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.

First Day of School

Well, it's been a long time since I, Jay, have taken the initiative to post on our family blog. Tonight I decided that I would share our new family reality with you.
Today was Andrew's first day in a real school, the local elementary school. While thankfully they have not decided to move up the age at which you must begin school, allow me to share how this event transpired.
On Friday Andrew went for a speech evaluation where a diagnostician was present. It was the consensus of the group that there was something more than just speech that was wrong with him. They felt it was probably a sign of autism. Not wanting to immediately make that call, they asked us to enroll him in a 30 day evaluation of him in their special education program that deals mostly with autistic children. This has been quite the shocker for us. While we've been preparing ourselves for this, the reality still weighs heavy. Many emotions have been swirling around the house for days. No time for all that now...
So, here we are. Andrew is in big boy school, luckily for just 3 hours a day. They have mercy on the 3 year old. We will of course keep you up to date on all of this. Sorry for no first day pictures. We woke up late ;)

Swimming Table?

This morning Andrew wanted to go outside and play in the "wawer", so we did. He has a water table that Nana bought him for his birthday so I put water in it and he played normally for awhile and then moved on to the sand box. I had to start lunch so I left him out there for a minute. I can see the back porch from the kitchen, but Andrew has never been too adventurous anyway, so I knew he would be fine just playing. I peeked out the window at one point and saw what I thought was his foot in the water table and thought, "what in the world is he doing?" Well, it wasn't just his foot, it was his whole body!!

He's never done this before, but I guess he wanted to go swimming! I'm not even sure how he got in there!!! The table isn't the sturdiest thing in the world so I would have figured it would have toppled over as he was trying to get in. But I guess for a three year old, where there's a will, there's a way. He stayed in there for about 30 minutes and was just as content as could be. Finding things like this is one of my favorite things about parenting.

Fun with the camera

Every Thursday night Andrew and I have to find some way to entertain ourselves since Daddy is gone playing basketball. Last night we decided to have some fun with the camera. This may sound ironic, especially considering the directory picture incident, but Andrew loves to have his picture taken. If we're not in a studio he really hams it up. Last night was no exception.





On a side note, we may be gaining some ground in the potty training arena. I thought this day would never come. Before yesterday when I would ask Andrew if he wanted to tee tee in the potty he would say "otay, otay, otay". Which when translated means, "leave me alone!" But I asked him the same question last night and he actually showed some interest. He stood there and kept saying "tee tee in potty", so I tried to show him what to do. Of course Jay wasn't home so he didn't get to see exactly how it's done. However, when he did get home, Jay asked Andrew if he wanted to go and he was all excited again. So they went in and Andrew tried again. Of course he hasn't actually gone tee tee yet (Andrew, not Jay), but we're so excited that he's showing interst.

Family Picture

I told you I would scan it once we received the awful attempt at a directory picture, so here it is.

And to think that Jay wanted to actually have this put in the directory!

The Wedding

This past weekend we went to the wedding of one of our previous youth. It was so good to see all of our "old" kids and they were so glad to see Andrew. This picture is of Matthew, Codye (Weaver's new bride), Matt Weaver, Tip and Jay. We have some great memories with these guys! (How did Deana not make this picture!)

Matt Copeland has always been one of Andrew's biggest fans as you can see:

Andrew did so great! We had a lot of reservations taking him to a wedding, but we bought him the new Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle movie and put it on the floor in front of our pew and it kept him occupied during the whole service. And even some afterward...he really loves that movie! During the reception he just ran around saying "picture" wanting me to take his picture. Which is pretty ironic if you refer to the previous post. But here are a couple he posed for:

The wedding was in Big Spring, Tx which is really in the middle of nowhere. We drove a total of 15 hours to and from the wedding. On the way back we saw this crazy wreck. We're not sure how something like this happens....

On our way home Sunday we stopped in Eastland, where we used to be on staff, and went to church there. It was wonderful to see everyone again. Overall it was a good weekend, but very tiring with all of that driving. We're glad to be home and hope to not go anywhere again anytime soon!

