Well, excuse the "under construction"....

I'm experimenting on some different templates for the blog. I found this one I really like, but I am trying to figure out how to go in and change fonts, colors, and all that fun stuff. I can't do it the normal way- It's going to take figuring out some code and such, so you might find things looking different every time you see it for a while. I like the look of this one, but I want to make some of the elements look better. I only have spurts of time to mess around with it.... And most of you read the blog via e-mail subscription so you probably never even see what it looks like anyway. But just in case you did, I apologize in advance if it's not aesthetically pleasing at the particular moment you stop by.

Addison is seeming to not feel well today. He is complaining of a stomach ache and headache, which could be a myriad of reasons having nothing to do with a bug or being "sick". In his words, "I feel like my brain has fallen off of that pink stick that holds it up." Never heard it put quite that way before. We'll see what ends up happening....trying not to get paranoid or discouraged since his party is this weekend.

Have a fabulous day. Enjoy an extra cup of coffee because it's National Coffee Day. Ah, beloved coffee. I should do an entire post dedicated to my love of coffee.

Peace out from the Pate house.

The Thursday Ten (on Friday)

Well, in an attempt to blog more frequently, I thought I'd try a top ten list once a week of whatever is going on at the moment for us. I figured The Thursday Ten would be clever, except today is Friday so we can just pretend that there's brilliant alliteration since I didn't have a chance to do it yesterday...

1. Yay for cool weather. The tease of fall weather this week was delicious. When I woke up to do my class this morning it was like 50 degrees. Too bad it's going to be 90 on Sunday. Boo to that.
2. Addison and I have started going to Starbucks on Monday mornings while Cadence is in dance class and we do a Bible devotion together while enjoying yummy treats. These are quickly becoming very precious moments to me, filled with lots of good conversation.
3. In the environment of the last point, Addison made an interesting observation while we were talking about faith and what it is. We were discussing the scripture in Hebrews about being the substance of the things we hope for and the evidence of things not seen. He said, "It's kind of like having the superpower where you can see what's really underneath things that are hidden." Brilliant. Faith is totally supernatural.
4. Bought the kiddos a couple of cute things this week. Since it's fall, we are slowly replenishing the closets and starting over again. New wardrobes twice a year. They grow too fast! My favorite was a shirt I bought Addison that says, "Holla @ your boy" We're ghetto like that :)
5. We still haven't figured out what happened or what she ate, but Cadence threw up last night and was up most of the night. Thank goodness she is fine now. This equals a very tired mommy and daddy today. Chris was so awesome and tried to let me rest, but neither one of us slept much. He slept less though.
6. The reason it was very bad to have a tired mommy is because I am in another intense pilates training that started yesterday and will continue through Sunday. Seven hours a day. The training is called Injury and Special Populations....very thorough and detailed into the mechanics of muscles and what happens when things go wrong. And how to help that. Words like zygapophyseal joints. My brain is very, very tired. And I ran out of coffee in the house. That makes me a little cranky.
7. Really desiring to write songs right now. But I guess that would require time to sit down and actually devote attention to it. Does anybody have any minutes I can borrow?
8. Chris and I would really love to have a little getaway right now. Like really bad.
9. Cadence is thoroughly enjoying Mother's Day Out. The teachers get a kick out of her. But really, who wouldn't get a kick out of Cadence? And I sewed a cute cover for her nap mat all by myself. I was so proud. Trying to hone in on the mad sewing skills (this is a statement projected at the future in faith).
10. Majorly bummed that I am going to miss Chris preach on Sunday because of my training. Of course it's the Sunday I can't be there! The man can teach that Word, now. We will all pray for him as he attempts to prepare while having the kids all weekend long! I pray he can feel my love and support even though I won't physically be there. He is amazing. Look out world- Chris Pate is coming. And he has plenty to say.

Peace out from the Pate house :)

Dear Addison:

Hello, son. On this day, six years ago, we entered into a new phase of life because of you: parenthood. Your entry into this world was a rough one, and we immediately knew you were special because the enemy had already tried to count you out of the game. And now you are six. I don't really know how that happened so fast, but it did. Here's a quick snapshot of you at this fun age:

You...

