Happy 3rd Birthday, Andrew!!!

YIKES! Where has the time gone??? Our baby boy turned 3 years old on Feb. 22nd!

As mentioned in my previous post, we were in Jefferson with family celebrating the wedding of my Aunt Laura. We thought we would incorporate a birthday party with family and friends that we don't get to see nearly enough :)

That Sunday (the 21st) we had a small party at my Munner's house with a trip to the old steam engine train that is in historic Jefferson. I was a bit bummed that they had removed the covered railroad car (the "First Class Car") that they have attached during the Holiday Train Ride....but oh well. The kids still seemed to enjoy themselves getting greasy and climbing around :)

Below is a pic of Andrew and David...the engineer had shown Andrew how to pull the bell, so he did that for awhile ;0)

Below is a shot of our dear friends, Todd, Jenny & Benjamin Bunch. We were so Blessed that they made the drive down from Little Rock that morning to spend the afternoon with us in celebration of Andrew's 3rd birthday. This was the only shot I could get of the 3 of them in one frame...Benjamin was FAST! :)

A shot of the kids and parents roaming around ;o)

My birthday boy looking quite sullen as he did NOT like everyone singing Happy Birthday to him!

Opening presents...he really enjoyed his new "Jeep" binoculars. And he's still using them to look out of our breakfast area for birds over the creek ....

Opening his new golf clubs. They were the BEST find! $5.00 from Wal-Mart. Can't beat that. Andrew and I saw those at Wal-Mart earlier in the week and he begged EVERY day to open that present. Luckily the excitement still hasn't worn off and he's had phone playing with them (and even curved one club into a "telephone" that he uses to call Nanann on....quite entertaining!) Gatlin Stewart is "helping" Andrew to open presents. Gatlin is the son of my dear friend Jen of 13 years (gasp! We ARE getting old! :)) She, her husband Patrick and their 2 kiddos made it over for the party from Longview.

Here, Andrew was laughing at a singing card that Aunt Paula bought for him. HE LOVED IT! It sings Happy Birthday in a mountain goat/yoddler voice. He still gets tickled with it! :)


Andrew is excited over his "Fifty Dollars!" from Memi. It wasn't actually $50, but close. He thinks EVERY currency is $50 - no matter the denomiation!

The sign of a good party, fun with friends, too much birthday cake & ice cream AND too much chocolate mousse pie!

And here is the picture that topped off the long weekend as we headed home. I think this summed it up for all of us :)

Happy Birthday our sweet and precious boy! Mommy & Daddy love you so very, very much!!!

A Weekend in Jefferson...and a Wedding....

This past weekend, the "three musketeers" took off for an extended weekend in Jefferson, Texas. We went to celebrate the marriage of my Aunt Laura and new Uncle Skip as well as celebrate Andrew's 3rd birthday! Below are a few snapshots of the weekend...I'll save the birthday posting for a stand alone post :)

Below is a pic of "Joe Cool" on the way to Jefferson. He reminds me a lot of David in this picture! He's also holding a new birthday present given to him by one of my colleagues and friends, Debbie (aka Mrs. Miner as we are working with Andrew on respecting our elders) :)

A little story to coincide with the car is on the day she gave it to him, Andrew was on his way to daycare. So Andrew slipped it into his jeans pocket without David knowing/seeing he had received the car. At the end of the day, David picked Andrew up and instructed him to return the car to his classroom. Andrew insisted it was his and David began a tirade of how we don't steal, it's not nice to take others things, etc., etc. Luckily, one of the teachers caught wind and straightened things out. Later that night, David apologized to Andrew again for his mistake to which Andrew replied, "It's ok Daddy, I forgive you."....awwwwww :)




















Below is a picture of the church in Smithville where my aunt married last weekend. It is a GORGEOUS church with amazing stained glass windows. The church was erected in 1908 and was the perfect church for the new couple to exchange their vows in! :)

The blushing couple! I was so honored to stand beside my Aunt in celebration of this wonderful day!

