a GRRREAT time

As an early Christmas present to ourselves, we took the girls up to Great Wolf Lodge. It is a themed hotel with an indoor water park. We absolutely love it there and were more than excited to get out of town--even if it was a quick trip.

We had fun playing in the water, flying down the water slides, sleeping in bunk beds, getting in our pj's for story time, and getting snowed on indoors! Kassie and Amberlee were both barely tall enough to go down the big slides by themselves. I was a little nervous, and they were so brave and proud of themselves. Emma had fun running away from sharks in the lazy river, and Laicee cried each time she went on the water slides...but, she kept going. So, somewhere deep inside her I'm sure she loved it as well!

I can't even tell you the pure joy and laughter that came from all of us on this trip!

Kev and Laicee on the lazy river


Amberlee floating along

We treated the girls to chocolate fondue.

They couldn't believe all they could dip into chocolate!

2009 Lowedown!

Dear Family and Friends,

The Christmas season is one of our favorites. Not only is it a wonderful time to celebrate the birth of our Savior, it is also a great time to connect with old friends and family. We hope this year has been a great one for you! Here are our top highlights of 2009…

Kassie (loves to go by Kassandra) 7 years old-
2nd grade. Star performer. Ring leader. Soccer, basketball, dance and Brownie girl scouts. Loves everything about life. Wants to be veterinarian or a rock star. Turns 8 next year and is thrilled to be baptized!

Amberlee (5 years old)-
Loves kindergarten. Great student. Her teacher said she wants to photocopy her. Donated hair to locks of love. Loves gymnastics, cooking and finding new recipes. Loving, sweet, kind. 1 marriage proposal.

Emma (4 years old in January)-
Resident party animal. Ball of energy. Happy, bright, fun. Loves soccer, dance, and gymnastics. Coach said she was freakishly strong! Rides two-wheeler with NO training wheels. Bag lady. Such a fun girl!

Laicee (2 years old)-
Great talker and singer. Adorable smile. “I do it myself!”. LOVES being entertained by older sisters. Tries her hardest to keep up. Won’t stay in bed. 1st daughter to get stitches. Amazingly thoughtful and caring.

Stephanie-
Loves being busy with the 4 girls. Exhausted. Loves dates with the hubby. Volleyball. Book Club. Girls nights out. Organized Santa Parade float. Nativity Exhibit Committee. Freezing in MI. Lovin’ life!

Kevin-
Lone man of the house. Healed Achilles. Grateful to walk and run again -- 5Ks. Daddy-daughter dates. Varsity Scout Coach -- horseback high adventure. Promotion…lots of work. Excited to celebrate 10 years of marriage next year.

Have a wonderful Christmas Season and a very Happy New year!
Love,
The Lowe Family

Nutcracker Outing

I love the holidays! I especially love when I can find fun, unique, and memorable things to do. In our little town, the Nutcracker ballet comes every 3 years. I decided, along with my fabulous friends and their daughters, to take our older girls (Kassie and Amberlee) to see the ballet! The girls wore their fancy dresses and we took them out to lunch before the show. The best part was watching their excited little faces light up when they saw Clara, the fancy dancers, the mice and the mouse king, and most importantly...the Nutcracker! They literally were on the edge of their seats and I could see their minds just soaking up the whole thing. This is one experience that we'll cherish and one that will hopefully become a tradition!Here's our adorable group of girls practicing their ballet moves!

One ends and another begins

Kassie and Emma both played soccer this season and it was so fun to see them play. Emma was so very excited to score a goal and Kass did an awesome job.

This was such a cold day!!! Freezing rain pelted us in the face and the girls were bundled up in tons of layers. I'm just glad our next sport is inside!

But now that soccer is over, it's time for basketball! Kassie is lovin' it. She's had 2 games so far and has had a couple of basket shots and lots of great blocks and steals.

Kass is the one shooting the ball. It makes our Saturday mornings early and busy...but it's great to see them having fun and excelling in activities!

