Brrr....it's the North Pole

It was oficially the North Pole at our house....or a meat locker this last week. On Sunday (3/29, and yes it snowed this weekend) our furnace was not working and we had to turn off the gas to it, and conincidentally daddy turned off the gas to the hot water heater too!! We found out that it was going to be really expensive to fix and it was old so we decided to have it replaced. So on Monday they came and put a new one in and Andrew had gone to the grandparents' house in the afternoon and stayed all night. We went out to dinner and when we came home it was pleasantly warm. We didn't realize until Tuesday evening that it was not working AGAIN!! The brand new one!! After Andrew went to bed I thought it was a little cold and wanted to turn on the heat (it was 64), wouldn't come on. Well, the next day was Andrew's birthday (I know the post says 3/31, but I'm writing this on 4/11, trying to catch up :) and we were supposed to be gone all day to Seattle. My dad very generously came and sat at our house to wait for the repairman. They tried to switch out a very expensive blower and motherboard and some fuses. When I came home and saw the furnace taken apart in the garage still and they were gone, I was about to cry. They had to call the factory rep. to come over from Spokane that night. I slept with long underwear, sweats, and down slippers under my down comforter. When I had gotten Andrew up on Wednesday morning to go get his friend Ethan I said you're cold and he said No, I'm warm...as his teeth were chattering and he was shivering. Poor boy!! They promised me they would have it fixed by Thursday evening. They tried to change a lot of parts out and finally replaced the guts of the furnace. After 5 days of no heat, I was ready to be warm. Ironically, this week our heater has not been on much. :) It did snow on Andrew's birthday though.

Preschools

Well, we went to check out preschools last week. I think we might send Andrew to our church in Sumner. It is quite a drive for me and I can't come home while he's at school but we really like it. We checked out a co-op and the people were very nice but the building was kind of run down and they couldn't have the heat on during the day because it was baseboard heating. I also would have to work in his class and serve on committees and on the board. I want to be involved in his preschool some but with working full-time it would be a lot of work for me. Pray for us that we would choose the right preschool for him and for us.

Bath Time Fun!!

Andrew and I were having a lot of fun at bathtime (3/22/09) so I decided to take some pictures. We play with his firetruck and fire boat a lot and crash them together. He put another boat up there and the hippo in between and he said that the boats were getting the hippo. I turned around for a minute and next thing I knew he had lined up all the bath toys on the tub.

Silly boy!

All the toys

It goes right here! (Bossy boiler--it's from a Thomas the train book)

Here's my boat!

Debbie's 30th Birthday!

We went to Round Table Pizza on Saturday (March 21st) to celebrate Debbie's 30th birthday (one of my very good friends). Andrew had a lot of fun running around the tables. He was very excited to see Debbie's sister Jackie, every time she left, he wanted to know where she went and followed her around. :) He also very excitedly announced to everyone that he had gone pee on the potty and poopy on the potty. :) Good thing we were amongst friends. :) (He's still excited aobut going places other than home)

In his pajamas before we left, so he could fall asleep in the car.....only that didn't happen. Yesterday my aunt bought him a little Easter bunny when we were shopping, he named it "bunny" and he has to take it EVERYWHERE!! He didn't fall asleep because he was talking to "bunny" the whole way home. He didn't go to bed until 10:40!! And got up at 7:30 the next morning!!

Debbie's friend Beth, her sister Jackie, Debbie, Matt, me and Andrew (I didn't see at first that they were giving her bunny ears :)

Everybody from the previous picture and our friend Dana too

A Day with Auntie Barbara

On Friday, March 20th, Andrew and I went to the mall to spend the day with my Aunt Barbara. Andrew had fun picking out his clothes and toys for his birthday presents....even though he wasn't going to get them for two weeks. He was very well behaved and he got to play on the cars and in the play area. He is doing very well at using the potty, he went at the food court bathroom, at Wal-Mart, and a few other places. I think it's become a novelty now, as opposed to when he told me he would only go at home. :)

Andrew 'riding' the fire truck. I offered to put money in but he didn't want it to 'go up and down.'


The little fireman

We usually just let him play on the cars without putting quarters in but this time I did, he was a little scared when it lurched forward but then he liked it.

The hot dog van driver

The green race car

Smile!

