Long Over Due Andrew Update

It's been awhile since I have just updated about my little Andrew.  I can't believe he is going to be 3 in a month.  My little guy is growing up right in front of me, and I don't know where the time has gone.  Andrew has been growing lately, his shoes and all his pants don't seem to fit him anymore.  Andrew is also starting to thin out quite a bit.  He is still around 30 lbs, but he just keeps getting taller.  He is in the 30 percentile for his height, and 40 percentile for his weight now.  It use to be 10 and 50, which was pushing him at border line being overweight.  I have stayed faithful in limiting the junk food with Andrew, and I think it has paid off.  Infact Andrew tells me that he wants a salad for lunch sometimes!  What three year old ask for a salad?

Andrew is still in speech therapy, or at least for right now.  When he turns three he looses the free speech that we have received through the county, and now it is going in the school's hands.  We have met with the public school system twice now and we find out this Friday what kind of help Andrew may receive.  I'm prepared that they will not be able to help him since there is medical reason for his delay, instead of just a delay.  Andrew was well advanced in many of the areas they tested him in, so we will see what they say.  In the mean time I have had the speech pathologist with the cranialfacial team from Akron Children's follow up with Andrew's submucous cleft (partial cleft palate) that he was diagnosed with last summer, and she tested him in radiology using an xray and having him speak at the same time.  She was able to see what was going on in his palet while he was talking. Basically her findings were that, Andrew's soft palate was not moving and closing against his throat when he was talking, which causes air to go through and it doesn't allow him to form the sounds he needs to.  Poor little guy!  The speech pathologist told me that no amount of speech therapy is going to fix this problem, and we will need to have some kind of medical procedure done to correct the problem.  We will be talking with the surgeon to go over our options.  I was hoping it wasn't going to come to this with Andrew, but  lately I have been so frustrated with trying to understand what he is saying, and he is so frustrated with trying to tell me stuff that I was almost relieved to know that there was a definite problem and there is a way to fix it. 

I will have to say that even though Andrew has difficulty talking, he is so smart for his age.  He knows all his shapes, including an octagon.  He knows his colors, he trys to count but skips the numbers he can't say.  He understands almost all the prepositions in theory and he knows opposites.  He even seems to know left from right.  He also is recognizing some letters and numbers.  It's crazy because for the most part I don't sit down and teach him this stuff.  He just picks it up here and there, and remembers it.  He is also saying correct complete sentences, even though he can't say all the words exactly.

Andrew has also become a very sweet little boy.  He thanks me for dinner alot of the time, and lately he keeps telling me that I'm pretty.  Andrew is also in love with his sisters.  The bond between my kids is absolutely amazing.  Of course there is times when they all get on each others nerves, but for the most part all three of my kids get along very well.  I here all of them tell each other all the time how much they love each other, and they hug each other.  That may not be normal for siblings, but maybe there is a benefit of spreading their ages out so much.  It does my heart good when I see my daughters show my son so much love.  There is nothing I could ask more of them. 

Andrew is still the happiest little boy, or at least everyone who doesn't live with us thinks that.  He goes everywhere with the biggest smile on his face, and he has the world fooled!!!!  Especially the people at church.  They don't hear his whinny voice that I hear a good part of the day.  I think Andrew just likes to leave the house and have somewhere to go, and he just loves people!  He can't seem to stop talking to strangers when we are in public.  I keep telling him not everyone is your friend, but he just doesn't seem to get that.

Andrew is growing up.  He is now in his big boy toddler bed, and he does great with it. He stays in the bed pretty much until I get him.  Sometimes he will get a book and then look at it in bed until I get him.  He also only drinks from a regular cup now.  No more sippy cup!  Which has actually cut down on potty accidents, because he isn't drinking near as much all the time.  I can't remember the last time he has had an accident!  He also doesn't have accidents at night so that is great!  Andrew is also sitting at the table with us, instead of the high chair, but we are still working on table manners.  That seems to be a daily issue. 

Andrew does say some cute things, so here are some Famous Quotes By Andrew:

1. For his sister Alisha, he always says "Sissy Yaya", so now we have started calling her sissy Yaya.  Its funny because he will just say Megan without saying sissy Megan, but when he says Alisha it is always with the sissy in front of it.

2. "Your my best friend"  He is always saying this to everyone

3. " I love you", then we say "I love you to Andrew", and then he says "I love you more"

4. "Think, Think, Think"  He says this while pointing his finger to his head

5. There are many more, but I can't think of them at this hour, so I'll write more later! 

A few weeks ago my dad got tickets for Andrew, and Cain to go to the monster truck show!  Andrew had so much fun.  Here are a few pictures that my husband took.  He forgot to get one with him and his son, but maybe my parents got one.  I didn't get to go, but it was so much fun to just hear Andrew talk about it.  Cain finally gets to go and do some father and son guy stuff!  He has waited a long time for that!

I took Andrew to the library one day and practiced taking some pictures there before one of my photo shoots.  He actually had a lot of fun playing with the other kids up there.

So me and Andrew had a little photo shoot the other day.  I needed a picture of him for his birthday invitation.  Here are a few of the pictures I liked but didn't make it to his card.  In case you didn't figure it out, the theme is race cars!

Here is picture of Alisha and her boyfriend.  They do a lot of fun stuff together.  They built this heart one day after church, and of course I had to get a picture.  On an Alisha note, she got deans list again at college, and remember she is still in high school but doing post secondary which is doing college courses in place of the high school courses.  She does regular classes with other college kids.  I'm so proud of her.   My Megan also did great in school last quarter.  She made Merit Roll. You go girl!!!!!

