Birthday Fun

Saturday was Andrew's 3rd birthday!! I just can't believe it. We celebrated by having a very small party. It consisited of us and our music minister, his wife and their son James who is Andrew's age. Even though it was small, Andrew had a blast! We had it outside since one of Andrew's presents from us was a swimming pool. Andrew's favorite thing is playing in the water and since Nana got him the water/sand table and we got him a pool, I think he's set. By the way Nana, we are just putting water in the water/sand table because there is so much splashing that goes on, the sand would just turn to mud.

Nana Comes to Visit!

Nana came to visit this past weekend and she brought presents!!! Andrew's birthday isn't until Saturday, but she has to work so she came this past weekend instead. He got a sand/water table, a big sandbox, some books, sunglasses and clothes. I might be leaving something out, I can't remmeber. But needless to say, he's quite spoiled by his Nana. We went to Chuck E. Cheese's for lunch on Friday where Andrew has a blast!! He is so funny in there...he just runs around pushing the buttons on each game. He did actually "play" a few this time. The would be him putting the coin in the machine and then running to another game one once it started whatever it did. Here are a few pics of the visit.



On a separate note, we are getting a dishwasher this week!!! I am soooo excited! It's been a long road getting to the point where they can actually install it though. When the cabinet guy originally came to cut out the place where it goes, he found mold. Thankfully it wasn't black mold, but they still had to treat it. That took basically two days. (This might be the reason Andrew's allergies and now asthma have been flaring up...hopefully this will take care of it) Then the electrician guy has been here in the evenings to do the wiring. The dishwasher will be here Thursday or Friday and then the plumber will have to come and do his part and then install it. So apparently a lot goes into putting one in when there wasn't one previously, but I know it will be worth it in the end! We are going to have another mini birthday celebration this Saturday and I will post some more pictures sometime after that.

Petting Zoo and Stuff

Life is crazy busy right now, so we're sorry Tessa that we can't blog as much as you'd like. We'll try to do our best when we can.

These are some pictures of Andrew at the petting zoo. He loves animals and we thought this would be so much fun for him! He was so excited as we were going in:

But then he wouldn't get close to any of the animals once we were inside. Some of them were kind of scary looking. We got him semi-close to this camel you see in the background, but he was really scared of it.

It took him all of 3 minutes to figure out that the floor was made of dirt and apparently this is a lot more interesting to a 3 year old than cool animals:

After about 5 minutes of him playing in the dirt we left.

Everything is going really well...we are busy all of the time it seems. The youth are over at our house a lot and Andrew LOVES it!! He thinks they're here just to play with him. Here are a few pictures:

They've nicknamed him catfish and pretty much spoil him rotten.

So that's life right now. We're getting ready to celebrate Andrew's 3rd birthday in a couple of weeks, so look for that blog soon.

Easter

We had a really great Easter this year!! Jay and I watched The Passion of the Christ on Saturday. That movie really brings home the visual part of Christ's suffering. Then Sunday we celebrated that He overcame that suffering and death and rose from the grave...amazing!! We didn't have church that evening so we just spent some quality family time together relaxing...it was wonderful! Here are some pictures of us and Andrew...I tried to get him to just stand there for one so you could see how cute he was all dressed up, but he refused. I guess that's a two (almost 3) year old for you. Hope all of your Easters were as great as ours!

Andrew Beerley- "God of Second Chances"

World premier video of Andrew Beerley singing "God of Second Chances" from Jonah: A Veggie Tales movie.

Settled

Well, we are finally settled here in Texarkana. We got here last Thursday night and started moving stuff in Friday. When we walked into the house, we found a great surprise:

Isn't this great? Andrew LOVED it! The youth did a great job decorating, don't you think? It's all down now, but we really felt welcomed! It's been a full week and things are going great. Andrew is adapting way better than I thought he would. We did have one incident with him while we were moving in. Warning to all of you mothers and grandmothers...this is scary! The movers were here moving stuff in and we set Andrew up in the front bedroom with Star Wars (whatever captivated him to keep him out of the way, right?!). Anyway, we were in our bedroom telling them where to place stuff and came out and realized Andrew wasn't in the room. We started looking for him and he wasn't in the house at all!!! We ran outside and he was no where to be seen. We were really panicking by this time. Jay ran down the street and found him six or seven houses down just hanging out with these people. The man was on the phone and we're not sure, but we think he may have been calling the cops. It was by far the scariest moment we've had with Andrew. All of the what ifs started going through our minds....our house is just two down from a fairly busy road! It gives me chills just re-telling it. He got a good scolding and of course we were more mad at ourselves than anything. Cheryl Littleton had told me some horror stories one time about people moving with small children.....now I know why she told me.
Anyway, everything else has been great. We had a great first Sunday and Wednesday. We had a VBS rally Wednesday night....see if you recognize any of the cheerleaders:

I think the gotee gives him away! This is all of the staff....they made such cute cheerleaders! Well, that's about all I have for now. I hope everyone has a great weekend!

Two-State Paradox

Ok, so there is this weird dichotomy right now whereby Christi and I are "living" in two places at one time. At least with our hearts. Too weird to really talk about.
But here's the physical reality of being in two states at one time! This is us with a few of the search committee from Wake Village. Good times...

New Blog

Ok, here is the new blog that everyone keeps asking for. We have been crazy busy and well, sometimes I just forget about blogger. I will work harder to keep up with it. As most of you know, we are moving to Texarkana, Tx in a little less than two weeks. We have loved our time at FBC Joelton, but know that God is calling us to new ministry at FBC Wake Village (it's about five minutes outside of Texarkana). We are sad and excited all at the same time, which is a weird feeling. They are hiring movers to come and pack us up so I'm not having to pack everything, but I do have some closets to go through and stuff to get rid of. It really stuns me how much we acquire even when living in such a small apartment. Anyway, I will try and keep you posted as we move and get settled.

