Beach Vacation

So I thought summer would be the perfect time for blogging, since there's so much fun stuff to do and blog about and take lots of fun pictures... As it turns out, I'm so busy doing fun stuff and taking fun pictures that there's no time left for blogging! It will probably take me a while, but I WILL catch up! So much has been going on lately! A trip to the beach, then Memorial Day, then Tyler and I celebrated our 3-year anniversary, then Adelyn's birthday was June 3, then Tyler's was June 4, which was also the day of their joint birthday party... All since the last time I had the time to sit down and blog! Life is so much fun right now! Crazy, but fun!

I may have to do separate posts for the different big events to fit it all in, so I'll start with the trip to the beach. Ashley and Phillip were able to go with us, which was fun and a big help to us with Adelyn. Tyler's mom bought a condo in Orange Beach, and we were able to take a 5-day vacation down to the gulf coast and stay there! It is super nice. She completely renovated it and installed granite countertops and tile throughout, and it looks like it was just built. It was so much fun taking Adelyn to the beach! She LOVES the water, whether in the ocean, the pool, or the bathtub. Even when the waves would splash over her head in the ocean, she would just laugh and smile and lick her lips to taste the salty water. Here's just a snapshot of her first "swim" in the ocean with Daddy and Uncle Phillip:
And playing in the pool with Mommy and Daddy:

She liked playing in the sand but would stay on her quilt if we sat her on it...And she really liked walking on the beach when she could find someone to hold her hand (usually Ashley)...
She took a nap on the beach every day while we were there... She even got to fly a kite for the first time!
And no trip to the Alabama Gulf Coast would be complete without a trip to the Original Oyster House (or Lambert's, but those pictures didn't turn out so great...)!Adelyn learned some new words while we were there, like "pool", "water", "clock" (there is a huge clock in the living room of Tyler's mom's condo), and "airplane". On the way home, I decided to make a list of the words that Adelyn says on a regular basis (not really counting words that she has said once and never again). I thought she was probably saying about 15 words, which I thought was great, since she was less than a year old. But when I actually wrote them out, the total was more than 30!!! And now, it's up to over 40 words that she says regularly. Whew!!! I knew she loved to talk, but I didn't realize just how much until I started keeping a list!

Anyway, as you can see, we had a wonderful pre-summer getaway and vacation from work! In closing, I'll leave you with some random beach photos that didn't make it in the body of the post! Happy Summer and God Bless! Enjoy...

"Oopsy-daisy"

It's been a crazy few days since my last post... It was my long work week, plus my phone was stolen on Wednesday. I learned just how dependent we have grown on those little technological devices, that's for sure. I felt so lost during the 30 hours it took them to ship the replacement to my house. So glad I invested in a little insurance on my BlackBerry. They were able to recover most of my phone numbers, but some of them were missed somehow. The photos, however, were lost for good. Sad day... Tyler wasn't surprised that someone would steal a phone, but my mind just doesn't work that way. It would just never cross my mind that someone would want to steal a phone. I guess I'm glad I don't think that way.

Anyway, on to happier topics... Adelyn is enjoying trying new foods these days. She had her first pancakes this weekend and LOVED them! Yesterday morning I just shared my pancakes with her. She was licking her lips and loving the flavor (probably the syrup), and when I ran out, she said "BITE!" ...Which itself was another first, because she has never asked for a bite before. As much as she loves to eat, she just never asks for a bite. But the pancakes and syrup were enough to do the trick. So this morning, I cooked her a pancake of her own, cut it up in little bites and added a little bit of syrup, then let her feed herself off the tray on her high-chair. For the first time in a while, I had the camera ready for the occasion:

After breakfast, she helped her Daddy do some laundry:

And after all that hard work, it was time for a nap with Mommy:

Adelyn has a few new words since the last time, too... When she falls down or drops something, my mom always says "Oopsy-daisy", and being the little mockingbird that she is, Adelyn giggles and says "daisies!" She has actually started trying to say the "oopsy" part in the past couple of days, so it is starting to sound like the real deal. Haha! It's so funny to hear her say it. Also, she has officially put two words together to form a sentence. All day today she has been saying, "Hey Daddy" when she sees Tyler walk in the room. Sweet girl...

She loves her daddy and says his name all the time, but I know somebody who is slightly attached to her mommy:

She likes to follow me around the house and pull up on my legs when I am standing at the sink or the stove.

I can't believe her first birthday is only about half a month away! I've been planning away for her party for the past couple of weeks, but it's just so hard to believe that it's already that time! She was just born the other day... What happened? We have had so much fun!

