Wednesday, February 29, 2012

Avery's Birthday Party!

Two weeks ago, we went to Pizza Hut to celebrate Avery Moore's 2nd Birthday! It was a pretty nasty day, but thankfully we had a roof over our head! We were only able to stay for an hour and a half, but we had a great time seeing this little friend celebrate another year of life!

 The birthday girl in her Minnie Mouse attire! Maggie (Avery's mom) took this picture and posted it to her Facebook page. I realized after the party that I had not taken any pictures of Avery. I asked Maggie's permission before posting this picture :)

Little brother Eli sits patiently while his mom and I snapped a couple of photos of him in his Minnie ears!

 Avery and Ava found a way to creatively play in Pizza Hut

 Avery's birthday cake!!

 Cupcakes are for everyone else! They were so yummy!!

All the guests got mouse ears to wear for the party!!

Tuesday, February 28, 2012

From The Mouths Of Babes...

I think this will be a new series in my blog. Since Ava is really starting to talk and mimic, I think it is probably a good idea to post the funny things that she says. :) When Greta and any other Pate babies come along, I can post their funny sayings too!

The other night at Wal-Mart, Jeremy was pulling out of a parking spot but was blocked by another car trying to get into a parking space a few spaces down. Frustrated, he said, "Way to block the aisle, dummy!" From the backseat, Ava shouted, "DUMMY!" Jeremy and I looked at each other and cracked up laughing!! We didn't get on to her because the chances of her remembering that word are very slim, but we both made a mental note to clean up our language! (We do not use 'curse' words, but dummy does not sound very nice coming from the mouth of a 14 month old!)

Storytime Tuesday: Color Experiments

Last week was my turn to teach Storytime! I read a simple book about colors, and then we proceeded to do some experiments with colors and crayons. Our first experiment was a Pinterest project. We broke up brand new crayons and baked them in a tin muffin pan. The finished product did not look exactly how I wanted them to look, but the swirls of colors were really pretty and the kids went crazy over it! Each child took home two round "rainbow" crayons to color with. The second experiment we conducted was a Sprite and Skittles concoction. I bought clear cups and poured Sprite into each one. Each child had a different color of Skittles poured into their respective cup. They thought it was the coolest thing! I let them drink the Sprite and Skittles drink (which did not really taste that different) but they, of course, thought it tasted delicious. One little girl took a sip and then very dramatically proclaimed that it was just too sour to continue drinking! :) They are so funny!!

The book:


The new and improved crayons:



Trying out the new "rainbow" crayons:







Our Sprite and Skittles experiment:






Two Loves...

Besides my family, of course!


These two photobooks are recent purchases from Shutterfly.com. The 12X12 was a Christmas present to Gigi (my mom) Nana (Jeremy's mom) Granny (Jeremy's grandmother) and me! It is filled with pictures from Ava's first year of life and it is beautiful! The smaller book was FREE! I had 4 $10 vouchers from Shutterfly for purchasing Biolage hair products. I made the book for Jeremy while he was away at the beach. It is filled with pictures of our Disney World family vacation when Ava was 4 months old. I keep these books on our large ottoman in our living room. When I get a spare chance, I look through them and reminisce about all the memories we have made so far. I would highly recommend these books and the Shutterfly website!

Valentine's Day

I know that February is almost over, but I need to post this!!

Valentine's Day was a pretty typical day in the Pate household. Ava and I went to Storytime, as usual, and Ava exchanged valentine cookies with all her little friends. Later that evening, she went to Natalie Richardson's house to play with Canyon and Sawyer while Jeremy and I went on a Valentine's date to the Longhorn Steakhouse. We both indulged in shrimp, steak, and lobster. We had a very chocolatey dessert that we could not finish. It was a great date because neither of us had to rush through our dinner. We took our time and talked, which we rarely get to do.

Earlier that day, Jeremy brought me lavender colored roses and a box of chocolates:

 They look really pink in these pictures, but they were lavender. :)

 A dozen roses, complete with a little lavender ribbon, tied with love by Jeremy Pate! :)

 My yummy chocolates were gone in three days!!

The next day was Wednesday and Ava received her Valentine mail from Gigi & Papaw (my parents) and Nana & Pop (my grandparents)


 Gigi & Papaw gave her $20

 And Nana & Pop sent her a chocolate heart :)

Yes, that is chocolate smeared on her card. I guess chocolate is not suitable for the United States Postal Service!! Haha! It is the thought that counts!!

And this is what we bought for Ava with her $20 from Gigi & Papaw! 20 new BIG hairbows!! The Purse Man sells them for a dollar each at his store on McFarland. The ribbon and the metal clip are both a pretty good quality. I would say that Ava had a great Valentine's Day!

Signs Of Spring...

