The love of power tools develops early

When we pressure washed all the hard surfaces outside our house Hudson couldn't help but get in on the fun. He would have done it all day if we would have let him. It was so cute.

Who had the birthday anyway?

Another picture off the camera from a few weeks ago. This was Andrew's birthday cake, but it was Camden that really seemed to enjoy it. These pictures look like a baby's first birthday-nope, Daddy's 36th.

Yep, he fits right in.

I have had this picture on my camera for awhile. I took it because we were getting ready for bed and Ainsley and Hudson collected a couple of things for bed. Camden collected these items and was all snuggled up with them, and wouldn't let them go: a basketball, a play tennis raquet (it is the white thing you barely see on the side), and play fork (the gray thing). All set for basketball, tennis, and eating. What else do you do in the Pate household?

Little sprouts

I have never been great about remembering to water things. Luckily my children early on learn how to cry for food and water, my plants have never lived long enough to develop such a skill, so most of the time they die by July. In our new house I have pledged this will be different (mainly because we now have a sprinkler system with a drip line-if only I could figure out how to get such a system to make dinner for the family...) So this year I have planted a little garden. I'm trying square foot gardening in raised beds. I started out by planting seeds inside. Very fun for the kids to see them sprout. We even did a little chart to track which ones sprouted first and predicted how high they would be.



Cute, but when I put them outside-they died. So I started over and planted seeds directly into the ground. They have been very S.L.O.W. in popping through the ground. But they are finally peeking through. We will see how well I can get these little plants to grow.



When I was poking around in the strawberries this morning, I found a special little crop growing.


I'm wondering if these little men





might have something to do with my slow growing seeds. It is nice to have kids to blame my black thumb on.

Along these lines, when we were at a gardening store Hudson really wanted a tomato plant, funny because 5 out of 5 of us in our house don't like tomatoes, but I went ahead and bought it for him. The bad news is that it is not looking so good. It really has me concerned because my friend Jenne has been reading a parenting book she loves called Growing Godly Tomatoes, it uses growing tomatoes as a metaphor for parenting. If I can't grow one little tomato plant.... tell me that is no reflection on my parenting. Go to her post about the book and comment for a chance to win the book. (Jenne, does linking to you post increase my chance of winning? Or at least my chance of borrowing yours? I'm making my list of books to read during fireworks.)

Saved

I think I've mentioned before that Ainsley has made Hudson repeat The Sinner's Prayer over and over again beginning when he could barely talk. I remember him barely being 2 and her making him fold his hands and try and repeat, "Dear Jesus, I know I'm a sinner and I want you to forgive me and live in my heart..." and he would mumble along, trying to please her, then get tired and poke her in the eye or something. Sometime around Christmas I told her she needed to stop making him do that so when he decided he wanted to do it on his own he would understand it. Well, last Saturday morning he crawled in bed with me and first asked if we could hear God talking. He has been processing "God talking" and how God wrote the Bible for awhile now. So we talked for a little bit and then he said, "can you tell Jesus to come and live in my heart?" I told him that was something he needed to do himself. So he said, "okay" and then said the little prayer asking Jesus to live in him all by himself. It was so sweet. He then spent the next couple days telling everyone, "Hey- I'm a Christian."

A few days later he asked me, "What do Christian's do?" Good question. So I told him now his job was to glorify God in everything he does, and I explained what glorify means (as best I could to a 4 year old) and then told him part of that is he now needs to tell other people about Jesus. The next day he came in to talk to me and said, "I've got a great idea" (a good percentage of the things Hudson says begin with that phrase.) He went on to say, "We should make baskets, go ring people's doors, then run away, then run back when they open the door and tell them about Jesus." Maybe getting May day and door to door evangelism mixed up isn't a bad strategy!

Fast forward to yesterday at church. We were asked to think of, then pray for one person who doesn't know Christ yet. Ainsley was sitting on my lap and asked her who she was going to pray for. Her response was, "Well, Hudson's taken care of, so now I'm going to worry about Camden. I don't want him to go to Hell." Camden is just starting to learn some words, I'm pretty sure I can predict some words Ainsley will be working on with him.

Happy Birthday and Congratulations!

That picture is of Andrew at last weeks district tournament. The shirt was a good choice. His team won the Mt. Hood Conference District Tennis Tournament for...get this... the fifth year in a row! His team hasn't lost a league match in over four years. And to top it off he was voted Coach of the Year. Today should be a great day for him. He is at the State Tournament, and it is his birthday! (Hooray- he is back to being older than me. I don't like the 2 months when we are the same age.) Finally good weather, for his last two days of tennis- it has been a rough spring for tennis weather wise. Did you catch the "last two days" part, do you know what that means? TennisisovertomorrowTennisisovertommorow! (In case you can't hear it through your computer I'm singing that over and over and doing a little dance.) It will be nice to, you know...see him.

Here he is with Randy Alcorn and Scott Anderson, both incredible guys who invest so much in the tennis team. What luck guys the kids on their team are to have these three investing in their lives. I hope there are people like this around for my kids when they are in High School.

Here they are with their trophy. Congratulations and Happy Birthday sweetheart.

Yeah... so...?

Conversation in our car on the way home from Costco this morning:

Hudson: Mommy can we go out to lunch?

Me: No honey, we are going home.

Hudson: Pleeeeaaaaaase can we go out?

Me: No, and that is your one appeal. So we are done talking about this.

Hudson: Okay, I'm not asking again, but why can't we go out today?

Me: Because we have food at home to eat and we actually went out to lunch yesterday. And now we really are done.

Hudson: Yeah, but yesterday doesn't count because IT WAS RAINING!