Speaking of birthdays, tomorrow is my wonderful little cousin Noah's 9th birthday! We went to his birthday party yesterday... A swimming party! And the high was only in the lower 70's. I was chilly just standing outside in my long sleeve shirt and blue jeans at times... But nine-year-old boys are tough! They were jumping in, jumping out, playing kickball, jumping back in the pool... I wish I had their energy... And their cold tolerance. Wow.

The Lowroses will be enjoying a little time away later this week, and we are so looking forward to a break from our busy schedules for a few days. I should be preparing for the trip, but blogging is more fun, right? I'll get to it... Later. Ha! Have a beautiful week!

Lately...

It's been almost two weeks since my last post, and so much has been going on. We have watched monster tornados completely devastate so many areas of our state (including Tyler's own stomping ground), we have survived Adelyn's very first real illness, we have made our first trip to the Children's Hospital Emergency Room, Adelyn has achieved a few more milestones (including passing the 11-month mark), and we celebrated my first "real" Mother's Day... And that's just hitting the highest of the high spots. And God has blessed us every step of the way.

While there are areas just two miles from our house that had major damage from the storms on April 27th, our yard and neighborhood remained virtually untouched. By 7:00pm, however, our yard was littered with receipts, personal documents, roofing materials, and a various assortment of other paper and plastic items originating in Tuscaloosa and the surrounding areas. It's amazing the force of a storm like that... The tornados followed paths that traveled just a few miles north and a few miles south of our little town, but we are counting our blessings that no damage was sustained here.

Our little Adelyn was 11 months old last Tuesday (the 3rd)! It is so hard to believe that in less than a month, she will be one year old! I continue to be amazed at the speed with which the milestones come and go! I can never recount all of the details of the last two weeks of bloglessness, but I can at least attempt to catch up...

Adelyn has become quite the speedy crawler, and she makes her way from one room in the house to another before I realize it sometimes. She is pulling up on everything, hence the E.R. trip mentioned above. While pulling up on a dining room chair, she slipped and busted her lip. Her lower lip was bleeding both inside and out, and it started swelling, and it appeared that her teeth had cut entirely through her lip. We took her to the E.R. to see if the cut would require stitches, but once it was cleaned, it was obvious that she had just bitten both the inside and the outside of her lip. The inside was deeper than the outside, but neither was significant enough to require stitches, thank the Lord! She came home with just a swollen and sore lip, but not before she had entertained the emergency room staff for a bit... Which brings me to my next point. Adelyn is definitely developing into a social butterfly! She waves and says "HEY!" to everyone in sight, even cars that pass on the street.

Her vocabulary continues to grow almost daily. Some of her newest words are "bath", "car", "eat", "go", "Jesus", and "Noah". She recognizes all of her toys by their names and can identify them among dozens of toys strewn about the living room floor. Her current favorites are MonkeyBug (of course), Judah (her lion), and her airplane that was sent to her from her Nana in Kentucky. But she also loves books of any kind. Her favorites right now seem to be "Five Little Monkeys Jumping on the Bed" and Dr. Seuss's "The Foot Book", but any book will do, really... Even the phone book. She loves looking at the books and turning the pages.

We're sure that walking is just around the corner, as she is now able to stand for a few seconds without holding on to anything. She loves standing and walking, and she does both as often as she can, although the walking still requires assistance. She is just itching to get up and do it on her own, but we've still got to work on that balanace.

My favorite thing that she does now, though, is praising Jesus. When we say, "Praise Jesus!", she lifts her arm(s) in the air and smiles her biggest smile. It's beautiful. One of my prayers for her, even when she was still in the womb, has always been that she will know Jesus from an early age, that she will be passionate about the Lord (a prayer I borrowed from my sweet friend Ruthie), and that she will be a true worshipper. I know that the Lord will be faithful to answer my prayers, and He is already working on them! He's so good.

I haven't taken as many pictures as I should have lately, but I will close with just a few! Have a great week!

Easter Weekend

The Lowros family had a WONDERFUL Easter! God has been so good to us. We attended the Easter service at Church of the Highlands Saturday night, and it was sooo beautiful. I am so glad we went! The worship was great, Pastor Chris brought a great message, and OH. MY. GOODNESS. All my Highlands people... Do you know who the girl was who sang "Your Great Name"? A-Mazing! That is one of my most favorite songs right now, and I think that may have been the most beautiful solo I've ever heard at Church of the Highlands... Which is saying a lot, since we have so many talented people in our church. I was so blessed.

