The Best Month of the Year

Happy March to everyone!  I am always sad to see February end.  As many of you friends and family know, my birthday is in February and we don't just celebrate it one day but the whole month is declared as "My Birthday MONTH" :)  Okay, it is more of a joke than anything but I still uphold it as my birth-month.  Well, as all Februarys are great this one was no exception.  Here are a few of our highlights from the Best Month of the Year....

We have to start off with our number one highlight, Miss Abigail.  She is growing and developing so fast.  It amazes me how fast she is learning.  For example, at the end of January I was busily doing something while she was coming down the stairs.  It hit me what she was saying.  She counted to 10 in perfect order!  I knew that she loved counting and loved numbers but I had never realized what she could do by herself.  She is growing up so fast.

She is my little helper.  This month she started helping me bake and cook.  Whenever she finds me cooking in the kitchen she starts saying: "baby help".  She then pushes over a chair and helps me stir and pour.

 We took Abigail bowling and she loved it!  She loved pushing the ball on the count of 3.  She enjoyed cheering everyone else on.  (She also loved putting her face on the ball.....gross....This is good for me right, having a toddler is helping me not be such a germaphobe, right?:)

 

 The Big Birthday Bash!  Thank you to all who made my birthday so great!  I had a awesome day.

 

Valentine's Day!  I love holidays.  Nothing beats a nice romantic candle lit dinner with your toddler to chaperone you and your hubby! (For those of you who can't tell what Abigail is saying here: "Eye, Love, You"  This is how she has said I love you for a while.  It is so cute!)

 

Here is Abigail making valentines.  She loves art projects.

 

Valentine's Day Party!  We threw a Valentine's Day party for Barton's Dental Buddies and there wives.  We ate yummy food and played the Newly-Wed Game (won by the Skanchys)!  It was so much fun.  Thanks to everyone who was able to come!

 

 Love these ladies!

Tooth-Prom!  Instead of going to the overpriced Dental School Dance we went to dinner and played games with fellow Dental School friends.  It was so much fun.  I am going to miss all of these guys so much!

 (Oops, took this pic at dinner after Ben and Amanda had already left)

Besides the above we were also blessed this month with an adorable new niece Baby Claire.  We have also been busy with preparing for the big move.

Happy March to everyone!  It looks like March will be Abigial's Birthday Month as she has been talking about her birthday everyday since mine. 

It's Beginning to Look a Lot Like...

...Utah!  We had a great blizzard over the weekend.  It felt like a little piece of home.  Kentucky doesn't get too much snow.  The average has been just a couple of snow falls per winter while we have been here.  And it usually doesn't stick.  So it was fun to have snow for a few days.

Not only did we have snow over the weekend, we had some visitors!  We love the Newsomes!  Our good friends who use to live next door came and stayed for a few days.  It was fabulous!

Kat and I went to the wedding of a sister in the ward we use to visit teach together.  When we got home everyone was outside working on some snowmen:

 The guys with their finished snow-couple

 Us ladies needed to take a picture in front of the snow-couple too, even though I can't say we did more than talk while the men were hard at work :)

 Abigail is always begging to go outside and blow bubbles.  Due to it being too cold we haven't done it for a while.  As expected, blizzard or not Abigail loves her bubbles.

 It was so good to see the Newsomes!  Abigail adores Aimee.  I kept catching them holding hands.  It was so sweet.  This is them holding hands while Aimee was finishing her breakfast.

Drum Roll Please...

Wisconsin!?!?!?!

 

We are so excited!  It still isn't reality yet.  In fact, it feels like we just got to Lexington.  Overall I am so, incredibly excited for this opportunity!  When we were going through the application process I kept telling Barton how fun it would be to move to somewhere new.  That it would be so fun pack our little family up and go on an adventure one more time before settling down.  Well boy howdy, adventure here we come! 

As Abigail and I were driving to campus to meet Barton it hit me hard how sad I would be to leave.  I am going to miss our friends so much.  I am going to miss weekends with our nieces and nephews.  I am going to miss Mormon Row and all of our dear neighbors.  I am going to miss the Bluegrass State and all the luscious scenery.  I am going to miss our family ward and all the amazing people we have gotten to interact with.  I am going to miss our cousins in Cincinnati and in Indiana.  I am even going to miss the chirping of cicadas on a hot summer night. 