If you drop by my house and there is a big pile of food on the floor, here is why.

About 5 minutes ago Camden refused to drink out of a cup unless someone else held it up for him. It reminded me of someone feeding a baby farm animal from a bottle. Especially strange considering this was a child that would cry at the sight of a bottle. He would bring the sippy cup over to you, yell "D, D, D, D" and shove the cup in your hand. If you didn't take it he would grab your hand and continue yelling at you. So now that is over and he immediately has gone to refusing to eat even a morsel of food that he has not put in his mouth himself. It doesn't matter, oatmeal, yogurt, soup, nothing goes in unless he is the one in charge of the utensil that gets it to his little mouth. And as if that is not messy enough, his way of telling you he is done is by turning the dish over upside down. Now... who wants to have the Pate family over for dinner?

We didn't move far enough out in the country for this.

Last week I was laying into Hudson about having better aim when he is using the bathroom. I know that this is hardly a unique problem with little boys, but it is driving me crazy. I brought him into his bathroom and explained as I made him wipe up the floor that if he doesn't do a better job of keeping his bathroom clean, we will lock the door and he can't have his own bathroom anymore. (he has a bathroom all to himself off of his bedroom) So when just a few days later I am tidying up bathrooms I notice evidence of carelessness I bring him in the bathroom for another little chat. Here is how it went...

Me: What happens if you can't make your pee just go in the toilet?

Hudson: You will just lock up my bathroom.

Me: Yep, so lets clean this up and do a better job okay?*** (thinking the conversation is over)

***In the interest of honesty-my actual words may have been a little stronger and a bit grumpier.

Hudson: So if you lock my bathroom I will have to use Ainsley's.

Me: I guess

Hudson: And if I then pee on her floor then I'll have to use yours.

Me: Yeah, I guess (concerned that this conversation is going places I didn't mean for it to go)

Hudson: And then -big pause- (you can at this point see the little light bulb that has gone on over his head and he is clearly SO happy about the thought he has just had) if I pee on your floor I can just pee on the trees outside and that won't be a problem for me at all!

Maybe not a problem for you, but for the rest of us...

Normall I wouldn't do this kind of thing...

I'm not the one to ever send chain letters to. It is with great guilt that I admit I am always the one that broke the silly things, even the ones sent to my children that ask you to send books or stickers to other children. I'm just awful like that. So the whole "tagging" or "meme" thing with blogs falls under that category. However, just this once because it was Jenne, and because I'm already breaking a chain of sorts with her by not having a baby this time at the same time she is, I will suck it up and do it. Here we go...

Four Jobs I've Had:
-flower shop worker
-daycare worker
-K-3 teacher
-firework stand operator (on that note, we are going down this road again this year. And guess what? We have a WA state stand also this year. So if you want "safe and sane" fireworks, come visit us/Eric & Cyndi in Clackamas or Troutdale. If you want something that could potentially set your neighborhood on fire (ONLY FOR USE IN WASHINGTON- my legal department requires that warning), you can come and visit us in Brush Prairie -no it's really not that far...I'll give you directions.)

4 Movies I've watched more than once:

So the thing here is, I don't watch movies more than once. If I've already seen it, why would I watch it again? This is a conversation/argument I have had with my husband for 11 years now. I don't get watching movies over and over. You know what is going to happen. Along that line, I don't like movies that I've read the book, or that I already know what happens (Heaven help all the people who rushed out to see Titanic!) In Junior High there was more than one sleepover that I didn't go to because if I had to watch The Breakfast Club or Sixteen Candles one more time someone was going to get hurt.

4 places I've lived:
-Milton-Freewater OR
-McMinnville OR
-Milwaukie OR
-(are there any other "M" towns in Oregon???) Gresham OR

4 TV Shows I watch
-The Office (the exception to my "only watch it once" rule. Sometimes it is funnier the second time around.)
-LOST
-24 (not that I've seen it this year...stupid writers strike)
-Prison Break

4 Places I've Been:
-Mt. Rushmore (my parents took us when we were little, and the part I remember is this big room that was filled with vending machines. Way to pay attention to the important stuff!)
-Mexico (a High School class trip, note to my children in the future: mission trips in High School -yes, trips sponsored by your High School for a foreign language class or something- not going to happen.)
-Hawaii (went here for A MONTH with the person I ended up marrying-although WE DIDN'T DATE EACH OTHER WHEN WE WERE THERE, talk about a missed opportunity.)
-Czech Republic

4 People who email me:
-Andrew
-Mom
-Heather
-Cyndi

4 favorite foods:
-Anything Milk Chocolate
-Strawberries
-Breakfast Out
-Chocolate milkshakes

4 places I'd like to visit:
-Hawaii - while actually dating Andrew!
-The Cook Islands
-Disneyland again when my kids are bigger, or without my kids (don't tell them)
-Anywhere warm and dry

4 things I'm looking forward to this coming year:
-tennis season being over in two weeks
-Tennille, Nathan, Zech, and Eleison coming this summer
-Getting at least half of the "to do" projects done on this house... someday
-Warm, dry weather. Although I'm not holding my breath.

As far as the 4 people I'm supposed to tag to do this list also. ..Well... How about if everyone who reads this does this list at dinner tonight with their family? So there you go-consider yourself tagged!

Way to get my heart racing!

We just came in from outside. Our little jaunt through the greenway was lovely until it abruptly ended with me swooping Camden up and yelling at the other kids that I was going inside with him RIGHT NOW to wash his hands. He had just toddled over to me and was bringing me something he was very proud of, I thought it was a pine cone. I flipped out when I saw that what he was clutching in his chubby little hands was a dead mouse.