April!

Here are a few highlights of April:

I love my big brother!  He is one of my best friends.  I was ecstatic to hear that he would be in Chicago for work.  We drove down one night to spend the evening with him.  It was so good to catch up and spend time together.  He took us out for yummy Chicago Style Pizza.

We were having too much fun to leave after dinner.  So we left the restaurant and went to McDonald's to hang out some more. 

Ballet!  Abigirl loves everything to do with ballerinas.  She usually has a tutu on if we are home and is always twirling.  She was ecstatic to start ballet lessons.  She was so excited for Tuesdays because she knew that meant Ballet.  (She is getting pretty good at days of the week and knowing the routine for the different days with what to expect).  Everything went well for the first few ballet lessons.  But then it went all down hill from there.  She started refusing to go.  Like, screaming-refusing.  Parents aren't allowed to go to class so I don't have a clue what happened to scare her away from going.  It hurt my heart because she loved it so much at the beginning.

We signed up with some of her friends.

Our Basement: Here is a before shot of our basement.  Our landlord offered to put new carpet in it.  It was pretty nasty.  So Barton and I scrubbed it down.  Barton also removed the bar.  I will have to post after pics soon.  We are still decorating it. 

These pictures do not do the nastiness justice.  It was really dirty.  But we are loving the extra space now!

Dying Easter Eggs:

The Easter Bunny Came!

On Easter Sunday we had Stake Conference in the afternoon.  Since we had so much time we spent the day with the Lofgrans.  We were able to enjoy lunch together, go to Stake Conference, enjoy Easter Dinner, carrot cake and lots of games.  We had a fabulous time.

Abigail and Jacob playing

Abigail and Jacob at Church. Abigail loves Jacob. 

Our Month of March!

 Happy Spring everyone!  We hope you are all enjoying the sun that is shining and the new life that is starting to grow.  We are so excited that April is here.  Here is a recap of our March:

#1: Abigail turned 3!
I have mixed emotions about my baby girl turning 3.  It is weird to think that she is 3, but at the same time it feels like she has been 3 for a while.  I always loved being in public with my 2 year old and to see the shock on people's face when they asked if she was 3 or 4 and to reply that she is only 2.  She is really tall and has a great vocabulary. So it is only fitting that she is now 3!

She had a great birthday.  We kept it low-key this year.   Her only request was a princess castle cake.

Here is what she woke up to in the morning: 

She loves her new kitchen!  

We took brownies to nursery.  

 

After church we spent the afternoon skyping with grandparents.  At the end of the day a few friends came for some food, cake and ice-cream.  It was a great day.  

We love our Bugaboo so much!  She is so smart and such a sweet girl.  I love her giggle and hearing her sing.  I am so grateful to get to hang out with her all day, every day.  She is sunshine in life! 

#2: We survived our first Milwaukee winter!  Yes, awful is an understatement about winter here.  I don't mean to be a whiner but it was bad.  Now that spring has sprung there is a chance that I might start liking Milwaukee again :)  For most of March it was still cold but we had a few days in the 30/40's that we took advantage of:

We made the voyage across the street to our lovely park

And we even voyaged down the street to the zoo.

#3: Some fun playdates!  Abigail loves her friends.  It is fun to watch their little imaginations and their minds in action.  One day we were having a presidency meeting when I saw Abigail's friend run across the entrance to the room in only a swimming suit.  She started calling Abigail to follow.  Abigail shouted back: "I can't, my mommy will see me!".  That caught my attention.  This is what I found.  All the girls decided they needed to go "swimming" in this "swimming pool".

A random picture of Ab's and Jacob taking a ride on Benson 

#3Happy St. Patrick's Day!  We braved the cold and headed to the St. Patty's Day parade.  Milwaukee definitely knows how to do candy in a parade.  We came home with way too many sweets. 

#4: No more baba!  In celebration of Ab's turning 3, the day after her birthday she got to go make a binky bear.  I was so nervous about how she would do without her binky.  But she has done great!  Here she is holding her two binkies that she put in the bear: 

Making the bear; putting her binkies inside.

Giving her new bear a good bath. 

It was all fun and games until we got home and started getting ready for bed.  She asked for her binkies.  As soon as I reminded her where they were she broke down and started sobbing. (Which of course made me cry too).  She cried herself to sleep in my arms that night but has been great since!  Out of habit she asked for it the next day but was fine when we reminded her.  She loves cuddling the baba bear and feeling the binkies inside.

#5 A little part of home was in our neck of the woods.  This isn't a great picture of the actual event but the Jazz came and played here in Milwaukee.  Our sweet landlord took us to dinner and to see the game.  We were booed a few times when cheering for the Jazz.  We had a lot of fun!

