Thankful Thursday

Not going to do a list today. Just going to say that I'm thankful. I'm loving life, and I love everyone in it. Thankful to be doing something(s) that I love. All of the things that would sound cliche I am truly thankful for.

If you are a family member reading this blog, I am thankful for you. You bless our lives constantly. You create legacies. We are strengthened and encouraged by your love for us. We are inspired by the roads you have paved before us. For those that are younger, we have enjoyed watching you grow and become the people you are. Thank you for sharing your journey.

If you are a friend reading this blog, I am thankful for you. You have enriched our home with your laughter, support and kindness. You have brightened my days with your words coming through e-mails, the phone, etc. You have made my heart glad when I found you again through the wonders of social networking. You are there for us, you love us, and it's a privilege walking with you.

Thank you all for doing life with the Pates. Our lives are the better for it. And today, I'm thankful for that.

Thursday Almost Ten

Just enjoying a beautiful day around here. We went to the park earlier to collect samples of fall leaves we saw for a little book we're going to make, but I realized that as great as Nelson Park is by our house, it doesn't have a very large selection of different trees with spectacular fall color. Perhaps we will find some in other parts of town (although I do know realistically that this is Abilene, TX). Here are some highlights from a great week- I think pretty much everybody that reads this is now on Facebook so I might be repeating myself a bit, but oh well. Also, I have decided to put all media at the bottom of the post to temporarily remedy the problem with messing up the format every time I add something.

1. We got the Christmas decorations out over the weekend- yay! It's not all put up yet, but it was so much fun to see how excited Cadence is this year. I can already tell it's going to be a fun holiday season! She was just running around the living room with garland singing about the holidays and Christmas. She decorated the kitchen chair. And then she got her ponies out and they had to all be introduced to the Christmas decorations. It was extremely entertaining to watch her! (See Exhibit A below)
2. A quote from Addison when we were doing school work a couple of days ago..."You know, if this page could talk right now he'd be saying, 'Wow, this guy is doing a really good job.' " We'll have the Romans 12:3 talk later. For now, we take on the world! Better to err on the side of confidence at this age!
3. We are celebrating the fact that we are going to have to replace pretty much Chris's entire wardrobe! It's all too big! I am just so proud of the journey he's been on. He is inspiring a lot of people right now, and he's so close to his goal! You're the bomb-diggity man! And we are currently accepting donations for the Don't Leave Chris Naked campaign :) A thank you to Annette who has already contributed to this fund!
4. Addison's most recent song from Musical Theater (See Exhibit B) I knew he'd like this one!
5. We are SOOOO excited to head to Lubbock for Thanksgiving next week. We will be spending our holiday with T, and we will also get to visit our lifelong friends and their new baby girl. And we found out yesterday that we will be visiting the Polar Express on Wednesday. It's a real train, and they make it just like the movie- you go in your pajamas, have your ticket, drink hot chocolate and sing songs on the train, and we are en route to the North Pole the whole time. When we arrive, Santa and the elves will board the train!! Addison got the biggest smile on his face when I told him about it. I was glad, because these days because his excitement about things comes in short supply, plus the fact that it's difficult to get him to "buy" into lots of things. I'm just hoping we can make it one more Christmas believing in Santa :) So you can imagine my own excitement to see him jumping up and down and then he said he was excited because he's never seen a real live elf before. Hopefully when he sees that these "elves" aren't short and, well, very elf-like, he'll still be invested into the thing!! And you should see the cute little matching Christmas PJ's they'll be sporting...oh wait, you will see I'm sure! Thanks so much, T- this will be a special memory for the kids.
6. Chris and I have really come to love our little snuggle time with Cadence in the mornings. Since she is usually the first one awake, she just comes into our room and jumps in the bed between us for cuddles and cartoons. I'll admit, she is pure sweetness in the morning because she (99.9% of the time) wakes up with instant sunshine and giggles, even if sometimes it's a little earlier than I wanted to see her! I'm so happy that I'm not running around in the early morning like I was so I can have this time :)
7. As sweet as Cadence can be, she also tries to use said cuteness to get out of trouble. She has developed a new song that she sings now when we start to get stern with her. (See Exhibit C) We have actually seen a sight so pitiful as her singing this while crying after being in trouble. But after you hear the song you will see why it's very hard for us to keep a straight face. She is kind of quiet in the beginning, but you will get the idea.

So I didn't make it to ten again today. I'm not feeling that creative and just want to crank it out. We'll be having lots of blog love with the holidays so don't you worry. Pate goodness for all. In the meantime, peace out from the Pate house.

Exhibit A- Meeting the Singing Snowmen

Exhibit B Exhibit C

I think that's very "protrocious" of you to Lyrics to Getting Out of Trouble Song:

learn all of those words, son. I'm trying You are smiling, everything can make

to work with him on actually breathing you smile.

between words, but we're not there yet :) You're smiling, you can make me smile.

Zoo Class

It's an eventful week around here! Today the homeschool kids got to be a part of a class at the zoo. It was a little hectic with lots of little ones running around, but definitely the coolest part was getting to go "behind the scenes" and see where the lions and tigers slept. We were also behind the rhinoceros habitat and got to get up really close and touch it! Addison touched the horn so fast I missed the pic! Then Cadence reached (out of turn and not where she was supposed to touch) and just poked it in the side. It was kind of funny. We took our friend Seth with us, too. After the behind the scenes tour we went back to the classroom and the kids designed their own habitat for an animal and drew what it would look like. I definitely enjoyed the art class a lot more and I definitely should not have worn my cute shoes that now smell like rhinoceros, but it was still fun. The kids enjoyed it. I think next time we need to go early and walk around the zoo first, because we had to pay to get back in after the class was done (so we did not go back in). Here's the few pics I did manage to snap:

Right after he was touching the horn, but you can see how close we were to "Macho" (that's his name)

Drawing their animal habitats (or something like that)

Seth drawing his habitat. He was very detailed in explaining his "spider" to me and how dangerous he was. He's always coming up with the funniest things to say!

