Reagan Joy's First Birthday

Dear Reagan,

A year ago tonight I cuddled you in a hospital bed astonished at how blessed I was that God gave me the baby girl I wanted to complete our family with. Tonight I am still just amazed at how blessed our whole family is by you Reagan.

As far as a first year, it is hard to imagine a baby doing it better. It is a good thing no baby in our family has to follow your example. You have slept very well, hardly been sick, are very social and sweet, meet every developmental milestone right on time, didn't spit-up constantly like your siblings, eat almost anything we give you, snuggle and love on us, and are just generally a ideal baby. We have so much fun with you. When I say "we, " I do mean all of us. Adore is not a strong enough word to describe how your siblings feel about you. Ainsley is so delighted to have a sister and loves taking care of you. Hudson has always been just enamored with you and is so sweet and attentive. Camden, while not always as safe as we would like around you, just loves you. He has been given the job of finding choking hazards which he takes quite seriously.

You have 5 little teeth, which you love to use. We do have to watch our toes and sometimes even our legs because you like to try out your teeth on us. Ainsley read the Series of Unfortunate Events books this year and there is a baby in the book named Sunny who bites everything. You are right there with her. What really cracks us up is when you try and bit the kitchen table in an effort to raise yourself higher so you can see what is going on up there. You bite tables, couches, books, toys and even the wall corner once. It is never out of being mad, just something your trying out right now. Cute as it is, we won't be sad when you move on to something else!

You crawl everywhere and pull up on everything. And while you do cruise around while holding onto furniture, you don't seem super close to walking yet. Your not at all interested in standing up on your own, so I think we have a few weeks before you find your legs. Crawling doesn't slow you down much, you get most places you want to go. You wave and clap, and I think are starting to say something close to "mama" intentionally.

A couple of weeks ago you had a sudden enlightenment. You discovered you could open cupboard doors and also at the same time quite being easily distracted away from things I didn't want you getting into. I learned you did in fact understand the word "no." When you would crawl over to the open dishwasher and I would move you away from it and say no you no longer would get distracted with something else. Now that makes you want the dishwasher even more and you run/crawl right back over. When I in a more stern voice tell you no you throw yourself back and cry. And so began the busy training period that will last for... well... years.

A month or so ago someone commented to me that you don't look like your siblings. I said, "I know, I look at her and can't believe that she is really mine." The lady commented back, "it is actually your other kids that you should be confused about if they are yours or not, she clearly belongs to you!" You may not look like your siblings, but just like what happens with them, people comment all the time about how cute you are. You are so fun to take places because when someone looks at you and comments about how cute you are, you grin and coo at them as if you totally understand what they are saying. You have your Daddy so tightly wrapped around your little finger it is amazing. Putting your hair up in two little pig tails is just about his favorite thing in the whole world.

I know we have lots of training to do with you in the next few years, and that parenting gets more challenging all the time. But as a family we have so enjoyed this year with you Reagan. It is a cheesy movie line to quote, but truly you have completed our family. The addition of you has made your daddy and I love each other and each of your siblings even more than we did before. It is just amazing how love multiplies.

In the crazy, business of life I forget to thank God for you every day. But I should. None of us can imagine life without you. I want to savor ever second of your littleness and at the same time I am so excited to see you grow and find out what sort of person you are going to become.

You were a spectacular birthday girl. You loved your cake, and were so cute when you opened presents. You loved the toys and were just delighted with the whole experience.

My prayer today for you Reagan is that you would continue to be such a joy to the people around you that people can't help but look to God because of you.

Happy Birthday baby girl.

