Where did December go??

That's what I thought to myself when I logged onto this thing.  Can't believe my posting has been so sparse lately.  Oh wait, yes I can believe it.  It's because I've just kind of floated through December, half awake.

Growing a baby and no caffeine equals very very tired mommy.  I could sleep all day long!  Literally, a couple of days I woke up and then went back to sleep like an hour later!  I should take this opportunity to give a shout out to my absolutely wonderful, sweet husband.  He has been so gracious to me while I've been sickly and tired really helping out and doing things like getting everyone's breakfast so I can sleep (and bring mine to me in bed so I don't lose it before I put it in!).  He also has to do most of the dishes because our sink has a mysterious smell we can't seem to get rid of right now and it literally turns my stomach over.  Can hardly be around it.  Chris already said I had a "super sniffer" as it is, so pregnancy has turned it into like superpower levels.  Except it definitely works against me, not in my favor!  All that to say 1) my husband is amazing and I love him dearly and 2) this is the reason I am not getting around to things like blogging these days.  And there's my personal update. One of these days, hopefully pretty soon, the tune will be changing.  It's just a phase, and it will pass :)  And then pregnant bliss will ensue. At least that's how it worked the other two times, anyway :)

We had ourselves a quiet little Christmas here at the house.  I'm kind of in denial that the holidays are over, mostly because for us they're not!  We leave next week to visit family, so the kids will have two more Christmases before it's all said and done.  With just us and the kids, it felt a little empty at moments since we weren't with any of our family, but it was still a sweet time.  And we had company for Christmas lunch.  Some friends from the church came over and they brought some really yummy food with them, so that was really nice!  I also made a chocolate cake from scratch and an eggnog cheesecake, both of which were a hit.  I do love baking :) We went over one night and decorated gingerbread houses with friends, went to look at Christmas lights (we went to River Oaks- like the richest neighborhood in Houston-these houses were so amazing!), and we even found Santa outside at one of the houses which was fun!  We also had our really awesome church Christmas party that you can see pics on my Facebook page if you want to.  It was such a great night!

Our gingerbread house turned out to be quite interesting....had to be rescued because it kept falling apart!

Um, don't you just want to eat that up??....

Santa! Had to bribe Addison because he knew it wasn't the real santa.  We actually told him the story this year of the real St. Nicolas, so I don't really know what he thinks about the "other" Santas.  He didn't talk about it much, but also didn't seem too upset or disappointed about it all, either! 

A quick pose before tearing into the presents!

They were really happy with their gifts! (They opened ours and G-ma and G-pa's presents here)

Of course you know who was right in the middle of it.  Yes, that's a Christmas shirt. Not a sweater- I can't do the sweaters.  But I thought this shirt was funny because it says, "Sorry Santa- I ate the cookies." It was so fitting.

Our Christmas lunch crew.  Such fun!

And we got an early Christmas present: we got to see little baby Pate for the first time at my first doctor's appt a few days before Christmas.  Of course, at this stage he/she just looks like a little bean blob in there, but she zoomed in so you could see the little flicker heart beating.  It's amazing every time.  Something so tiny with a beating heart. I am happy to suffer through all the symptoms when I remember that is what's going on inside of me :)

The part that is the dotted line is baby- the other part is the yolk sac which will soon become part of the placenta.  According to the pics, the due date(s) are anywhere from Aug 8-10th.  Who knows!

I really hate to lump sum all of Christmas into one post, but that's what it is.  I resolve to get back into better blogging habits in the new year.  So, here's hoping!  Hope all of you have enjoyed your holiday!  Peace out from the Pate house.

So...

You thought we just went off the grid after that last post, didn't you...that we snuck away in Florida and decided not to come back. It has been a while. I have to admit, after writing that last post I thought to myself that the next post would be kind of a downer compared to that. Never thought I could top myself. But we did.

