THE LOWE FAMILY NEWSLETTER: VOLUME 98 MARCH 2015

Dear Readers,

Mother has been relentlessly attacking so many projects that I have not found time to write about it all!

February kicked off with my Super Bowl party attended by my Kansas City family and adopted Dickinson family. Watching Elena, Lola Rose and Ava Claire was as entertaining as the game - especially when the two oldest girls tackled the issue of just who's Grandma I am! Elena declared I was hers -Ava Claire insisted I was her Grandma and neither girl seemed to think it was possible that I was the other's Grandma if I was hers! They would be totally confused if they came with me to Kay's school where the entire class calls me Grandma Lowe! Frankly I am happy to be a Grandma to all the kids in my life and have never dreaded hearing the word as so many people seem to. I am constantly amazed at the names women dream up to avoid being addressed as “ Grandma”. I have been Grandma Lowe since I was thirty nine years old ! My only complaint is that I don't have any grandchildren from five of my offspring!

My Florida bedroom has undergone a transformation since Coryn and Jeremy decided to switch Ava Claire into a toddler bed freeing up her crib for the new baby. The queen bed that was in the new nursery was moved to my house in exchange for two of my twin beds that will be better suited for the kids future needs. This meant that I needed new bedding, matching bed-side tables, and some refinishing of existing furniture to match my new color scheme. My garage floor is now blood red since I spray painted two wicker chairs there – despite putting down large sheets of cardboard to protect it!

I am now giving serious consideration to painting all the dark woodwork upstairs the same creamy color as most of the first floor doors and trim. It will be a very time consuming project but I think it will be a positive change.

The weekend before last Coryn took me to see the ballet Giselle at the Kauffman Center which is touted as one of the best performance auditoriums in the country. It was a Christmas gift from her and Jeremy and was much anticipated and greatly enjoyed. We used a gift certificate from some of my sons for dinner on the Country Club Plaza and had a fabulous seafood dinner with a novel desert - fresh berries and mousse in a chocolate bag - reminded me of the chocolate swans filled with raspberry mousse that Coryn and Jeremy served at their wedding reception. We both thought how much Ava Claire would have loved the dessert and will definitely have to repeat the experience with her when she is a little older.

We had some time between dinner and the ballet to walk around the plaza shops – the streets were jammed with crowds of people in town for the Big Twelve Basketball games at the nearby Sprint Center. I was concerned that the short drive to the theater might be a traffic jam but it was fine. Coryn happily teetered through the stores and along the sidewalks in her five inch heels with her baby bump seemingly defying gravity. By the time we reached our theater seats her feet were swollen, throbbing masses which led her to sit barefoot( thank goodness she didn't have smelly feet) through the performance while she hoped she wouldn't need any runs to the rest room before intermission. Today's dress standards have become so relaxed that one can almost roll out of bed in grungy sweats and an old t-shirt and go anywhere. I am rather old school on this issue – I loved my English days of wearing beautiful dresses and hats to weddings, dark respectful clothes to funerals and changing to go out to lunch or dinner.

Ming-Jon visited us the last weekend in February to spend some time with Kay Jeff and the rest of us before his planned departure in early March to teach English for a year in China. However things fell through at the last minute so now his trip has been postponed indefinitely. Fortuitously his arrival coincided with Josh's 35^th birthday so he was part of our celebration and got to enjoy two birthday cakes! I'm afraid I started making my cake too early in the morning. Josh had requested a strawberry cake with cream cheese frosting – from yet another web site which claimed the recipe tasted great but was difficult to get to the right consistency- I decided to make an early start in case my first batch of frosting was so bad that I would have to start another. Unfortunately I grabbed a box of cake mix from the pantry, dumped in the other ingredients and started my mixer. A few spins later and I noticed that my cake was chocolate and not strawberry. I had no idea that I had more than one cake mix in my pantry. So I decided to bake the chocolate cake and the strawberry cake. Fortunately I had enough whipping cream to make two different kinds of frosting. Actually the chocolate cake seemed more popular with my guests – many of whom had a slice of each – including Ava Claire of course along with strawberries and ice cream.