Fall

It has in fact been over a month since I have found time to post. So in the interest of catching my little blog up quickly, here is a glimpse of the last month in bullet points and pictures:

*We survived Camden's tonsillectomy. It was less than fun, putting it mildly. He actually did well, if it wasn't for a VERY BAD reaction to the steroid. Wouldn't you know, the steroid is what I thought was going to make this round so much easier because it was supposed to shrink the swelling in his nasal passages. It may have done that, but it had the side effect of making him crazy. If you have ever spent more than 2 minutes with Camden you know he is plenty active. Now imagine that times...oh... say 1,000. We are talking 2am the morning after surgery JUMPING on my bed, running around the room, literally (and I really mean literally- people use the word literally and don't mean it) bouncing off the walls. Crazy. He didn't sleep from 2am until 4 the next afternoon when finally my parents drove him around for hours to settle him down so he would sleep. This after going on two walks and a bike ride. Thedayafter having surgery. Seriously crazy. But we made it. Here he is with a get well cookie from the Carls. What I still find perplexing is that the steriod made him so nuts that he didn't really register pain. He never complained about his throat hurting. He ate anything. I had to be careful to not feed him things that could get stuck in the holes in his throat because that should have been self-regulating with pain making him only want soft foods. Didn't work that way. That was a long bullet point. I'll try to go faster....

~Soccer. 2 kids, 2 teams. Really fun. Don't have any idea how we will handle it when there are three playing and doing activities. Let alone 4. Please note there is an opposing player between Hudson and his teammate Lucas. He isn't fighting one of his own teammates for the ball. (not that we've never seen that before though) That was a much shorter bullet point.

~Trip to the pumpkin patch with Grandma and Grandad. Look at the size of these pumpkins!

We are finding it challenging to get all four of the kids to take a good picture at the same time.

My favorite part of the pumpkin patch was the kids with the map. The place we went to had tons and tons of activities (Bauman Farms-near Salem) and they had a map with everything on it. The kids all three studied that map and plotted out their course. This picture is when they are looking at the map after one activity to find there way to the next. Super cute.

~Field Trip to Astoria. Andrew has to do this one next time. It was a pretty long day. Ft. Clatsop (good, but not worth the trip to Astoria) and the Maritime Museum. (at one point Ainsley came up to me at the museum and said, "I just don't want to hear anything else about boats." that pretty much summed it up.) It was fun to go with her friends. She has great friends and the kids were amazing.

Deep Creek 4th graders. Cute bunch of kids.

~Halloween

I need you to know that Reagan puts this bucket on her head herself! She does it over and over and thinks it is the funniest thing ever. Somewhere in my blog archives there is a post about Camden putting a white (not Halloween) bucket on his head. What is it with these kids?

Here is the group of kids from our neighborhood that we went trick-or-treating with. Can you say mob-o-kids? We had a potluck first with the Katz family and then all took off together. The first house Camden went to when they got to him he asked the lady who answered the door, "how did you know we were here?"

At Jim and Polly Carl's house.

Here is everyone in their costumes. Ainsley is a Barlow cheerleader, Hudson is Darth Vader, Camden is a football player, and Reagan is a dog. And yes, Hudson's pumpkin does have two plastic bats coming out of it. And no, I don't know why.

Reagan is a good sport about all the places she gets drug around to. When I think of the life Ainsley experienced (like specific nap and meal times) compared to Reagan it is astounding how well Reagan rolls with the punches. Halloween made very little sense to her. And as you see in this picture, she let us know a couple of times!

There is no shortage of candy at our house. My favorite part of Halloween is when they get home and sort it all out and the trading (manipulating) begins. It is hilarious. The kids were excited to give out candy when we got home to a few kids. Another cute Camden moment was when the first group showed up and our kids were passing out candy he yelled at the kids, "Hey, what is your names?" Because really, if your going to show up at our house and take our candy, shouldn't you introduce yourself?

~Yeah! All caught up!

The calm before the storm?

Can you see how big a smile he has in this picture? We are going to remember that for the next few days.

Because it might be the last big smile we see for a little bit. Tomorrow morning we take Camden in to get his tonsils and adenoids out. You might remember back a little over a year ago when Ainsley and Hudson both got theirs out the same day. That wasn't exactly the greatest 10 days or so that our family has ever experienced. But, thanks to some giant tonsils we get to do it all over again tomorrow morning with #3. No- we are not doing Reagan at the same time. Fool me once... not that she is old enough anyway, we will save that fun for another day.

Anyway- Camden is actually SUPER excited about getting them out. I'm feeling guilty about how he doesn't know what is coming, but not guilty enough to tell him. He is just excited about ICE CREAM AND TOYS! His siblings have been coached to not be buzz kills, so instead they are just talking up the treat part. They are happy because they know it will mean more treats and movies for them, so they are all for it.