But before I get ahead of myself, I should say that we did indeed have a lovely time in Florida.  We got to spend time with such amazing people, and it was so refreshing and timely to be encouraged and recharged. I can't believe that I didn't take a single picture with any of the said amazing people- shame on me. I do have some great pics of the beach, though :)  But we truly are so blessed and thankful to belong to such a great spiritual family (Every Nation). They truly do value relationships and do so much to encourage you and make you feel like you're not just the new kid on the block with a little church (like we felt). We didn't feel that way anymore after being around everyone. It is an invaluable support system, and I know so many pastors do not have that so we are grateful.

Pics from our sunrise beach morning. I took a series from when the sun just came up until we left. The colors didn't transfer well at all here- it's so much more vivid and colorful!

 A couple from the resort... it was all so beautiful! I'm peaceful just looking at these :)

Throughout the week I found myself feeling a little "off". That's just about the only way I could describe it. Little more tired than usual, emotional, really hungry, and bloated beyond belief.  So during our break on Thurs before our Christmas ball that evening, I decided to go to the store and buy a pregnancy test. Honestly, I really didn't think I was pregnant. I had my suspicions, but I had felt like that before and thought I was and wasn't. Plus, I have very irregular cycles and all that stuff so I didn't think all that much of it.  But I was thinking about it. So I just wanted to put my mind at ease- because honestly if I wasn't, then I was going to consume large amounts of caffeine because I was so exhausted.  It would affect what I would put in my body the remaining time we were gone.  So I think I was a little in disbelief when a little plus sign immediately appeared on that test.  I walked out of the bathroom to Chris who was awaiting the results and I could barely talk.  Just kind of laugh in a I'm-in-shock kind of way where words just get knocked out of you. And there you have it.  I don't even think the pee dried on the stick (TMI??) before we got on the phone and called our family. We're not those kind of people that can keep a secret like that for a long time.  Besides, almost everybody that does that does it out of fear in case something bad happens.  So for us it's almost like a step of faith to just put it out there because we trust God, He is the creator of life, and He must know what He's doing. (We keep telling ourselves that). When He says it's time, it's time! And although this is a crazy season of life right now, we do want another baby and didn't want our kids to be too much older before it happened.  So we're excited.

So that moves us along to the present. Most of the reason it's been so long since I've blogged is because I picked up some germ while we were traveling, and by the time we landed in Houston I was not feeling well.  When you're pregnant you can hardly take anything, especially in the beginning, so I spent all of last week sick "toughing it out". Just a bad cold or something, but it took a long time to get better sans drugs!  And now that has gotten better (but sadly Chris is now getting over it), but every pregnancy symptom in the book is coming on pretty strong. So I've been just making it through the day this week, basically. That sounds bad I know, but it's true.  I'm still trying to continue to have a good attitude and be thankful the reason I'm feeling so terrible is because life is happening and growing inside of me, it's just hard when you're up against a battle of raging hormones :)  I would appreciate your prayers, dear friends and family! This too shall pass soon, but I'd really love to feel more like myself and for my family to survive me during this time as well :)  Because I want to be excited and happy, especially with Christmas coming up.  I'm one of the biggest lovers of Christmas you'll find, but I haven't been too merry. Okay you get the picture. I'm done whining!

A new season in the life of the Pates has begun.  The kids are really excited.  Addison was so cute- he told like everybody he saw at church (good thing we were telling people!), and he's been coming up with all kinds of names.  They both seem to be very aware of the fact that I haven't been well, and sometimes they show concern for me.  It's very sweet.  This baby is lucky to have the most amazing big brother and sister in the world!

Well, that's all I have for now. A major life announcement will have to do.  I had planned on doing some Christmas-y posts by now, but oh well!  There's still time, I guess :)  Peace out from the Pate house.

Good Morning.

Actually, I should really say great morning or fabulous morning or amazing morning.  Because I'm sitting on a balcony overlooking the Atlantic ocean drinking my morning coffee as I write you today. This was the traveling part I spoke about previously. And now you can see why I was so eager to be at this moment.