Ming Jon's Sunday return flight was canceled due to bad weather and the earliest flight available was for late afternoon the next day so he got to spend an extra day with me and Ava Claire on Monday. Coryn left work a little early so that I could take Ming-Jon to the airport. I know he was pleased to see Kay happily settled into her life in Kansas City with Jeff, her extended family, her work, great apartment and new car.

Ming- Lee, Lori, Blake and Claudia are spending the kids Spring break in Pheonix, Arizona with Lori's mom and step- dad. Coryn and Jeremy went to Chicago for a few days to visit with Amber Scott and her fiancee whilst Ava Claire stayed with me. Sean stayed at Coryns with the four dogs and I had some help from Josh at my house with a very demanding Ava Claire. The cat became her great playmate again, enduring having her fur coat tugged out with my hairbrush, fake food rammed in her mouth and being poked with a plastic medicine dropper when Ava decided to play doctor – over and over again. At least she didn't try to put a diaper on the cat this time although she did make her wear a hat! It is amazing that the cat tolerates her so well and actively seeks her out. The only time Delilah has scratched her was when Ava Claire rolled over the cat while she was sleeping.

Josh and Sean are both planning to leave next month, Josh will be headed to Texas to help build another hydroponic greenhouse and will return to Bolivia to volunteer at at an animal reserve again. Sean is planning on using his British citizenship to move to London and work for an extended time. Being interesting to see how he feels about the weather and high cost of living there.

My friend Becky Clay had some great news recently: her home in Fort Madison has sold. This means that she can now explore the possibility of finding a place of her own in Savannah. I hope she finds something with lots of character and some outdoor space for at least a few pots of flowers. I will be visiting her once she is settled and will enjoy seeing Lysander and Merovy too.

I have been hoping to remove my cracked and heaving concrete patio and replace it with something else for years- I didn't want to subject Norm to the noise of a jack hammer. I have decided to attack the job this Spring and am currently getting bids. I just hope it can be transformed before all my plants get trampled to death by the workers. Masses of my bulbs are blooming and green shoots are poking up through the dirt in all my flower beds. We have had a relatively mild winter here – some sub freezing temperatures but a lot of above normal ones and very little snow.

I have painted the walls in my sewing room – each one a different color to use up paint that has been sitting in the storage room since we moved into this house. It is very bold, bright green, terracotta, turquoise and sunshine yellow. It seems to have stimulated my creativity as I have been sewing for weeks! Some of my children seemed dubious about my paint job – Josh said it was so distracting that he found it hard to concentrate on ironing his work pants and shirts whilst Coryn said it suggested a Mexican themed restaurant. I am very pleased with my handiwork and have decided to put laying carpet squares in it on my to do list – maybe a rainbow of colors. If I have to sew with my sunglasses on so be it.

Coryn recently met me at a going out of business fabric sale in Belton, a town between our homes. She was hoping to find some fabrics for the new nursery but we only found pink glitter tulle which Coryn wanted me to make into a many layered table skirt for Ava Claire's room. We had lunch but eating with Ava Claire these days is no longer a pleasant experience. She has become a picky eater. She will announce loudly “I don't like it” and toss it on the floor if one does not remove it from her grasp fast enough. However she likes to order hot tea and desert of course. We all hope that this will be a short stage.

Coryn eventually found fabric on the web which she ordered – fortunately Jeremy liked it after the fact. Now I have yards of four complimentary fabrics waiting to be turned into crib panels, bumper pads, pillows, changing table pads, basket liners and valances. I have learned that when Coryn has plans for a custom anything it means I will be doing all the work! Good job I find my sewing room such a happy place to be slaving away in.

Bryn is now contemplating working as a consultants as he feels it would give him more flexibility to take extended vacations and possibly be more lucrative. Marc is just glad to have his space back to himself and muttering about his brothers laid back approach to life.

Easter will be soon be upon us and this cute chick will be preening in the garden for all my neighbors to enjoy and hopping around the kitchen chasing my tail preparing an Easter ham if I have dinner guests. In the meantime I will continue to wish that many of my chicks will breed like rabbits when their soul mates finally hop into their lives. Love to you all from the best bred mother of all!