Anyway- the fun Camden had today was he finally go to do soccer. It has been killing him to go to soccer games and practices and not get to participate, so I found a little tots class that he can go to. He had so much fun. Every once in awhile he would turn around and yell to me, "Mom, this is really fun!" It was so cute. He ran so hard and was totally focused on soccer the whole time. Once he does something, he does it 110%, so it was awesome. What a cutie.

No one was going to get a ball in his goal!

Reagan was the water girl. Say a prayer for Camden that his surgery and recovery go well!

The end to the troubled tooth and double the tooth fairy.

I mentioned in my previous post that Hudson was probably getting his tooth pulled. Indeed, that is what happened. Here is the background.

When Hudson was 18 months old we were having dinner at our neighbors house. Nothing strange happened, no collisions, I fed him dinner and there was nothing wrong in his mouth. When we got home as I was changing him into his pajamas I was shocked to notice that his front left tooth had a huge chip! To make a long story short, we had it capped which was a horrendous experience. They gave him (remember 18 months old) some liquid something to drink that was supposed to make him calm and sleepy. Instead it made him a screaming lunatic for 3 hours. The dentist words were, "he will make a really bad drunk." Nice. Anyway, they went ahead and strapped him down on the board thing (hands down my worst parenting experience ever) and capped the tooth. Ever since any little bonk to the mouth is really painful for that tooth. The dentist thought it would last hopefully until he was 3 or 4 and the fall out. Well, here we are at 6 and amazingly we still had the tooth. Until the night before first grade.

Camden and Hudson were out on the jumpy and had a collision that left Hudson with his tooth bleeding and hanging down half way. It was quite a look, and totally impacted his speech. Nice way to send your child off to first day for the first day of first grade.

You can sort of see how it is hanging down in this picture. Fortunately we got him into the dentist (I had to tutor, so daddy took him) that afternoon and he did get it pulled. Unfortunately the big tooth is not very far down so the roots were still there (and he is going to have a hole for awhile) and the extraction required 2 shots. He was amazing and didn't even cry, sweet boy.

The best part of the story though is how our family bounces between complete over-parenting/helicopter-ness and neglect. You see I went to bed and forgot to put $ under Hudson's pillow. Our rule (funny how these things evolve) is you get one gold dollar for a tooth, but if the tooth is pulled or falls out at school (both things that happened with Ainsley, that is how it happened) you get two. Andrew went to bed, and I was already asleep. Before falling asleep it occurs to him, being the awesome dad he is, that I didn't put any money under Hudson's pillow. So he gets up and finds my stash of gold dollars that I keep just for teeth and puts two under his pillow. He then gets up and goes to basketball before I am even awake. I wake up and as I'm walking in to get Hudson remember about the money so run back in and get two dollars and slip them under his pillow. I wake up Hudson and leave his room. I'm in the bathroom with Ainsley and Hudson comes running in saying, "I got four coins!!!" Ainsley starts flipping out, we have broken the rules! I say, "No he didn't, he is tricking you." But then he holds up his four dollars. I figure out what happened and start laughing saying, "the tooth fairy visited twice!" Ainsley thinks I should take the extra two away because this is of course not fair, I'm laughing at how we either forget to leave money, or both do it. But there is no way I'm taking money away from the kid who endured his first day of school with a nightmare tooth and then got it pulled and was so awesome about it. My kids know the truth about the tooth fairy. (have you ever read this story?) So now we have a new rule at our house, you get one dollar for the tooth, one more if it is pulled or lost at school, and an extra dollar for each shot that it takes to get the tooth out. By the time we are on Reagan who knows how many "rules" there will be in this family!

Here is our now tooth-less boy.

First and Fourth

Is "first and fourth" a football phrase? Sort of sounds like it. Anyway- for us it is this school year. And it is a blessed thing. This is one of my "off" years. Two kids in full day school, two kids in no school. That means no driving anyone anywhere- the big kids ride the bus to and from, the littles stay home with me. Next year will be pre-school for Camden and I'm dreading it. I hate half day school when it involves pick ups and drop offs. Yuck. Anyway- so I'm going to enjoy ever last day this year. Here is the first day run-down. As always, it seems, there is a pretty good story.

