Monthly Archives: July 2009

Jeana’s Birthday

Posted on July 9, 2009 by Scott| 1 Comment

June is a popular time for birthdays in our family. Jeana’s birthday was not long after mine and we got to have a lot of fun on her birthday. Audrey is turning into a big sister who loves to hold, carry, and take care of her brother.

Our friend Jamie (bless her) offered to let our kids hang out at her house the morning of Jeana’s birthday so that Jeana and I could go to a climbing gym. This worked out perfectly because I got Jeana a private climbing lesson and a month’s access to the gym. She was over the moon – talk about the perfect gift at the perfect time!

We each lasted about an hour at the climbing gym before our arms were exhausted. Neither of us had been climbing in a while, so our bodies got worked.

I wanted to get Jeana a kayak for her upcoming adventure race, but after some preliminary research and consultation with our budget spreadsheet, I felt it prudent to defer that purchase to a future year.

Since Jeana hijacked the Wicked tickets and gave them to me for my birthday (see the post for my birthday), I recycled the card she made, crossed out the “Love, Jeana” at the end, and signed my name. I guess it worked out either way. In reality I purchased the tickets, then we agreed they would apply to each birthday.

Jeana went to lunch with a couple of her lady friends while I took the kids next door to a birthday party. The party was for a 3 year old girl, but to accommodate the neighborhood boys, the theme was “Princesses and Pirates.” Each of the kids came home with a bag of booty, and Simon’s included an eye patch. My dad just had eye surgery and I thought it may be nice to send him the patch to help during his recovery.

Jeana was gone for a while with her friends, and after lunch she stopped at home to pick up a present and hurried off to a baby shower. Happy birthday, honey.

When Jeana finally got home, it was time for dinner. Of course, I had planned something very special, and slaved for hours in the kitchen – only to be disappointed when she came home from hours of snacking at a baby shower. I’m kidding. I had actually planned something light for dinner because I know how some women can really demonstrate their dessert prowess at those events.

Really, the masterpiece wasn’t dinner. It was the birthday “cake.” Jeana requested a trifle for her cake this year. If you ever want to make Jeana happy, give her fruit. She loves it, and a trifle is a very fitting dessert for her. I would like gloat about how awesome I am at making trifle, but it’s really easy to make so I better not brag. Besides, that doesn’t matter. All that matters was that I got to eat lots of it – I mean, that Jeana got to have a fun day enjoying time with family, friends, and rock wall.

Happy Birthday Jeana!

→ 1 Comment

Posted in Audrey, Birthday, Jeana, Kate, Scott, Simon

Simon at 5 months

Posted on July 9, 2009 by Scott| 3 Comments

Simon is five months old. Yikes! Time goes by fast and he has some new tricks. He likes to puke and roll over – the combination of those things does not constitute a trick. He just pukes a lot and rolls a lot. However, there have been a few times when he’s been playing around, including occasional rolling, which ended up in a cry. When I fled to the scene, I found him covered in white vomit all over his face.

He knows when it’s time to get out of his car seat lately because he thrusts his hips forward and arches his back. Simon has a squeaky giraffe toy which he holds well in his hands and sticks in his mouth.

Obviously, you can see in the picture above the trick I’m most proud of. I once saw a picture of Jeana’s dad doing this same thing with one of Jeana’s oldest siblings (not to mention her brothers doing it with their kids). One day, Simon just locked his knees while I was holding him, so I capitalized on situation. Those that have been around Simon know that he’ll smile at almost anyone. He gets a big old grin when I’ve got him balanced up on my hand. You know, you’ve got to start out early training the kids for slacklining.

Here are some of the nicknames which Simon has been labeled with lately:

Simey
Simey Sime
Mr. Mister
Simers
Sweet boy

For a short time Simon got to partake of rice cereal instead of just milk. Talk about a fun transition in diaper content and odors! Now, he’s starting in on the baby oatmeal. At this rate, we’ll be eating at Rudy’s for Thanksgiving. Mmmmm…brisket.

