Lowe Family Reunion

My whole family got together for the first time in about two years. It was great getting reacquanted with eachother, especially since there are 4 in-laws and 7 grandkids now!

Here's the gang at Temple Square. I stayed behind with Peter, since he was still sick, and it was a cold night.


We rotated cooking dinners for everyone. With 21 people to feed, this turned out to be a good system. We ate a lot of good food!

Another activity that Peter and I were not involved in was sledding and playing in the snow. We got a lot of snow over the week.
My brother, Nathan and Benjamin.

So many pretty sunsets in Utah! This is the view from the back of my parent's new house.

My brother and sister-in-law were in charge of organizing the reunion this year, and so we held "Lowe University" while the kids were down for their naps. We had a few mini lessons about people's jobs and theses, and a few more interactive ones where we learned country swing dancing, dance aerobics and how to use poi balls. These turned out to be some of the greatest highlights from the week.
My sister-in-law Jeni, my brother Bryan, their daughter Bonnie, Paul and Peter.
My sister Miriam's little girl is 5 1/2 months here, and my sister-in-law, Jeni's little girl is 6 months. So Peter is just a few months younger than them.
My sister, Jeannine and Peter.

Benjamin and Sarah are just three weeks apart. They were good buddies most of the time!
My Mom makes a cute Grandma! Here she is with Rachel's girls, Natalie and Lucy.

The four oldest cousins with Uncle Bryan.

The three youngest cousins.

My brother, David and Benjamin.

Story time with my sister, Michelle and my Mom.

Story time with my brother, Bryan.

We all went to the local rec. center one afternoon to go swimming. It's probably for the best that I couldn't find any pictures of Benjamin in the blue swim diaper covered by the flowery hot pink diaper cover they made us buy. It was hilarious, but even more so that he didn't have a clue how ridiculous he looked. I felt bad that I had forgotten his swimsuit!

Peter's Blessing

Peter was blessed in Paul's home ward on Paul's "golden" birthday (he turned 28 on the 28th of December 2008- pretty cool, huh?). It was a really nice blessing, and we had most of our families there for it. Paul, his Dad, his brother Josh, his Uncle Chris, my Dad, my brothers Bryan and Nathan, and my brother-in-law Marc stood in the circle.

This "Christening" outfit was given to us just an hour before we left for Utah by our next-door neighbor. I was really excited about it. She is an old Catholic widow who raised 9 kids and lived abroad for many years. She had been given this outfit by someone in Argentina for her last son, but he was never able to wear it, so she saved it for years to pass it on. I felt honored that she gave it to us! It fit him perfectly and he looked adorable in it.

The proud 28-year-old Papa.

We had a nice dinner afterwards for our families and friends, celebrating both Peter's blessing and Paul's birthday. Here is Great-Grandma Cannon with Peter.

This was my birthday gift for Paul. I compiled all the pictures from our first two years of marriage and had it made into a book. I really liked how it turned out. I love you, Paul!

Christmas

Our flight to Salt Lake City left at about 7 p.m., so after a layover in Denver and a late night catching up with Paul's family, we didn't get to bed until about 4:30 a.m. (our time). Benjamin didn't sleep at all on the plane or on the car ride like I had expected him to, so he was a little wired the next day on Christmas Eve. So we opted not to keep him up for the Christmas Eve program. He did, however dress as a little shepherd boy for a few minutes before crying and running away from the camera. After he was down, we all sang Christmas songs and read the Wycliffe version of Luke 2.

Here we are, waiting on the stairs to go see what Santa brought us! Benjamin was still sick, so the tissue over his nose is pretty accurate.
Benjamin was so excited that Santa had brought him a fire engine with a ladder and opening doors and flashing lights and sirens and even a little firefighter. He walked away with his fire engine in hand and a big grin on his face saying, "Thank you, Santa!" We had to ask him to come back each time it was his turn to open another present. He would have been happy with just the fire engine, I think! That, and the yogurt. Santa filled his stocking with a few cups of yogurt, and Benjamin thought that was the coolest thing ever. He couldn't stop talking about it.

Aunt Katie gave him a backpack, which was another favorite. It's a Thomas the Train backpack, which naturally makes him enviable among his peers. He loves it! This was another hit- a magnifying glass. He knew exactly what it was, and ran around the house shouting, "It's a magnifying glass!" and examining everything through it.

It's so fun having a kid who's a little more aware and who can appreciate Christmas. We all had a wonderful Christmas and the gifts were all so thoughtful! We spent the last half of Christmas day with my family, who now live about an hour north of Paul's parents. It was fun to be able to see both our families this year, since we had no family with us last Christmas.

