a pioneer, but so grateful to my ancestors that were.:) 

McKoy, McKenna, Carter (in the back), Mia, and Jace all in the covered wagon.

Ledger was taking care of the cow.  On lookers, Mia, Eden, and Addison.



Ellie thought the pigs were hilarious!  She loved to laugh as they snorted and then Mia would intimate it.  Needless to say, I thought it was pretty funny! :)

 They even got to milk a pretend cow!  After they, of course, got some milk to try!  Yum!
After our busy day at the fair, we got to come home and stay at Grandma and Grandpa Baldwin's house.  Mia was so excited to have a sleepover with cousin Addison.  Addison's mom and I slept in these two beds growing up.  Now our little girls are sleeping in those beds.  Funny how fast time goes by. :)

We are so glad we were able to go to the fair this year!  It was alot of fun!  Like every year, we ate too much food, saw lots of people, some which who were "super interesting", and ate more food.  There isn't anyting quite like the Idaho State fair.