This. Is exactly what we needed. We are in Jacksonville, Fl for a pastor's conference, which on its own would be awesome enough. But we came down a day early to have an (early) anniversary celebration and stayed at this amazing resort right on the beach. We ate in the dining room last night with panaramic views of the ocean behind us and then spent a cozy evening in warming our feet by the fireplace in our room and just being. Time to actually sit and look at each other, talk, and enjoy each other's company without a million things competing for our attention.

We rose early this morning, walked down to the beach and saw the sunrise.  Picked up some cool sea shells and just sat there in front of the mighty ocean feeling the gentle beginnings of sunshine cover our faces.  It's funny how you don't realize how noisy your life has become until there's silence. The soothing sound of the tide rolling in and out has been the soundtrack to our day, carrying peace as the waves crash down on the shore and drawing out everything unlovely and unwanted in my soul and returning it out into the vast sea.  There's a lot of good noise in my life. The sound of my children's laughter and delight would have been a fitting harmony to the song of the ocean. (Although mommy and daddy need time away, too, so we are glad they are home enjoying their time with G-ma, G-pa, and Aunt Jordo)  But there's noise that has crept in that I don't like. So I'm happily recalibrating with an overabundance of silence, trying to iron out the seemingly permanent  tension wrinkle between my eyes. We both are.  I haven't seen Chris relax in, well, I don't really know how long. So I will say it's been both long overdue and very timely at the same time.  And we are enjoying every moment of it and not so secretly wishing we had about one or two more days of it.

But we are also excited to be at the conference. Being around people, when our soul and spirit are properly refreshed, actually energizes us.  We just work like that, and it's probably weird to some people. These relationships with other pastors and friends are very encouraging, life giving, and just as needed as the relaxation we're currently enjoying. So really it's the best of all of it.  Having this time of rest and being together before hand will allow us to maximize our experience the rest of the week.  And come home to the family we love and the life and job we love and be better people. We are so grateful.  God is good.

I took a ton of pics early this morning, but to tell you the truth I don't want to take the time to load them right now, because I think we're about to go for another walk (like exercise pace) on the beach before we move on.  I did snap this one off the computer so you can see where I'm writing from this morning.

Yep.  I'm here. Peace out from the (temporary) Pate house.

Life is Good

 in the Pate hood.

Yes, it is.  These have been exciting days around here. Specifically in the life of City Life Church. It's just been one of those momentum weeks, which we definitely welcome! Especially considering that in the life of church planting there are so many highs and lows that some weeks are quite the opposite. So you just have do decide you're not going to be governed by your emotions and how you feel about it, or even what you can see with your eyes and the circumstances. Otherwise, it's just an emotional roller coaster that wears you out very quickly. It's a faith thing. It's a this is what God called us to do thing. So just as with the negative emotions we don't get carried away with the positive emotions and good moments, either.  However, I have to admit it's really nice to just stop and celebrate what God is doing sometimes. So that's what I'm doing.

Last week in our new members' class we had 13 people, which is awesome. Then on Saturday a big group of us went and helped an organization that helps people get on their feet and transition from being homeless to having a place to live and a job. Our church gave money, shopped for groceries, and then came that day to help assemble baskets to help 25 families have a meal for Thanksgiving. It was a great experience for the kids, too, as they came along and helped. The men actually ended up helping a single mom move into her new apartment. The lady in charge was saying it was a really big deal for that woman to see men helping her just for the sake of helping, not trying to get something out of her in return. Sad, but a great opportunity to bless someone. It was really a blessing to this organization, and they were talking about what an amazing spirit our church had and even noted how blown away they were with our diversity. We especially love hearing that :) So, go us! Am I bragging on Chris and myself? Nah. Am I bragging on our people? Every chance I can get. Best people in the world.

Forming the assembly line to put together the baskets.

