Mexico, Mi Mexico

This past weekend, Eric and I took an early anniversary trip to Puerto Morelos, Mexico. My wonderful sister-in-law, Jolyn, came to Dallas with her two kiddos, Sam and Holly, to watch Liam while Eric and I had our first trip away.

Jolyn is the most amazing mom I know. If she were to pen a parenting book, I would be the first one in line to buy it. So while it was difficult to leave Liam for the first time, knowing that he was safe with Jolyn made the whole experience a lot easier. That is not to say that I didn't rack up some series roaming charges to call home and check in on him every so often.

In the past when Eric and I have traveled to Mexico, we have flown on, shall we say, less reputable airlines. The sort of airline where they walk the aisles selling homemade food. Where you have to sidestep chickens to get to the bathroom. You get the idea. This time around we flew Sun Country Airlines, which is based (where else) but Minneapolis, MN. I have a few girlfriends from MN, and I am not sure what life is like up north, but I just had to giggle at our flight safety manuals.

Notice the last person sitting in the brace position.

And in case of an emergency landing, Willie Wonka may or may not be right behind you.

One last funny sign from our hotel.
It always amazes me that you would have to remind people of these things.

Our room.
None of the pastel prints and floral bedspreads that we have become accustom to in the tropics.

The view from the lobby upon our arrival.

The view from our room.

The infinity pool and swim up bar from the Members Only Paradise Club. We of course, did not pay the upgrade to use the Paradise Club. However, our new Canadian friends that we met at dinner the first night convinced us that as long as we looked like we belonged, that nobody would kick us out. Ha! Viva Canada. It was on our last day that Eric got caught making a latte in the Members Only Lounge. Ah, how we savored how the other half lives.

This picture didn't do the beach justice!

Tequilla tastings. This guy does nothing to quiet the stereotype of the Mexican people.

The poolside hammocks. I read Cutting for Stone which was AMAZING!

Me in my "mom" bathing suit. Ha!

The Europeans were out in full force. Eric almost wore the same bathing suit. Whew.
Good thing he didn't. That might have been awkward.

We took walks on the beach in the early morning.
Motherhood has prevented me from sleeping past 6:30 a.m. Cruel fate.
On the plus side we found a fixer upper.

The pool might need a little work...

Dinner at one of the great restaurants at the resort. I almost spit out my wine giggling when the waiter said, "Madame, I would love to service you tonight."
I think there may have been something lost in translation.

The view from our room, the morning we left.

Goodbye Mexico!

Hello Liam! I won't be leaving my baby for a very long time!

Moving on

Greetings. I write to you from a better place than where I was only a few days ago. For many of my close friends and family, you know the difficulties we have had in the past few years. I will not go into too much detail, although I will give you enough detail to know where we were and were we hope to be next.

You know the saying, "When God closes a door he opens a window"? Well over the past year we have been telling ourselves that. We have been waiting for that window to open. Or at least for faulty weather stripping to let a draft in. Sometimes when a door closes in life, it is like a little death. I am convinced that we spend a good deal of our lives mourning these deaths, trying to recover from the indelible hole that has been left in our hearts. Sometimes it is the loss of a friendship that has run its course. Perhaps it is the loss of a dream that we had built up which never came to fruition. And sometimes it is a literal death. Whatever the situation, we spend our lives trying to fill that gap, going through the stages of grief when eventually we get to the place where the pain becomes dull but not forgotten.

A few years ago, Eric and I had a miscarriage, which I thought I would never emotionally recover from. I don't know that you ever recover from something like that. It was the worst pain that we have ever been through. But through that loss we saw that, as a couple, we were going to have to sink or swim. We couldn't let our grief consume us or eventually we would have nothing left. After the experience of that pain, we have learned to focus on the positives in life. To seek out God's plan. Above all we have learned to rely on each other. We have learned that new life is on the other side of the heartbreaks we experience.