Easter Sunday we enjoyed some family time in Oneonta, first with lunch at my Grandma Jenny and Papa Bob's house, then with some chilling and playing and talking at Mama and Daddy's house. Ashley and Hannah are finally starting to show off their little baby bellies, so it's always fun to see them these days (not that it's ever not fun to see them; you know what I mean.) Of course, while we were there we had to ride the Mule. Adelyn never tires of that thing. And she now has another word she likes to say: "Tractor". She likes her PawPaw's tractor.

After lunch on Sunday, Ashley was kind enough to help me get some Easter pictures of Adelyn! Some are in regular clothes, and some are in her pretty Easter dress! We took a ton of pictures, and SO many of them turned out great, but uploading them all to my blog could take ages, so here are some of my favorites:

So thankful for what Jesus did for me 2000 years ago, so I can have abundant life today! My cup runneth over...

Catching Up

Busy weeks make for very little blogging time. I haven't even taken the time to take many pictures in the past couple of weeks. So... this will be just a catch-up blog.

What's new with us? Well, new things every day! EVERY day! Adelyn is now an expert crawler, who is just itching to walk on her own! She follows me from one end of the house to the other, just as fast as her sweet little hands and knees will take her, often with Monkey Bug in tow. She's always looking for something to pull up on so she can stand. She will stand for really long periods at the ottoman playing with the remote control. She even lets go sometimes, but she drops to her bottom when she wants to go somewhere else. But she wants to walk SO bad. She loves for someone, anyone, to hold her hands and let her walk wherever she feels compelled to go (usually to the door so she can go "outside").

Her vocabulary is still growing and expanding sooo quickly! She is learning new things all the time. (I can't remember exactly where we were the last time I posted, so forgive me if some of this info is a repeat.) She now knows where her toes are and says "toes". She can show you her dress and say "dress". She says "tree" and "grass". She knows where the TV is and where the moon is. She got a new toy duck and has learned to say "duckie". My parents have a cat at their house (he's actually my cat, named Fisher), and she thinks he is the grandest thing. When she sees him, she immediately squeals and says "kitty". Her Aunt Ashley even had her trying to say "chocolate" last night. I do believe this child is going to be a talker. She will attempt any word we try to get her to say. Any word, that is, except for "Mommy". Any time I try to get her to say "Ma-Ma", she very plainly says "Da-Da". Little stinker! I love her so much it's crazy... Oh, I just remembered! Another one of her favorite things to say is "E-I-E-I-O"! She loves Old McDonald Had a Farm... And when it gets to the chorus, she says her version of "E-I-E-I-O". It's the funniest thing. Her mouth takes on every shape humanly possible.

We are enjoying every minute of this parenthood thing. Adelyn is such a blessing from the Lord, and we are so thankful we have her on loan from her Heavenly Father for this sweet season of our lives.

I'll end with a few pictures. Happy Easter, all! Jesus is ALIVE!

Splish Splash

Umm... So, the milestones are coming and going mighty quickly these days! Sweet Adelyn is doing so many new things! It's unreal... Since it's been over a week (I think) since my last post, I guess I have some catching up to do. Last week was a long week for me at work, so there wasn't much time for playing. But the weekend was another story!

We again had gorgeous weather, so on Saturday afternoon, Tyler, Adelyn, and I headed down to the big city of Maylene to visit my sister and her husband Phillip. Adelyn LOVES hanging out with her Aunt Ashley ("Ash-ee"). And since it was so pretty outside, we thought it'd be the perfect time to pull out the swimsuit and swimming pool! Not for us--for Adelyn! Is this not the cutest little swimmer you've ever seen?

It was nearly 90 degrees outside, and Adelyn splashed and splashed for about 45 minutes or so, just loving the lukewarm water Ashley transported from the bathroom to the patio for Adelyn's new $5.00 whale swimming pool from Target.

Later that evening, we all (Ashley, Phillip, my parents, Tyler, Adelyn, and I) ate at Texas Roadhouse, where Adelyn enjoyed her first bites of yummy Roadhouse rolls and ribs! That baby girl loves to eat, whether that love for food is reflected in her size or not!

Other new developments include showing Mommy where her (Mommy's) nose and teeth are and saying "teeth", pulling herself up to a standing position in her crib (which forced Tyler to lower the crib mattress to avoid any scary falls), walking around furniture while holding on to it, and CRAWLING! Over about the past week, she had graduated from rocking back and forth on her hands and knees to attempting to take a few strides in crawling mode, which usually ended in either a lunge forward that landed her on her belly, or a shift to one side to return her to a sitting position. But as of yesterday (Monday), she is crawling for real! She won't do it for just anything just yet... But if you put a snack on the opposite end of the rug, you better believe she's crawling to it, and laughing all the way! It's so fun to watch. I actually haven't been able to see her crawl much, since I have had to work all day yesterday and today and my mom has had her, but I am off work tomorrow, so I'm anxious to see how mobile she will be. What next?!?!

