Thursday Ten

1. Began the ruthless purging and decluttering of the Pate house this week. I suppose this is somewhat cliche for the beginning of the year, but it needed to be done. Tackled Addison's room (see Appendix A below) and began Cadence's today. Got sidetracked because I got slammed with some sinus nonsense that made today kind of a wash. But I must press on- I'm trying to get through the house, room by room, by the end of the month.
2. Tuesday evening we watched Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs as a family, with popcorn of course. Love that movie. Addison said during the movie he would make it rain popcorn if he could. When we watch movies in the living room as "family time", we turn around our couch to be right in front of the TV (which is now huge, thanks to our "new to us" pass along TV we hauled home from Arkansas - yay for generous families!) :)
3. Mommy: (to Addison) " I can't believe you don't like almonds anymore! You used to like them just fine. You're crazy!" (saying in disbelief as he turned down almond M&M's...I can barely fathom such a thing) Addison: (oh so serious)"Mommy, some things change when you get older...." Wow. Spoken like a true Addison James Pate.
4. We have discovered that I have a freakish talent for winning Bingo. I always thought that there was no skill involved in playing such a pretty straight forward game, but after playing 20+ times just to make sure (at Chris's leading because he was getting frustrated...) and I only lost like twice.... what do you do with that? Just saying. Addison gets a kick out of it.
5. When I was cleaning out Addison's room, I came across a large construction paper pad that had some writing samples from when Addison first learned letters. (See Appendix B below) Wish I would have dated those pages (should have been thinking), but I'm thinking he was around four, and not very much four at that. I remember being amazed at the time at how well he was doing. And now that Cadence will be four in a little over a month, I'm re-impressed at his knowledge at that age. (Not that Cadence isn't a bright young lady or anything)
6. Another sewing project completed. (See Appendix C) I'm having a lot of fun! I had some left over material from a wall project in Cadence's room, and I decided to piece together a case for her pillow. Her pillow is so disgusting, and she is completely against getting rid of it. She will not accept substitutes! I was afraid she wouldn't even accept a case, but since it was pink and cute she embraced it. And anyone who has seen the embarrassment of a pillow that it was will be glad to know they don't have to look at it anymore!! And the best part is that it was free!! Well, if you don't count when I bought the fabric for the original project months ago I guess!
7. Cadence: "Mommy, did Daddy go work out at the church?" (Have no idea why in the world she said that...) Addison: "No Cadence, Daddy went to go get us some money."(at the church) Well, I guess that's somewhat accurate.
8. Some people might boo me out of cyberspace for this, but I actually am loving the cold weather. I've always been a lover of winter, and therefore I am delighted that we are actually having one. It's in the 20's as I'm writing, and I'm pretty sure most of our family spread out in TX, OK, and AR is actually colder that that. Wow! We'll all be ready for it to be over right about the time the seasons change.... funny, it's like God knew what He was doing when He made seasons....
9. It's nice to be back in our rhythm of working out and schedules. Well, almost. We are still out from the dance studio, but we start back up Monday so Monday Mania will commence! It's always nice to get a break from the norm, but it's always nice to embrace it when it's there waiting for you as well :)
10. I love the beginning of the year. It's so fresh, blank, and full of potential. I'm spending some time thinking about the person I want to be in 2010, things I want to improve on and things I need to do differently. And I'm also celebrating a few things I feel good about that I just want to be better and better (like my marriage with my amazing husband). Not one for resolutions really, but I'm all about goals and dreams. And all about setting some at the beginning of a new year to give you some vision and direction. So I'll be writing the vision down and making it plain so that I can run with it (Habakkuk 2:2-3).

Peace out from the Pate house.

Appendix A: What appears to just be an orderly, clean room actually represents hours of getting rid of things and deep cleaning and organizing (mostly the closet not pictured). And thank goodness now that I can sew I will hem up those curtains I ghetto pinned up!

A clean room is a happy room :) And check out the board game collection under the TV- most of those are new! Hours of fun for the Pates!

Appendix B: A precious sampling of beginnings

Appendix C: The new pillow case already on the pillow. The green blanket underneath was made for me with her bedding when she was born.

Took a strip of the left over blanket material to add a little pizazz!

What do you do when you don't have enough to cover the whole pillow? Improvise and make it two-sided!

This is what the material was originally bought for. These are on the wall above her bed. And her walls are really a much nicer shade of green in real life, unlike this pic.