A little reading time

After putting our middle son down for a nap, this is what I found downstairs.
:) love my boys...

Happy Birthday Grammy!

A Happy Birthday Heart Attack!

We love you and hope you had a wonderful day!

Learning the ropes with Daddy

I've got to say, The Big Guy Lowe is my best friend. He is the person that I would choose to spend time with--any time with. He's the person that best understands me and knows how to help and love me. There's never a question in my mind that he is doing his best for our family. He is truly the most amazing person that I know, and I get to be married to him; we get to be partners for time and all eternity. That's a pretty awe inspiring thing to be able to say. While I can ponder on these things, and even get pretty emotional as I feel such intense gratitude and love for him, I wonder what the Little Guy Lowes think. They are never left out. Just a few examples of their time with Daddy from recent weeks~

While at the playground, our oldest asked Daddy if he would "time him" while running. That started a running/racing boot-camp that the boys ask for every time we are at the playground now.
"On your marks..."
"Get set..." (you've got to love the squat, er, racer stance)

Then a big team cheer when we were all finished!

Then there was the day the boys were asking about baseball. The Big Guy Lowe bought a beginning bat and for the next few hours we all played outside as he gave instruction. A tee-ball instruction for our middle boy--the 2 year old,

and hitting from a pitch for our oldest--the 6 year old.
Nope, couldn't leave the 1 year old out of spring training!

There are more pictures of Lego building, cleaning, golfing, dancing, reading, relaxing and snuggling that show how The Big Guy Lowe loves his family, more than I can include in just one post.

Is it obvious that I love how The Big Guy Lowe loves our family? He tells us and he shows us. He works hard to provide for our family. He serves at church and provides a wonderful example for his sons. He is a part of keeping our home in running order. He is the best Daddy that these boys could ever want.

In case you Little boy Lowes ever wonder, I love your Daddy completely.

One, two, three, eight, nine, thirty-four...

This past Christmas our oldest received a money-counting bank from Grammy and Grandpa HB. This "bank" has been used quite a bit since December, but today was the first day it was ever used for the purpose it was made. Most recently it had been used as a bug home for unsuspecting insects whose paths crossed with our oldest bug catcher.

Today however, our oldest brought it downstairs (I don't remember when it was brought inside--so very likely there are stray bugs running amuck in our house! Just a day in the life of a Lowe...) accompanied by his piggy bank. Our oldest gets a weekly allowance from which he is learning how to pay tithing, how to save for a mission , and how to save for other important things such as Pokemon cards, Star Wars Legos, etc.
This amazing little contraption can tell the difference between all coins, showing the value of the coin after it has been pushed through the lid,
And then keeping a running tally of the contents of the jar.

The best part for me was that our two oldest boys were working together and taking turns. I love seeing them do things together! They were working together so well and were both so interested in what they were doing that after 15 minutes I was ready to write a letter of gratitude to the makers of the bank; pictures of the cooperation it was instilling in our boys, teaching beginning lessons in finance--my excitement was building with each minute they were busily working together. When the bubble burst and they began arguing over who would insert the next coin and who had contributed most to the contents of the jar, I just had to smile.
Those 15 minutes when they were working so intently together make me happy even now. I like looking for reasons to smile...sometimes smiles comes from the most interesting places.

I spy, with my little eye...

Our family loves to play the "I spy" game. While we thoroughly enjoy the books, we especially love playing while we are in the car. We play it spying for colors, shapes, letters, sounds of letters... There is always a way we can play.

While in the car a few days ago, our middle son began
"I spy, wifmyliddle eye", then he paused followed by "a cute mommy!"

My heart melted.

How happy are Happy Meals? Just ask me!

Today was one of those days.

How did I achieve those calming moments of peace?

It ended up not being that hard to do. In fact, the idea came to me with such clarity that I knew tonight was going to be a good night. I knew I would have that extra help just before getting the boys into the bath and then to bed. At that moment I had hope that all would be well.

Happy Meals.
All I had to do was pack my kids into the car and drive to our closest McDonald's for Happy Meals. Ahhh, I'm still basking in the peace of those precious moments. For any of you nae sayers out there--a little background into our day...