Working hard. But there's always time to be silly, of course.

           Addison is into this muscle pose thing, obviously :)

This was our group, minus three that weren't in this pic. Love these guys.

Then we topped off the week with record attendance (for the year they've been in the theater, and certainly in the six months we've been here) Sunday morning. And I am going to brag on my man for a second ('cause he would not do that for himself) and say he was on fi-yah when he was getting his preach way on speaking. Yep, good week in the life.

Now we have this week to look forward to. Our activity church wise has slown down, but it's being replaced with a HUGE to-do list to get our house ready to have a big Thanksgiving, get ready to have family here, and finally to go out of town. More on that very exciting last part later.  So although I'm a little stressed out in all the prep work part of it, I'm super excited for this week. And the next. I won't share many more details about this week- I'll save it for more posts. It makes me happy when there's too many wonderful things to share in one post because of the danger of awesomeness overload.

But alas, I must go because the huge list I mentioned earlier is digging itself into my head like a bad, out of tune, broken record- thus making it impossible to have many free moments without feeling really guilty about it. That's where that darn achiever theme (Strengths Finder survey) becomes the blessing and the curse! Enjoy your night/day (whatever time it is when you read this), my friends. Peace out from the Pate house.

Little bit of this and that

I seem to be having this problem lately about blurring the lines of actual reality and things that go on in my head. For instance, I will have a conversation in my head about something someone wrote me or texted me, and because I thought about it so much sometimes I actually think it happened. And then I don't actually do it.  Interesting, I know. Senile, even. Can we just chalk it up to stress and call it a day? All that to say I have done the same thing here.  Inspiration will hit me and I will write an entire blog in my head, and then I get on here and am almost shocked at what is last documented in relation to what I thought was on here. Yikes.

I'm just going to go ahead and go list style on you today. There's things to say but probably too random to try to string together in paragraph form... so here's the little dump from my brain about things making me smile lately.

1. Got to go see one of my all time favoritest artists, Brooke Fraser, at the House of Blues Tues night. It was awesome to have a night out with my super duper husband, and having a concert at a cool venue like HOB was certainly bonus. What was not bonus, however, was that we didn't realize we'd be standing the whole time. Our feet were killing us by the time it was over and we felt really old, but it was still an amazing show. I mean, who can sing like her?? Plus she's really funny and quirky so there was humor throughout.  Like when the band started playing the opening number and she was in the bathroom, so she came out on stage and after the song was over proceeded to tell us all about her experience. And we totally had another one of those we-really-love-living-in-the-city times.

2. Peppermint mochas and peppermint hand soaps. My mind has been on the holidays constantly. And that always makes me happy. I'm going to be taking lots of pics of the amazing decorations (that are all already up) around the city. And our own decorations are coming out very soon, oh yes they are. Gonna change it up a little bit this year.  Happiness

3. Lots of teeth around here lately. Missing, that is. I don't even know that I've mentioned it on here (but most of you know anyway) that Cadence is now missing her front two teeth. Knocked loose and then out before their time, sadly. The second one that was knocked loose came out a week or two ago. Don't know what it is about Pate kids and tooth trauma, but the same thing happened to Addison, if you'll remember.... and he lost another today.  This one was on it's own though. So much so that the adult tooth is already coming in. Even the dog was loosing his baby teeth around the same time.  Geez!

4. Saw Megamind on Monday. Seriously, that movie was so funny! And clever. We really had to talk Addison into not telling on us for sneaking in our own candy to the theater. Mr. Justice police did not think that was a good idea. He asked if it was illegal, and we lied said not exactly, but we explained how they didn't want you to do that because they'd just rather you come and spend all your money there. So he says, "So they're greedy." And with that he has justified us bringing our own candy into the theater and all is right in his world. So funny, that one. It will be interesting indeed to observe how his overdeveloped sense of oughtness will play out as he grows older.

