Evie: 6 Months

6 MONTHS. HALF A YEAR. 180 DAYS.

I'm really not sure how we got here already. I mean, the first 3 months DRAGGED. I love my girl to pieces but boy those first months of reflux and colic and her just being upset all the time were AWFUL and I'm so glad we are beyond that. And then months 3-6 have just FLOWN. I feel like I've blinked and here we are! Granted, we have had A LOT happen for our family in the last 90 days, not to mention our girl is just this big ball of sweetness so time just seems to pass us right by.

This last month has been wonderful! She started sleeping again (PRAISES) and we have made some adjustments to the schedule that I am starting to love. Plus, unless she is tired or hungry, she is just happy and chill. She is my little social butterfly and  likes to be around all the action. Her FAVORITE thing is to bounce---don't you dare sit her down or you'll get a squeal of protest! She wants to be standing so she can just jump and jump and jump. If we had actual doorframes in the center of the house we would get her a Johnny Jump-Up. Instead, she settles for the stationary jumper, but she LOVES it.

In other big news, she is crawling. Yes, already! She beat her brother by a good 2 weeks! Right now, it's slow and steady but I have no doubt she will get faster every day as she figures it out.

She is technically sleeping all night. She goes from about 6:30PM-5AM before waking to eat. Sometimes she may cry out for a paci (and lately she has been pooping in the middle of the night) but she goes right back to sleep. Also, it is continuing to go GREAT for her to share a room with her brother! Once she eats at 5AM, we let her sleep in our room so that they can both sleep until they wake up. Sometimes, she doesn't really sleep well after eating, other times she does.

Girlfriend has been teething up a storm! Still no teeth, but goodness I hope they're close. Every now and then I have to give Tylenol, but thankful for our amber teething necklace! She has run a low grade fever off and on and (TMI) but her poop has been nasty and giving her a diaper rash. I hope she doesn't teethe like her brother!

One other fun fact for this month--we went to the Tulsa Zoo! Read all the fun details about it HERE

Halloween 2016: major FAIL. Since we are trying to pack up our house, I accidentally packed up our costumes. And we didn't even take the kids Trick-or-Treating! Evie was asleep by 6:30pm and Holt by 7:30pm. Oh well. There's always next year.

We got family pictures made! We were probably crazy for trying to do fall pictures with two kids 2 & under (not to mention it was 75 degrees, so not really fall weather) but SarahGrace Sharp did a GREAT job! I even made Christmas cards, which I haven't done in about 3 years. Goodness, I have some seriously beautiful kids!

In other BIG news---Daniel got a new job AND we listed our house this month!! You can read all the details HERE

Typical Schedule:

7AM wake
8AM  6 oz bottle
playtime
9AM  nap time
11:30AM   6 oz bottle
playtime
1/1:30PM  nap time
3PM  6 oz bottle
playtime (usually awake from here on out, but sometimes will take a short 20 min catnap)
6:15PM bathtime
6:30PM  7 oz bottle and bedtime
5AM (or so)  4 oz bottle

Weight:13 lbs 8 oz. (10th percentile)
Height: 26 inches (50th percentile)

Photo Dump:

Evie-girl, 

You LIGHT up our world! You are the most chill and relaxed baby now that we got through all your reflux issues and you LOVE to cuddle. I hope you keep that up :) You adore your big brother and he adores you just as much. You have started babbling and you'll just talk and talk and talk---especially when we put you in front of a mirror. You are just the sweetest thing and we can't imagine life without you baby girl. 

All my love, 

Mama

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Our Big Transition

We have had some major life change going on in the Lowery house! Let me start from the beginning:

We have felt for several months now that the Lord was preparing us to leave First Baptist Fort Smith. We had no idea what that looked like, but we were very prayerful that the Lord would prepare our hearts and to open the doors He wanted open. Back in May, before Evie was born, Daniel got a call from our regional Baptist Association guy (Sorry Jeff I don't know you're real title, LOL) saying he had given Daniel's name to a local pastor (Russ Tyler) who was looking for an Associate Pastor. He met with him over lunch and then didn't hear anything for a while, so we figured that was that. We continued on with our lives, adjusting to being a family of four and continued to pray. 

Fast forward to Labor Day weekend. Daniel got another call from Russ. He wanted to meet for lunch again on the Tuesday after Labor Day. We continued to pray, continued to ask the Lord to open doors He wanted open and to close the ones He didn't want for us. After meeting with him, Daniel called and with awe in his voice, told me that Russ had basically offered him the job--right there on the spot! We were in complete shock to say the least. 

Things progressed pretty quickly from there. Daniel went and had an official interview with the Personnel Team and the Finance Team. After that passed, Daniel had a meeting with the head pastor at FSFBC and informed him of his new job. They were genuinely excited for us in our next step and told Daniel how much they had appreciated having him on staff the last three and a half years. They even asked him to read an official resignation letter to the church to let them know. It was our sincere hope to leave on good terms and I truly believe we did that. Daniel's last day at work was October 20th and on October 23rd, we were officially voted in at First Southern Baptist Church in Central City.

The Lord, in His loving kindness, has allowed us to stay here in Fort Smith! It wasn't His plan to move us far away and for that I am SO grateful. We get to stay here and continue the relationships we started and form new ones at our new church. We can hardly believe it! 

But of course, we can't just do one major life change...we have to do at least two. We are trying to sell our house and move closer to FSBC. Right now it is a 30 minute drive (one way) from our house in Van Buren. We would really like to move into East Fort Smith so we can drastically reduce our drive time. It has been a pain in the rear to get our house ready over these last 2 months, but we finally got it listed last Friday! If you know of anyone looking for a GREAT house in a wonderful neighborhood, send them our way! The sooner we can move the better! 

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