You know Spring is coming when...


Daffodils are blooming in the wild...


 My little girl is wearing pastels...


And flowering trees are blooming...






24 Weeks & Greta's 25 Week Check-Up

Two Sundays ago, I reached 24 weeks of pregnancy! Here is what I look like with Baby Greta Elizabeth in tow:

This is 24 weeks pregnant with Ava. Haha! It's true what everyone says about showing your pregnancy a lot sooner with the second child!

Greta is a little over a pound and about a foot long. Her brain is developing very quickly as are her taste buds. In her lungs, branches of the respiratory "tree" are forming and the cells that make surfactant (the stuff that allows air sacs to fill up after birth) are forming. I am now able to see her movements on the outside. She is not overly energetic, I am just more stretched out with this pregnancy and can see more and notice more.

I visited Dr. Emig yesterday for my 25 week appointment. I passed my glucose tolerance test (yay!!) but my iron was a little bit low. One of the nurses wanted to prescribe Ferrous Sulfate, but I told her that I would just double up on my prenatal vitamin. Ferrous Sulfate has some really serious side affects and I don't want to put myself that position. Greta's heartbeat was 142 bpm. She must have been sleeping!! When Dr. Emig came in, she measured my fundal height. I am measuring at 26 weeks. Just one week ahead! I consistently measured 4 weeks ahead with Ava. She scheduled my next appointment for 3 weeks from then! After my 28 week appointment, I will start seeing the doctor every two weeks!! I am so excited with the way this pregnancy has progressed. I feel like I have been a lot calmer and have not had as many questions. It has been great!!

Some Of The Best Parenting Advice I Ever Received!

One of my pet peeves is when people forcefully offer parenting advice when I have not asked for it. I know it is because I am insecure, but I feel like the person "offering" the advice thinks I am a bad parent. I know that I need to care a little less about what people think, but it is hard when you are a first time mom and are really trying to do what is best for your family. But even as a first time mom, I still feel like I have pretty good common sense. Not only that, but if every first time parent truly could not handle raising a child, God would not have given them to us.

With all that being said, I have received some wonderful parenting advice from some really awesome Christian women that I respect and admire. They have been so good about not being forceful and instead, have helped me reach a conclusion by casually bringing advice up in conversations. I want to share this on my blog because I want my girls to have a record of the things that I think. Maybe this advice will help them with their children one day! Please understand that this is not me giving advice to anyone. I generally try to keep my mouth shut about what I think (unless someone asks) These are just some neat things that are currently helping me to be a better mom.

Sheila Butt is a Christian, a mom, a wife, an author, and a speaker (in recent years, she has thrown her hat into the political arena and is doing a great job of trying to keep God in America). Jeremy had the great opportunity to call her his 2nd mom when he was growing up. He was very good friends with her 3 boys: Stan, Cliff, and Kyle; and probably got them into some trouble (I have heard stories about toilet papering houses and beating each other up until someone yelled "uncle.") Anyway, I am glad to know Sheila and value her opinion tremendously. I sat in on one of her classes at Polishing the Pulpit last year and took away several things. The most treasured piece of advice she gave in her class was this: "When your child obeys you, tell them how beautiful obedience is to God." On a daily basis, I try to tell Ava how God thinks she is so pretty when she listens to me. (God sees the heart and not the outward appearance) The second thing that I will never forget, is an anecdote that she shared about consistency. When her 3 boys were little, she took them to the mall to play. During their trip, the boys became fascinated with a toy car in a toy store. She told the boys that they could choose between the toy and going out to eat on Sunday after worship. Of course, they chose the toy. On the way home, the boys began to fight about the toy. She told them to stop fighting several times. Finally, she said, "if I hear you fight one more time, I will take the toy and throw it out the window." There was silence for a while until another fight broke out. She held her hand back to the backseat. They boys passed up the toy car. She rolled her window down and chunked it out the window. She said she wanted to cry when she did it, but she knew that she had to do what she promised. WOW! What a powerful story. I learned a lot from her class!

Tammie Dye is a Christian, a wife, and a mom of 3 children. She and her husband were once missionaries in Papua New Guinea, and one of her daughters is now a missionary in Paraguay (with her husband) I had the pleasure of meeting Tammie a few weekends ago in Tennessee when Jeremy taught some classes on Family Ministry at the congregation where her husband is a minister. Even though I only met her for one weekend, I was inspired by her and her husband because of their faithfulness and diligence as parents. All 3 of their children are faithful members of the Lord's Church and have married faithful spouses. I talked with her a little bit about parenting and the struggles I will face when we have two babies in our home. She told me that someone had given her a very valuable piece of advice (her two oldest children are 11 months apart) for that very thing. She said that when she came home from the hospital, she made sure to spend time with her oldest child. She put her newborn down (because all a newborn does is sleep) and spent quality time with her oldest child who was wondering were mom was for the three days spent in the hospital. She reassured her oldest child that Mommy still loved her and even though a new baby had joined the family, Mom's love would never change.

