Girls Night Out

Joe is out of town on a fishing trip with some buddies, so Alathea & I are home alone. Quite honestly I am usually the one that is out of town and Joe is at home. He sure handles it better than I do...I REALLY miss him! (And he's only been gone one day!). While I should have made more plans to keep myself busy at night while he is gone (thats when I miss him the most), at least last night Alathea & I had a great time at Birkdale with Kristie & Uncle Kenni (Kendra :). He's going to be gone again next week...so anyone who's going to be lonely at night then...maybe we could have dinner :)

The one nice thing about these few days is that I am having a wonderful time with my baby girl! We obviously had a blast last night, and I took her out to breakfast this morning. She's so fun to be with. It's when she is sleeping I'm really lonely :)

Kenni took most of these pictures. I love the one of Alathea wearing her red glasses...she had to make sure we got a picture of her looking "pretty"!

Our trip to MD

Alathea with her Great-Grandpa giving her kisses


Her first Chocolate Bunny in her Easter basket...yummy!


The tree's that were still in bloom were gorgeous (Cherry Blossoms in DC)


Julie & Ellen dancing at the Jefferson Memorial. There was a live band playing music and they couldn't resist :)


Julie, Alathea & I in Washington DC - Alathea's first trip downtown


Our family on Easter Sunday


Alathea on Easter


My cousin Kevin, Julie and my Uncle Miles (yep, MY uncle!)



Joe with his buddy Nick


My Dad with my Grandma..."Great-Grandma Bowers" as she likes to be called


We are home! We had a wonderful time this past week in Maryland with my family, celebrating Easter, visiting friends and attending the Leaders Conference. Easter Sunday we went to Covenant Life and seemed to run in to most of our friends that go there (hard to do with such a huge church and two services). I spent most of the servce in the lobby with Alathea, sitting on the couch with Kristin Seaver (with a sick Sarah Evelyn) and Reba holding Kathryn. It made me excited for them to come home!!

Twenty-some family members and our dear friends, Nick & Reba (and baby Kathryn!), came over for Easter dinner. We all missed Mom. Nothings the same without her. Despite missing her, we still enjoyed our BBQ dinner and fellowshiping together! Having the Swans for another holiday was a treat.

Alathea got her first trip to Washington D.C. this week. Julie, Ellen and I took her to see the Cherry Blossoms. While they were mostly past bloom (as Ellen said when we drove up to about 100 of them, "Where are all the Cherry Blossoms?"), we still walked around the Tidal Basin, and visited the Jefferson Memorial, FDR Memorial (my personal fav) and the new WW2 Memorial. Alathea enjoyed the ducks in the water ;)

We did fun things as a family...like going to the driving range, the mall and eating out lots of yummy meals. I was so happy to get so much time with my brother, Rocky, who drove about an hour every day after class to come see us.

The Leader's Conference was wonderful as well. RC Sproul spoke two nights on the Holiness of God. I'd highly recommend those messages. Two of my all time-fav's!

After a fun & full week, Joe is speaking in Greensboro yesterday.

We are so excited about being Home together as a family this week. Home sweet home!

Thanks Pop-Pop & Julie

We have to give a HUGE thank you to my Dad, Alathea's Pop-Pop, and my sister, Aunt Julie. They watched Alathea tag-team style from Wednesday-Friday of this week while Joe & I attended the Leaders Conference at CLC. We have left Alathea a number of times before, but only for a few hours. I was kind of nervous at to how she would handle not seeing Joe & I for such an extended peroid of time. Let's just say I was the one who wanted to cry :)...when we would come home, she would give us a quick glance & maybe a smile and go right back to Aunt Julie & Pop-Pop (and Uncle Billy, Great-Grandma, Uncle Rocky and Julie's friends Katie & Ellen...all of whom pretty much live at my Dad's house). She was SOOOO happy! Once I dealt with the selfishness in my heart of wanting Alathea to always need me and miss me, I was thanking God that she was enjoying herself so much. She was getting spoiled with love, fun and food! Thank you Daddy, for taking off a whole week of work to be with us...and to change so many diapers, and thank you, Julie, for giving up your Spring Break to serve us. I love you!! Alathea obviously does too! You are true servants!

Hanging with my Buddy's

We had CJ & Avery over this afternoon before their Aunt Tiffany's wedding. The three kid's had tons of fun together- as usual. I got to take a few cute pictures of them. They moved in a herd around the house, always sticking together. Alathea is blessed to have best bud's who are twins! Anyways, we are leaving at 6am in the morning for MD. See you all in a week!

Easter

Nana giving Alathea her "Bunny"




Our Family last year at Easter. Alathea is wearing her pretty pink Easter dress from Nana too...



More pictures with Nana & Bunny...who'd have thought Bunny would become her favorite thing in the world...maybe it reminds her of Nana...




