These Are The Moments.

Even though the first couple of days (for me) were a blur of drug-laced consciousness and pretty much a wash as far as productivity goes, there have been some real gems extracted from this week. Here are some snapshot moments:

• Waking up in the morning to the sound of Addison reading to Cadence on the couch. The Bible. They decided not to come and get us that day when they woke up (but we heard them anyway), and they were in full blown discussion/devotion.  We of course just laid there and listened in amazement with pride swelled hearts.  

• My backyard.  Happiness is in my backyard.  There is a tree hanging heavy with little miniature oranges almost ready to pick, a deck freshly adorned with little twinkling lights wrapped around big trunks, and these beauties pictured below.  Cut them right off the bush, and they are the sweetest I've ever smelled.  It was a pleasant surprise because I thought our rose bushes were beyond repair. We have some work to do from the summer that almost killed it all, but there is so much potential to have a fantastic outdoor space.  Oh yeah- also my birthday present from Chris that I've wanted for years, a hammock. Yessssssss.                        

                                    

• Complimenting a great outdoor space is the amazing weather in which to enjoy it in.  This week was the kind of weather that you could feel the cool in the breeze and warmth of the sun at the same time. The kind of weather that makes your coffee taste better.  Perfection.  We spent a lot of time outside and look forward to doing it more. And it turns out that snuggles from a warm, cuddly baby on a cold morning is like wrapping in a big, fuzzy blanket.  Only better.

• Conquering a longstanding battle- For whatever reason, it's been such a challenge for Addison to tie his shoes.  Sometimes the simplest of things confound our little smarty pants boy, which can be a good thing because it teaches him patience and persistence.  Well, this week he finally got it figured out with much help from Daddy!  

                                      

• This guy has been playing hard.  Found him like this the other day- just played himself out!  It's very exhausting to be a baby.

                                    

• Learning to tithe.  Our precious Kids Church teachers have been talking to the kids about money on Sunday mornings, and today they marched into church with their pockets jingle-jangling ready to be a cheerful giver.  Love that.

                                          

Yes, these are the moments.  Just a sampling of the moments that fill my days with life and joy.  Peace out from the Pate house.

The Force is Strong With Us

I have this insatiable need wish for my children to coordinate their theme when we dress up for Halloween every year.  Now that we have three the challenge is going to be even more difficult.  I got lucky for this first year.  Everyone just happened to be happy with the idea, and I was able to find an adorable baby costume to boot.  This does not always happen (the everyone being okay with my suggestions part), so I was thrilled.  So prepare yourself for some extreme cuteness if you have not already seen these floating around on FB.  I did include some extras not posted there, though :) 

(cue Star Wars music...it's much better if you imagine that in your head while viewing these)

This is the money shot of the group.  I consider myself very lucky to have captured this one. I still giggle every time I see this because they're just so darn cute.  Look out, dark side- these guys are coming after you :)

 And here are a few out takes in the quest for the money shot...

Princess Leia and Luke Skywalker.

Lovely Leia.  I am proud of this costume.  This is the first time I have attempted to sew a piece of clothing.  It did not turn out perfect, but for a first try it wasn't too bad!

Had to get a shot of the sleeves.  This was actually an angel costume pattern that worked perfect for Princess Leia. 

 Our handsome Jedi Luke Skywalker. Fortunately we already owned that light saber so it worked out.

And finally my little Yoda.  I know- there are hardly words for this. Just take in the extreme cuteness. (Wish I would have creatively camoflouged that rubber band holding his light saber to his hand :)  

Very happy and cute Yoda I am.

Our actual holiday festivities were pretty difficult to pull off.  The Monday before Halloween we went to a party at the Children's Museum that was for members.  Chris got really sick that weekend, barely made it through church, and crashed.  So I took the big kids by myself to the Museum and left a sleeping baby and sick daddy.  Then over this past weekend Chris shared his cold with me so I was the one who crashed hard after a long weekend. And I barely pulled it together so we could all go to one of the really big churches' carnivals here on Halloween.  It was fun but really chaotic.  Didn't even get any pictures because I was too out of it.  But here are a few from the Museum outing:

Mommy and Daddy are still on the mend but it's a lot better than it was, especially Chris.  Addison had a small version for a few days, but nobody else so far.  Still much catching up to do around here.  Hopefully I will be getting to that soon.  My vision for the amped up version of this blog is still there, but with sickness and busyness I haven't had the chance to execute it yet. But I am determined. Peace out from the Pate house.

