Family Vacation- Sea World Day 1

Wow. While overall the park is not that big and the stupid waterpark part was not open AND we didn't get to ride any roller coasters...wow. All of the animal exhibits and shows were quite worshipful. God is amazing. I love seeing the works of his hands everywhere. And they were everywhere.
And maybe most evident was in the reaction of our wonderful little boy. I feel like his awe is what we are like when we encounter even the smallest amounts of our savior. And now, some pictures and videos for your enjoyment (or your time waste).





















These last two are of Andrew after a long, hot day.

Family Vacation- Day 3

Mostly traveling today. Some rain. One really cool thing was we got to eat lunch with a former youth. I told Christi to remind me to take a picture. We didn't take a picture. Oh well. We love you, Amy!

So, we got to the hotel. Some pictures follow.















Hotel TV's have improved, no?















Ok, we're finally off to Sea World! Hopefully great pics and videos to follow.

Family Vacation- Day 2

Last day at Nana's for awhile. Tomorrow we leave for San Antonio and Sea World on Thursday. This evening we went to Chuck E. Cheese. I will say that it was probably the most pleasant experience we've had there maybe ever. Andrew enjoyed himself more than usual with the games. And for mommy and daddy they had a new Deal or No Deal game for tickets. Very addicting!!! I got the highest ticket amount for the day with 63 in one game! And to think that Christi is the one more addicted to the show.
Anyway, we forgot the camera for there, so we'll show you last night's fun times with cake and presents. Of course, Andrew didn't eat any cake. We'll get there soon, hopefully.











Mommy does a great job with the shark, no?

Family Vacation- Day 1

Well, hopefully there will be some pictures to go with our journey tomorrow. I always enjoy keeping people up to date on our journeys. In reflection, it seems like a pretty narcissistic thing to do, but oh well.
We traveled safely today and had a mini birthday party for Andrew with his Nana. She'll be working the rest of the time. It was nice. I'll share some pics tomorrow. We have a day of relaxation tomorrow and then we head to San Antonio on Wednesday. Fun times!

Life

So life around here has been fairly crazy lately. My dad (Christi) passed away last Tuesday and then his funeral was last Friday. It was fairly unexpected...he has had some heart problems, but was living on his own and seemingly doing fair. But he went to sleep one night in his chair and passed away in his sleep. My relationship with him was strained so I have all of these emotions that I didn't have with my mom's death. And most of them are fairly surprising to me given our relationship. I guess it's true what they say that death is never easy. It is quite strange to be only 29 and for both of my parents to be gone. But ultimately this world is not our home...our time here is short. So I have this new passion to make the most of the days I have. I am enjoying my family so much right now. Jay is such a wonderful support to me and Andrew becomes more of a blessing everyday. I guess essentially I'm just trying to love people more because you never know when your last encounter with them might be.
On a lighter note, Jay sold his XBox. For those of you who know him, you're probably going to have to re-read that last sentence. He just decided that it was taking up too much of his time, so he got rid of it. I never once asked him to, he just did it on his own. I am so proud of him...I know it was tough to actually go through with it. So with all of this free time now, he's decided to become mechanical and take on some projects with our brown car, that is on it's last leg. A few weeks ago he flushed and fixed a hole in the radiator and then today he replaced the spark plugs! What a great man I'm married to!

Pictures of our Monday

Andrew was all about the picture taking tonight. Among the various poses, we took one of him on the potty, one of the bathtub, one of him in the bathtub, one of the fish tank...and on and on and on. Don't worry, I'm not posting them all. These are are few of the worthy ones though.

The top two are of Andrew's first time playing the X-Box. He got a surprise tonight for his wonderful pottying abilities and he chose Legos Star Wars. He didn't quite get the concept of watching and playing so he finally gave up and just watched Daddy play.

Easter

Andrew's Nana bought him a suit to wear on Easter and I must say he's the most handsome little boy in the world in it!!!! But you can judge for yourself.

I was really worried that he wasn't going to keep the tie on, but this morning I put it on him and he said "Andrew's tie" and started walking around with this proud look on his face. He's really getting to be such a big boy!

We were taking these pictures and he made me take one of him and the duck...he loves for you to take pictures of his toys!

Potty Training Boot Camp

Some of you may call it spring break, but it's been potty training boot camp for us. We started Monday and Andrew has done amazing!!! I even took him to Dallas and he did great there too. He and I (Christi) went to visit Jay's family and had a great time. I took him to get his hair trimmed while we were there. He's definitely improved when it comes to the haircuts, but he still hates when they use the trimmer above his ears and the back of his neck. Anyway, this is a picture of the beginning of the week...that chart you see is now covered in stars, which means we owe him a trip to Chuck E. Cheese.

Dinosaur song

Andrew was sitting in the floor playing the other day and I heard him singing this song he made up. Thought you might enjoy it.