Our big first grader. I managed to talk him into this shirt rather than the one he wanted to wear. It also was a Nike t-shirt, but it said, "Don't Cry... I'll go easy on you second half." Nice. Not really a good first impression shirt. I didn't buy it. I don't buy any of his t-shirts in fact.

So my great first day story. When I saw Hudson's teacher I just had to giggle. You see, she is new to his school so I have never met her before. Last year Hudson did meet her. She came and read a story to the kids who were going to be in her class. I peppered Hudson with multiple questions to try and get any sort of information out of him about his teacher, and he had next to nothing to report. One thing I asked what she looked like. His response was, "ummm... I don't know, just like Mrs. Manzella I guess." Okay, Mrs. Manzella was his Kindergarten teacher. Brown hair, very cute, here she is: (if your reading this Amy I hope it is okay I just posted your picture)

Now... if only I had a picture of his teacher this year it would make this story so much better. But remember, according to Hudson she looks just like Mrs. Manzella. So I was pretty surprised to see that Hudson's teacher doesn't quite look just like Mrs. Manzella, see, she is Asian. Keen observational skills Hudson. When I talked to Andrew's mom this afternoon she said hopefully Hudson won't ever have to identify someone involved in a crime. No kidding.

Here is Ainsley in her classroom. She was so excited. She had never met her teacher before, he also is new to the school. This morning as she was eating breakfast she was pretty wound. Suddenly she went off on a tangent where she was convinced her teacher was blind. What??? She thought it would be cool if there was a guide dog in her class. Some days you just don't even know what to say back. Anyway, we met Mr. Moss and he was very nice, and also not blind. Good news.

Anyway- we are off and running with the school year. Camden made it through the day without them, we went to OMSI this morning so he would have something fun to do, Reagan went along for the ride nicely. Ainsley and Hudson are both home now and had great days. Well, actually Hudson is not home currently. He is with Andrew at the dentist, he had a collison last night and is now probably getting his front tooth pulled. But that is a whole other story...

Where to begin????

This seems like a good picture to start out a summer post with.

I'm going to blame my lack of any post whatsoever in the last month on my sister. Yep, it is my little sisters fault. Never mind that she actually asked me to post so she would have something to read, brought my darling niece and nephew all the way from Minnesota to Oregon so I would have funny little stories about my children's interactions with them, and went with us to do all sorts of fun things that we probably wouldn't have made the time to do had she not been here, it is really all her fault. She just took up too much of my time so I didn't have time to upload any pictures. Now that she is safely home in Minnesota, *insert weeping and gnashing of teeth* I will take the time to upload a few pictures and tell you what we have been doing. (I should just change the date on the post and pretend I did this in mid-july. I'm sure no one is reading blogs right now anyway- so if you are just tuning in, on a rainy day in October, pretend I posted this a week after my previous post rather than a month, thank you.)

So jumping back one month- we went to Andrew's 20th high school reunion. Of all the people in his class I definitely married the right one! :)

The next day we took off with my parents and my sisters family and went to the Carl's beach house in Rockaway. It was so much fun, except of course for the stupid Oregon weather. We loved going Kayaking on the lake behind the house. We had a great time.

How cute is Eleison?

Grandpa withe Reagan- catching the 12 minutes of blue sky we saw.

Kayaking

We took a train ride on a steam train from Rockaway to Garabaldi. It was very fun!

Next up was Milton-Freewater. If I ever figure out how I will upload movies from our trip. Uncle Bob took the kids out on a swather which might have been the highlight of their time!

Our kids had so much fun with Zech and Eleison. Camden almost daily still tells me, "I miss my bwest friend Ehwason." They played so cute together. The only bad thing is how not fun it is when it is time for them to leave.

Honestly could some very smart person please improve transportation technology so there is a way to bring my extended family here for dinner tonight, have it cost about $3 to get them here, and return them home to their own beds tonight. That would be great, thanks. It certainly would be more useful than an ipad.Grandma and Reagan in the alfalfa field.