Space Center

Last week we got to visit the Space Center for the first time.  It was closed to the public except for homeschool families.  We enjoyed it very much.  Definitely educational.  The only thing we didn't get to do was take the 90 minute tram ride that went to where they were actually working, and we've heard it's really neat to see so we'll definitely go back to check that out sometime.  The kids had fun, and Jaxon was a little champ.  He does really well on outings, and I'm so thankful for that!  Since we're so used to living in Houston now, I was reminded how awesome it is to be here because things like this are in our own backyard.  So many cool opportunities for us as a family to experience.

A few of our photo ops.  Of course every picture couldn't be a serious one :)

Just some of the cool stuff we saw.  The bottom right pic was our souvenir- space ice cream and strawberries (freeze dried).  Pretty yummy!

This was a presentation from the inside of a mock space shuttle to see how astronauts live in space.  She showed us the toilet and bathroom area and how they used them (top left), the kitchen and how they ate their food (top right), and how they slept (bottom right).  It was a really cool little presentation.

Some fun stuff. There was this station that showed the weight conversion of what you would weigh on the different planets.  Top left Addison would weigh 232 lbs on Mars and bottom right Cadence would weigh 115 lbs on Jupiter.  Some of the planets they would weigh way less than what their normal weight was.  The germophobe germ-cautious mother in me was trying not to freak out when Cadence put on that helmet...And of course Addison will find any kind of trivia or facts out there- he loves that stuff!

They had a massive play place (like so big you couldn't see them inside of it so they had monitors to watch from) that of course the kids loved romping around in.  

 Some samples of the suits they had all around.

 

What is not pictured is a session we went to with a retired astronaut (now a Southwest Airlines pilot) who talked about his time in space and had video footage of his trips there.  We got a signed picture from him at the end. He let all the kids ask him questions about being in space and his stories were really cool.  We also saw a short film about training to go into space in this imax type theater that had the largest movie screen in Texas, or so they said.  Like five stories high or something. I believe it- that thing was huge.  It was a great day indeed!  

Peace out from the Pate house.

Brothers.

As we were looking through our pictures of Addison as a baby, we have found a striking resemblance to Jaxon.  Of course there are differences I can see, and I know he will be his own little person, but take a look at these pictures- there's no denying they were cut from the same mold!!

They are both around four to five weeks old in this one.  This is the closest I could find to Jaxon making the expression Addison is making.  I have seen that exact face, though!

This is the one that's just killing me- same hands up sleep position and everything!

My sweet, handsome boys.  Just a little visual entertainment for you today.  That's all. Peace out from the Pate house.

First Sleepover.

Well you heard about the birthday boy, so now you get to hear about and see the birthday party.  For his eighth party, Addison really wanted to have his first sleepover.  We thought about it for a while, knowing we would have a new baby, and wondered if we could pull that off.  We concluded that we're not really sleeping a lot anyway, and it would only be a few boys that are super sweet kids, so we decided to go for it.

I'm happy to say this event went down in the books as a big success.  The kids had fun, we had fun and enjoyed visiting with the parents while they were there, they actually slept (with only a small threat from Chris finally at about 2:30am), and the baby cooperated, mostly :) Except when we were trying to clean the house before the party- he must have sensed this event was not about him!  Actually, I think Jaxon slept as much as the boys did, in a different time frame! Of course, after the fact, Addison informed us that he and another boy did in fact stay up until 4:00.  His big thing the whole time was that he was going to stay up all night.  I let him know that it was indeed called a "sleepover", not a "stay-up-all-night-over".  It was laid back and enjoyable.  The only parts that weren't laid back were self-inflicted (as they usually are), because the aforementioned (in the last post) perfectionist parents stressed over details such as planning and executing excellent party activities (Chris), and decorating and making a from scratch character cake (myself).  I have unintentionally set some kind of precedent for myself with making the birthday cakes now... I think it started with Cadence's third b-day party and I made a rocket cake for her Little Einsteins party.  I haven't looked back since, and now I just can't bring myself to get one made at the store, even if I just make cupcakes.  It would certainly be easier not to do that, but now that's just too easy, isn't it...