Once I get pictures, I can show you that Amberlee has been in a gymnastics class. She has the best time and loves doing cartwheels, round-offs, and splits all over the house...and when I say all over the house...I literally mean ALL OVER the house. She is ALWAYS doing her little acts ALL the time! She can't get from one end of the room to another without doing a little cartwheel or something along the way!

I love these girls!

Our trick-or-treaters!!!

Kassie was super-girl, Emma and Amberlee were cats, and Laicee was a spider witch.

Harry Potter's Little Sister?

This is how we spent our general conference morning after a game of turtle tag.

Poor Laicee was running away from her sisters and fell right into our speaker.

She had to have 2 stiches on the inside and 5 stiches on the outside. She felt much better once the ER nurses gave her a little cute teddy bear. Apparently, she is doing fine :)

...and we're off!

I admit it, I did get a little misty-eyed taking Amberlee and Kassie to their first day of school. They were so excited, anxious, and cute and I was so happy for them and it made me thrilled and sad all at once. But then, as I was leaving the school parking lot...I turned the music up and did a little car dance! Yay for a new school year! Kassie (who likes to go by Kassandra at school) is in the 2nd grade. Amberlee is in Kindergarten and Emma is going to pre-school 3 days a week.

Something special for each...

1. Kassie turned 7 years old on July 12th and for her birthday she wanted to get her ears pierced! After a couple weeks of debate, we decided to surprise her with a trip to the mall to get it done. She was so excited and nervous but she put on a brave face and entered into this rite of passage!

2. I am jealous of Amberlee's hair. It's long, silky, thick and beautiful. It obviously does not come from me. She has been asking for months to get it cut...not just trimmed...she's wanted it super short. I finally relented this week and took her (and all the girls) in for a hair cut. Little did I know that Amberlee had enough to donate to Locks of Love! She was so excited that she could help kids who didn't have any hair. And yes, I did tear up and cry a little...but it really was so sweet to see her be so excited about helping other kids (ok, and I was a little sad to see all that beautiful hair be chopped off)!

3. Emma, my 3 1/2 year old party animal, decided that she was old enough to ride a 2 wheel bike without training wheels! She asked Kev to take them off and viola...within minutes she was riding like a pro! My kids definitely do not get their balance from me! It's so funny to watch this little cutie riding down the street!

4. Is it illegal to lock a child into a crib? I would love to make a crib top that you can lock each night! Laicee can now climb out of her crib! This is what we found last night...so cute!!!

Pure Tenderness

We have been absent from our blog for a little while...mostly due to our unexpected trip to Utah when our sweet little niece (Kevin's brother JJ's daughter) passed away. Although we knew her life would be limited when she was born a little over 2 years ago, we were not expecting her to go at this time (Heather, her incredible mom, just had a baby girl 2 1/2 weeks before this).

Hannah Jane was born in January of 2007. She was born into an imperfect body with a chromosomal disorder causing her to have only 1 eye; She couldn't really see or hear. She had weak lungs, heart, kidneys, muscles and a body that didn't really grow as it normally would. And although she had this body, her spirit was absolutely perfect. She was the most genuine, purest, most wonderful person you could ever be around. When her Dad blessed her as a newborn, he prayed that she would be able to fulfill her life's work, that people would want to be better because of her, and that her life would glorify our Savior Jesus Christ. In the short years of her life, she and her family were able to realize in very touching and personal ways how she had fulfilled each one of those. She is such a beautiful and special girl and we are so very grateful to have her be part of our family. Her dad relayed a quote he found in the book One Tattered Angel that really touches my heart..."In our church we believe in the ministering of angels...You and your family have been privileged to minister to one".

It was early Wednesday morning on the 3rd of June when we got the call from Kev's mom telling us about Hannah. We quickly realized throughout the day how important it would be for us to be there and how important it would be for the girls to get a real and genuinely personal lesson about eternal families. We packed up the car and by Thursday morning we made the 3 day drive out to Utah to be there for her burial on Monday. It was truly amazing to see how our entire family came together during this time. The girls loved being with their cousins again and most of all, they more fully understand that because mom and dad got married in the temple, we can be an eternal family when we die. We are grateful to our loving Heavenly Father for His abundance of tender mercies. We know it was time for Hannah to go, and we know we are better because of her. We love you Hannah.

