The Force is Strong with this One

This past Saturday was the fall festival at the elementary school so our little Yoda decided to make his debut. He was not thrilled at first with his costume, but I convinced (forced) him to wear it anyway.


Below is Andrew and James, our music minister's little boy. Andrew was very excited to see him!

There was a bubble blowing machine outside at the musical chairs and that would be where we spent the majority of our evening. Who cares about candy when you have bubbles??

ABC's Part II

We thought you might want to hear the ABC's for yourself. He didn't do quite as well this time as he did last night, but still quite cute if I do say so myself.

ABC's

Tonight as Jay and I put Andrew down to sleep, we prayed with him and then asked him if he wanted to sing a song. Usually this consists of Jay and I singing while Andrew joins in a few lines here and there. Tonight he busted out in the ABC's and did the whole thing by himself! It was the most precious thing to hear....Jay and I were both in tears by the end. We thank God amazing times like these.

Fun Time in Beerleyland

Sorry that I don't have any pictures for this post, we accidentally forgot the camera on our adventures this week. And I say adventures because we had two separate ones. Jay headed out to San Diego for a youth minister's conference, while Andrew and I stayed in Dallas with Nana. Jay had a wonderful time. He said that it was very smokey from all of the fires. I'm glad he got out before it got too bad in San Diego. Andrew and I also had a wonderful time with Nana, but Andrew got sick while we were there. He was running fever and pretty whiney the whole time. Jay flew back Monday night, then we went with Nana yesterday to go get Aunt Mindi from work and then headed home. We got here at about 5:30 and it was pretty cold in our house, so we turned on the heater and then these little wall heaters in the bathrooms because they don't have vents. Well, the carbon monoxide monitor went off so thus begun our crazy evening. Andrew was already asleep, so we just opened all of the windows and doors and let the house air out. I then called the gas company and they said they would send someone out shortly. An hour and a half later (10:15 p.m.!) the guy showed up.....we were freezing by this time. He said that those wall heaters were putting off an insane amount of carbon monoxide and he wanted to shut our gas off altogether. He checked all of the other gas-run things in the house and since the wall heaters were the only things putting off the CO he had mercy on us and made us sign our life away saying that we wouldn't use the heaters anymore. Like he had to convince us! Today the church sent out a plumber today to cap the things off so they can never be used again. I guess we'll just have to get some electric heaters because let me tell you it's almost unbearable to go in there and it's only into the 40's at night right now! But I am thankful that we had a CO alarm in the house. If you don't have one and you have anything run on natural gas....GET ONE!
On a quick side note, I decided to take Andrew to the dr. today since he cough had worsened. It turns out he has a double ear infection!! No wonder he was so whiney at Nana's!

Zoo

Yesterday I went to Tyler to see my little sister and neice Alyson. We decided to take the kids to the zoo since it was such a pretty day. Andrew LOVED it!!! I knew he would since he loves animals so much.

He behaved pretty well too....the only tantrum came when we were leaving the reptile house. I think he might make that his new home if I would let him. But I spanked him and then ignored his fit for a minute and told him to come on and he just got up and came.
Afterward we went to visit my grandmother where Andrew and Alyson played/wrestled some more. For some reason Andrew really loved laying on Alyson.

The day must have worn him out because after about two minutes into the ride home, I looked back and saw this:

Haircut & School Update

We decided that instead of paying for Andrew's haircut, we would do it this time. We just buzzed it, but he did a lot better for us than he does for the ladies at Cool Cuts for Kids. It made me a little sad to have his hair all gone, but I got over it when I didn't have to fight him to fix it for church!


He's doing really well in school. In the three full weeks he's been in now, we've seen dramatic improvements in his behavior. The Wednesday night after he started, I picked him up from the church nursery and they said he actually participated in the lesson. And everytime since then when I've picked him up they tell me that he's doing tons better at playing with the other kids, doing the craft, and sitting in circle time. Thursday night and Friday night we went to some local football games and he sat there the whole time like a little angel! He never once tried to get off the bleachers...he just sat and either watched the game or played with his toys. He also ate some popcorn at one of these games! This is a big deal because Andrew would never eat popcorn before. He loves it now though. Hopefully he will continue to try new foods. His teacher tells me that he does great at school. He has the occassional tantrum, but gets over it quickly. They even go to the big cafeteria to eat and she said that he just sits there and eats his lunch (which I hate to call lunch since it's at 10:30 a.m.!). So we're really proud of him. We are currently looking into taking him to a doctor who specializes in autism. There are just tons of things we've read about that we'd like to have him tested for. But it's a little scary because we know nothing about these doctors. I made an appointment with one the other day and asked Jay's mom to see if she could find out anything about him (she's a nurse in the Dallas area) and it turns out he's a quack who reads the kids aura!! So please pray that we'll have wisdom in choosing the right doctor.