Enjoy the party in pics!

 My party boy, all dressed up in his Phineas and Ferb t-shirt to match the party.

The set up...It was a Phineas and Ferb theme- a cute cartoon about two brothers that make elaborate inventions and creations during summer vacation.

We had a create your own sundae bar and the test tubes made fizzy flavored drinks- the bad guy on the cartoon is an evil scientist so we went with that theme.

Is that the biggest pizza you've ever seen??  And yes, Cadence did come to the party wearing a crown and fairy wings (seen in the above right pic)

And here is the Perry the Platypus cake.  In the cartoon, he is the boys' pet who does nothing except make animal noises and has this goofy boxy look to him.  But the boys don't know that he is really a secret agent known as Agent P who fights the evil scientist.

Chris, the grand master of ceremonies, put the kids in two teams and they played bean bag toss tic tac toe in the backyard and then came inside for a "Where's Perry?" Scavenger Hunt.  The kids really had fun with the hunt- they were running all over like crazy!

The last part of the hunt included finding these items and then coming together and building an invention out of the materials they found.  As you can see, this team got some help from little sisters :)

 This was around 11:00 ish or so, after some hard play and fun.  The two little brothers went home after the party activities. We settled them down to a movie in the hopes they would fall asleep.  Well, the one on the far left, Liam, went out (He was the youngest).  For the others, it was the threat at 2:30am that got them to quiet down :)  But really, how cute is that- all in their little sleeping bags.  My son's face looked very happy all night.  So my face was happy all night.  This is the stuff of being a kid.

 Peace out from the Pate house.

8 is Great.

Yes, we now have an eight year old, as of September 17th at 3:23 in the afternoon.  I'm swallowing eight about as well as when you have to take one of those huge horse pills and it gets stuck right in the middle of your throat. Yep, it's going down hard on me. Don't know if it's the juxtaposition of having a new baby, the hormones (for me) that come along with having a new baby, that we had to give Addison deodorant already (what on earth will adolescence smell like- yikes!), or that we had our first sleepover this past weekend to usher in a new era of parenting, but eight just seems a lot older than he should be.  That's my baby. The son of my youth. Half of the time I still feel so young myself it doesn't seem possible that I'm seeing this guy grow up before my very eyes.

But he is. And as sad as I am that time is stealing away my little boy and slowly replacing him with a little man, I am also looking forward to this next season of life for him.  I am so proud of the person he is already at a young age that I can't wait to see how that will continue to unfold and develop as time and maturity begin to be poured onto the foundation that's been laid. I think one of the reasons I am having such a hard time with it is my own fears and insecurities about that foundation we are helping shape and build for him. I am not far enough along in this process to know if I will always have those I-hope-I'm-doing-right-by-my-kids moments, but I imagine you probably always will as a parent. It seems the older he's getting those moments are feeling weightier with the responsibility of making sure we're being good stewards of this great gift God has given us in our son (and all our kids for that matter).  The good news is that it's not really all about us.  God has written his book of days before he had his first breath, so ultimately I know His grace covers our shortcomings and I believe He is merciful and faithful to lead and guide Addison in that path. And that He will guide us as parents as well.