Late last night our youngest was running a HIGH temperature. Nothing more, gratefully, he's just been extremely miserable throughout this entire day. He woke up in the early morning hours very unhappy and has had a rough day. I made one of those calls to the pediatrician's office to see what recommendations they had for 105 degree fever in a one year old. I was told to control with the regular medications and if that didn't get the fever under 102 to call back after a sufficient amount of time. It worked and we have been fine for the most part, miserable, but fine. To add to our day, the Big Guy Lowe had an early morning flight to CA with a full day of work followed by a late flight back tonight. Gratefully it is just today, but today has seemed extremely long. With our youngest being sick, the boys and I haven't had any of our normal outings and I have been pretty wrapped up trying to soothe our little guy--resulting in not much playing with our other boys. Basically, a bummer day for everyone. Really.

But, a drive-thru keeps germs from spreading to others outside of our family--I'm responsible. It gives us some time outside the walls of our home--I'm adventurous! It makes it possible for the boys eat yummy(?) food that they generally don't get--I'm fun! I am saved from trying to make dinner holding/soothing a sick child--I'm relieved! And I get those precious moments of much needed blissful silence--I'm rejuvenated to lovingly finish our evening.

Thank you McDonalds. Let me tell you, while I may not say "Super-size me", those happy meals had to taste best to me, and I didn't eat a bite! This was a good ending for us tonight. Ahhhhhh. Sometimes silence is priceless.


And really, could anything this happy not be completely good for you?

Happy Birthday to the Youngest of the Little Guy Lowes!

It's happened!! He's a big one-year-old! I'm not quite sure how this year went by so fast, but we are so happy that we have our third little guy Lowe!

Happy 1st Birthday!


After a big dinner of Grilled Burgers and Hotdogs with all the toppings, it was on to the cake!! Just a little background, the cake is a combination of Lowe & Hornberger family traditions. The 4 layered cake with whipped cream frosting and animal crackers for the 1 year old to pick off and eat! (Have you picked up that I like traditions??)

Here he's inspecting his first piece of cake, but don't let this picture fool you. He didn't eat any of it. After a bit, I decided to take the cake away and see what he would do if I just put some pieces of unfrosted cupcake in front of him. That did the trick! I wasn't surprised by his reluctance to eat his own birthday cake--neither of his brothers would touch their first cakes either and if the truth be known, my favorite way to eat cake is warm from the oven without frosting too! A tradition in the making? Noooo, it's too fun to decorate cakes the older they get!

After the food was finished we moved the fun outside where the cousins had races and games. Jamis had a backyard-side seat to watch the fun while he finished eating!
How fast can you do the crab walk?
Then we headed back inside for presents.

Thank you to our friends and family that helped us celebrate such a wonderful day!!

Weekend sunshine and warm breezes

I LOVE THE SUNSHINE!!!!!

I know when we have beautiful days this time of year filled with warmth and sunshine that I can't let myself think that Summer is here--it's not, in fact we will have plenty of rain and cold weather yet to come, but oh the joy we all feel when the beautiful days come!!

A while ago, the boy's Grammy gave them some kites and today turned into the perfect day to try them out. The Big Guy Lowe headed outside with the two older boys to see which way the wind was blowing.

Which ever way it blew, it was the right way. Both boys were able to get their kites flying!!

One thing both boys learned about flying kites was that it took a lot of running to get things going!

And then it took more running to keep them going!

We had some tired out little guy Lowes by the time we were finished!

Have I mentioned that I love the sunshine?

Is Spring Break over yet?

What a week we've had! I think after today we will have accomplished my goal of having a GREAT Spring Break!! While it hasn't been picture perfect by any means, we've had some exciting days together. The zoo, Grammy's house with cousins, OMSI, feeding ducks in familiar places, a surprise visit from an Aunt...it feels good to look back over the week. I'm so grateful for the family we have.

Today, the Big Guy Lowe decided to take the day off, so we wisked Aunt Christina away and headed to the Children's Museum. By far our favorite room in the place was the water works!! Even though we were inside, we left wet--some of us more than others. The boys especially loved the squirt gun in this first section--anyone nearby enjoyed(?)the overspray whether they wanted to or not!

