Andrew turns 3!

WARNING- LONG POST

My little man turned 3 on the 18th of September.  I really can't believe how fast he has grown already. I don't even know where to begin in talking about my Andrew...

Let's see, he is still very much a mama's boy :) and what I mean by that is he still likes to rub my arm before he goes to bed at night, or before he lays down for a nap (if I'm lucky enough) he has pretty much grown out of those, but surprises me every once in a while. He still wants me to carry him here and there and snuggles with me (thank goodness!) I'm going to keep that going as long as I can. He calls for me as soon as he wakes up or if he is in trouble and wants me to rescue  him from time out, he pretty much lets me know that he loves me in various different ways which I am grateful for.

One thing I have been meaning to post about is his amazing ability to remember people's names. He has been good at this for some time now, probably a good 6-7 months. Andrew knows all of my friends names, all their kids names, all our families names and even if he has only met you once, for a matter of 3 minutes, he knows who you are. My friend Capra walked us to our car months ago at a birthday party and till today he asks me about her, she was the one he met for 3 minutes. I wish I was as good with names as he is. He will call you by name when he see's you too and isn't shy at all, he'll yell your name from far away if necessary.  My most favorite name he says out loud is "Laura," and he is referring to my good friend Laura Harber.  I die everytime I hear him say her name, he doesn't get it just right yet but he sounds so cute, so next time you see Andrew ask him to say "Laura" for you and you'll see what I'm talking about. The name thing may not seem like that big of a deal but I'm telling you I couldn't do what he does with people's names.

Andrew is also a very sweet boy. I'll give you some examples of how nice this kid can be. Every night we ask him to say his prayers and he always thanks Heavenly Father for just about all of our friends. It started out with just one or two but now it is pretty typical for him to throw in the Morris Fam, The Harber's, The Hansen's, The Cardall's, The Miller's and their rabbit, his immediate family and a bunch of cousins. I love that he thinks of everyone he associates with. He is also extremely loving to his baby sister. He often checks on her to make sure she's alright and if he hears her crying in her crib he comes and grabs me right away. Today she was upstairs in her bouncy seat and Andrew was downstairs eating and he didn't hear her bouncing anymore so he yells up to her and says "Talia, are you alright?" And upon hearing Andrew's voice, Talia started bouncing again. I couldn't help but smile. Andrew also really loves his Nana, we've been prepping Andrew about our upcoming trip to Spain, letting him know we are going on a very long plane ride etc...and he asked me if Nana was coming, I told him no because she didn't have a ticket, he said "I have a ticket for Nana" I told him he didn't have a ticket for Nana because the ticket she needed for the plane would cost lots of "monies," he paused and said " I have monies for Nana's ticket." Seriously...how cute is that? Andrew has a few coins, but the fact that he wants to give up his coins for Nana is the sweetest thing to me.

What does Andrew like? CARS, he is obsessed with Disney Pixars movie Cars, therefore he loves every character on the movie and has just about every car you can buy from the movie. (He accumulated those through potty training.) When he watches a movie or something a little more exciting than regular TV, he'll line up all his cars on the arm of the couch so they can watch the movie with him. Lightening McQueen, The King, and Chick Hick are his prized possessions. He also really enjoys coloring/drawing/painting and wants Andy and I to do it with him so we can draw him CARS! surprise surprise. We have pretty much mastered drawing all the characters from the movie. Andrew also loves dinosaurs, he knows all the interesting facts about them, can say all the hard names, knows just about all of them thanks to all the books Liz gave him. He calls himself an "ultrasaurus" becuase he is so tall! Another new like for Andrew is Nintendo Wii, him and Andy play all the time and that is special Father/Son time.

I feel like Andrew is a pretty bright kid, he thrives on learning and is always surprising me with things he picks up. He was potty trained pretty quick, he knows what sound every letter in the alphabet makes, he has memorized a bunch of his books and loves telling me what each page says before I can read it to him, he has increased his Spanish vocabulary quite a bit considering we hardly ever speak to him in Spanish. He can trace his letters, he learns songs so fast and LOVES to sing,. I catch him singing all the time, especially when watching TV, he'll sing the song to seasame street, or wonder pets, you name it he knows it. One of these days i'll have to get it on video tape. I feel like I'm forgetting stuff but need to move on.

He still has a pretty good appetite, some of his favorite things to eat are pizza, spaghetti, peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, turkey sandwiches, tomatoes, cucumbers, mac and cheese, quesedillas, chicken, blueberries, and strawberries to name a few. He really likes his chocolate milk and orange juice also.

Ahhhh, my little man...I could go on forever in case you can't already tell. We love this kid, he brings us so much joy. Can't wait to see what this year brings! Love you Andrew!