1. are so smart. I have a feeling I will have a hard time keeping up with you! Homeschool is already proving to be challenging at times (for me), but you are doing so great. I'm trying not to push you too hard (although you would enjoy it) because you will already be ahead of your years, and I don't want you to grow up too fast!
2. love playing video games. You are the only kid we know that gets a workout playing a regular video game because your whole body gets involved. The front desk at the gym likes to watch you through the glass, and they get a kick out of you kicking your legs and shaking your arms while you play.
3. had one of the worst weeks of your little six year old life a couple of weeks back. You went into the dentist with a toothache and found out there's so many problems in your mouth you'll have to go in for dental surgery in Oct (much to the shock and dismay of your parents). The day after that you started running fever and got the flu. I hope we don't have another week like that for a long, long time. Poor guy.
4. are such an awesome big brother. You LOVE your sister, and she loves you. You also LOVE being ornery to her. I don't fault you for that because you come by that honestly :) When I was baking cupcakes for your birthday yesterday and was telling you guys to stay away from the oven, you said to me "I don't care about me if I get hurt. I only care about my sister, because she's smaller than me." That about sums it up. You put up with a lot, and she's lucky to have such a loving and patient big brother.
5. are NOT a morning person. I think you will take to coffee drinking at a young age. We are on most days dragging you out of bed for the day's festivities.
6. currently like watching SpongeBob, Electric Company (and most other PBS shows for that matter), ICarly, Scooby Doo, any cartoon with video characters, and enjoy the High School Musical movies. And Barney (we don't tell many people about that one :)
7. are really enjoying your Musical Theater class. We love to hear you sing and perform.
8. can sometimes have an attitude like a teenager. And suffer the consequences :)
9. also theologize better than most adults. The spiritual matters we speak of (and just plain life stuff) blow me away sometimes. You are asking me questions all day long, and the random things you bring up make me wonder what goes on in that little head.
10. love to have Daddy give you Bible trivia at bedtime. He makes up questions for you to answer.
11. almost always beat us at the game Trouble. What's up with that.
12. just enjoy being with family. Whether it's Carter or all the way in Arkansas or Oklahoma, you would choose to be with family 24/7 if you could.
13. really like popcorn. And root beer.
14. also fortunately eat good things like broccoli, carrots, cauliflower, and love salmon and green beans.
15. would prefer to stay clean. You're not really into getting your hands dirty very much.
16. are very witty. You are always making us laugh, although you don't really like it when we laugh if you aren't trying to be funny :)

You are just a joy. That's what you are. We have our challenging days, but this age is very fun. You are so inquisitive and have such a thirst for life that we appreciate life so much more for it. Your heart is bigger than Dallas, and your sweet, tender spirit is always encouraging someone or something around you. I look forward to the years ahead of us when we will continue to discover, along with you, who it is that God made you to be. It's going to be amazing. We love you so much, my precious son.

This was your tough guy pose and you said you weren't going to smile

This is classic Addison "Actuwee"...(actually)

Riding the bumper cars at Mr. Gattis where you picked to eat lunch

He can play a mean air hockey game!

We're Back!

Busy times around the Pate house. We had a great vacation visiting family and relaxing as much as possible. (see pics below and for the full album click the "Shutterfly" link at the right) Thankfully, between two families are the beautiful mountains of Arkansas and the wide open Oklahoma plain, which means although it was "just" seeing family (and an extra kid in tow) it was nice to get away for a while. And thanks G-ma and G-pa for giving us some alone time while enjoying their precious grandchildren. Fortunately we love seeing and spending time with our family :) Especially before the chaos started.

And it has started.

Our schedule was pretty busy through the summer, but this week ushered in a new chapter in the Pate family book: APAC. (Abilene Performing Arts Company) I was very anxious for Monday because I went back to teaching dance, something I haven't done in a long time. I am teaching Tap and Musical Theater to 3rd-5th grade kids. And not only was I a new teacher getting to know students and parents, I was also a new parent with two children in dance and musical theater class. All happened on Monday. And I'm happy to report that it was all fabulous and we're looking forward to this year. Both kids were beside themselves to start their classes. It is a fantastic place with wonderful people and a positive, encouraging environment and high priority on the kids. And what a blessing that I have the opportunity to teach there because that means my kids take whatever classes they want for FREE. Extra curricular activities for kids are not cheap, people! So it was worth squeezing a couple of extra hours into my Monday.

As busy as I am, I continue to remain so thankful that God has given me the opportunities to help us out financially doing things that I truly love and am gifted to do. And that still allows me to stay home with the kids and homeschool. Never thought all of that would work together. God has truly, truly blessed us. You won't catch us complaining. Or at least when we do we slap ourselves in the face and get our perspective back quickly :) And not to mention my very amazing husband who is right there in the middle of it all, doing everything he can in the middle of his busy schedule to support and help me out. The ministry part of our life is equally consuming, wonderful, and challenging. And not only that, but he goes above and beyond to be a tremendous father and husband :) It's all hands on deck around here. We're working it all out together, finding our life rhythm, keeping first things first, and loving what God is unfolding for us. Good times. Good times.