Adelyn's Aunt Ashley (who will be graduating from optometry school in about a month) bought her some cool shades! We're trying to get Adelyn used to wearing sunglasses outside. We don't want her to have to have pterygium excision surgery at the ripe old age of 25 like her mommy...

So long until next time! God bless you!

Ten Months Old!

So... Yesterday, at 3:36pm to be exact, our sweet little princess was TEN months old! Oh my goodness!!! It goes by so, so fast... It's a blast!

I mentioned in my last post that we have family visiting from Chicago, so last night we all got together for a delicious steak dinner in Oneonta at my parents' house. With my wonderful sister Ashley's help, I attempted to capture a few Kodak moments to document Adelyn's big ten-month milestone. Here are some of the pictures we took:

Ooooooh, I just want to squeeze her!

In other news, I think I can now safely tell the world that my sister is going to have a baby!!! Adelyn is going to be a big cousin! And I am going to be an aunt! We are all so excited! Also, my sweet cousin Hannah is pregnant... Due in late September! (But that was already widely known... Has been for a while.) It seems there is something in the water in my dad's family. My Grandma Sarah (my dad's mom) will have had SIX new great-grandbabies between the time that Adelyn was born (June 3, 2010) and late October 2011! WOW!

Oh, and I almost forgot... We can now add "horsey" (or is it "horsie"?) to the list of words that Adelyn is saying! She was introduced to Thunder and Bye-Bye (my parents' horses) last night.

NCAA championship game is on... Pulling for the underdogs. Go Butler! My poor bracket was demolished a couple of weeks ago. How many days till football season?

One Project Down...

YAY!!! We finally got to do our flower bed! Today was the perfect day, too! Lots of sunshine but not too hot. I am a teeny bit sunburned, but our flower bed is presentable!!! We prayed over it, so we think it will make it this year. Just so you can fully appreciate my excitement, let me remind you how our flower bed looked BEFORE:And NOW... it looks like this:

A closer look at one part of the flower bed:We also added some pretties to the smaller flower beds on the sides of the house. One look at some of the improvements made:

It took all day, and it would have taken longer, but my dad and my cousin Melvin who is visiting from Chicago came by and helped Tyler dig the holes early this morning. We are pleased with the end result. The pictures aren't fantastic, because the sun was starting to set when I ran inside to get the camera.

What we would like to do now is plant a tiny little garden with a vegetable or two in the back yard behind a little slope so it wouldn't be seen from the road. (Our neighborhood association is somewhat strict, so we would have to be discreet about it.) We aren't 100% positive that gardening is something we are ready for, so it might have to wait a couple of years. We'll just have to see. I wonder if there's anything that it isn't too late to plant... (Mental note: Ask Papa Bob when to plant bell peppers and cucumbers. Or maybe squash would be better... It doesn't get too tall.)

Anyway, here's what Adelyn did while we were hard at work (Tyler admittedly harder than I)...

She loves standing up these days. She hasn't turned loose and walked yet, but she will stand up all day long while holding on to something. She wants to walk, but we need some work on the balance aspect of walking before that will happen. Until then, she is super excited to hold on to her daddy's fingers and run from the front door to the back door, and back to the front door, then the back door again, etc... You get the picture.

Also... Adelyn's vocabulary is exploding! She has become quite the little mockingbird, and she is learning new things all the time. Her favorite word at the moment is "light". When asked where the light is, she immediately looks up, finds a light, and says "LIGHT!" She also says it when she just happens to notice a light in a given room. She's fascinated with lights. Other new words she is saying are "glasses" (she learned that while playing with her PawPaw's sunglasses), "necklace" (one of her new favorite toys is a beaded necklace that I never wear and let her play with), "keys" (what baby doesn't love keys?) and "outside" (her favorite place to go). "Light" is the plainest-sounding, because she says it constantly now. She also says "monkey" every now and then, when she is playing with her monkey that Tyler gave her for Valentine's Day. (The monkey's name is "Monkey-Bug".) She's still saying "Daddy", "bye-bye", "Paw-Paw", and "hey", and she even says "Ash-ee" now (her version of "Ashley", who is my sister), but still no "Mama" or "Mommy"! Don't feel sorry for me, though... I get all the kisses! She likes to give me sweet kisses now. The kind you have to wipe off afterwards... It's so sweet!

So that's what's new with the Lowroses... Now watching a little Final Four action and relaxing a little from our long day while Adelyn snoozes away in her crib. Blessed we ARE. God bless you, too!