I don't have any new pictures to share with you. But I will tell you that Jay and I went out the other night with Danny & Michelle and Travis & Elizabeth and saw Amazing Grace.

It was absolutely wonderful and I highly recommend that you see it. So that's about it for now....I hope this isn't my only blog for March! :)

Snow day and Airplanes

It snowed Thursday night, but since Andrew was battling a little cold, we didn't go outside and play in it. Well, it snowed again Saturday night and so as not to be deemed horrible mother of the year, I decided to let him go out. He was not nearly as impressed as he was last year. Here are some pics:

As you can see he basically just stood there....he was a good sport about us throwing snow at him though!
Andrew also has a newfound obsession in airplanes. He loves them more than cars now, but he really just loves all forms of transportation. Jay let him watch Star Wars one day and he absolutely loves the pod racing scene. He now calls that movie airplane because that's what he thinks they are. We are in the process of trying to find a documentary on airplanes so he doesn't become obsessed with Star Wars at the age of two and a half! As seen below, he always has a plane attached to his hand during the day now.

On a quick random note, he came up to me the other day and told me poo poo. I'm sure all of you non parents out there will find this disgusting, but as I approached him I realized he had indeed poo pooed! Maybe he's finally going to start this whole potty training thing...I bought him some big boy underwear just in case!
And finally, I just thought this picture was cute, so I'm adding it too.

Florida

Florida was wonderful! Andrew absolutely loved the beach and overall he was pretty good the whole trip! I really did not want to come back to the 30 degree temps here since it was 80 there, but oh well. Here are a few pictures for you to enjoy.

We finally got Andrew counting on video! He can say it better but he kind of gets shy about it. Anyway, just to let you all know, we are going to visit my dad in Florida this next week...look for pictures later!

Happy New Year!

Wow, I can't believe it's 2007! Time just goes by way too fast! Thus the reason I keep forgetting to blog about my new furniture. So Lindsey, now you can quit bugging me about it! :)

This isn't the greatest picture, so hopefully all who care can see it in person soon. I absolutely love it! We have never had new living room furniture before so we decided to get some we really liked and that would last a long time.
Anyway, I hope all of you have had a wonderful first day of the new year. Here's a token photo of Andrew for those of you who read this blog solely to see pics of him (Nana)...this is his table he got for Christmas!

Christmas

These are some random Christmas pics from yesterday and this morning. We had lunch yesterday with some of the staff at Lyndel and Cheryl's house...don't you just love Michelle's cheesy smile! :) But my favorite is the picture of Cate & Andrew...too cute! I really wanted to get all of the staff kids together to get a picture, but in the mix there is a 3 year old, two 2 year olds and a set of 1 1/2 year old twins so you can see why that would be difficult!
Andrew now has more toys than he'll ever need!! Hope everyone is having a wonderful Christmas!!

Family Christmas (Day 5)

Yesterday my Dad came to town and we had our family Christmas together last night. My sister, Mindi, was recovering from hopefully food poisoning and not a stomach bug that we all will get later.
Anyway, it was a great time with family. Earlier in the afternoon, I got the chance to go to the movies by myself. I often like doing that as a way of just zoning out. Anyway, pretty cool movie.



Ok, and now some pictures of the festivities...or basically Andrew.



Gee Pops, thanks for decking Andrew out in all this rock and roll gear. That noise won't be maddening at all!



I think that Andrew got a bit overwhelmed with everything...



Andrew with Pops before bed time. I think they like each other.

Ok, this is Wednesday and we are now going to leave tomorrow. Andrew is ready to get home. So, next blog will be from the Volunteer state (I'm sure all you TN people are proud I know that...)

New beginnings and Old Friends (Day 4)

Well, Monday provided several unique opportunities. First of all, it was Andrew's first professional haircut! Nana treated him to Cool Cuts for Kids...



One of the most challenging parts was getting him out of this waiting room!



This was his barber chair with Jay-Jay the Jetplane on the TV.



Our wonderful hair-cutting professional, Julie, fast at work! She did an amazing job moving with Andrew's head thrashings!

Later that night we got a chance to have dinner with old friends, kids who graduated from our last ministry and some very significant others that we had to approve! Of course, they all passed with flying colors. It was a great time at Chili's.



Amazingly Andrew did great even at 10 at night! Thanks to Matt's hat for being a readily accessible distraction. Seems that every time I take a pic with these guys now Andrew is on my shoulders. Hmmmm...

The Lord's Day Without Church (Day 3)

First of all, not going to church on a Sunday was totally weird. That's probably the first time in, oh, 8 years or so. Seriously.

Ok, today was my family's Christmas. I'm fighting through a head cold which means I probably seem loopy all the time. Not fun. Survivor's season finale is on right now. I don't care at all. Am I the only one? Here's the day in some pictures...


Keep in mind that Andrew is this tired the whole time...


A majority of Drew's day was chasing these dogs while people were watching football...
Trust me, there're dogs there.


Is it proper to greet your cousin with a booty bump? (And on a quick note, if my cousin has a baby, what is the relation to Andrew? 2nd cousin or first cousin twice removed?)


This was Andrew's present at the gift exchange. He loves him some tractors!!
(I scored my own gift [best buy giftcard] in our family chinese christmas gift exchange. Is that wrong?)


I think this sums it up. So tired, but still the energy to play with the truck. Got to love him.

Ok, time to take some medicine and zone out. For some reason my mom and sister are pulling for this Ozzie guy. Don't know him. Don't care. Hope someone literally wets their pants on the show. Now that would be reality worth watching...