January and February

First and foremost, let's talk about this crazy weather!  Yes, we are still alive.  I feel like we have been hibernating for the last couple of months.  Okay, so we really did hibernate most of January.  Between getting over pneumonia caught right before Christmas, Abigail cracking her clavicle, and having surgery on my endometriosis again, we stayed inside for the majority of the month!  Plus, with temperatures like this:

do you blame us? On the bright side, my mom was back in town and it brought sunshine to our cold days!  She was so sweet to come out during my surgery to help take care of Abigail and me.  Sadly, due to mostly sleeping those two weeks I didn't take a single picture.  She will just have to come back soon...hint, hint!

Here are a few highlights from January and February:

One day in January, our heat just couldn't get past 65 degrees.  It was so cold.  The bedroom windows looked like this:

 and this...

Out of desperation, we tried everything we could.  Including the way overpriced window kits from the store.  Here is Abigail helping Barton install the plastic on the windows:

In the end, does the plastic help?  Let's just say not as much as a new filter.  If only we had thought of that earlier we would have been saved from some very cold nights! :) 

Besides the frigid weather, we had our first trip to the ER. On the lovely day of the 9th.  We were busy playing at the local gym when our sweetheart Abigail started playing with Jack, a cute little boy from the Ward who use to be in the same nursery.  He was showing her how he could do cartwheels.  Abigail decided that she needed to show him her cartwheel skills too. Well in the past, whenever she would do these "cartwheels" it consisted of her putting her head on the floor, followed by her lifting one leg.  And that was it.  No flipping or anything.  Not this cold January day.  She decided to go for it.  In the name of love she put all of her energy into flipping her legs over her body to impress cute little Jack.  Well sadly her legs didn't make it.  Instead her body fell sideways, right on her neck.  She instantly started screaming.  I grabbed her and tried to console her but she wouldn't calm down.  She was holding her head sideways and wouldn't let me put her down.  Finally my boss and I decided that I should take her in.  

After semi-buckling her in her car seat, I called her Pediatrician's office, they told me to take her straight to the ER.  I headed the half of a block to the Hospital.  Thankfully Barton's program is located at the Hospital. After finally getting a hold of him, (no matter how busy someone is, an Emergency is an Emergency!  His sweet receptionist wouldn't let me talk to him right away).  Anyways, he thought that she was fine and just needed to rest.  But he ran out to see her anyways.  As soon as he saw how much pain she was in and felt her cracked clavicle, he agreed that we should go in to the ER.  So off we went!  Thankfully they took us right in.  

Just in case there were also neck injuries, they stabilized her neck until we could get x-rays.  Once we got the x-rays back they determined that it was just a cracked clavicle she got to take the neck brace off.  So for a little while she wore a brace wrapped to her body to stabilize the bone to help it heal.  The Dr. told us that most 2 year olds refuse to wear the brace but to encourage her to wear it.  As we knew before, Miss Abigail is not like most 2 year olds.  She loved the brace.  I think that she realized it didn't hurt as much with it on.  She did not want to take it off.  At all.  She wore the same sweater for the first 2 days but we finally forced her to change on day 3.  She even slept with her brace and bandage.  

This picture was taken the night of the incident.  We had to take a ton of pictures to get her cute smile.

This is how she was really feeling.

This is Abigail the morning after the incident, feeling much better!  

Thanks for all of your phone calls, texts, letters, packages, and for all of you who stopped by.  She is one loved girl!

Treats from her BFF Jacob

Treats from her BFF Zoe

Our sweet friends Amber and Scott brought her a new baby.  She appropriately named her Baby Amber and has since played with her everyday!

As most of you know, February is always a loved month in our house since it is my birthday month.  This February was particularly busier then past ones.  But it was still really good.  The biggest highlights were my birthday day and Valentines day.

 

Barton and Abigail made me meat and potatoes for dinner, my absolute favorite.  We thought it was appropriate that there was a potato shaped like a heart.

Yummiest birthday cake ever.  My sweet hubby surprised me with it.  I wish you could all taste it.  You can't go wrong with chocolate, caramel, whip cream, and toffee.  My guy knows me well.

We made cookies with Jacob a couple days before Valentines Day.  They were super yummy.

Abigail helped me make cookies for Barton's co-residents.  She is one cookie expert.  She used two bottle of sprinkles for 3 whole cookies.

One of her masterpieces.  Or should I say: one of her mountains of sprinkles.  I swept up sprinkles off the floor for days :)

Here is Abigail making valentines. She wrote her name on all of them.  I am one proud mama. 

Valentines Day was fabulous!  We started off by going to playgroup.  Abigail loved giving everyone valentines.  After that we took our cookies to Barton's co-residents and had a quick Valentines Day Lunch before he needed to get back to work.  That night the three of us went on a sweet Valentines Date to PF Chengs followed up with ice cream.  Someday we wont be too cheap for a babysitter.  It is just too hard to justify when Abigail is easy and fun to take along with us.

Playgroup:

Our date:

We hope that you all had a great January and February.  Happy March to you all!