What Do You Want to Be When You Grow Up?

Well, a Scientist of course.  We call him Dr. Funkenstein.  Today was the day to dress up as "what you want to be when you grow up" day at school.  He wanted some crazy hair so he could be a bit of a mad scientist.  I love this little guy!  He loves to go all out and dress up on these fun days at school but he also stays practical.  When I asked him if he wanted some black round glasses to wear he said, "Mom, I don't wear glasses."  We have to keep it real.

IT IS GREAT TO BE EIGHT

My little guy Andrew is now a big eight year old.  He woke up this morning and came in my room, woke me up and said, "It's my birthday!".  That is the life with a new baby in the house.  Usually I wake the kids up with singing Happy Birthday and treat them to a special breakfast.  With a new baby, he had to wake me up :-)

So now, here are 8 of the many things that make Andrew the special boy he is to our family:

1.  When Andrew is interested in something he is ALL IN!  He was doing a project at school about Tornadoes so he wanted to make a tornado model that required using dry ice...we had to squash that idea but I love that he wanted to go big!

2.  He has a smile that lights up the room.

3.  Football is really something he has gotten better at this year and he LOVES it!  He wears some type of football jersey nearly every day, Pittsburgh, Longhorns, MV Tivers, Baylor Bears...he is a fan of many :-)

4.  Andrew is crazy about his great grandmother.  She loves him so much and might spoil him just a bit.  He asked her to make her special sugar cookies for his class snack this week.  She couldn't wait to do it for him.  I catch him some evenings watching Wheel of Fortune with Granny in her room.  SO CUTE!

5.  This kid is a FOODIE!  He loves to try new things and has a very discerning palate.  We took him to PF Chang's for his birthday dinner.  The waitress was cracking up because he didn't want the stuff on the kid's menu.  He wanted a spicy shrimp dish and lettuce wraps.  That's my boy!

6.  Snuggler.  Does a mom need to say anymore... I love that about him.

7.  This boy has been an early bird since he was a baby.  He doesn't want to waste any time snoozing.  He might miss something great.

8.  Andrew accepted Christ this year and has really grown to a mature young boy.  He asks so many deep questions that Mark and I both know God has amazing plans for him.  We love watching his personality blossom in Christ.

We love you, Roo.  God blessed us richly when he gave us such an extravagant gift!

A Dedicated Brother...

Andrew is full of questions about his baby sister.  He is inquisitive by nature anyway, add to that his love and concern for his baby sister, and he is intense!  When he rides in the backseat with her he always consoles her so sweetly when she cries and gives me the play by play of everything she does.  When her blanket fell on the floor at church yesterday and he was quick to ask me if I should cover her up with it anymore. 

From the day she was born, he would ask me when we were going to take her to church.  I told him she had to get bigger before we would take her to church and one day we would stand up in front of our church and make a promise to teach Melanie about Jesus, just like we did with he and Mason.  I explained it was called a baby dedication.  The first Sunday we took Melanie to church he asked if we were going to take her up front.  I told him no, she would be bigger when we do that.  We waited a couple of weeks before we took her back to church, but again Andrew asked if we were taking her up front.  I told him no again and explained it would be several months.  He then asked me how the baby dedication worked.  I told him we go up to the altar with brother pepper in front of our church family.  He then interjected, "Do you hold her up like this", demonstrating by holding his hands way above his head and trying to sing the native African chant at the beginning of the Circle of Life song during this scene of a familiar movie:

I couldn't help it, I cracked up laughing!  I explained it isn't like the Lion King movie.  Now he was totally serious when he asked but when he saw me laughing, he got silly and said Dad or I should do it to be funny.  Mark held back his laughter (for a while) and explained to Andrew that being silly when we are making a promise to God was disrespectful to Him.  Andrew understood what his dad was telling him but I couldn't help but giggle at how his little mind was trying to envision how it worked and the Lion King scene is what came to mind when I was explaining the formality.  But, like Andrew, I have one more question.  Who's the monkey, me or Mark...or in keeping with the movie, is Brother Pepper the monkey?