During the wedding festivities, our in-laws (Mike, David's brother - and his wife, Brenda + their kiddos Ethan and Isaac) took Andrew with them as they explored Caddo Lake and the area.

As you can tell, the 3 kiddos/amigos were having plenty of fun! I absolutely adore this picture of them! :) We were so Blessed that they came to spend the weekend in Jefferson and to celebrate Andrew on that Sunday, the 21st. Next I'll post about that :)

More fun with antibiotics...

After 2 upper respiratory viruses within about a month of each other recently, Andrew went through a couple rounds of antibiotics. One was a pencillin antibiotic which Andrew broke out in hives from. He had been on penicillin based antibiotics many times before with no adverse reaction. But for whatever reason, his poor little body broke out all over in hives. So, he was classified as allergic to penicillin.

Because of the recent infections so close together and all the yucky germies out there right now, our family doctor and the doctor at Cook's Childrens Hospital decided to put Andrew BACK on Bactrim on a prophylactic basis for 30 days.

When he was 18 months old, the doctor at Cook's decided to put him on Bactrim for 10 months prophylatically. This was to treat the diagnosis Cook's gave him of Transient Hypogammaglobulinemia. The Bactrim for 10 months was to help give his immune system a boost (he has extremely low IGg^2 levels) and prevent chronic infections. Of course, we have noticed a LITTLE improvement - it's not been too terribly much of one...

So while David and I were not excited about the prospect of putting him back on more antibiotics. But understood that with all the "junk" floating around these days, the doctors were trying to keep Andrew from getting anything really bad. So we obliged...

A few days in to the course of treatment, Andrew began breaking out. Not in hives like he had with penicillin or codeine (which we learned after he had his adenoids removed and new tubes put in...) but they were a little larger than pencil erasers. And they were all over. The picture doesn't really do justice but I can't figure my camera out! :)

So now he is off the Bactrim and classified as allergic to sulfa antibiotics as well. So we're praying that he doesn't get any sort of infection with everything going around. We're keeping him in daycare as minimally as possible and unfortunately missing Sunday School in efforts to keep his exposure to germies to a minimum.

So now we are in another "wait and see" period...hoping and praying that his little immune system heals... Please be in prayer for him too!

My boys hard at work...

In OCTOBER I ordered an end table...at the end of January - it finally arrived. So the boys spent a few minutes putting it together for me...

I love the pics of them working together :)

Fun pics the first of February

I'm not the best at updating pics but here are a few random ones from February so far...

For some odd reason, now that Halloween is long past...Andrew has NO problem wearing his scarecrow hat on random occasions....Go figure...

This next picture...Well, I'm not exactly sure of the thought process with his outfit...but flashbacks from the movie "Big Daddy" with Adam Sandler came flooding back... At least Andrew hasn't asked for his name to be changed to Frankenstein (yet!)... :)

The last two pictures of Andrew are just him enjoying his beanbag chair from Auntie Jina Bug and snuggling with his Aggie blanket. Dianne & Ray should be proud of these 2 pics... :)

Sweet family time...

A couple weeks ago, we were just clowning around. I love these pics...not the "no makeup look" (ugh)... but just getting to love on my little man....I love the pic of my boys hanging too... these are my favorite moments!!!

I love our family!!!! :)

Manners & Such....

A few minutes ago I was trimming Andrew's nails and he was begging to watch his latest favorite show "Chuggington"...

Dave and I are really trying to work on building good manners & respect in Andrew, so of course the first thing out of my mouth was "How do you ask?"

Andrew replies (too quickly/automatically I might add!):

"Please?.....and Thank you....and you're my favorite, Mommy....with a cherry on top?!"

I got a kick out of this and had to post it for the day when I finally make this into a Memory Book for our boy :)

Kids say the darndest things!!! :)