Oh and here is a little public service message. If your kids swim in grandma and grandpa's pool day after day there is a very good chance that *all* of them will end up with swimmers ear. Plan accordingly.

After a trip down the gorge, we unloaded at home for two days then packed back up and went back to the beach again. On the way we stopped in McMinnville and went to the Evergreen Air and Space Museum.

Then it was on to the beach. We went to the beach once the end of July and once the middle of August and didn't really see the sun at all. It was 95 degrees in Portland at the time and we were happy if it hit 65 at the beach. Between the weather and how much I don't like sand I may never go back to the beach again. Although I certainly have never gone to the Oregon coast for the actual beach part, it is all about the company! We spent our second beach trip in Lincoln City with Andrews parents for the first couple of days.

Grandma and Grandad took us to the aquarium in Newport. It was so fun- the kids loved all the animals. I didn't get a picture of it, but when we were in the shark tunnel there is a glass on the floor that you can see underneath and of course Camden's response was to lay down on the floor to see in. It was very cute.

For our last little beach fun the Strandbergs came to join us. Our kids are in heaven when they are around. What amazing teenagers to put up with the punishment our kids put them through.

We went on the Drift Creek Falls hike when we were in Lincoln City. This is such a great hike. The bridge is a suspension bridge and no picture of it can do it justice. You hike down to a beautiful waterfall. We did this hike two years ago (funny how two years ago I was doing a similar "catch up on everything" post) and Camden did not enjoy being held the whole time, in fact he screamed the whole time. I'm happy to say that this time went much better.

Okay. You are officially all caught up. I could have posted about 3,247 more summer pictures, but blogger was freaking out on me with just these. And really, if your still reading this I'm amazed. Hope your summer is as fun as ours!

A trip to the dentist really does deserve a blog post

Although I already did a facebook status update about our little family trip to the dentist, and although I haven't done a blog post about the significant things in our families lives receintly (you know, July 4th, the weather finally getting warm, my kids doing swimming lessons, basketball camp, tennis camp, my parents taking them to the Lion King, the fireworks tent, basically yadda, yadda, yadda) I'm going to actually do a blog post about the twice yearly family trip to the dentist. The important stuff. You know you could quit reading right now and save yourself...

Yesterday, July 8th, 3:00.

The plan is all 5 Pate family members that currently have teeth that protrude from their gums will go together to the dentist. Honestly, Dr. Monnes and his staff are beautiful people for making this happen. We begin by getting Reagan up from a nap to pop her and Camden in the car. Andrew was picking up Ainsley and Hudson from tennis camp at Cascade and just meeting us there. The plan was I would send their toothbrushes with him so they could brush their teeth at the club before showing up at the dentist. I forgot. I also forgot to brush my own teeth before I went. Oops.

So, I put Reagan in her car seat and hand her the little pringle like container that has Gerber "banana puffs" inside. She has had cherrios and these little puffs a handful of times now and really likes them, I break each one in half and give them to her one at a time. I am nothing if not vigilant when it comes to choking hazards. I was impressed as we were driving to the dentist at how quiet she was, and Camden fell asleep on the way so it was a lovely little drive. I should have known, when I park and open her door she has managed to get the lid off the puffs and has dumped the entire container out on herself in her carseat. She is shoving handfulls of the puffs in her mouth and has wet saliva soaked puffs smashed all over and in her hair. Awesome. So much for the choking hazard thing. Bonus, now I know I don't have to break them in half for her anymore. I take her out of her car seat, pick up as many as I can and salvage them back in the container, shake the rest out onto the rock parking lot ground. Your welcome birds.