D-NOW

Disciple Now was this weekend...very tiring, but great. Some of our former youth came to help out...it was really great seeing them and their significant others...one of them is married and the other is getting married this summer. Jay is actually doing their wedding and Andrew is the ring bearer...should be fun. :)



The boys playing XBOX

They love Andrew...and vice versa.


This was at the the putt-putt place...needless to say Andrew wasn't lacking in the attention arena this weekend.
After some very late nights and very long days (and then add the time change in there), we are all worn out.

FINALLY!!!!

ANDREW FINALLY WENT POTTY TODAY!!!!! AFTER MONTHS OF JUST SITTING THERE, HE ACTUALLY DID SOMETHING!!!! MY ONLY COMPLAINT IS THAT THIS HAPPENED AT SCHOOL AND NOT AT HOME, BUT WE'LL TAKE IT!!!! YAY ANDREW!!!

Updates from the Patriarch

Well, it's been a long time since I, Jay, have written on this thing. At one time it was my doing, but I turned Christi into blog junkie.
Anyway, quick Andrew allergy update...
The results from his blood test put him at HIGHLY allergic to cats, as well as a high result for peanuts. With the peanuts thing, we of course had to enter the world of the EpiPen. A magic marker looking syringe filled with adrenaline that kills allergic reactions to things. Very interesting. Hopefully, we'll never have to use it. But the school has one and we have to carry one and all that jazz. But Andrew doesn't really eat anything, so whatever.
Ministry is good. Family is good. God is great! We are amazed at how God has led us on our journey to where we are now.
Well, that's all for me. I'm tired of typing. Blessings to you who have touched our family in some way. May we continue to glorify our Father in heaven!

Yay for Allergists!!!

Our appt. with the allergist went very well!!! Andrew was almost an angel...they had to draw blood so that was the only bad part, but lasted two seconds. The allergist took lots of time with us asking questions and letting us ask questions. Basically she ran two panels on him. One for regular food, mold, dust and pet allergies and the other is a very new panel that she can't even tell us is 100 percnt accurate, but it will let us know if milk or wheat is effecting his behavior any. I was so pleased that she brought up this test when we were talking about his autism. Most medical drs. won't even discuss these types of things with you. We will get the results of the panels on the 25th.
In discussing his allergies with us, she told us to up his dose of Zyrtec (because he weighs what a 6 year old does!) and she also sent us home with samples of a nose spray and an inhaler. We saw results immediately!! And he slept through the night Wednesday and Thursday!!! What a blessing.

The above picture is Andrew doing a breathing treatment. He's come a long way hasn't he Nana?? He used to kick and scream the whole time and it was torture. He's such a big boy now.
The below picture is Andrew and Jay kicking back and having some popcorn. Jay took the college students to Passion last night and will return home this evening. Andrew is really missing his Daddy. He woke up at 6 this morning screaming for him....he calls him Jay sometimes when he doesn't answer immediately, it's too cute.

Glimpses of Progress

I'm not sure if any of you read the last post but Andrew has had a rough few weeks. Well, today God decided to show me that Andrew is very smart and indeed making great strides. Our son absolutely loves sea life....all kinds, but sharks and whales are the favored ones at the moment. Tonight as we were putting him down to bed, we were reading this informational book about sharks that we have read many times. Jay decided to ask Andrew if he knew what kind of shark was on the page and our brilliant child replied "That's a whale shark." AND IT WAS!! Not only was he right about the type, he also said a full sentence!! He then proceeded to tell us which one the hammerhead was just in case we thought he was guessing before. Jay and I were both overwhelmed with joy and pride. We have known Andrew is smart and capable of these types of things, but haven't seen much fruit of it. He's been talking so much more here lately and saying more and more sentences. They're usually two or three word sentences, but tonight shows that he's capable of more. God is good.
On a side note, Andrew's been sick the last few days with a horrible cough that is making is asthma flare up. I took him to the dr. yesterday and she said his ears were a little red and gave us an antibiotic. Between that and the breathing treatments every 4 hrs., he seems a little better tonight. Another thing we got while we were at the dr. was an appt. with the pediatric allergist on Monday! I'm very excited about this as Andrew's allergies just keep getting worse the older he gets....and we're pretty sure he has a peanut allergy so that will be good to know for sure. I hope the next post is telling about how my child was a perfect angel while they gave him these allergy tests! We'll see. :)

Thank God for Fish Faces

Andrew has had a rough few weeks and today was the worst. I went to pick him up from school in hopes that the teachers would tell me he had a good day....those have been few and far between here lately. As I walked into the school I could hear screams coming from his classroom and I thought "Wow, who is that?!" Never in a million years would I thought it was Andrew. But indeed it was. He was in the middle of the most violent tantrum that I have ever seen him throw. The teacher was trying to get him to calmly sit in time out, so I didn't let him see me so she could follow through and make him obey. While I waited, I witnessed him slap her and kick her all the while screaming. She finally got him calmed down and then tried to calm me down. I expressed that I felt he was regressing and she promised me that he was still making strides, but was just testing his boundaries right now. Then she told me she was sorry I walked in while he was doing that....she said SHE was sorry!!! I'm telling you, she is one in a million. She didn't want me to think that he was like that all the time....she says that he is still doing his work great and following directions better. This all coming from the woman that was just abused by my son! It's hard to stay encouraged when I don't see progress and see these horrible fits coming back. He hasn't acted like this since before he started school. Please just pray that we would find answers to help him and that his behavior would improve. And that he would sleep better....that may be the cause of all of this, I don't know. Autistic children don't tend to sleep very well, and while Andrew hasn't really had too much trouble in this area before, he seems to now.