Birthiversamas 2008

We celebrate our anniversary, Christmas and Paul’s birthday all within a span of 10 days. We planned on going out for our fourth anniversary and leaving the boys with some friends, but I got a violent case of the stomach flu just the day before, so we decided not to spread the holiday cheer on. Instead, Paul surprised me with St. Louis Bread Co. take-out, which hit the spot. I love their broccoli cheddar soup!
That was ok. We were still looking forward to our trip to Utah, where we’d be able to have a break for a few weeks and spend time with family. The weekend before we were going to leave, Benjamin and Peter were both coughing, and Peter had a pathetic little silent cry. I thought nothing of it. I would just ask the pediatrician at Peter’s 2 month checkup on Monday if she had any tips for traveling with a baby with a cold. But Peter’s well-child checkup was quickly switched to a sick child checkup when the doctor listened to his breathing and told me he had RSV. She said there was no way he could fly to such a high altitude the next day since he was borderline-emergency room bad, and put him on a nebulizer with some albuterol to clear up his tiny airways and help him breathe. Peter immediately relaxed and fell asleep in my arms, sucking the steroids and oxygen in. I felt awful! Here I hadn’t even noticed his heaving chest because I had been keeping him so layered in our chilly house. I hadn’t even picked up on the wheezing because I was so preoccupied with getting everything done before we left home for three weeks. All of our presents had been ordered through Amazon and had been shipped directly to Utah. We had even timed the food perfectly so we wouldn’t have anything gross sitting in our house while we were gone. I was sick about not being able to go, which made me feel like a terrible mom for not worrying more about my sick baby. I needed this break!

After a long afternoon of crying to Paul, fixing our insurance plan to add Peter, running to two different pharmacies, fixing a flat tire (which was frozen on), picking up Peter's prescription and waiting for his nebulizer to be delivered, we packed- just in case. I admittedly didn't have much hope that we would leave the next day as scheduled, even though Paul gave Peter a blessing and many prayers were said in his behalf. But we were blessed with a Christmas miracle when the next day, a different pediatrician looked at him and said Peter was well enough to travel. His breathing was substantially improved, his coloring looked great, he was eating regularly, and his oxygen levels were fine! So we hurried and finished last minute details, and left for Utah. It's been wonderful, and I'll eventually post pictures. We're having a great time and are feeling rejuvenated. It's so nice to be with family again!

Nativity

Our ward had "A night in Bethlehem" last night, and it was a blast. There were booths set up all around the gym with different items for sale for a penny. We were given a sack of pennies on our way in, so we had plenty to buy our dinners, after taxes of course. Benjamin was so excited to go and buy his cheese. Here's the little shepherd boy. We had to tell him he was dressing like David or Samuel from his favorite scripture stories for this to work.

And as the family with the newest baby in the ward, we were asked to be in the live nativity. I was dressed as a very Catholic looking Mary, and we all enjoyed gazing lovingly at our baby while everyone sang beautiful Christmas songs. Fortunately Peter slept in heavenly peace the entire time.

Two-and-a-Half

Benjamin is officially 2 ½ as of yesterday. I’ve been saying the spacing between Benjamin and Peter is great because we’re just lumping together all of the effects of having a new baby and all the joys of Benjamin being 2 ½ and getting it over with, but it really has been challenging. I feel guilty most days because I know how much our relationship has changed since having Peter, and I’m definitely not as patient with him as I used to be.

Benjamin used to be the perfect child who could do no wrong (second children are good for the firstborn as well as the parents, don't you think?). He was adorable, sweet, obedient and good. Now he’s obstinate and extremely independent, unless he decides that either Paul or I need to do something for him. I find myself expecting more from him because he’s “big” now, but I know it’s probably unreasonable for me to do so. I have to keep reminding myself he is only 2 ½. He’s regressed a little with his potty training too. This morning, I asked him probably 10 times to go to the bathroom before he finally wet his second pair of pants of the day, right in front of the potty.

As frustrating as my little Benjamin can be, he forgives and forgets all of my less-than-stellar moments. He’s a sweet boy with a huge heart, and I learn a lot from him. He is smart and so imaginative and fun. I feel so lucky to be the mother of this amazing little boy.

This morning as he was using all of his usual tactics to get us out of bed (i.e. trying to injure Peter), Paul finally said to him, “That makes Mommy and Daddy really sad when you do that. And it makes Jesus sad…And Santa Claus,” to which Benjamin quickly replied, “No, only Santa Claus.” We’re still trying to teach him to understand the real meaning of Christmas. :)

He is obsessed with this book we got at the library about Santa Claus called “The Christmas Bear.” It really does have fantastic illustrations and the story line is pretty cute, but I’ve read it probably at least a dozen times every day since we got it. This afternoon as we were reading it, he got so frustrated because he couldn’t “skidoo” into the page (if you haven’t ever seen “Blue’s Clues,” Steve and Blue “skidoo” into pictures and books on every episode). He was saying “Blue skidoo, you can too!” and jumping and making the right sound effects, but to no avail. So we had to pretend to “skidoo” into the pictures and play with all the cool toys.

Hopefully if he’s really good this year, Santa Claus will bring Benjamin a “fon-un,” or “fire engine,” in case you didn’t catch that. And if I’m good this year, maybe two-and-a-half will fly by!

Some Videos of the Boys

Here's a boring newborn video. We were trying to capture Peter's terrific gutteral goat grunt but couldn't get more than a couple of coos out of him.

"It's a cyclone experiment!" Benjamin saw this on Blues Clues, and was stoked when Paul brought two bottles home to try it out.