November

As all months are, November was fabulous!  It was full of family, friends, traveling, and working on our Adoption Journey.  Here are some highlights from November!

The Fire Station! We joined our friends on a tour of the forestation.  Abs was getting over a cold and wasn't quite herself but still enjoyed it.

Ringing the Bell!

A sweet friend of mine works for Salvation Army and taught me how we could volunteer to ring the bell to help people through the Christmas Season.  If you know Barton you can bet that we were singing.  It was fun to sing and ring at our local Mall.  Some people were so sweet and delightful, others acted like we were invisible :)  It gave me a new insight to the bell ringers.  We loved it.

Decorating the Tree! Knowing that Abigail and I would be leaving soon after we returned from Thanksgiving we decided to decorate the tree a week before Thanksgiving!  

Date Night! 

Barton was so sweet and took me on a date to see the Lion King.  I love musicals, but I especially love time I get with my Handsome one . 

 Thanksgiving!

I love, love holidays!  For Thanksgiving we traveled down to our old territory of Ohio/Kentucky.  We had a fabulous time!

Thanksgiving we spent with Barton's sister Meg and our nieces and nephews.  We have missed these kiddos.  It was so good to get to be with them!

Barton and Jonas enjoyed some guy time:

 While us ladies enjoyed some quality girl time:

 Our original plans for Thanksgiving dinner ended up getting canceled.  So Meg was wonderful and quickly made some new plans. We did a River Boat Cruise on the Ohio River for Thanksgiving dinner.  The food was delicious and we had so much fun!

 Jonas and Abigail decided to join efforts in the coloring contest:

 And they won! 

The day after Thanksgiving we spent with my cousin Suseann and her family.  We miss living by them so much!  We spent the day BlackFriday shopping, playing games, catching up, and eating yummy food.  When Abs was helping Suseann cook I had a flashback from right before we moved to Wisconsin!

Abigail at Thanksgiving:

 Abigail in Spring of 2013, our last weekend with the Meaders before we moved:

And I thought she was so big then!  I can't believe the difference. My baby needs to slow down.  Time needs to slow down! 

Kentucky! Before heading back to Wisconsin we spent a day in Kentucky.  We were nervous to go back, but in the end we wished that we had more time to spend there.  It was so good to see such dear friends! 

Our first stop was Mormon Row to see my cousin William and Katelynn and their new baby Emma Millie.  (Yes, I am convinced that subconsciously they named her after me :)  It was so good to see them.  They are always a delight to be with!  Remember how they moved next door to our new place!?! We could have been next door neighbors....

 Saturday night we spent the night with the Wilburs.  I am sad that I didn't get a single picture!  I loved catching up with them.

On Sunday we went to the Tates Creek Ward.  I can't even put into words what that ward means to me.  I had to hold back tears walking in and sitting Sacrament Meeting.  It felt like we were home again.  And to see everyone's excited faces and feel their warm embraces.  It was priceless. I wish we could have taken more pictures of all of our dear friends.  But I did get one of Sister Martin.

This is sweet Sister Martin.  She became a very dear friend to us.  She is one of the most amazing people I have ever met.  She will always have a special spot in my heart.

October!

 October flew by!  We had so many fun Halloween festivities and fun that kept us really busy.  Here is a recap of our month!

Ballet!

Abigail loves all things ballerina!  She took a ballet class at the gym and loved it!  I was a little nervous because she took a ballet class in the spring through the Community Rec. Center and by the end of it she refused to go and didn't want to participate in the recital on the last day.  I think that the teacher was a little too harsh for 3 year olds and I am guessing that my sweet girl was a little scared of her.  I didn't want her to have too long of a ballet break after that not-so-fun experience so we decided to try this class and she LOVED it!  She even did great in the recital!  I was so proud of her.

Abs with one of her besties, Zoe, making silly faces

The Pumpkin Patch!

Getting a pumpkin is a must in October.  We decided to venture out to the pumpkin patch this year for ours.  We hunted the pumpkin patch for the perfect round pumpkin, and we found it!  We brought it home and proudly displayed it on our porch.  

Abigail begged to carve it for days but we didn't dare do it too early before Halloween in fear that our perfect pumpkin would wilt before the big holiday.  But sadly a small creative creature decided that we shouldn't wait any longer and carved it without us.   Yep, some nasty little rodent ate 3 wholes in it that resembled a face, leaving pumpkin remnants all over our porch. We should of taken a picture. Next year we will listen to Abigail and not wait so long to carve our perfect pumpkin! 

 Fall Leaves!

We have had so much fun with fall leaves this season!  We have taken lots of walks and collected lots of different beautiful leaves.  (Abigail has had her heartbroken many of times as she has gone outside to find that her special pile of leaves on the steps had blown away).

One day Jacob was over, he and Abigail helped Barton rake all the leaves.  They had so much fun raking and jumping in the pile! (And yes, she is wearing a tutu.  She is always begging to wear tutus everywhere we go).

 "Makin' Bannanna Pacakes, pretending like it's the weekend now"
Barton is usually working on Saturdays so we enjoyed it when he was home for a whole Saturday!  Barton and Abigail made some yummy pancakes!

 Halloween Cookies!
We had so much fun making some cookies with Jacob, Carly and Kim.  The best part was delivering it to "our" neighbors!  (I am still in heaven that our sweet friends are just up the street and that we share neighbors, so much fun!)  As we took the cookies around to some neighbors the kids scored and got tons of treats themselves!

 Halloween!

 We love Halloween!  We were planning on different costumes this year but a couple of weeks ago Abigail came up to me and sincerely asked if she could be Aurora (aka Sleeping Beauty).  How could I say no to such a sincere question?!?  Thankfully we hadn't started the other costumes.

She is suddenly so obsessed with Aurora.  She is all about Sleeping Beauty.  I think that this is rooting from the fact that Aurora is Grandma Sloan's favorite!

We had so many Halloween Parties!  Her first one was with some of her church buddies. Sadly I didn't get any pictures from it.

The next party was her preschool Halloween Party.  Here is a picture from it.  I got to go help out with it and loved being with Abigail at school.

On the afternoon of the 30th we went trick-or-treating at the Medical College with Jacob.  She got so much candy! 

 Abigail enjoyed playing with some of her friends after the trick-or-treating.

 On the morning of the 31st we had a party at the gym.  The kids got to go trick-or-treating around the gym.

On our way home from the gym party we stopped to see Daddy and his co-workers.  They all dressed up as Ninja Turtles.  It is always fun to visit Daddy at work! 

Milwaukee does Halloween really different.  Every neighborhood is assigned a different time and day for trick-or-treating.  Sadly ours was the Sunday before Halloween.  So we were really happy to have so many parties to make up for the lack of actual trick-or-treating.  The silly thing though is that even though Abigail had 5 different Halloween parties not one was on the actual night of Halloween. So we had our own party!
                                                  Abigail and I made Mummy Hotdogs.

 And we watched Sleeping Beauty!  (Thank you Gessels for letting us borrow it!)

 Our last Halloween Party was the Ward trick-or-treating party on Nov. 1st: