Meant to Be - Steven Curtis Chapman

Have you seen this? Its a beautiful "family" anthem. Incredible!

2009 Cookie Decorating

We got together with Mom and Dad Binder to do our annual cut-out cookie decorating. It was so much fun.


Cole taking a snooze. This cookie decorating is exhausting.


Dale and Dad hard at work.

Caiden loves this!

Some of the completed cookies!

Labor Day at the Lake

We went to a local lake for Labor Day. It is becoming kind of a tradition - sort of a last hurrah for the summer. The boys love it. Dawson particularly enjoys playing in the sand. Caiden has just now gotten to like the water and playing Frisbee with his daddy. It was a beautiful, hot day. We went home tired, sunburned and happy. Even got to stop at Dairy Queen for a special treat. A perfect ending to a great day.


I love this shot. I can only imagine what they are talking about.


This is about as far in to the water as Dawson got.


Caiden just kicking.

The boys building a sand fort.

Wilson County Fair Pics

The Wilson County Fair is one of the best around in our area. It runs mid- to the end of August. We got to go this year. The boys loved it and rode every ride they could.


Here they are getting ready to ride the "Nascars."


These boats were a big hit.


Dale and Caiden.

I got to ride the carousel with the boys.

Papa's Big Surprise

So...here's a little diddy about Papa's birthday party. Our big engagement party for my sister was actually a planned "SURPRISE" party for Caiden and Dawson's Papa's #60th birthday. Low and behold, he was pleasantly surprised and is still trying to figure out if it really was for him. We had about 140 of his closest friends and family show up for a great afternoon of partying. I'll post pictures soon. We're headed home tomorrow.

The eyes have it

While in Michigan last weekend, we went to the Mid-Michigan Children's Museum. They had so many exhibits for the kids to play with. It was very similar to the Discovery Center in Murfreesboro, TN. One part of the museum had a huge wall of glasses so kids could try on different frames and read eye charts. My mom and I couldn't help but get in on it too. It was so much fun! Doesn't Caiden look like a mini Harry Potter?

Meeting "Santa" this year

Toy Story...its alive!

Caiden dressed as "Woody" and Dawson dressed as "Buzz Lightyear" from Toy Story this year. We love that movie around our house so Toy Story was literally "alive" for us!

If you think I'm crazy...

...you should meet my family.

Dragon Boat Race Silver Medalist

Dale and a bunch of his co-workers participated in the 2nd Annual Nashville Dragon Boat Races last Saturday. Dale and his friends placed 16th overall last year. This year, they took 2nd PLACE! Can you believe it? We had so much fun. And the best part? the competition benefits the Cumberland River. And, if you live anywhere near Nashville, you know that the Cumberland River could use a little benefiting. Congratulations Pollution Prevention Pirates! Just in case you wanted to know, the Nashville Outlaws Rugby Club took 1st place.

The Pollution Prevention Pirates sport their 2nd place medals!

R&R needed here

It seems like we've just been running to catch our breath this summer. So many things have been going on, good and bad, that we are in need of some r & r. There is nothing like getting away for a weekend and reconnecting with your spouse. We'll probably enjoy some hiking, some resting and some good eating too. Enjoy your weekend!

We're getting published

I received notification yesterday from Parents magazine that a "It Worked for Me" tip of ours is getting published in the September issue. We're so excited! It was Dale's idea so I can't take any credit for it, other than I took the pictures and wrote the email. Here is our tip:

When our son switched from having milk in a bottle to a sippy cup, we found that the sippy cups were so hard to clean. So now we use a pipe cleaner (available in the craft section at most stores) to clean out the straw of the sippy cup. Makes clean up a lot easier and helps keeping the sippy cups smelling fresh.

rediscovering our town

We had some family in town last weekend that have never visited the sate of Tennessee. They were so eager to see ALL the sights that we wore ourselves out. But, we have caught up on the sleep this week and have had fun recapping some of the memories.

You know, we have lived in the Nashville area since 2003 and there are so many places we have not visited or even discovered yet.

Isn't that the way it goes? Once you settle in and get slightly acquainted with your town, you begin to forget of all the cool places to go and the new things to see and do. Dale and I need to make our list but here are a few places we are going to visit soon: Schermerhorn Symphony Center, the Frist Center, Cheekwood Gardens and the Hermitage. Some of these things won't even cost us anything.


If you live in Nashville, I encourage to visit these places too. If you don't live near Nashville, find things in your town that you haven't done or tried before. There are so many things don't cost anything. It also helps you get involved in your community. We are trying to this more as a family too. So during this summer of staycations, get out of the house and rediscover your town.

Buzz to the Rescue!

My boys are both huge Buzz Lightyear fans, even though Dawson seems a bit more obsessed with this action character sometimes. A friend of ours (thanks Carrie) was cleaning out her girls' toy chest and gave us this costume. The boys didn't take it off for 2 straight days and we literally had to take turns wearing it. It was a tad bit snug on Caiden but he made it work. They've had so fun blasting to infinity and beyond!

P.S. Carrie, don't show the girls this post!

Oh what a sweet, sweet day...

We celebrated Caiden's 4th birthday today with his playgroup friends (even though today is not Caiden's original birthday which is May 13). The day was enchanting and surreal. First, I can't believe that my baby is 4 years old.


















Second, I can't believe that we decided to hire someone to keep a bunch of 2-5 year olds occupied - see pictures below - what fun that was. And, third...I can't believe that makes me a year older too, so that's why my bones ache all the time.


















Anyway, we topped the day off with going out on the lake in our little boat. We caught and released 3 fish. It was so much fun. Now, we are tired, sun burned and happy. Oh, what a sweet, sweet day. Thank you Lord for the blessings in my life - my precious family and friends.

Snow!

Caiden, Dawson, Grammie (my mom) and I taking the boys for their first snowmobile ride.

The family (absent my husband; we missed you honey!) goes tobogganing!

I apologize for not blogging for over a week. My two boys and I went to visit our family in Michigan last week. We got some good spoiling, enjoyed the home cooking (that I didn't have to do, thanks mom!), loved the great sleep without the normal routine and played a lot in the snow. I didn't exercise much last week but I think the winter activities that we did made up for most of that. We'll see when I weigh in at the end of this week.

So, now we are home and back in to our routine. How does everything fall back in to place so quickly? The good and the bad habits.

Check This Out

I haven't blogged much about my position as a family ministry director but I wanted to tell you guys about a new blog for parents (from children ages 0-18) that my team has put together. I'm very proud of it. Its been truly God inspired. I'd love for you to check it out. You'll find it at:

http://rscparentpage.blogspot.com/

It is a resource for parents of our home church, Rock Springs Church in Smyrna, TN but I think our team will have lots of great ideas and thoughts that could be shared with parents all over the country. So, check it out and leave us some comments. We'd love for this to become a forum for all Christian parents to discuss the "real" issues we are all dealing with.

Christmas & Family

We've enjoyed a wonderful Christmas week with our family. Caiden's eyes were as big as saucers when he got up on Christmas morning and saw that "Santa" had finally come. Dawson is still too little to know what is going on but he sure noticed the stuff under the tree. Then, we sang Happy Birthday to Jesus and had a great meal together. What a perfect day it was!

Oh...and to begin my new year's exercise program...you may just see me in the yard chasing around one of these!

Heaven - Michigan, same thing?

I apologize for my lack of blogging lately. We have been out of town (in Michigan) visiting our family for the Thanksgiving holiday. It was a wonderful, restful time spent with the people that we love and that love us unconditionally.

We returned to church yesterday recieving lots of hugs and "we missed you"s. That also truly touched our hearts. The cutest thing happened yesterday. One of my friends little girls ran up to me, threw her hands around my neck for a big hug and said to me, "We are so glad you are back from Heaven." Michigan - Heaven, same thing, right? Either way, that was Heaven just having hugs, knowing we were missed and back with our friends or should I say "family" again.

I haven't weighed in yet since my return so I'm trying to get back on track with my weight loss this week. The past 10 days were spent not caring about what I put in my mouth and totally enjoying every second of it. Oh...and also as promised in a prior post, I'm going to get back to the Y for exercise this week too. After a brief discussion with a friend yesterday, maybe we should just try to maintain during the Christmas season. That way, we can still enjoy the treats and really hit it hard in January.