Even our youngest got into the fun! I don't think baths will ever be the same.
After leaving the Children's Museum, we headed to a City Landmark--one we had heard of in many travel shows but had never visited...until today.

Voodoo Donuts, get ready for a Lowe invasion!


We all chose the donut that looked best to us!

And then we ate...
and ate...
and ate...
and ate!
Wasn't there a book about a catepillar that did just that? How did that work out for him? We all seemed to fare just fine!!

The Big Guy Lowe did draw the line at one of the more infamous donuts though; the maple bar with bacon.
Just in case you need a visual to help picture the aforementioned donut...yep, that's actual bacon slapped on that there maple bar!
I think we can officially call this Spring Break a success. It's nice to see that we can have exciting times even when we just stay in the comfort of our own home at night!

The fun isn't over yet though, as one year ago this weekend we welcomed the littlest Lowe into our family. Oh the joys of a family of boys. I am one happy mom!!

A walk down memory lane...in the rain

Today began with many ideas of what might come...playing with family...getting together with friends...lots of ideas. We ended up, at the request of our oldest, heading back to our old neighborhood. We drove around familiar streets sharing memories and pointing at things we remembered and things that were new. We drove by our first and well-loved home smiling as we saw the daffidols we had planted brightly in bloom. We tried to stop by a few friends homes, but unfortunately didn't find anyone home. Still, it was very satisfying as we drove around. We had some wonderful times while we lived up there and we still have some great friends there that we love getting together with. Memories can be such treasures that are often forgotten until we bring them out to enjoy again. {Sigh}

While we lived up north, our oldest(and for most of the time our only child) and I would often go for walks to a nearby park that had three ponds.
Can you believe that our oldest was this little at one time?

These ponds were unchartered territory where anything was possible. In the winter and spring the paths would often be flooded over, in the late spring baby ducks would abound, summer brought frogs--or at least we are assuming that is the case as their chorus was always heard--even though we never actually did see one. Hmmmm. The one constant with it all was that we never went on a walk there without bringing some type of bread. Today was no exception. After retrieving some old, freezer burned hotdog buns that had been in our deep freeze for who knows how long (ducks don't seem to mind) we were off!

Our oldest had no problem navigating the pond banks as he had done it many times before, but I hadn't thought that this was actually the first time our middle son was exploring these ponds. He wasn't too familiar with the marshy banks lined with cattails, and within the first few minutes he was muddy and wet! You can see him towards the back of this picture learning how muddy the banks were.

We hadn't been feeding the ducks long when we were greeted by a wet rodent of sorts wanting some of our delicious bread. The only problem was when he was around the ducks would leave!!

Our youngest wasn't sure about it all. He was watching his brothers, and he was watching the ducks. He didn't make one noise for quite a while--he just kept looking.

We headed over to the last pond to share our goodies with the ducks there. If you look closely you might notice something just behind our middle son. Wouldn't you know it, the muskrat had followed us to this pond to get more bread.

Or maybe he just liked our company? ;)

Another day on the break...

One of the surprises we finally got to share with the boys during spring break was that their Aunt Christina (Texas) was going to be in town for a week!! These boys love their aunt and are excited for any time they get to have with her--especially our oldest. He loves the one-on-one time that she always shares with him, looking over drawings, talking about school/bus rides, whatever the topic she always shows sincere interest. Even though our oldest is just a kindergartener, he can tell when someone really cares and is listening. Christina always does. We love Christina and will always be happy when she comes to our part of the world!!

When decided to go to OMSI with Christina--somewhere we love to go. We even met up with more family (Aunt Jaymee, Amanda, Ethan, Ivy) that had the same idea we had! I guess when the rain is coming down we have a few options...get wet, or stay dry. We chose to stay dry today!

Our middle son was fascinated with the air pressure balls and tubes.

Then he was on to the water world!

Our oldest was having a great time with Amanda exploring all areas. I caught up with them in the sand lot. Cute cousins!!

And how did I actually get to take pictures you ask? Even after forgetting my camera at home??!! Wonderful Christina played with our youngest for most of the time. Thank you!!

Staying dry was the right choice today!!