Andrew and Auntie Barbara reading the book he got for doing so well at potty-training.

He loves this play area! He got to go 2 or 3 days in a row, lucky boy, that doesn't usually happen.

Riding one of the doggies. He's a lot more independent with climbing on things now

Sitting in the hippo's mouth

At this point in time there were a lot of kids younger than him there, so he decided he needed to crawl because they were. :)

Happy St. Patty's Day!!

Andrew's thumbprint four-leaf clovers

(the bigger ones are mommy's)

The artist

We didn't do anything special for this holiday except to wear green and we tried to make thumbprint shamrocks and then Andrew ended up painting a green and orange picture. :) We had green paint out and then he asked for orange paint, I don't think he knew that was the other St. Patty's Day color.

SNOW!!!

We went on Monday (the 9th) to visit Ethan and his mommy Kelley and to meet Ethan's new baby sister Eliana! I held Eliana for quite a while but I forgot to take any pictures of her! :( Ethan and Andrew had a lot of fun. It was snowing like crazy....and sticking. Ethan and Andrew would sit on the back of the couch and say "It's snowing!! It's snowing!!"

Hi Ethan (I wanted to get a picture of both boys looking out the window but one of them would always turn around)

Hi Andrew!

Now after going to Ethan's house Andrew really wants a baby sister! :)

The Seattle Children's Museum

We decided to take Andrew to the Seattle Children's Museum on Saturday. He had a BLAST! We were in there for 3 1/2 hours and Andrew would have stayed longer. He kept finding things he wanted to go back and do again on the way out. We went to dinner at the Old Spaghetti Factory afterwards and when we left he said he wanted to go back to the Museum. We told him it was dark and it was closed, he argued with us for a while in the car. When he woke up the next morning he said he wanted to go back to the Museum instead of church. I guess we'll have to go back again.

(We definitley got more for our money than at the Tacoma Children's Museum. There isn't as much for younger kids to do at the Tacoma museum, and the Seattle museum is 22,000 square feet!!)

Andrew loved this bus/van!! It was part of the global village that had a motorbike and a Korean subway car and Japanese houses they could go in.

(I did get a little frustrated with the older kids bossing around the younger kids and pushing them out of the way, Andrew just stands there like what did I do.)

Riding the subway car

The motorbike, except Andrew didn't want to sit on the actual bike seat, he just wanted to ride on the seat next to it.

Andrew stirring and cooking in one of the houses

This was in cog city where the kids could push buttons to make water do stuff and use plastic golf balls to send through things.

Painting, his favorite thing! He was very nice about sharing with another girl

He concentrates hard

They also have a forest area where the kids can crawl through logs and climb on things and there were rocks to lift up and look at the (fake) bugs and creatures underneath.

There was also an REI tent set up that the kids could play in and sleeping bags. Andrew pretended to lay down and go to sleep, mommy would have liked to take a nap in there, I was tired after a long day of playing.

Crawling through the nurse log

In the tent with daddy too

Climbing through the whale

Discovery bay (for birth to 3 years old) was right up his alley. He didn't want to play in the water table though, odd little boy.

Going down the slide, cautiously however

There was a HUGE Curious George exhibit with lots of things to do

Going down Curious George's rocket ship slide

Bending down to give Curious George a hug

2 little monkeys! :)

Driving a big fire truck

There was a grocery store and he drove the cart around collecting food and then went to the counter to check out. We would pretend to scan it and he says 'beep, beep.' Ver cute! The grocery store is one of his favorite places to go at home.

There was also a construction are where you could build things but he and daddy mostly just spun wingnuts and played with stuff that someone else had built

All in all it was a really fun day! (Even though it was long) We'll have to go back sometime. (I wish it wasn't so far away and we didn't have to pay for parking! Oh well.

It was supposed to snow yesterday

I thought it was supposed to snow yesterday???!!! It was very sunny and not too cold. Andrew likes to drive his car to the mailbox and back and we did sidewalk chalk. Mommy was drawing letters and numbers and I tried to teach Andrew hopscotch. He can't jump though so that was kind of a bust. :)

What a cutie pie!

He's excited because he's trying to get mommy with his car


Hey, it's a little bright for pictures mommy


I asked him to get down and draw with the chalk so I could take his picture and then he stood up and said "You got it."


My big boy! I can't believe he's almost 3!