I know, I know- it sounds like he's about to be a teenager or something.  I'm aware that we still have some precious years of boyhood ahead of us to celebrate, but with this one we have lots of moments that feel like he's older than he is. We are trying to slow him down more than speed him up most of the time in many departments. But that's also part of who he is that we love so much. Here's a snapshot, literally and figuratively, of Addison at eight:

• He is becoming a voracious reader.  We love that he loves reading and are amazed at the level in which he does so.  When I tested him back in the spring, he was reading between a 6th-7th grade reading level.  He reads chapter books and will sometimes finish one in a day, depending on the book.  He loves Hank the Cowdog, Loud Boy, and Captain Underpants to name a few. He reads the Bible a lot also, which is really awesome. Readers are leaders, buddy!
• Still all up in video/computer games.  He really likes what he calls "strategy games" that he has to think about.  Currently the cool thing is to download games on Daddy's iPad.  
• Daddy has gotten him into Fantasy Football with him.  Being a guy that loves stats and such, he is having fun keeping up with the games and how well Daddy's team is doing.  He is into pretty much anything with Daddy these days, as a matter of fact.  He's really identifying with "guy" stuff, and he has been desiring and requesting more and more "quality time" (as he will call it) with his Daddy.  Daddy is happy to oblige. 
• He is a sponge for trivia and general knowledge.  He loves to "quiz" anybody and everybody on any and every topic.  
• Still hasn't outgrown the famous Addison hand shake- anything exciting from a game to something on TV, he shakes his hands and sometimes his whole body!  I wonder how long he will have this trait.  We still get a kick out of it, even though he's done it for years.
• He is such a good big brother.  Always has been, but we've been seeing it even more since Jaxon has been born.  He has helped so much with his sister- sometimes I think he's more patient with her than I am!  There have been days when I go upstairs to tell them it's rest time, and he's already helped her get into bed (because he's been watching the clock) and turned on her music. We have heard him go and comfort her at night when she's gotten out of bed.  And of course they play together and will have their moments, but for a big brother with a little sister, he is so tender and caring with her.  Like I said, they do have their moments of course :) I am looking forward to seeing him with Jaxon as he get older and takes him under his wing as well.  
• Still a super hero guy through and through.  When we moved earlier this year, I asked him if he wanted to redo his room into something else, thinking maybe he would want something cooler and older.  But he was very adamant that he wanted the same super hero room he had and didn't want to change anything.  I think part because he still loves superheroes and part because he doesn't change things up very often.  He's very much a stick-to-what-you-like, vanilla, plain cheerios kind of guy :)
• His heart for God continues to grow and grow.  He has shed tears over things like worrying that he loves his parents more than God to mention one specific example (which at his age we certainly didn't want him feeling bad about that so that was a little tricky).  His concern with loving God and people is very genuine, and it's always so touching to see that manifest at different moments.
• He has strong convictions. And I mean strong convictions.  If he is convinced and has concluded through reasoning (that sometimes makes sense and sometimes doesn't) that the sky is green, good luck trying to persuade him that it's blue. I am certain that when he takes the Strength Finders evaluation one day Belief will no doubt be one of his themes. This is and will probably always be a blessing and a curse in his life that he will have to wrestle through and sort out.  Of course at eight years old, it can prove to be a challenge to us as parents because he can tend to think he is the expert on things and can have a hard time with being teachable on something he thinks he already knows.  But when it comes to convictions about Kingdom things, this will be a wonderful thing because he will not be easily shaken or persuaded.  
• He has, and has always had, perfect pitch.  Love to hear him sing.  He has also inherited my ability to hear a song like once and know the words and how it goes.  This will come in handy, from personal experience :) 
• Something that he has also seemed to inherit, from both Mommy and Daddy, is that little bit of perfectionist streak.  The good side of that is that if he does something it will be done well and exactly how it is supposed to be done.  The dark side of perfectionism is the tremendous fear of failure.  We are really working through this right now, because he will want to quit too quickly if he thinks he is not going to be able to do something.  Or be instantly good at something.  We're trying to really encourage an adventurous spirit to try new things.  And always remind him it's okay to mess up, be wrong, and even not succeed at something right away and try, try again. He's way too hard on himself!

These are just a few of the many things that make up Addison James Pate right now. I'm sure eight will be just as grand of an adventure as seven, because life is just fun with our sweet firstborn son.  Peace out from the Pate house.