Thankfully he's not like this all the time, he still has moments of adorableness. In the picture above he is doing his fish face, which cracks me and Jay up. I wish you could see it in person...it's so funny.

Andrew's Eating!!!!

Unfortunately it's not food he's eating. He's been having VERY fitfull sleep the last few days and Jay and I have been wondering what in the world is going on with him. Well, as Jay changed a poopy diaper last night, we found the answer. *WARNING The following may gross some of you out.* Jay called me into Andrew's room and said, "you have to look at his poop", so I looked and discovered an ear plug in his poop!!! There is no possible way this just fell in his diaper. No friends, he really put this in his mouth and then swallowed it. He still won't eat most real food, but apparently ear plugs are pretty tasty. (He also tried a leaf a couple of weeks ago, but spit it out...I guess they're not as good as ear plugs.) We are so thankful that ear plugs are mushy and it was able to pass through his little body. I'm still a little worried it might have done some damage, but I guess we would know if he was in pain. We are also thankful that we had a great night's sleep again last night. This let's me know that this was indeed the cause for his unrest. I think we're going to start laying real food miscellaneously around the house to see if it might try it.

Visitors

As you might remember from a previous post, Alyson came and stayed with us for a few days a couple of weeks ago. Here a some pictures of her and Andrew:



The day after Christmas we got to have some more visitors! Perry & Kendall came all the way from Tennessee to go to a youth conference with us. It was great having them around and the conference was great also! (I took two pictures of the boys together and I thought this one captured their personalities better).

Christmas party at school

The Wednesday before school let out for Christmas break, Andrew's class had a Christmas party. If you've never been to a party with 6 autistic children, well, let's just hope you never have to. There was too much sugar and too much stimulation, but overall Andrew did ok. Here he is on the swing they use for sensory therapy:

These next two are of him actually sitting down!! Let me just say, it was short lived.


And this is his teacher Ms. Becky. I wish I had a million dollars to give her....she deserves it.

Andrew goes back to school tomorrow and we're praying that he adjusts back ok. As you can imagine, we've been far from any kind of routine or structure so Ms. Becky may be in for it.

Christmas

Since I have been such a slacker in blogging, these posts are kinda going to be lumped together. I'll start with Christmas.

Andrew & Alyson on Christmas day at Mamaw's.

Andrew and Mommy at Mamaw's.

This isn't actually on Christmas, but I thought it was cute.

This microphone was in Andrew's stocking from Santa. He also got a fish tank from Santa, but he wouldn't move his head when I was trying to take the picture, so I never got a good picture of it. But he loves it!! He really loves feeding them.

This is Andrew holding his transformer, which he opened first and really didn't care about anything else he got.

Christmas in Dallas

This past weekend we went to Dallas and had Christmas with Jay's family. It started with the big family get together on Saturday. All of the kids get a present, and this is Andrew scoping out the other presents that he thought were way better than his:


Aunt Mindi is very happy!
Saturday night we had our gift exchange with Jay's immediate family. Andrew, of course, got tons of stuff!



He thoroughly enjoyed opening the presents this year. After he opened all of his, he then proceeded to open all of mine. He's such a great helper. Then Sunday morning while I was making breakfast, Andrew opened his Pop's present! I re-wrapped it and explained that it wasn't his...I'm not sure if he cared. We spent the rest of Sunday just lounging around and enjoying spending time with family.

Dylan Kane

Yesterday my little sister had her second baby, Dylan Kane. He weighs 6lbs. 7 1/2 oz. and he's 18 inches long. Isn't he adorable??

Since my sister had a c-section, I decided to take my neice, Alyson, off of her hands for her until Friday. Andrew and her are having so much fun together!

Andrew's First Awards Ceremony

This past Sunday night, the precious praise choir got to walk across the stage and get their award for memorizing hymns (which Andrew did not, but they had pity on the little guys). Let me tell you that when they told me Andrew would be doing this, my heart stopped. Andrew LOVES, I mean, LOVES to be on stage. So I just knew that he would never get down once he was up there, but he surprised me once again. They brought them in the sanctuary all together, as seen here:

When they called his name, they led him on stage and he got his trophy (with his name engraved and everything!). He then turned around (wish I had a picture, but the camera malfunctioned) and just looked out at everyone and smiled. He started to protest getting off the stage, but then miraculously just came down and sat with Jay and I. We were very proud of him.