This past week Eric and I received the news that we had so badly hoped for during the past year. Eric was offered a job. Several hours later after crunching the numbers, we accepted the position. The next morning, we received an email....rescinding the offer. It turns out that the individual who offered Eric the job felt that him waiting several hours before accepting it, was unacceptable. Several hours. But as far as I am concerned (and as far as sympathetic family and friends are concerned) taking several hours to accept a job where you have to move away from everything you have come to know (even if it is to move back to your hometown) and where the health care coverage is nearly four times what you are currently paying, isn't entirely unreasonable.

When Eric called to tell me at work, I was shocked. Shocked turned to being upset, which ultimately led to anger. How dare this lady and this company interview Eric for 6 weeks, put him through a series of background and credit checks, tests, multiple interviews, etc., and then have the audacity to rescind an offer in email the day after he has already accepted it? As you can see, I am still working on the anger part.

We already had a vacation planned so we took this time to refocus. We took the time to remember all the gifts that God has given us. We have counted our blessings and are now going to take this time to look forward to the future. That is not to say that we are not at times filled with a huge sense of doubt. But I recently read that "doubt is a first cousin to faith." I pray for grace. But most of all I pray for faith to accept what God's plan is for us.

To all my family and friends: I love you. But after today, Eric and I are moving on from this particular incident. We don't want to discuss the logistics of why it didn't work out, or what we might have done differently. We don't want to dwell on what cannot be for us right now. Instead we will look to the future and eventually, that damn window will open.

11 Months

Liam actually gets two 11 month pictures.

In the first set, he had his fingers in his month for almost every shot.

This was the best shot I could get in his second set.
As Liam becomes increasingly mobile,
his photos become more and more blurred.

At 11 months Liam is crawling like crazy, which means no rest for Mom and Dad. It is like he has a sonar on which items he is not to get into, and then he goes straight for them. Some of his more interesting choices: loving on the kitchen trash can, trying to suck on Eric's shoes, going after the laptop cords, etc. I have learned that no matter how hard you attempt to childproof your home, there is always something to "get into!"

I can't believe that he will be a year old in just a few weeks!

Teeth = 0
Saying "Mama" = 0
Dog's tails grabbed =2
Average spoons used in a meal = 7
Dogs covered with strained carrots during a freak temper tantrum = 2

Editors Note: Correction: Spring has NOT sprung

After what seemed like the longest winter I have ever had in North Texas, we were finally greeted with warmer temperatures. Kids rode their bikes in the streets. Children flew kites in the park. Families fished in the neighborhood lake. Then the snow hit.

Our backyard on Sunday morning.

Liam checking out the white stuff.

It has become common practice that Liam and Chloe stand
at the front window and survey the passing traffic.

It is no wonder that I am constantly having to Windex the windows.
Hopefully he doesn't become like the kid in a Christmas Story.

And today...temperatures back in the mid-60s.
And a baby with a runny nose. It is no wonder.

Spring has sprung!

After what has seemed like an extremely long winter (Cooper suffers from seasonal affective disorder) spring has officially sprung in North Texas!

After several days in the 70s it was time to break out of the house for Liam's first trip to our neighborhood park. We tried to hit all the parks in our neighborhood in search of a swing set, but had no luck. A friend of mine encouraged me to move to Plano, where she says is"where they keep all the swing sets."

Liam's first ride on a slide. I am pretty sure that Eric and I were more excited than he was.

Spring means yard work in the Pate household. This past weekend we scalped the lawn and applied weed and feed. We put in a new planter bed on the side of our house with an additional landscaping light. We trimmed back all our shrubs and big blue liriope in preparation for the season.

Due to the great weather, our Bradford Pear is in full bloom. Our red leaf photinas are a bright scarlet red and our Indian Hawthorns will bloom any day now.

Hot pink petunias. In a few months hopefully they will be much more bountiful!

Pansies and Mexican feather grass along with our junipers in our four patio pots.

