Our Holidays!

Happy Holidays!  We hope that you all had a fabulous Christmas Season!  We sure did!  It is definitely the best time  of the year.  I love the family, food, and focusing on Christ.  It also makes it so much more fun to have a 2 year old who believes so much in the magic of it all.

This year we were blessed to spend Christmas with Mama Sloan.  It was more than marvelous.  We had so much fun!

Abigail and I flew out on Tuesday, the 17th.  I was grateful to arrive in Seattle.  Between the hustle and bustle to get things ready to leave, mixed with a little pneumonia we were so excited to get to Mom's house and relax.  Abigail is such a good girl and did amazing on the airplane ride as always.  She was so excited to go see her Grandma Sloan and was in heaven when we got there.  She loved Grandma's attention and all the toys at Grandma's house.

Barton arrived on Friday, the 20th.  We were so excited to have Daddy back.  on Saturday we put up the Christmas Tree.  My favorite part was that Abigail hung 80% of the ornaments so you can guess where they were.  Yep, all in a row at the bottom of the tree.  It looked beautiful!

Christmas Eve was wonderful.  We did some Christmas baking.  We had to make Santa cookies.  Mama Sloan made the traditional noodles with the assistance of Barton and Abigail.  After that we made a gingerbread castle, complete with a princess and a prince.  After that we focused on Christ by watching Joy to the World.  Abigail then made up a plate of treats for Santa and his reindeer.  She was so excited!

  Abigail has never eaten so much sugar in her entire life as she did while decorating the castle:

Christmas Eve Jammies:

Christmas morning was fabulous.  Abigail was so excited that Santa came.  Barton and I were probably even more excited then she was to watch her.  All she asked for was "Princess Hair Stuff".  She must have been a good girl because Santa brought her "princess hair stuff", glass slippers, and a princess dress.  She loved it all.  In the end she was spoiled rotten, we all were.  Abigail had so much fun playing all day long with her new toys.  Her very favorite is her new puppy from Grandma Sloan.  She absolutely loves it and treats it like a real doggy.

(I LOVE this guy..)

The rest of Christmas was spent playing games and skyping with family.  it was wonderful.

The rest of our vacation in Seattle was spent site seeing.  It is always so much fun to go to a new place and explore.  We rode the DUCKS:

We went to the top of the Space Needle:

We went to the music museum that is in the shape of a broken guitar:

We went to the aquarium:

We went on a cruise on the Puget Sound:

Don't be mistaken, we spent most of our time inside sipping Hot Chocolate.

We went to the Science Museum:

My favorite part: The Butterfly House.  Even though we couldn't get a single butterfly to land on us.

Abigail's favorite part: the Snowflake Cutting Station.  What can I say, she is easy to please :)

Barton's favorite part: The IMAX theatre.  What can I say, he is not easy to please :)

As you can see we thoroughly enjoyed ourselves.  It was really hard to leave Mama Sloan.  She is such a delight to be with!

But alas, we had to come back to the bitter winds of Wisconsin :)  We are grown ups now, this is our first year of not having a school break for Christmas.  So back we came.  At least we had New Years to come back to celebrate before getting back to our normal routine!


New Years Eve we spent with our good friends, the Lofgrans.  We had so much fun!  We played so many games, 8 in total.  Barton was in heaven!

Abigail was in heaven playing with her good friend Jacob!

Abigail woke up a little before midnight so she helped us ring in the New Year!

It was so nice to have Barton home on New Years Day.  It snowed a lot so we stayed inside and had lots of fun hanging out.  While staying warm inside we did Barton's puzzle that he got for Christmas.

Happy 2014.  We hope that this year is as great as 2013 was!  

Our November

Happy Holidays to all of you fabulous people!  This is such a great time of the year.  Once Halloween comes, time seems to fly by even faster.  We had a great time celebrating Thanksgiving.  Sometimes I wish that we could just pause time and enjoy it for a little longer.  Here is a review of our November and of our Thanksgiving.