5. Cadence is a very entertaining person to carry on a conversation with. Mostly because she usually tracks with you for the most part and then all of a sudden she twists off into her own interpretation of what's going on and then it becomes very interesting...For example- we were talking to her about going to serve families that don't have much food here in a couple of weeks, and she started saying yay!!  Aw, that's sweet that she's so excited about that we thought. Then she says, "But I don't know how to do that. You have to teach me how to do that." We were a little confused until we realized she was talking about surfing. She thought we were talking about going surfing. And then we all got a good laugh.

6. It's been a little rainy and muggy the last few days, but the weather has been so absolutely delightful around here. Houston even has days that aren't humid. Who knew? Didn't know she had that in her, but we welcome the chill in the dry air.

7. Yay for two weekends in a row of family. Last weekend Chris's mom and sister (aka Nana and Aunt Alesha) came down for a conference so we got to hang out.  This past weekend my bro, uncle Bryce and his girlfriend came from school because they had a free weekend and were missing us :) We so enjoyed our time. Being so far away from everyone now it's always nice to have that familiar feeling of family around. Especially for the kiddos. I only got one silly picture while they were here- shame on me for not taking more!

8. So Cadence is always the first one up (almost always) in the mornings. We've mentioned this before. She climbs in our bed and watches cartoons and inadvertently kicks me in the ribs and hits me in the face snuggles with her half conscious parents until we get up.  With the time change she has been getting up just a little earlier than we'd like, and this particular morning she was in our bed with two My Little Ponies. And she was singing. Loud. Well, it was just so precious it was hard to be too grumpy about it (as admittedly I can be sometimes when it's early).  Somehow, in my very sleepy stupor, I had the quick thinking to reach over and grab my phone off the nightstand and start recording her.  This is what the ponies were singing to us this morning. And Chris and I rolled over, looked at each other, and started our day off with a smile. On our face and in our heart.

*I actually had to get a reenactment of the song because I just couldn't get the audio clip to post. And I'm not going to even talk about how long it took me to get this video to work and get on here. I'm just happy it finally worked. This version is better because you can see her. She colored a piece of paper for the stage for the ponies. And you can see when the song is over the ponies walk off stage. *

Just a snippet of things happening around here. Since I waited so long to post it's only a sampling but there you go. Peace out from the Pate house.

Technical Difficulties...

You'll have to excuse us, everyone. I have been working on a post for over 24 hours now trying to get a precious little video clip on here and am having major technical issues. So sorry- hope to get it on here soon.  Just wanted you to know I was thinking about you and in case you have been checking the blog over and over again anxiously awaiting the next tale of tales. As if (wow that was quite the flashback to junior high). Happy Friday night all.  And of course peace out from the Pate house.

Halloween 2010

I had the cutest ideas for my children this year for Halloween- Thing 1 and Thing 2 from Dr. Suess, Woody and Jessie from Toy Story, and other creative endeavors. What can I say- I was totally shot down from my family. Add that to the fact that I waited until two days before to go out and look for costumes since I didn't order anything from the internet and we ended up with superheroes. But don't get me wrong- that's what they wanted to be anyway. And being the Justice League fans we are it was appropriate. The only thing I wish I would have done was order Cadence a Wonder Woman costume from the internet, but Supergirl was just as cute. And another bonus is they were on sale- because I just can't bring myself to pay that kind of money for something they will wear a couple of times for a few hours on a holiday we don't even really celebrate. So it all ended up working out :)

Since we ended up with quite a few pics from over the weekend, I'm just going to direct you to my album already made- it's easier these days, plus 25 pics in a blog post is a little overwhelming, yes? Off to enjoy our cold, rainy day.  I hope that summer knows it's not allowed to return that like crazy little spurt a couple of weeks ago where we set ungodly record high temperatures. It's just not right. But this week, all is well in the weather world and I'm so happy to have some cooler air.  We all are.

Peace out from the Pate house.

Halloween 2010 Pics