There is so much to say, but I've said enough for now. I will hopefully be more frequent in our snapshots of life so you can hang on for the ride around here. If you blink you might miss us, but if I can stop time long enough for you to glimpse into our sweet little home you will find laughter, activity, dress up, learning, singing, hugs and kisses, wrestling, bedtime Bible trivia (Addison's favorite game), wagon walks, puppet shows, late night Mommy and Daddy talks (no that's not code for something else...)and lots and lots of love :)

Riding on Sanchez, one of the horses (lots of riding horses)

That's Carter, our nephew, with the kids

Yay! We were there on Poppy's birthday!

Granna reading a nite nite Bible story

Going fishing at Poppy's pond

Not sure what to think!

Proud fish catching face

Carter's turn!

Catfish were plentiful!

The kids caught 18 fish between them!!

Sitting on the mule with Granna. This is a favorite for going on rides through the pasture. Lots and lots of mule and four wheeler rides!

Silly boys

(I also took some great video, but I haven't even had a chance to process that yet so hopefully one day it will make it on here...)

Unfortunately I can't figure out how to get any of the fun pictures from Arkansas off of Facebook and on here that G-ma and G-pa took, but I did have this cute one from when they came in town to pick up the kids. What good lookin' kiddos :)

Peace out from the Pate house.

Love this guy

I had a very random and precious conversation with my son yesterday. In the car on the way home from errands (which is where several interesting conversations take place), Addison out of nowhere started talking about mosquito "nuts" for the kids. I had no idea what he was talking about until he began explaining that the kids in Africa get sick and die from the mosquitos biting them. Then I realized that they had talked about mosquito NETS, and he said they had talked about buying some in children's church. He was speaking about this very passionately (as those of you that know him know he does), and then he said something that just melted my heart and brought a tear to my eye. He said, "Mommy, I can bring my whole piggy bank to church. They only cost like ten dollars, and I might have ten dollars in my piggy bank." He went on to say that we needed to buy the nets for ALL of the children in Africa.

As a mother, it is so special to start to see these glimpses of your child's heart as they get older. Addison has such a huge and tender little heart and a sensitive and caring spirit. When he prays, without fail, he will always include everyone in the WHOLE world. And for a kid, he has never thought much about that money in that piggy bank. I don't even know how much is in there- mostly consisting of tooth fairy money and random collections- he doesn't get an allowance or anything at this point. But to him, it is a great treasure of large amounts. And he has never once wanted to get that money out and buy a toy with it. His first mention of it was quite a while back wanting to save it to help him go to school (mother's day out at the time). Since that time he has offered his piggy bank to help daddy pay for late fees at the video store and other random things. Always suggesting it to help out and not for himself. I think that this quality in a five year old boy is very precious, and I know God is going to do something with that. We will do all we can as parents to help foster that generousity in his spirit. I think that's one of the coolest things about being a parent. We get to see these gifts and talents that God placed in our children, and we actually get to help in the process of crafting and molding them into what God intended them to be. It's actually kind of scary at the same time. Lord help us to make good decisions on behalf of our kids!

We are absolutely going to let him take that whole piggy bank to church and proudly offer it up with all his heart. And it makes me want to pour a ton of money back into it! Hope that little story made you smile and perhaps challenged and encouraged the generousity in your own heart today. Peace out from the Pate house.

Updating

Wow, where did July go? I literally feel like the 4th of July was a couple of days ago. Pretty accurate reflection of this summer- it's come and almost gone in a fast, hot fury. Of course our schedule doesn't change much during the summer, so it's not as dramatic as a lot of families. Work is a little more relaxed for Chris right now, but not really enough to make much difference. And mine hasn't changed at all, except maybe getting a little busier! Now that the kids are getting older I'm sure it will feel more like a true summer after a year of hard work in school, but for now it's mostly just hotter! But we've still enjoyed the longer nights, taking long walks as a family with the kids in the wagon and doing summery things like swimming.

So I really haven't done well in keeping with the current updates. A lot happened there at the end of June/beginning of July and I fell behind. Bad blogging mother :( I'm taking this time to post some pics of the 4th of July because we got such cute ones. We had a somewhat relaxed holiday, hanging out at the church party that we got kicked out of (as in, the entire church got kicked out of the pool) and then we stayed at the house the rest of the day. We got sparklers for the kids, and we had Rachel with us as well. We just let them play in the sprinklers until it got dark and busted out the sparklers. Much to everyone's dismay, the city fireworks got cancelled due to high winds, but not until we sat out in the front yard forever waiting for them. Oh well!