We will be driving up to see my family in Maryland early this Saturday morning. We'll spend Easter with my extended family and maybe even Nick & Reba and the Seavers. We'll stay in Maryland a whole week, until the following Saturday when we drive home so Joe can speak in Greensboro again on Sunday. (pray for him...he's got three messages in one week again..Greensboro, M28 and then Crossway the following Sunday). Joe & I will be attending the Leader's Conference Wednesday night-Friday night, which is held at Covenant Life Church. My Dad & Julie are going to watch Alathea for us during the meetings. This will be by far the most I've ever left her in a week...I'm kinda nervous. Although, I know she'll have so much fun and be spoiled rotten by my dad & sister. They've already told me of their grand plans with her (french frie dates, going to park, getting milk shakes...). Fortunately Alathea has been feeling much better since yesterday. I guess maybe she did have a virus that just needed to run its course.

Pray for my family during Easter. There is nothing like a holiday to remind you of the loved ones who are no longer with you. We ALL miss Mom terribly. I guess we thought it would get easier with time, but it hasn't really yet. Just longer periods of time between crying :). Last year my Mom bought Alathea her first beautiful Easter dress (which I still have hanging in her room), and her beloved "Bunny"!! Who would have thought that Easter Bunny would become her favorite thing in the world! So those things remind me so much of Mom. Last Easter was when we learned she had less than six months to live. Both sweet and painful memories. I'm also going to visit Mom's grave for the first time on Easter. I've kind of avioded it so far, but I think its time. Please pray for that too! It won't be easy.

These are pictures of Easter last year.

I hope everyone enjoy's the most important day of the year...celebrating what our Savior's done for us!

What a difference a few hours can make...

Alathea has been going up and down the past three days in how she feels...One hour she'll be running around exploring the outdoors, and the next she'll be lying in our bed, looking pitiful and not moving at all. Actually, she'll be crying. I'm not sure what's going on. I guess that's part of Motherhood. Maybe she's fighting a virus, maybe it's due to her molars popping up? Any sugguestions on what may be going on?? Anyways, by God's grace I am enjoying the good times as well as the difficult. She's fallen asleep in my arms five times the past three days. With her energy level and indepenence, that never happens anymore...so I count it as a blessing :) Oh, and the first picture is her first time eating speghetti last night. She really liked it. The last two picts are from this morning...she laid in our bed for three hours!

This Week

SO...after the topic of Time Management coming up in our Women's Ministry at Church lately, I have been trying to seriously evaluate how I spend my time. Am I really giving myself to my priorities? Am I saying "yes" to too much? Well, this has been another one of those weeks where I barely make it out alive :) Although it was very busy, and there were times I was in tears because I had, once again, said yes to too much and not given myself to what was most important. Despite ways I need to grow in Time Management, by God's grace there were still many highlights from the week. I was amazed as I loaded my already full memory card onto the computer that every picture was taken just this week! And there were many other things that happened that I don't have pictures of! Here are some of this weeks highlights (starting from the end of the week and ending with the beginning)...


Joe spoke in Greensboro on Sunday. This is Alathea in the car snuggling bunny on the way home. It was an all day event. Good friends Steve & Lizzy came with us too! It was a fun day.


This is a picture of Alathea at home after Greensboro (actually at the end of the week...this picts go from the end of the week to the beginning :)...she was exhausted!! Some good family snuggles before bed that night!


Alathea falls down on the sidewalk and scrapes up her entire face (as shown here)

Playing with Wesley & Savannah...they are both fighting for attention here :)


Reading stories with Daddy...an all-time favorite activity


"Aunt Jeanie" with my nephew Andrew at 10 months old (we had a play date with him too)


The Seavers are in town and come over for dinner (This is Alathea trying to kiss Sarah Evelyn)


Grandpa, Grammy & Uncle Aaron come over to play & eat dinner


With the gorgeous weather we were outside almost every evening. We'd eat dinner and then play soccer while Alathea played with her baby doll (sometimes she'd join us too)


The Abernathy's came over to visit (and Paul played soccer too). They live 2 doors down from us. This is Oliva at 5 weeks!



We went to the Asheboro Zoo as a family on Joe's day off! Alathea loved it. She's really into animals so this was a treat. The only thing she didn't like was when we'd stick her back in the stroller...she'd much rather run free!!

Well, Praise God for so many blessings this week. And hopefully I will grow in not saying yes to so much this next week...

I love Grammy

Alathea loves her Grammy. We usually see Joe's Mom at least once a week. This week Alathea had Grammy over for lunch on Sunday (along with Grandpa and Uncle Aaron). They explored the great outdoors of our backyard together (which is Alathea's new favorite thing to do). Then we saw Grammy on Wednesday and played with her at the playplace in Northlake Mall. We also saw Grammy, along with Aunt Heather and counsin Andrew on Friday morning to play together at Andrew's house. Wow! Lots of Grammy in one week, what a lucky girl! Alathea absoultely loves her Grammy, and so do her Mommy & Daddy. Grammy is the best!