The weekend before Thanksgiving my cute cousin/roommate came to visit.  It is always good to catch up.

We finally got to meet cute Baby Brooklyn:

The Children's Museum:

We went to a popular Milwaukee Restaurant.The entrance is hidden and you have to know the password to enter.  If you don't know the password then you have to do something crazy; like ring-a-round the rosies or the chicken dance.  Once inside while you are eating dinner you can go on secret spy missions throughout the restaurant.  

It was fun to see how the girls interacted.  They are going to be great friends!

On Monday morning we were going to walk to the zoo.  But then we woke up to a ton of snow.  We quickly changed our plans.

We were able to celebrate Thanksgiving with some of our closest Wisconsian friends.  The best part of it was that my beautiful momma flew in that day.  It is always fun to eat yummy food and be with loved ones.

(Abs helping out with the rolls)

 We celebrated it with the Lofgrans, the McCoys, the Sister Missionaries, and a sister from our ward. 

It was wonderful to have my momma come and visit with us.  She is always a delight to be around.  While she was here she took good care of me while I came down with what we later found out to be pneumonia, she played with Abigail lots, we played tons of games, did Christmas preparations, went to the Children's Museum, checked out Christmas lights, went to the Chicago Temple, etc. It was great to have her here and we can't wait for her to come back again.  

At the Children's Museum:

The Chicago Temple:

Driving around to see the lights:

Some Fall Fun!

Happy November to everyone!  As always, time is flying by!  We loved the month of October.  It was full of friends and fun.  

Barton's Co-Resident Keta through a fabulous 20's party.  It was fun to dress up and go out.  We were so thankful for our friends Allie and Brady who watched Miss Abigail.  (I promise, some day we will grow up and actually hire a babysitter :).  

The party was full of yummy food, good conversation, great decorations, and fabulous costumes.  I loved seeing what everyone came dressed up in.  Everyone was so creative.  I must say that this was our first cocktail party. Barton's Co-Resident was so sweet and had our favorite soda on hand since we don't drink alcohol.  People can be so thoughtful of standards even if they have different ones.

 The Cedarburg Fall Festival!  Something unique about Wisconsin compared to other places we have lived are the amount of festivals!  In the summertime it seemed like there was a festival every weekend, sometimes multiple festivals.  I love it.  We haven't been to too many yet.  It rained on the day of the festival I was most excited for, the kite festival, so we didn't go.  But out of the couple festivals that we have been to this one was the best.  Sometimes it seems like events like these are just for food vendors to make money.  But this one was really a celebration of Fall.  We had fun admiring the talents of so many crafty people, we ate some yummy food, and Abigail got to paint a pumpkin to take home!

Abigail loves craft projects.  She loves to draw, paint, color, and glue.  Here are a few projects that we did this month:

Pay close attention to the bottom picture.  Abigail learned how to draw people!  This was her first family portrait.  She did it all by herself and I love it!

For FHE we made a ghost family.    

The Ward Trunk-or-Treat was a lot of fun.  We went with the movie theme "Despicable Me".  Abigail was so excited to be "Ballerina Edith".  Abigail loved finally getting to dress-up in her tutu and collecting tons of candy.

Since it is freezing here we did trick-or-treating around the church.  Everyone got together and decorated doors.  We decorated our door with the Lofgrans and the McCoys.  We did Platform 9 3/4 from Harry Potter.

 Love these ladies!

The Medical College of Wisconsin throws an amazing Halloween Party every year.  We had so many friends going so we tagged along.  It was so much fun.  A bunch of the different departments through the school handed out candy.  They also had food and activities for the kiddos.  

One of Ab's best buddies, Jacob. 

Besides the party at the Med School we also had a party at our gym.  After the party at the gym we visited Daddy's work.  I should have taken a picture.  Everyone in his clinic dressed up as someone from Despicable Me.  They all looked great!