I really needed that advice because I have been trying to figure out how to divide my time between both girls. I will be honest and say that my first instinct would be to hold my newborn all the time and let Jeremy take care of Ava. I want to be able to bond with Greta the same way that I was able to bond with Ava, but I know that most of my bonding with Ava took place when she was a little older and more alert. I realize after my discussion with Tammie, that I might hurt Ava in the process if I don't give her the attention she needs. Greta will not care if I am holding her. If she is anything like Ava, she will want to sleep all the time for those first few weeks! I am so glad that I had the chance to talk to Tammie. She really gave me some perspective on how to handle our family situation. I am glad that God placed her in my path to help me!

2 Blurbs

1.) Ava has started helping me with laundry. Notice that I did not put that in quotes! She will legitimately help me on laundry day! She will follow me to her bedroom and help me tote the hamper to the laundry room. She really does grab the handle and help me pull. When we get into the laundry room, she will open the lid on the hamper and start handing me clothes to put into the washer. She is such a good girl!! I am so proud of her for wanting to help me!

2.) Last night I had to call the Poison Control Center (1-800-222-1222; I have committed that number to memory after just one call!) I was loading the dish washer and did not notice that a small chunk of Cascade was still in the detergent dispenser. I was loading pretty quickly because Ava likes to pull silverware out of the rack. I saw Ava playing with the dispenser and then I noticed a little bit of soap on her bottom lip. I stuck my finger in her mouth and swiped all over trying to get out the rest. No luck! She had already swallowed it! I called Jeremy into the kitchen to give her some water. He sat at the kitchen table and gave Ava about 4 oz of water through a straw. I finished loading the dishwasher (I know, I know! I am a bad mom for not dropping everything right then and there!) I then called the PCC. The man's name was Keith and he told me that we had probably diluted it correctly with the water, but that we should also use Ava's toothbrush to rub around her gums and teeth to get rid of any remaining grains.  He said that if she was not gagging or acting differently, then she was probably fine. After I got off the phone with him, we let Ava play on the floor for a few minutes to see if she was acting normally. Luckily, she was! That stinker scared Mommy and Daddy!

Wednesday, February 22, 2012

The Ice Bowl!

Every year, our college ministry participates in the Ice Bowl. It is a football game usually played on the coldest night of the year. Since the weather this year has been very mild, they had to settle for playing the Ice Bowl Game on a warmer night in January! 

Jeremy and Joe Barger were the commentators for both games (a powder puff game and a boy game; I hope that doesn't sound sexist!) Ava and I (along with many others) sat in the audience at the Echols field. We stayed for the powder puff game and part of the boy game, but then had to leave to get Ava into bed at a reasonable time.

Here are some photos from that night:

 Our Rough & Tough girl's team!

 The girl's team from the Central Church of Christ. They beat our poor girls!

Three of the guys from our church: Robby Waldrop, Jameson Gann, and their friend (whom I don't know!)

 Ava, Courtney Cooke, and Molly Jane

 Joe and Jeremy fighting over the microphone! Silly boys!

 Joe and his little boy Webb Barger

The refs grabbing a quick bite of chili before the next game. I purposely snapped this picture when two of them were taking a bite! 

The beginning of the boys game. Ava and I hung around for about twenty more minutes and then went home. We had a really good time spending time with our fellow Christians!

Friday, February 17, 2012

iCare Group #3 (The Best One!!)

Our congregation recently started a new ministry. The iCare Ministry is a way for our whole church family to get closer to one another.  Our elders divided the congregation into 12 different groups, each with a Leader (and his wife) and Co-Leader (and his wife) Jeremy, Ava, Greta, and I, are so blessed to be a part of iCare Ministry Group #3! Nick Taylor is our Leader and Jon Robertson is our Co-Leader. Their respective wives, Carla Taylor and Terri Robertson, are such great workers in the church and are so fun to be around! The January meeting was held at our house. We had hamburgers and tons of fixin's! We had a great time getting to know some members of our group that we don't know that well! All the kiddos had a great time playing!
 Ava and Jackson Robertson. Jillian stayed home that night because she was sick.

 Luke Taylor and Carla talk to Ms. Faye Black.

 Ava and Jackson play in her room

 Kamryn enjoys her dinner

 Evan Noah and his sister Kameron

 Madeline

 Beth and Reese

 Dan and Ann Whetstone

 Eunice and Ted McIntosh

 Ava, Jeremy, and Ms. Lucille

Ms. Faye Black and Terri Robertson