Being a mother is everything I hoped it would be. One of my favorite things is the belly laugh that Liam does. Eric and I used to believe that we were comedic geniuses, but once we saw Liam laugh hysterically at Chloe yawning, we realized that we weren't nearly as clever as we made ourselves out to be.

Eric and I try to fly our American flag everyday. We live in the greatest country in the world and it is a reminder to us of the sacrifices that were made in the name of freedom. Upon returning from a recent walk we learned that Liam sees the flag waving in the breeze in a more...humorous way.

Hissy fits, temper tantrums and other acts of (in)sanity

Anger. Tears. The flailing of arms. And all of this after Liam had gone to bed. Last night I had a temper tantrum. I will spare you the details of what brought on my less than proud moment. Suffice to say that it was as a result of something that I had been "stuffing" for a long time.

As children we are taught that life is not fair. But somehow, we still grow up with this feeling of entitlement that life should be fair. And when things don't go our way, tantrums ensue.

Hissy fits from children are thought to be unacceptable. Before kids even know how to express their feelings they bite, scream and yell. But as we get older we are taught that this is not the way to express our feelings. So we stuff them inside.

But maybe these fits of frustration aren't so bad. Maybe it is one of the things that sets us apart from wild animals. Animals don't know how to deal with anger, so they run or attack. So maybe having these temper tantrums, these moments where we become the worst version of ourselves, helps to keep us sane. At least that is what I tell myself the morning after...

Love...or something like it.

I love Ann Taylor. L*O*V*E it. I love how when you walk into the store everything is feminine and frilly and you just sort of feel delicate...like a lady. I love how when you purchase clothing they wrap everything in soft tissue paper and put the Ann Taylor sticker on it. I especially love how they put it in an expensive, albeit overpriced bag. Now don't get me wrong. I love me some sales, and I don't think I have ever purchased anything full price there.

Recently, I purchased what was probably...an impractical shirt with the last of the birthday gift cards given to me by my wonderful family. As I stood in the dressing room wearing this blouse, I knew there was minimal likelihood of wearing it very often. But what can I say? Sometimes a girl just wants the impractical. Especially if it is on a super great final sale, you have a 20% off coupon and it is the last blouse in your size. Needless to say, if those who know me end up seeing me shopping at the Super Target in this shirt you will know why.

When I arrived home, I showed Eric the spoils of my shopping trip. He calmly looked at my new clothes, nodded his head and said, "Very nice. It makes you look like a pirate." Stunned disbelief. Surely I misheard him. I was upset to say the least. Did he not hear me say that the shirt was on "final sale???!!!!" Eric realized pretty quickly that his choice of words was not...pleasing to a lady's ears and tried to cover it up, further digging his hole.

However, as time went on, I began to think that maybe it was his way of complimenting me. After all, for those of you who know Eric, you know that the man loves pirates. I don't know many people that observe "National Talk Like a Pirate Day." I decided to let his pirate comment pass. Mostly because he will likely be guilted into complimenting me when I wear it on our upcoming vacation.

Also, he is one of the most amazing husbands in the world. He makes me oatmeal every morning (we are trying to be healthier) and packs me a lunch every day. He is a super amazing dad who never shies away from a poopy diaper or a fussy baby. He runs all sorts of errands for me, and when I get home every night, the house is spotless, dinner is made, the dogs are fed, and he has a glass of wine for me. And tonight....

Roses for no reason! I think looking back on it, Eric probably wishes that he could have told me that my new blouse looked like a rose in bloom. That I would look lovely wearing it. But instead he gave me the highest compliment he could. I look like a pirate. I guess it is as good as a kid telling you that your hair is the color of dirt (which they love) and that your eyes are the color slime (also a favorite). My man may not be a wordsmith, but actions are stronger than words.

To reciprocate my love, I made Eric heart shaped tortillas tonight to go with our fajitas. Keeping the love alive!

When babies attack!

We set up a hidden camera to catch the secret life of babies in the suburbs.

What you will see may frighten you.