Asia Elizabeth Ball Lowe

Happy Birthday, Asia! I love this picture of Asia and Andrew that we took when we were living in Austin.  I hope you have a wonderful year, Asia,  it should be an eventful one! I miss you and wish we lived closer together and could see each other more often. I am grateful that you are my sister and my friend.  I am still waiting to hear from Ben about our spa trip! :)

Memories of Asia:

1. Asia used to say she was older than me because her birthday is four days before mine, only I was born three years before. :)

2. When my family was living in Germany, we starting calling her Little Miss Sunshine, hoping it might wear off on her attitude.

3. She went to a dance in Heidelberg castle. Isn't that romantic?

4. She cooked for her own wedding reception.

5. She once etched my name in the window sill with a screwdriver, hoping I would be the one to get in trouble for it.

6. She studied Art at Texas Tech.

7. She is the only one of us kids that didn't go to BYU.

8. She has beautiful blond hair and blue eyes.

9. She is so fun.

10. She took care of my boys when I was in the hospital after Michael was born.

11. She is very generous - my boys love getting presents from her.

12. She loves my boys.

13. When I was a senior and she was a freshman, it was fun to have her in Drama with me.

14. She is a great scrapbooker, I love the pages she has done for me.

15. I love going shopping with her.

16. She was born in Singapore and will maybe have her baby in a foreign country, too.

17. She made and decorated my wedding cake - it was chocolate.

18. When we were in Europe, we (mostly me) had eaten so much chocolate and I made her exercise with me, doing lunges, etc in the hotel hallways. We tried to look inconspicuous  every time we saw someone. 

19. I made her go on a date with me once when she was visiting me in Utah, my date (the guy) wasn't too thrilled. But, she made it so much better for me! 

20. She has a beautiful daughter.

21. She has visited me everywhere I have lived, except for Arizona. What's the deal, As?

22. She helped me go buy a pregnancy test when I thought I was pregnant with Jacob. ( I was )

23. She is so brave to drive across the country all by herself to see her husband before he left for Iraq.

24. She has always been one of my best friends.

25. She used to bite me as a kid. 

26. She used to share a bedroom with me and once we doing running somersaults onto the bed and we put a hole in the wall.

Happy 26th birthday!

My Valentines

Yesterday, Andrew and Jacob told me I was a princess.  I thought it was pretty cute.  I will be a princess surrounded by my princes.  Last night, Andrew and Jacob were changing into their pajamas and were taking turns using the bathroom before bed. Andrew came running out of the bathroom completely naked and Jacob was running into the bathroom wearing only underwear and they ran right into each other. I thought it was so funny. For some reason, it warmed my heart, like I was really experiencing motherhood. I know that sounds silly, but watching the looks on their faces and how they literally take life at a run, I feel lucky that I am their mother.

Jacob slept on the top bunk last night for the first time and I am surprised regularly that he is growing up and ready to be a big boy.  Michael loves Nursery as long as he can see me. Hopefully, he will get used to it and be ready to be in there alone once he is walking.

Shark Teeth

What a great morning picture! 

A little while ago, Andrew told me a new tooth was coming in.  Come to find out, his new tooth was coming in behind one of his baby teeth. It worried me a bit that we would need to get the baby tooth pulled and that his tooth would stay back there. But, I looked it up online - hooray for the internet - and found that it is fairly common ( they called them shark teeth). That the tooth will usually come out on its own or if we had to, it wouldn't be a big deal to pull it. And that the tooth typically moves to the spot it ought to be in. That baby tooth was a little loose, so we worked on it to loosen it a bit more.  Andrew was determined to get it out. He had a hard time going to sleep, he really wanted something to put under his pillow for the tooth fairy.  So, two days later when I picked him up from school, he smiled really big to show me his new smile - without one of his teeth!  They said he was wiggling it and it came flying out and one of the aides caught it. :) They put it in a cute little treasure chest and sent it home with him. I was a little sad that I wasn't there when he lost his first tooth. Oh, well. Anticipating the tooth fairy made getting to sleep a bit harder than usual, but he put the tooth in an envelope under his pillow. And woke up a dollar richer. :) He was so excited to go buy a toy with his money. My baby is growing up! The big tooth is starting to move up to the right position. Hopefully, all the other teeth come in the right way! But, for now he is our little shark.