I have to tutor at 4:30 so I ask when we go in if I could be the first one to be taken back. I'm assuming that means they will take me, then a kid or two and then I will leave while Andrew and any remaining children have their turn. I take Reagan back with me, my plan being I would just give her puffs one at a time while I was getting my teeth cleaned and that would keep her occupied. She of course has had all the fun she wants with the puffs and instantly is not okay with just sitting there. So I begin my cleaning with her on my lap. I'm holding her tummy and back with both hands and she is sitting just above my knees. I'm trying to keep her facing away from me and as far down as I can reach, because she is obsessed with trying to get the little paper bib I have on. It must be exciting to see someone else wearing a bib. Now, my hygienist is a very sweet woman, but I must tease her a little here because she kept saying to me, "hold on tight, you don't want her to fall on the floor." Really? You think that would be a bad idea? Okay- if you really think so, I'll try and keep that from happening.

Now, just as she has started the lovely scraping (did I mention I forgot to brush my teeth?) I hear them bringing Andrew back, and then I hear Ainsley coming back too. Wait!!! There were only three open chairs. Are you getting what that means? Despite having a sharp object in my mouth I knew what it meant. The three members of the family that can take care of the other three members will all be lying down, staring at the ceiling, with instruments in their mouths unable to tell the other members things like, "DON'T TOUCH THAT DRILL, AND NO!!! DON'T USE THE X-RAY MACHINE!"

I actually have to give the boys credit. They did a lovely job. Although at first I totally panicked. First they hung around Andrew's chair, for about 2 minutes, before moving over to mine. So I was holding Reagan and of course Camden had to climb up on me too. She was trying so hard to get to the shiny sharp objects and my bib and Camden was trying to count my teeth. When we talk to him about going to the dentist we tell him that the dentist has to count his teeth so he has to make a big alligator mouth. So he kept telling me that I was making a good alligator mouth so he would count my teeth so Dr. "Mommis" wouldn't have to. He repeatedly asked the hygienist to move out of his way, she was totally interrupting his important business. As this was going on Hudson was standing over me asking me questions, "Mom, when are we going to be done? Can Colby come over when we get home? What did I get Alec for his birthday present? When I go to Alec's party tonight will I miss dinner at the Strandbergs? Could I have dinner at Alec's house and at the Strandbergs? Can I have cake at Alec's party and still have the dessert you made for tonight?" You get the idea. Of course I couldn't answer any of these questions, and yet he continued asking them, over and over and over. At this point with all this going on at least the hygienist quit telling me to not let Reagan fall on the floor. I'm thinking at this point she was probably wishing she could fall on the floor.

I'm not sure I've ever had such a fast cleaning. She actually didn't even floss my top teeth. I also don't think the fluoride was in long enough, but it was good enough because Reagan finally succeeded at grabbing something and it was the tube that connects the little sucker thing that you hold in your mouth while you have the fluoride trays in your mouth. So I just had the tube, but no sucking was going on. It was a miracle I didn't throw up because one of the leftovers from 4 pregnancies is that I can no longer tolerate anything in my mouth that isn't food without gagging. It sounds like a silly thing, but you know how you put a comb in your mouth when you are putting a pony tail in a little girls hair, or a hanger between your teeth if your hanging something up and buttoning it also? Can't do those things anymore without gagging. Oh, you shouldn't put things like that in your mouth you say? Well, whatever. I can't do it anymore and the comb thing is especially frustrating. So all that to say the flouride trays without the sucker thing just about did me in.

Finally I was done, Ainsley was finished and so the boys both took our places. Andrew was just about finished so I took the girls home so I could tutor and left Andrew there with the boys in the chairs. As I left Camden was asking if they could make the chair go up and down and up and down.

As I have sat down to write this I realize I never actually even asked Andrew how the boys did. For all I know they have ten cavities each. What I do know from their visit is that one of them brought home a whoopee (how do you spell that?) cushion that they are fighting over every chance they get. But the thing is, we get to check "dentist" off our list for the next 6 months.

Tennis

Continuing to jump back in time...now to May and Barlow tennis. For the 7th year in a row Andrew coached the Barlow boys to the league championships. They did the best at state they have ever done this year. The picture of Ainsley is from when she sold concessions at the game. She loved it.

Field day (more catch-up)

Deep Creek managed to find one nice day this spring to have field day. Reagan and I got to stop by and watch the kids. It was so fun. Hudson was amazed by the water bottle they gave him with his name on it... so cute. Have I ever mentioned how amazing the view is from the school playground? Not a bad place to hang out.