A Little Monkey Business: If you're happy and you know it!

Andrew literally makes us laugh multiple times a day. He is becoming such a ham, and he loves to entertain and make people laugh. You just can't help but be happy when you're around this little guy...

His smile is contagious and his personality is just the best. He is so silly and funny and we just adore every little thing about him! He enjoys dumping over his huge bin of stuffed animals and rolling all around them! Ha! He reminds me of "E.T." when he is hiding in the closet with all of Gertie's stuffed animals!

Something else he's been doing lately that cracks us up...

He got this huge box of dinosaurs from his great grandma "Tootie" for Christmas and he is just obsessed with them. That along with the movie "Dinosaur," which Craig and I have seen about 100 too many times! We have started insisting he watch it on his portable DVD player instead of the big TV because we honestly just can't stand it anymore!

The other night I caught him lining all of them up in front of the Dinosaur movie, you know, so they could all see! Personally, I thought this was very inventive of him! Ha!

And it doesn't stop there... in the movie there is a scene where there is a fire and the dinosaurs are running from it. Well, he now turns on the fireplace by himself and lines them all up in front of it, too.

Sidenote: I realize it looks like all we ever wear is pajamas around our house! Ha! But if Andrew had his way, that is all he would wear. Every morning he still tries to get out of the house without having us change his clothes. And the second we walk in the door, he wants his jammies back on. Yep, he is definitely my son. Scary, I know.

Lately I have started thinking I need to start writing down the things that come out of his mouth, because they are equally as funny as his actions! I can still remember back, not very long ago, where it was like pulling teeth to get him to say a word. We just had his IEP meeting last week, and we all laughed because one of his speech goals from a year ago was to start combining words into sentences. Ha! I'd say he's met that goal, ten times over! Here are a few funnies as of late:

• He'll ask us, "Do you love that ________ Mama (or daddy, or Ga Ga, etc)?" Fill in the blank, but it is often the title of a favorite movie he's watching. Or a toy he's playing with. "Do you love dinosaurs daddy?" was a funny one the other day. Craig's sarcastic response was even funnier, but Andrew didn't get it! Ha!

• Last week my mom picked him up from day care and he said "Did you miss me Ga Ga?"

• He remembers the exact person who gave him everything he owns. He was playing with his dinosaurs the other day and he stopped and said "Tootie gave me these dinosaurs." Me: "Yes, she did." Andrew: "I love Tootie!" So matter of fact.

• He now wants to eat various snacks and he wants them in a bowl. He'll say, "Mommy, I want too much marshmallows in a bowl please." I guess "too much" is his way of saying he wants a lot of them! Ha!

• He now sings songs from his school and loves listening to his CD's in the car. He always wants the "Bus song" (You know, the one that gets stuck in your head and you sing it over and over for the next several hours??) The other day at my mom's house he was jumping on her bed while singing "Five Little Monkeys Jumping on the Bed!" Obviously, the song wasn't teaching him a lesson not to do it when the monkeys all fall off and bump their heads!

• The other day I picked him up from day care and asked him if he wanted to go to the store with me. His response: "Not tonight!" Ha! My thoughts exactly.

We just love listening to him talk and the things he comes up with. His teachers are beyond impressed with his speech, and we had to rewrite many of his goals or else he would barely have qualified for his IEP another year! Preschool has worked wonders for him, and we are so grateful for all of the special people that work with him at school.

In other news...we are getting ready to celebrate our little man's 4th birthday! How can he be turning FOUR already?? Where has the time gone? I created his birthday invitations on our new iMac. I was pretty happy with how they turned out, but Andrew was thrilled! He can't wait for his party and it is nearly impossible to keep him out of the room where all the party stuff is!

This is his happy place! Ha! It is soon to be baby's room, and I am still trying to figure out what on Earth I'm going to do with all this stuff every year from now on! Not to mention the major task of cleaning out the entire guest room, which has become the dumping grounds around here for things I don't know what to do with. I've spent the last several weekends filling boxes for goodwill and re-organizing closets and cupboards. And I've still got a long way to go... luckily I have a few more months until baby arrives!

As for me and our other child... I am finally starting to come out of the nauseous phase, but for some reason the tired phase hasn't ended! Maybe it is because I have never been pregnant while chasing a very active toddler around at the same time! Ha! I am 15 weeks this week, and baby is doing well and growing. I've finally broken out my old tub of maternity clothes and found a few pairs of pants that aren't too outdated (can you believe that clothes go out of style so fast? I can't believe I wore some of the things in that tub!)

I have found that most food sounds good to me now, which at first nothing did. My problem? Mostly what I want to eat is deli sandwiches, and apparently you aren't supposed to eat them while pregnant. I am pretty sure with Andrew I ate them. But I am not willing to take any chances this time around. I have been craving Quiznos so bad. It is my all time favorite sub place. Bless my mom and Jim's hearts, they have felt sorry for me and ordered me a real turkey from the grocery store and had the guy slice it up just for me! Now all I was missing was the Quiznos bread and honey mustard...

So I took care of that problem:

I had to chuckle at myself when I came out of Quiznos carrying this huge loaf of bread! I am sure people thought I was nuts, including the people who worked there when I asked them if they sold their bread separately! Hey, when you are pregnant and have a craving, you'll do just about anything! Ha!

Even funnier was the honey mustard. See, they don't sell it separately. But I think the lady felt sorry for me so she told me to "knock myself out" and fill up a big cup with it! So I did. Grabbed a few to go containers to take to school, and I was all set! Ha! My mom asked why I couldn't just buy a container of honey mustard at the store. Nope. It's not the same. Not even close!! Besides, that would be too easy!

So here is our precious baby at about 15 weeks. The ultrasound tech said he/she has about the cutest profile she had ever seen! I tend to agree. I just fall more and more in love with this baby every time I get to have an ultrasound and see it moving all around inside me. It is the most miraculous thing I could ever experience. I feel so blessed. I asked if it was too early to determine gender, and she said it was. Then I asked if it was too early to check the heart! I just can hardly stand waiting... she said it was too early to detect anything, but that based on its size and when she zoomed in on it, she said she could almost certainly tell me that baby has a 4 chamber heart! Whoopeee!

Although I didn't celebrate too much just yet. It is far too early to determine anything, but at least that does rule out several of the more complicated defects. Whew.

Our plans have changed a little bit with upcoming appointments, etc. We had originally planned to do the fetal echo of the baby's heart when we were in Iowa City for Andrew's surgery. When I called to schedule it, the receptionist had talked to Dr. Ben (the top fetal echo guy around!) and he suggested we do it when we are there for Andrew's cath instead. Deep breath. This would give us the chance to focus more on Andrew during his surgery and recovery, which was very sweet of him to think about. He assured us it won't be too early (18 weeks) and it'll be so nice to get it out of the way before Andrew's big procedures. So, we are doing things slightly out of order:

Feb 9- Fetal Echo and Andrew's pre-cath appointments in IA City

Feb 10- Andrew's cath

Feb 17- Routine Dr. appointment for baby

Feb 22- Andrew's surgery

March 1- Level 2 ultrasound to check all of baby's organs, etc (done by my local OB doctor) *This is probably the appointment we will find out the gender!

(Between our 2 children, they are keeping us very busy! Ha!)

Yikes! I see that Feb. 9th date and it makes me very jittery! It is only a few short weeks away. I know we will get through it, and I am feeling more and more confident that baby will be okay. But still.

We are in need of your prayers now more than ever! My sweet friend, Stef, designed a button for our blog. If you have a blog, I pray that you will post it so many more people can be praying for Andrew's surgery and for our precious baby to be born CHD free!