But this is what I am excited for.  I am excited that my sweet husband gets do follow his dreams.  Nothing makes me happier than him.  I would follow him to the other side of the world. 

Now that you have listened to me spill out my heart, here are the facts.  The program starts at the beginning of July but orientation is in mid June.  Barton graduates early May so that will give us plenty of time to get moved.  

We have no insights of Wisconsin.  So please, if you have any helpful advice we are all ears!  Until then, I am going to start doing some research of our future home!  And all of you can start researching out plane tickets to Wisconsin.  (Whatever you do, resist the urge to look up the above mentioned Cicada bugs.  You won't sleep sleep tonight if you do.  Trust me, I have made that mistake :)

 At the Arboretum, getting ready to find out the good news together!

Where in the United States....

Will we be for the next 2 years?!?

Our applications are in:

All the interviews are done:

We find out tomorrow, and we are so excited! Barton is hoping to do a residency in Pediatric Dentistry. It has been such an intense process of applications and interviews that we can’t believe the big day has arrived! We can’t wait to see where we will spend our next two years!

Barton has interviewed in the following states: Kentucky, Ohio, Wisconsin, Florida x2, Connecticut, South Carolina, Missouri, Pennsylvania, Tennessee, and Texas.

With Barton interviewing in so many different places we had the opportunity to tag along and see lots of family and friends. Thank you to everyone for your help with lodging, meals, transportation and fun!

We love the Newsomes! We stopped and saw them on our way to Memphis.

 We love Sloan time! We stayed with Bran and Diedre for Barton’s Tennessee interview. We even got to celebrate Bennett’s 1st Birthday!

 A special shout out to Walton, Mike and Madison! I hate being alone and due to Barton being out of town so much we stayed with them a couple of times. Thanks guys!

Thank you also to Sam and Cam for help in Texas, Josh and Brooks for help with the Pennsylvania interview and Jennilyn and Adam Reynolds for your help with the Kansas City interview. And the Meader family for their help in Cincinnati. (And yes, I should have sent a camera with Barton :)

The Holidays

Happy January everyone!  I have to say that now seeing that February is right around the corner.  I hope that all of you had a great Christmas and a great start to the new year.  I am a little pokey on this post but I wanted to post a few pictures from Christmas.  Christmas is my favorite time of the year.  I love focusing on Christ and family.  We were fortunate to get to go home to Utah where all of my family got to be together.  It was so much fun.  Check out a few of our highlights:

Our Pre-Christmas Skype party with Grandma Sloan.  Grandma spoiled Abigail!  Abigail loves her princess castle and talks lots about Snow White.  

I love these girls!  These are some of the girls that I grew up with.  I was so good to get together and catch up. 

The Sunday before Christmas Rebecca and Jeremy blessed Eliza in Rigby, Idaho.  We had the opportunity to go up to Idaho for it and stayed the night with the Oswald family. It was a lot of fun and I am so glad that we could be there for  Eliza!  

 

On our way up to Idaho we stopped at the Idaho Falls Temple Visitor Center.  I love this picture

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Christmas Eve is my absolute favorite part of the holiday season and my favorite night of the year!  We had our traditional Christmas Eve meal and program:

Abigail was spoiled Christmas morning.  For weeks anytime Santa was mentioned she would instantly reply:"baby doll".  So funny because we never taught her anything about Santa.  It is a good thing that she was such a good girl :)

Christmas afternoon Daddy, Abigail and I played in the snow.  Abigail LOVED it!  We finally had to take her in because her shoes and socks had soaked through.  She was so sad, she just wanted to keep playing.

                Here are the final results of our gingerbread contest:

Check out the castle that Adam and I made.  I asked him if I could be on his team thinking that he would need help to get it to stay together.  Boy was I wrong.  That little boy is such an architect.  He taught me a lot about where we needed what support.  It was so much fun!

I love these ladies so much!  We snuck out for a girl's date.

Temple square was beautiful!  I always love going and seeing the lights.  You should have seen our parade of strollers!

 

Movie Stars!  My ever talented dad is working on a documentary of the Hole in the Rock Pioneers.  This is us joining in on the fun! 

Last but not least, what are the holidays without a Dixon party!