→ 3 Comments

Posted in Simon

My Birthday

Posted on July 9, 2009 by Scott| 1 Comment

I had a birthday this year. I’m sure that’s a surprise to most people. What’s more birthday than doing what you want to on your big day! I decided to play the piano with a Firehouse Subs hat. Ok, I didn’t chose the hat part myself. It was forced on me by silly little girls.

Simers helped me blow out the candles on my carrot cake. By the way, if you haven’t had Jeana’s carrot cake, you really need to make a request. Chances are that I’d get some too.

We haven’t been slacklining in a while, so after dinner we headed to the park. You can tell by the look in Kate’s eyes that she felt safe on the slackline. If anyone is the queen of funny faces, Kate is.

Audrey is really into making her own books and journals. For my birthday she folded up a piece of paper, wrote “Scott” on the front, and decorated it with flowers, a cloud, and the sun. I think this was the most exciting present to her. I liked it a lot. However, I liked the big box of gold fish crackers more which the kids gave me.

Jeana got me tickets to see Wicked in August. Actually, I got them for her birthday (which is 12 days after mine) but she hijacked the gift. Jeana also got me a new cyclometer for my bike since mine broke recently (and since she ran over hers – they’re identical models so we can share it). The funny part is that I took the girls shopping for the exact same cyclometer for Jeana’s birthday. I’m glad I didn’t buy it for her now. A whole month has passed since my birthday and I haven’t installed the new cyclometer yet. However, Jeana has put it to good use on her bike. My turn will come this weekend.

Jeana and I have recently become fans of pandora.com. I discovered a really cool song by Jason Mraz that I wanted, and the iTunes gift card from Jeana was quickly used to purchase the new song!

Thanks everyone for an awesome birthday!

→ 1 Comment

Posted in Audrey, Birthday, Jeana, Kate, Scott, Simon, Slackline

Round Rock Roadrunner 2009

Posted on July 5, 2009 by Scott| 3 Comments

Last month I ran the Round Rock Roadrunner 10k again. I decided to train for it this year so that I wouldn’t hate running at the end of the race. I was mostly trying to prepare mentally for the last mile and a half of the mulch trail which killed me last year.

Jeana was planning to show up with the kids to cheer me on part way through the race so that she didn’t have to get them all up so early. There was a tentative hope that she’d be there at the mile 4 post but when I searched the small crowd of people cheering there, I didn’t see any Baldwins. Oh well, I just figured I was running so fast that they weren’t able to arrive in time to see me at that point of the race.

Then…the mulch trail. I went into it feeling strong. This year I was all alone on the trail so I had noone to commiserate with. Honestly, I feel like the race organizers intentionally place the mile 5 and 6 posts incorrectly to mess with your mind. Up until mile 5 I thought I was doing so well, but since the mile marker was probably incorrect, I was a little deflated.

Finally, I came to the end of the trail, crossed the road, saw my family cheering by the large Chic-fil-A blow-up cow, and passed the mile 6 marker. All that was left was one lap of the track. I had told myself earlier that I wanted to sprint the last 400 meters this year. Well, that was a lame idea. By the time I arrived at the track, I just wanted the race to be over again.

I crossed the finish line without that teenage contender I had last year (thankfully). I was excited to see the results posted not long after the finish.

Time: 47:11
Overall Place: 23 (out of 237)
Class Position: 4 (out of 41)
Pace: 7:37/mile

4th! Fourth place in my age and gender! I’m happy. And, my pace was 11 seconds faster than last year. This time I didn’t swear off running at the finish line. I feel much better.

Of course, we had Audrey and Kate run the fun run after the 10k race. Audrey had to run 2 laps this year now that she’s six years old. When her group lined up at the start line, she was the smallest (and most likely the youngest since her 6th birthday was just a couple weeks earlier) and cutest.

We stuck around for the drawings at the end – not many people stayed. Kate won a huge gift basket prize from the Chic-fil-A cow and she felt special. She and Audrey each got toy cows with the phrase, “EAT MOR CHIKIN” attached. That became a common play theme around the house for the next week.