The Grace Museum Art Class

This fall we joined the Big Country Home Educators, which means we get to be a part of activities and things around town just for homeschool kids. I have to admit, even though some of the people are very different from us, it's nice to be at events where you have homeschool in common with other people. To be able to let my I-have-to-be-ready-to-answer-people-when-they-look-at-us-and-wonder-why-he's-not-in-school guard down and just enjoy ourselves. I'm always happy to share our heart on this subject and I'm obviously passionate about it, but sometimes I feel like it has to be more of a defense than conversation because of judgements or things said from other people. And believe me, it's happening. But I'm not really going to go there- it's quite a soapbox. :) At any rate, we met some very nice people.

Anyway, once a month the Grace Museum opens up for homeschool families with free admission and an art class. We had so much fun! Both of the kids did very well (I was especially impressed and proud of my loud, likes-to-talk, wiggly three year old), and they sat very quietly and well behaved during a small lecture about the artist we were studying, and some things that were way over their head. Well, Addison seemed to be tracking with her, actually. Then she did a demonstration of the art and the kids got to make it. I think this was a good artist for Addison to copy because Mondrian was all about geometric shapes and straight vertical and horizontal line grids- right up his alley! They also learned how to mix primary colors to make different colors of paint. Here are some pics from our adventure:

Here they are patiently and quietly listening and watching the teacher demonstrate what they were going to do. Cadence did turn around and tell me very excitedly, "Mommy, there's a girl behind me!"

Cadence's paint palette only stayed like that for a few seconds before all the colors got mixed, creating every color imaginable. The kids were impressed that she made black! That's Cadence for ya....

And her Mondrian masterpiece, with almost every color possible!

Addison of course was very meticulous, making sure to even make vertical brush strokes like the teacher. The teacher noticed that and praised him for it.

Addison's Mondrian masterpiece. Very good!

And a couple of examples of Mondrian's work to see what they were trying to emulate:

Fun fun morning/afternoon! After we finished the kids romped around in the children's part of the museum, which is also very cool, but I was too tired to take pictures! We'll be back next month for the next art lesson for sure, so I'll have plenty of chances to take pics. And there you have it. Peace out from the Pate house!

It's all good...

...in the Mother-hood.

That was my facebook status a couple of days ago, and even though it was a clever play on words, it's quite true. This week has been wonderfully normal, some would even say mundane. But it's been just the way I would have it. Lots of funny and sweet moments with the kids this week. So here's a few...

1. Probably one of the funniest things from the week...the kids were handing out candy to trick or treaters after we got home from taking them out to a "fall fest" for a little bit. I think they had more fun doing that then going out. They loved seeing the kids in costumes, and they started a conversation with every one of them. *Later on Addison told us that he gave one girl two pieces of candy instead of one because he thought she was pretty.* (Mother making mental note in the midst of lots of laughter that son now has awareness of opposite sex= age 6)
2. On the heels of this a couple of days later we were talking to him about Mommy and Daddy's story and I made the statement to him that God already knows the girl he's going to marry one day...

   Addison (with huge smile): Well, since you talk to Him, can you just ask Him who it is??

3. Peppermint Mocha!!!! Was pleasantly surprised to find them on the menu already when we made our Monday Starbucks trip while Cadence was at dance. And I just couldn't help myself... I've already purchased a few new Christmas songs on iTunes. Come on, they're only $.99!
4. Another thing putting me in the Christmas spirit is how obsessed my kids are with listening the to the Christmas musical CD that we're doing at the church in Dec. I think Addison already knows all of the songs after a couple of days of (non-stop) listening in the car. Of course Cadence is proudly singing along, and she'll be sad to discover the 2 and 3 year old class will not be singing these songs with the other kids! Maybe I can sneak her on stage with the pre-k class's appearance- I am the director, after all :)
5. Chris came home with these today... Cadence loves flowers. She will be spoiled for life and make her future suitors work hard for their prize because she'll know how it's done :)

1. (I don't know why the numbers started over after the pic...and I can't fix it) At church Wednesday we had one of our Encounter nights where it's just praise, worship, and prayer for the whole service. It was a really powerful night and it ran kind of long, so I went back to pick up my kids and relieve the workers. We were actually still celebrating at the end so I just took Cadence up on stage with me (Addison chose to pass). She took one look at everybody jumping around and singing and just joined right in, bouncing, dancing, and all. She was about the cutest thing we've ever seen, and of course everybody else thought so, too. She's not shy, that one!
2. This sight below was a happy, happy sight for me this week. It was Cadence's first week back home every day, and she did so great. She sat up at the table on this day while we did school and I kid you not, she colored and traced letters in that book for almost 2 hours straight. It was also my first week to have more time during the day. When I do other things and not this, I miss this. When I was doing this and not other things, I did not miss the other things. Although I really enjoy everything I do in my life, I really am the happiest when I'm here with these guys. Making the most of these small hours. There will be plenty of time for many other things I feel I'm called to. But there's not always time for this. Helping shape the foundation on which my children will stand- you can't pay me enough money to be away from that. And I wish I could have gotten a close up shot of Addison's tongue- he works it like nobody's business when he's working really hard, especially when cutting!

I know that wasn't ten things. The numbers messed up anyway, it's not Thursday, and I'm too tired to come up with anything else clever. Although if I sat long enough there are hundreds of things each week that are notable! But that's all for now...peace out from the Pate house.