I Heart Faces - My Story In Photos (Places I Love)

So this week at I heart faces the theme is the most romantic place you have been.  I had to think about that for a minute because on my honeymoon I got vertigo, and ended up in the ER and I spent the majority of my time in the condo sick.  So that was a definite no!  Other then that, my husband and I haven't been to, to many romantic places, but the one place that was the most amazing place that I have ever been to was Kyrgyzstan.  On Dec. 31, 2007, my husband and I got on a plane and went half way around the world, to get our son, who we adopted from Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan.  He was 9 months old, and there was something about that trip that I can't get out of my mind.  It was very life changing, and also the most non stop time I have spent with my husband since we have been married.  We were gone for two weeks, which was very hard because we left our other two kids at home, but it was also a special time for us to bond with our son.  So of course I needed to post lots of pictures, and for those of you who have followed my blog already, I'm sorry I'm sure you have already seen all of these pictures.

So after traveling for over 24 hours, my husband and I got a few hours of sleep, and woak up to get ready to go to the orphanage to get our son.  Keep in mind that our son was ours on paper, but we still have never met him at this point.  It was quite a weird feeling, but then after being ready to go, we got a call that the orphanage director wasn't at the orphanage that day due to new years (they celebrate new years for 2 days straight) and we couldn't get our son.  We were disappointment but my eyes were burning from no sleep, so I was actually okay with it.  We hung up the phone and crawled right back into bed.  Later that day we went out sight seeing with our guide.  This building is equivalent to our "White House".

It was fun walking around on Jan. 2nd because no one seemed to be at work and everyone was out on the streets enjoying the festivities.  They also celebrate Christmas on Jan. 7th, so we got to get a picture with Santa, and their other creatures!

This reminded me of the big tree in New York!

So finally the next day came and we got to get our son.  It was an amazing experience and nothing could of prepared me for how my life was going to change at that very moment!  Our little guy was very sick when we got him.  I think he had pheomonia!  Thank God we brought medicine from the states and within a few days he seemed to be getting better!

So after they put about 6 layers of clothes on our son, we were ready to go!

They don't use car seats there, so my son got to always sit on my lap when we were in the car.  I was usually scared to death in the car there because the driving is so aggressive, and the lack of traffic laws.

Our first family pictures!

A drive up into the mountains!

This restaurant was called The 12 Fireplaces, because they had 12 fireplaces outside and would cook all your food out there.  It was the best meal we had the entire 2 week trip.  I wish we would of known that while we were eating it, so we could of savored it more!

So after a week in Kyrgyzstan we had to go to Kazakhstan to get our son's visa.  We spent another week there before heading home.  This was the view from our room.  There was a park across the street and this church was in the middle of it.  One day when my husband and I went for a walk we saw this couple making out.  My husband and I were freezing, so we were not quite sure how they were just sitting there, like it was a nice day.  We got back to our hotel, and a little later looked out and we could still see them making out.  I guess they were keeping themself warm in other ways!  It had to be close to 0 degrees when we were there, because we could only handle being outside for about 3-5 minutes at a time.  We had to walk everywhere, to go to the supermarket, and to restaurants.

This was the view from our balcony!

This is where we eat breakfast each morning!

This was part of their shopping center that was close to our hotel!

So many may ask, how did this trip end!  Well after 48 hours of traveling, which included 2 delays, and 4 different planes, we arrived home at the airport. 

We were surrounded by our family and friends!  We were so happy to see our girls, and finally know that our family was complete.  This was truly the most amazing adventure I have ever been on!  Everything I saw while out of the country was so breathtaking!

Be sure to check out the other great stories over at I Heart Faces!

I'm A Big Kid Now

So over a week ago, Andrew did something quite strange at nap time.  He usually sleeps for about 2 hours, but on this particular day, I heard a ton of banging on the crib and then Andrew just started screaming and this all happened about 30 minutes into his nap.  It was quite odd so I ran upstairs and peaked in his room, and to my surprise he was on the other side of the room away from his crib and he was just standing there crying and very confused.  I asked him what he was doing and I got no response, just crying, so I asked him then if he wanted to go back to bed and he said yes.  Then he slept for another hour and half.  I really think Andrew was sleep walking and broke out of his bed.  Nothing else really would explain his behavior.  Later I asked him if he remembered getting out of his bed and he said no.  Later on that week it really started bothering me that he did that, and he could do it again and really get hurt.  The fact that he didn't seem to know why he was out of his bed was quite scary for me.  Luckily I have a child proof thing on his door so he can't get out of his room, but I did worry about him getting hurt.  So I decided it was time to break out the toddler bed.  I was sad because the week before I got rid of the high chair and Andrew graduated to the big table.  I officially feel like my baby is all grown up, and I just about lost it the first time I put him in his bed. 

So Andrew got to jump one last time in his crib before taking it down.

....and this is why we took down the crib!

So after putting up the new bed, Andrew took a moment to think what he should do first!

...and so he decided to jump off the bed.  So being the good mom I am, I took lots of pictures of him doing it, and then told him he wasn't aloud to jump off the bed.

So Andrew decided to try out the new bed!

However, Andrew wasn't ready for a nap at 11am!!!!  He has done very good though.  He stays in his bed when he wakes up and he says "mommy, daddy come save me".  It is to cute.  So I officially have a big kid now!!!!!!

We took Andrew's little table downstairs from his room for awhile, and I had to grab a picture of Megan eating with Andrew!  I was excited because I got this picture with no flash and it was at night!!!!!!  I just love my camera!!!!