Ch-ch-ch-ch-Changes

You know, like the David Bowie song, just in case you were wondering why I was stuttering...

*I actually wrote almost all of this post last week and something terrible happened and I lost all of it except the first few sentences.  So it's taken me this long to sit down and recreate it and it's not nearly as articulate as I was feeling in the moment when I wrote it. Plus, the heat is rearing its ugly head at us again this week, so the remarks about the weather make no sense in the context of the current temperature.  But it was nice while it lasted :) Hopefully summer will get just a few final jabs at us and then be gone!*

I think if you listened hard enough you would hear all of Houston (and probably all of Texas for that matter) letting out a big collective sigh of relief today. The oppressive, relentless heat of the hottest summer on record has felt like everything's been on hold, just surviving, waiting for it to be over.  You can almost feel the dry, cracked ground and withered trees with their backs bent over in oppression breathing in this cooler air.  Like coming up for a breath of air after being trapped in sinking sand.  Life. Hopefully this is a sign that we're entering into a new (cooler) season.

We are entering into a new season.  As cliche as it sounds and all, since this time of year is associated with change and transition with a new school year beginning and the changing seasons.  There is always a natural momentum that comes with this time.  But our feeling of change transcends backpacks, colored leaves, and pumpkins.  Our transition has more to do with the lack of transitioning, actually.  For the past year and a half we have been adjusting and transitioning- pretty much every life category there is had some changes.  New city, new job, new house, new church, new friends, new puppy...then when the dust was settling from all of that came the news of a new baby followed by another move, dealing with our first broken bone, adjusting to a growing belly, and surviving the epic, one-for-the-books heat to end all heat. While all of that has been wonderful and exciting (okay maybe except the broken bone and epic heat part), it's been a lot of new. So now it feels like we're settling in, sinking our roots in deeper, building on the foundation of everything that's been laid.  Growing into our skin, if you will. Although I'm sure we will continue to have constant movement and will have to adjust and make changes along the way, we're not having any major life transition while we're doing life.

I'm really excited for the days to come.  This is going to be one of the most challenging seasons I've had personally as well as us with the church, but I think it's going to be one of the best too.  Homeschooling two kids with a new baby and keeping up with the activity of a growing, thriving church and all that entails is a lot to say the least. As overwhelmed as I feel about it, I'm also excited because I know that God's grace will equip us to do everything He's called us to in order to go to the next level.  It's His power, not my own, working through me to accomplish it all anyway.  It's definitely time to step it up around here in many areas.  When you're dealing with a lot of transition and constant adjustment, unfortunately what happens sometimes is going into survival mode, simply maintaining what you have, and keeping your head above water so to speak. Inevitably you become a little too comfortable with some things that might not be ideal but don't have time to work on because it's working good enough at the moment. This became especially true towards the end of the summer when I was so very pregnant and we were basically prisoners to the indoors because of the heat. But now that we're getting the feeling of settling a little we have the opportunity to go a little deeper and fine tune some things. It's time to shorten the gap between the potential of what we can be and what sometimes ends up playing out. That is going to require two things: Number one making sure I don't have unrealistic expectations for me and my family and number two making some realistic changes in order to carry out the vision we have for our home.  Both are definitely needed. It's going pretty good so far- I just have to go with the flow a little more because some days the best laid plans fall to the wayside, driven by a tiny little human that doesn't always feel like fitting perfectly into the plan I have made :) And that's okay.  We're at least moving in the right direction with vision and direction.

And in keeping with making some changes, I am also planning on changing things up a bit on the blog- as in, actually try to write more.  I am thinking about compartmentalizing it a little more in order to be able to post more often and cover more topics.  More on that to come.  But for now, I leave you with a quote that describes pretty well the lens in which I'm attempting to view our days:

This is the beginning of a new day. You have been given this day to use as you will. You can waste it or use it for good. What you do today is important because you are exchanging a day of your life for it. When tomorrow comes, this day will be gone forever; in its place is something that you have left behind…let it be something good. Author Unknown.

Peace out from the Pate house.