Andrew: MIA

There is no photo to go along with this post, but there will be one coming soon. Since Andrew has been in our lives we have now had three directory pictures made for church. They've never gone great, however, we've always managed in the past to get that one pose where we're all smiling and thus have an acceptable portrait for the directory. Tonight that all came to a very dramatic ending. Andrew was having no part of it. We did get several of him "in" the picture, but I use that term loosely. That means he was in a shot where I was trying, without success, to hold on to him and Jay was trying to reason with him while the man snapped a photo. In each of these pictures he is screaming and Jay and I are looking at him, trying not to lose it in front of the photographer. We actually got our free 8x10 of one of these poses because it is quite funny to look at. When we get this picture in, I will post it for your enjoyment. Jay really wanted one of theses awful poses to actually go in the directory, but I talked some sense into him. So instead, Jay and I will be appearing in the directory and Andrew is, as the title says, missing in action for this year's directory photo.

More Vacation Pictures

On Wednesday evening we decided to take a walk along the water's edge and didn't get very far before Andrew insisted (and I use that word with all of it's force) that we stop to see the "wawer". He really wanted to get in, but we convinced him to just sit and throw the rocks ....Daddy joined him.

After a lot of fit throwing, we drug him away from the water to the little park area. I really wanted a family picture of us, but as you can see in the picture below, Andrew was not cooperating.

Yesterday (Thursday) we spent some more time at the pool.

We finally got a decent picture with all of us in it. It's kind of blurry, but trust me, I'll take it. Overall our vacation was great! We're back home now, refreshed and ready to get back into our routine.

It Had to Be You and The Worst Aquarium Ever- Day 2

Tuesday was our anniversary. 8 wonderful years. Our song is "It had to be you." But think Harry Connick, Jr./When Harry Met Sally. Not Darla/A League of Their Own. So, here was our day.

Our day started off by the pool. It was a very family friendly pool and Andrew was much more adventurous than we anticipated. Maybe I should look up some how to's for swimming on the internet.

After the pool was nap time. After nap time is was time to venture out to Hot Springs for our anniversary. We also tried to find something that Andrew would enjoy as well. We found a listing for the National Park Aquarium. We've always wanted to take Andrew to one. Sounded good...

The next 2 pictures are taken from just inside the entrance.

That's the whole thing. Best $12.10 I ever spent...or not.

Afterwards, we journeyed up the mountain to take a picture of Hot Springs.

We finished our evening with a night out at Outback. Fun times!

Our First Family Vacation-Day One

Well, we are officially on vacation!! We got here around 4:30 and are really enjoying everything so far. This lake is beautiful!!
This is the view from our room. The first thing Andrew said when we got here was "water", which means "I want to go swimming!"

Tomorrow we plan on heading to the pool in the late morning and then tomorrow afternoon we're going to drive to Hot Springs....it's only 20 minutes away. Tomorrow is our 8th anniversary!! Yay!
See Michelle, I told you I would blog again!! :)

Haircut & Pictures

I went to Dallas last weekend while Jay was at camp. While we were there I went to get Andrew's hair cut at this cool place that is just for kids. We took Andrew there in December when we were visiting and I was really impressed with them. Well, let just say that this time didn't go nearly as well as the first. It took three of us to hold Andrew down so the lady could cut his hair. He was screaming and thrashing about and it was probably one of the most embarrassing moments I've had with him. But she got the job done (fairly well considering what she had to work with) and I tipped her well hoping that would make up for the awfulness that she endured. This is the end result (on the campus of Austin College when we went to go see Daddy).

Later the same day of the awful haircut experience, Nana wanted to take him to get his pictures taken. I must tell you that I was pretty scared about this. Knowing my son and his unwilling spirit, I really didn't think he would cooperate. Well, he proved me wrong. He really did pretty well...maybe he was making up for what he put me through that morning! Here are a few of the poses.