Kevin and JJ

Here's to my little performer

Kassie had her first dance recital last weekend and I was loving every minute of being a girl's mom! Because she really loves being on stage, it was even more fun to put the make-up on her and dress her up in her costume. So here are the recital pics...and the video footage will be added soon (especially since she was SO funny bossing everyone around on stage!)

Kassie and couple of her cute friends! (abby, Kass, alex)

Afterwards we treated all the kids to ice cream!

Emma's Little Puppy

What cracks me up the most is that Laicee assumes this role very well. She barks and/or meows, is happy to be on a leash, and eats out of bowls and hands! Who needs real animals?!?

I Love Dance Recitals!

Amberlee had her first dance recital yesterday and it was adorable! She, by nature, really does not like performing in front of people (she still has yet to give the prayer/scripture/talk in primary and ends up in tears every time)...so the fact that she was up on stage was amazing to me. It was so fun dressing her up in make-up and her little costumes! We had so much fun!

Amberlee and one of her best friends. They have had so much fun taking this class together!



Amberlee was SO excited when her pre-school teacher came to watch her!

















And here's a little snippet of one of her dances! She really does smile when she dances...just not in front of everyone...and notice how she's the first one to run off the stage...totally cute and funny!

talent runs in the family...hopefully

I hope that through pure genetics, my kids can somehow be as talented as our amazing cousins! Kevin's Uncle's family (his wife and 7 kids), stage name "The Lowe Family", has been performing in Branson, MO for the past 10 years. They have now taken their show on the road. A couple weekends ago they came up to MI and we were able to go to the show with our 3 oldest kiddos! All together their family plays 50 different instruments-beautifully, they dance, they sing, and they put on such an amazing show! The girls sat mesmerized during the whole performance! It was so much fun to see them all! Here is a link to their YouTube page. Check out the snippets from their shows and also their new music video, "We Will Go On"...it's really awesome!!!

http://www.youtube.com/user/thelowefamily

The next day, we were so excited to have the Lowe's all over for lunch before they headed back to Branson.

Uncle Bob and Jer-Bear have something in common...besides being brothers, they both fell asleep in this chair...with little girlies smothering them with random hugs!

Kassie told Doug she would rub his feet if he paid her...and she held him to it!

We love you guys!!! It was GREAT to see you again!!!

As a little side note, our cousin Kendra, who's part of this whole family, is now the Keyboardist and female vocalist for David Archuleta!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vu7khh8VZBs

A little Bit of Amberlee

We celebrated Amberlee's Birthday a little while ago (ok...it was 3 weeks ago on the 4th) and she's been looking forward to seeing her pictures on the blog! So here's a little 5 year birthday blog celebration of our sweet Amberlee...starting with our 5 top reasons we love her!

1. She is the most thoughtful person. She always thinks about others before herself. For example, she got a few dollars for her birthday and the first thing she said was that she could go to the dollar store and buy presents for her sisters! This is how she thinks...all the time!

2. She is quiet and very shy outside of our home, but once you get to know her she is incredibly goofy...and I'm always finding pictures on my camera like this...

3. She loves to cook with me and she's always finding recipes for me to try.

4. She's a little (possibly a lot) OCD and organizes almost everything...and her favorite color is orange!

5. She told me that her most special talent is swimming! (We'll see!) She likes playing soccer (but not on game day) and she loves animals!

Amberlee was born in Japan...and she was cold. She had a hard time regulating her body temperature so they put her in a warming bed and put this little hat on her...it was so cute. She now asks to see the picture of her wearing the bunny ears! You can even see the top part of her little newborn kimono!

3 months old1 year old at Disney Sea in Japan2 years old3 years old with her 1st bike4th birthday...she wanted a princess tea party. She invited her friends over and wanted them to wear their princess dresses. On the day of the party, all she wanted to wear was her polka-dot dress from grandma!5 years old, 2009Birthday party at the gymnastics center with her favorite friends

(Lauren, Emma, Amberlee, Morgan, and Maggie)