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!