Another event that took place at the end of June was Addison's end of season baseball tournament. Don't have many pics to post of that one, and I haven't sorted through the shaky, crazy video snippets I took.... maybe one day. But let me tell you, that day decided for us that we will not be going with that league again next year if Addison plays baseball. The entire event was a little ridiculous. First of all, it was over 100 degrees outside because we got such a late start to the season. Bad decision number one. The kids played the first game against a team that had a coach that drove us all nuts, so we really wanted to beat them. That was one of the craziest games I've ever been to, and these kids are only 5/6! Addison was shining, getting a good solid hit every time he came up to bat that game. Three times, I believe. Well, that game went into extra innings because it was so close, and we managed to pull out with a victory at the last second. Unfortunately because of the rigorous schedule they made, the kids immediately went into game two. With no break. In 100 degree weather. Bad decision number two. We were so concerned about those little guys out there. Every time they went to the dug out, we were draping them with wet towels, giving them water and fruit, and everything else we could possibly do to keep them cool and well. A little nerve racking as a parent when you're melting yourself and watching your child running around, dragging his feet trying his best to weather the weather. Well, this little team we played had the league president as the coach. And they were conveniently placed in the bracket to be fresh and ready to play us. League president coaching a team = can we say conflict of interest?? And the game continued with some shady calls and some poor attitudes on their end. In another gut wrenching game (and now concerned about everyone's health on top of everything) we went into extra innings again. I guarantee if our kids hadn't of played a game right before with no break, we would have killed them. Sadly, in the second extra inning we lost. But honestly, we were all so relieved to get them out of the heat for a break I don't think anyone cared much. Even coach Darrick wasn't feeling well and was unable to pitch for the third game. We had an hour break to regroup and then played the team we played in the first game. They pretty much had nothing left. And we lost. And those two teams went on to play each other in the championship, with the league president's team winning the whole thing. But we were just happy to get out of the heat after that very long, draining, emotional day! I was totally the crazy sports mom, yelling and screaming and getting my heart rate up to ungodly levels. I can see why people get nuts when their kids play sports! It was fun in the beginning, but like I said, the heat was so bad and dangerous I lost my pep and just wanted to be done. But Addison did smashingly well, and he ended up batting like 7 for 9. He went out with a bang!

Whew- that was a mouthful. Sorry so long, but I wanted to relay some of that crazy day. You had to be there though, I guess. My goal is to actually get past just blogging for event updates and get more of the every day life little things.... maybe I'll get that goal one day. As soon as these days stop slipping through my fingers. Ha! Well, peace out from the Pate house. I leave you with pictures.

(capturing the heat of the moment- literally)

posing with the tournament trophy

As Promised...

Well, it's only a few weeks late! Now we have other things to post as well, but I wanted to go in order since I was building everyone up for this musical theater video. Addison had such a great time in this little camp. It was only four days, and they put together this little performance during this time. We were pretty impressed with how long it was and all of the moves for just four days! His teachers couldn't stop talking about him and how much they enjoyed him. They said he just worked so hard and was so talented. He was also the youngest in the class, which made it more impressive. Since this was such a success, he is going to take a musical theater class in the fall that's every week. It's the same performing arts company that Cadence will be taking dance at and I will be teaching a couple of classes at. Since I am teaching my kids get to take for free which is such a tremendous blessing.

He has since performed this song on a very regular basis to many crowds. Still knows every word and motion, not to mention perfect pitch :) Cadence does it with him and it's quite humorous to see her trying to keep up with him. I'll admit, it's so much better to see live, especially since the video is kind of dark. It's also not good quality since it's such a big file- it kind of looks like we're trying to blur his face! You can't always see his priceless facial expressions, such as the wink during the Wizard of Oz, but you can still get the idea. There are actually two videos, one farther away and one close up. We're posting both of them because you can see different things in both videos. We sure have been some proud parents lately :) Glad to give our kids the opportunity to explore different areas and activities so we can start to see where their gifts are.

Enjoy "Flicks Are For Kids"!

(I forgot the teacher talked at the beginning of this one, so just fast forward through that)

P.S. After watching the videos after they downloaded, I decided we might need to retape him singing and repost it so you can see it better, because I'm not happy with the way they turned out on here after they were cyberspace-ready :(

I have to put closure on baseball season and retell our dramatic ending, and I also have 4th of July fun to share, but I will separate it out into different posts as to not overwhelm anyone :) Also to appreciate each event fully in stand alone form. More to come, but for now peace out from the Pate house!