Hellooooooo Kitty.

We had a lovely little Hello Kitty party in our home for Cadence's birthday.  So. much. Hello. Kitty.  I'll admit- she's the only cat I will tolerate.  For the love of my daughter.  But we had fun with our friends, little and big.  Here's a little photo recap of the afternoon:

The party girl is forcibly stopped stops for the obligatory in front of the cake party pose before the festivities began.  She's been waiting to turn six for months now, and believe me- she's going to be a busy girl because everything has been "Well, when I'm six....".  Six is really important.

Decorations. My favorites are the circle mobiles I threw together and the rainbow fruit kabobs Addison and Cadence assembled for me.

And the cake pops.  This was my first attempt at cake pops.  While these kitty ones were a bit tedious (and we had some "oopsy kitty" outtakes in the fridge that didn't make the cut), they were really fun to make.  I always love trying new things!

Two of the party games: the traditional piñata and pin the bow on the kitty.  Our big friends even joined in the fun!

Pensively awaiting the birthday song. 

Probably everyone's favorite activity: make your own cake pops station.  So fun!

Some of our beautiful and tasty creations!

Cadence. Oh, Cadence.  The best way I can think of to describe my daughter is that.... she is Cadence. Her own person- beautiful, colorful, affectionate, strong of mind, quirky, passionate, creative, sassy, and a blur of motion and energy. So smart and reading and writing well already in kindergarten. She trips, falls, busts, and crashes about one hundred times a day because she can't slow down, and one of these days we'll miss the little lisp she has when she talks because those front two teeth will finally come in (surely!). She loves anything artsy and gives things away from her room when friends come over.  There's lots of love in that tiny little body. Our little blue eyed daughter, in a sandwich of brothers.  Love her so.

Hope six is everything you imagined it to be and more.

Peace out from the Pate house.

Travels.

Greetings.  We have returned from our week of travels, but this week has been a long recovery because right after we got back in town we had a big birthday party and then sick kiddos (mostly one baby).  So things are slow going this week.  But we wanted to share some of our travels with you.

Our first stop was Boerne, Tx, by San Antonio.  Chris was the main speaker at a Disciple Now youth event with three different churches coming together for the weekend.  We stayed with some friends and enjoyed our visit.  Chris also was amazing, of course.  It was a lot for him- he preached five times in three days!  The last day he spoke at the First Baptist Church (pictured below during the D-now event), which was well over a thousand people in two services!  The whole event and that Sunday morning went really well, people (young and old) were saved, and it was so great to see so many young people passionate and fired up!

After the weekend was over, we headed out to Sea World Monday for a family day.  The entire experience was perfect.  Perfect weather, no crowds whatsoever, kids were great, and just an all around fun day.  We so needed a fun day like that together, no stress and relaxed.

Here's some of the awesome sea friends we saw.

Addison rode his first roller coaster. Couldn't believe he did it, and not only did he do it but ended up riding it three times.  That's the one on the right. The one on the left Chris and both the kids rode. Cadence thought it was a lot of fun.

On the way to our last stop, Austin, we went to a drive thru Safari outside of San Antonio.  The kids especially enjoyed the little petting zoo, as you can see.  The picture on the top right here is really special, not only because you can see how thin my hair is postpartum (I'm hoping it will go back to normal soon?) but because as I was watching Jaxon playing with the baby goats, one of them was behind me eating my cardigan.  For real. Holes and all, totally destroyed. Not cool, little baby goat. Not cool.  But how precious is the baby llama?

Austin was a quick day trip for a worship gathering of Every Nation worship leaders in Texas that Chris spoke at and we were a part of.  Being the tail end of the trip and all the kids were a little road weary, but considering they had to sit there all day and behave they were still troopers.  We rolled back into town a little before midnight, totally exhausted.  A busy, full, but good week.

Big Hello Kitty Birthday post soon to follow.  Peace out from the Pate house.