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Tuesday, October 30, 2012

Planning those Meals


Up This Week:

  • Monday we had Beef Stroganoff in the Crockpot (It turned out super yummy).
  • Tuesday we had baked potatoes and zero point soup.
  • Wednesday we will be Trunking or Treating at Church.
  • Thursday we are having Lemon Dijon Chicken with Potatoes (minus the tapioca unless someone can tell me where on earth to find that stuff?!! Searched Walmart high and low with no luck...).
  • Friday we will be eating leftovers.
  • Saturday we are going to eat One Dish Chicken Bake.
  • Sunday we are taking nacho cheese and chips to Community Group. 
What will you be eating??

Saturday, October 27, 2012

Pumpkin Carving 2012

It's that time of the year again, Pumpkin Carving Time! And just like every other year, we headed to Becky & Gary's house for some intense carving. It is so funny to think how much Griffin has changed between last year and this year!! Here he is last year with his friend Jesse:

And this year:

We carved Elmo this year, pretty fitting huh?

Heres a look at the rest of the night... love our group!

















Here is Griffin loving on Face, the largest cat I have ever known! 















Wednesday, October 24, 2012

And the Winner is....


The winner of our $50 Shutterfly Giveaway is.....

Kristen

Congrats girl!And a BIG THANK YOU to Shutterfly for sponsoring the giveaway!

(Winner was chosen using Random.Org)

Life Update around here

• Poor little man is getting all FOUR molars this week 😢! So not fun for anyone!!
• He also got a round of shots on Monday, AND was bit at daycare the same day! Not his day I tell ya.
• He barely slept for three nights. Just grabbing his mouth, drooling soooo badly and basically a hot mess.
• I guess we have had it coming bc we really didn't have any problems with all the other teeth.
• Mr.Pate and I are in a weight loss challenge group until December. It has actually motivated us and we have both lost. But now we need to really get serious. I hate losing weight! Blah.
• Last night, Griffin pretty much cried from when we picked him up from daycare (1pm) until 6pm. Then Daddy and Uncle D were able to cheer him up and the laughter was music to my ears! They chased him all around the house and also made many laps around our house pushing him on his train. Such great men!

Tuesday, October 23, 2012

Griffins First Bonfire

Our community group had a bonfire Sunday night, which was Griffin's first ever bonfire I believe. Even though he is BADLY teething, it was a great distraction from all the pain for a little bit. He had a blast and so did we!

Babies and Signing


We have been trying to teach Griffin sign language since he started eating solid foods (around 6 months). It was a slow road, but I am so thankful we did it now. He is at the age where he really wants and needs to communicate, and having lots of signs helps us a ton. It took quite awhile for griffin to sign more than just "more" and "all done". I think it has helped him understand the concept of talking though, because recently he is saying several words pretty well. He is also able to put two signs together, like "more please". So, here are some tips from what we learned along the way:

- Baby Signing Time DVDs and SigningSmart books. Two fabulous resources you need to look up! They will help you learn the signs as well.

- SigningSmart teaches that you need to start early (like even 3 months) and make sure to mix "parent motivating signs" with "child motivated signs". This will help baby get the signing principles bc they would prob rather talk about a dog than if they are done eating. This was very true for Griffin (unfortunately we didn't start that until around 9-10 months). Once he learned animal signs, which he thought were fun, he started picking up signs so easily. Highly recommend it. They have 2 board books with signs in them that Griffin loves loves loves. Amazon is a great place to pick these up.

- BE CONSISTENT!! That is the key and harder than you think. If you aren't used to signing then doing a sign every time you say the word is tough to remember. This is probably a big reason it took Griffin so long to really start signing well. I just wasn't super consistent.

- Don't aim for perfection. Many signs are super similar and take detailed fine motor skills to show the distinct differences. Look for context to see what they mean. For instance, "eat", "water" and "drink" all put you hand up to your mouth. Griffin does them all very similar. That's ok. He also does "cracker" on top of his arm instead of underneath. But it's clear he is meaning cracker. Let baby do the sign to the level of their motor skill capacity.

- Say the word when you sign. The more they hear it the more they realize what you are saying.

- Make them sign to get what they want. "You want crackers? Not until you say crackers!" You'll be amazed how quick a kid who wants some goldfish can learn cracker! Haha

- YouTube. If you don't know what a certain sign looks like, look it up on YouTube. Awesome. Figuring out signs with a picture is difficult. Love that we have this option now. 

I really cant recommend signing with your kid enough. It really is helping us with communication and tantrums. Griffin will begin to fuss and we will say "you have to tell us what you want" and then he stops and signs. Yay for one less fit to deal with (because there are already plenty! haha!)!



Signs Griffin knows:
Eat, Drink, Cracker, Water, Milk, All Done/Finished, More, Bird, Fish, Frog, Dog, Cat, Car, Help, Shoes, Hat, Please, Thank You, Airplane (kinda... he does remotely hold his fingers right, but he moves his hand correctly when you say airplane so he gets the concept), Ball, Light, Mom (only done this one a few times)

Happy Signing!


- Mrs.Pate via my iPhone

Sunday, October 21, 2012

Christmas Cards Anyone? (It's a Giveaway!!!!)


"It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas..." too soon? Well it might not look like Christmas, but now is definitely the time to begin thinking about those wonderful things called Christmas Cards And the fabulous folks over at Shutterfly are going to give one of you lucky readers $50 to help make your Christmas cards awesome this year! Isn't that wonderful??

Shutterfly has soooo many options for Holiday Cards this year. Here are just a few of my favorites:





So be sure to head over to Shutterfly and pick your cards out soon. While you are there, check out there Special Offers page too! Shutterfly has such a great promotions team, and they have generously offered to sponsor a $50 giveaway for one lucky reader here. Here's where you come in-

  1. Head over to Shutterfly and look at their super cute cards.
  2. Come back here and comment below letting me know your favorite. 
  3. The Giveaway ends this Tuesday, October 23rd at 11:59pm. 
  4. I will choose one lucky winner via Random.org 
  5. Only one entry per person. 
  6. Giveaway prize: $50 off total order (does not include shipping & cannot be combined with any other promos) at Shutterfly.com 
  7. I will announce the winner Wednesday, October 24th. The Winner MUST send me their email within ONE day to receive the prize. 
Comment away... and MERRY CHRISTMAS ;-)

***Discloser: This is a sponsored post for Shutterfly; however, the opinions are my own. 


Saturday, October 20, 2012

Family

Family is very important to me. I grew up seeing my extended family a bunch, and I want Griffin to have the same experience. Recently, he has had some wonderful quality time with all of our close family and I feel super blessed!

His Grandma and Grandpa came for a day visit a few Sundays back, and we had a great time goofing off at lunch, playing outside and running around the house.










YouTube Video

Last weekend we went to EKU to see Uncle Shelly! It was such a blast, more details coming.




This week my sister & nieces had fall break, so they headed up here to bust Griffin out of daycare! Lol. They took him to see daddy at work, to the park, to play at chick fil a and some shopping too (surprise surprise with those girls right?!). So glad they got that time. I feel like now that the girls are older and really involved in sports, plus us having a little one, we are not getting to see them as much. Here's to some cousin love!!









We are so blessed with great family! Love them all!!