As you can see in the following pictures, Halloween was a success.  Between the church party, trick-or-treating at our gym, and the medical college trick-or-treats, Abigail made out like a bandit.  To save my waistline, Abigail was sweet and made little sacks with some of her candy for the 5 missionaries in our ward whom we hung out with the evening of Halloween.  

Our Trip With Grandma Sloan

One of the highlights of moving to Wisconsin is that we are in Zielke territory!  The Zielkes are Barton's Mom's side of the family. Barton's Mom grew up in Illinois/Wisconsin.  Therefore we have a lot of family around us.  Mama Sloan came to see us and a bunch of her family.  Here is a run down of our week!

Mama Sloan arrived on Friday, September 13th.  We spent most of the time hanging out and relaxing.  Barton gave us a tour of his clinic which is always super fun.  That night we went to a Fish Fry. My first Fish Fry and I loved it!  Who wouldn't love loud polka music, sitting and chatting with total strangers and eating tons of yummy, greasy food!?!

On Saturday we headed to Watertown to visit with Mama Sloan's older brother, Uncle Al.  We also got to visit with his daughter Mary and her family for a bit.  Abigail loves Mary's kids Ella and Logan.  She kept asking for her new friends all day long.

 While in Watertown we got to stop by and visit a couple of places from Mom's childhood.  This is Mullen's.  It had amazing hamburgers and delicious ice ream!  Interesting fact, Mullen's Dairy is who owned the Zielke Farm before Mom's parent's purchased it.

 This is the old farm that Mom lived on for 4 years of her childhood.  I LOVE family stories, so to actually visit some of Mama Sloan's stomping grounds was AWESOME!

 On Sunday we went to church.  After church Mom, Abigail, and I kissed Barton goodbye and left for Illinois.  Our first stop was to see Aunt Grace and Jeanine.  They are such lovely ladies!  Aunt Grace is Mom's Dad's sister.  She is an amazing lady.  One that you could sit and visit with for forever.

  We first got to know these ladies (plus two more of Aunt Grace's daughters in Idaho), 4 years ago when they visited Mama Sloan while she lived in Coeur d'Alene.  We had such a good time with them and with Brandon and Diedre. It is fun to now only be an hour away from Aunt Grace and Jeanine.

Sunday night we continued our travels to Aunt Lanie and Uncle Norm's house.  They are such sweet people.  Aunt Lanie was Mom's best friend growing up and she ended up marrying Mom's cousin Norm.  So cute!  Something every girl dreams of happening with their best friend.

We stayed with Aunt Lanie and Uncle Norm for a couple of days.  Abigail loved all of their toys and I loved hearing all the stories that Aunt Lanie and Mom shared.

On Monday night Aunt Lanie and Uncle Norm had a party for Mom.  A bunch of family came.  It was good to meet so many people.  Here are a couple pictures of some of the people that came:

On Tuesday Morning I got the tour of Aurora.  Here is the house that Mama Sloan grew up in:

 I also got to see a bunch of other places including her elementary, her church, some more relatives houses, her high school, etc.  I LOVED it!

Before we left Aurora we stopped by the cemetery to see where Mama Sloan's parents are buried. My favorite part of the headstone is the caption "Together Forever" and the story behind it.  Mom picked it out for their headstone years before she found the missionaries and joined the church.  Years before she knew that through the Temple they could be "Together Forever".  She just felt like it was right at the time.  And now all of their temple work is done.  We are so blessed to have the power of the Temple in our lives.  

Next we headed to Decatur, Illinois to visit with Great Grandma and Grandpa Sloan.  We stayed with them from Tuesday night to Thursday morning.  It was good to spend time with them. Abigail loved them!

Abigail loved to go out and talk to Grandpa on the swing during his cigar breaks.

I loved watching her push Grandpa in the swing.

Abigail and Great Grandma Sloan

As you can see we had a great time!  But I can't end this post without a shout out to Grandma Sloan. The best part of the week was being with Grandma Sloan.  We love you Grandma!  We can't wait to see you again!