The Pate Family Chronicles: Thursday Ten

Addison: "Mommy, I wish you could pick when you go to church. That way we could go to church on the 22nd, daddy's birthday." Me: "Why do you want to go to church on his birthday?" Addison: "Because then he would have his party at church. And that would be his present- God. God would be a great birthday present."
Note to self: Do not play Playdough Ice Cream shop with the children when you're fasting. I swear I almost ate that ice cream playdough.
Lots of talk from Cadence about turning four. Apparently this is a big milestone for her. I'm hearing about big girl everything. Taller. Can do more things. Moving to the pre-k class at church. It's the subject of most of her conversations these days. If we are ever talking about doing something (especially things that she is not allowed to do or is too old for her to understand), her response is always "Well I can do that because I'm almost four and almost a big girl."
I am in a flurry of choreography DVD's and extra practices at the gym this week, taking up all of my spare (and not spare) time. It's launch time again. Though it's a lot of work surrounding the launch of the new stuff (especially when you teach three programs), it's only every three months and it's really a lot of fun. I love my job. I really do.
Two shows are here this week that we watch. The return of Chuck, and American Idol. This is the time of year that wants to try and make us couch potatoes. Not really- we only have a small handful of shows that we watch, but we're crazy faithful about watching them. Thank God for the DVR. It's the little things in life, you know?
Cadence is going through this phase of randomly and suddenly transforming into Sonic (as in Sonic the hedgehog- about as opposite of anything girly as you could get). She will refer to herself as Sonic and will not respond to you or directions unless you call her Sonic. "No not Cadence, Sonic." I don't know.
Speaking of Sonic, we now have a new betta fish named Sonic who is blue. For those of you that do not know, we had a red betta named Flash that was living a long, happy life until Mommy and Daddy left it in the car overnight when we went out of town for Christmas. It was below freezing. You figure it out. But here is Sonic (see Appendix A Below)
Praying about taking down our Christmas tree this weekend. For those of you that are laughing at this and think we're a little late in the game, it was well into February when it came down last year. What can I say- I love my Christmas decorations. And we've been busy.
Still sewing away! I've been looking online and dreaming of projects as I find fun material. Made a couple of other things for presents, but I can't post pics yet as I'm going to be making some more for other presents of people that might be reading this blog :)
It was art day at the Grace museum again for homeschool kids on Tuesday. This time it was learning how to draw a portrait of a person (they showed how to do the lines through the face, proportion and all of that stuff) and then making it interesting by "coiling" the portrait. They did this by using clay to shape and put over their picture. It was fun, and this time our fellow homeschool buddy Seth was there. This is a cool opportunity once a month, and it's free! Always good to get Addison to think outside the box to do abstract stuff since he's such a "black and white" kind of guy. It's a challenge sometimes for him to just be free and not have someone give him guidelines to make it *exactly* how it's supposed to be, because he thrives in following directions to a tee and achieving perfection as a result. A blessing and a curse! See our pictures below.

Have a great weekend. Peace out from the Pate house.

Appendix A: Sonic. His coloring really is interesting- some red streaks at the front and some green mixed with the blue. Hopefully this one will die of natural causes.