Music City Star

Mom and Kathryn got up early and rode downtown just so they could see Lawton's expression when he boarded a train for the first time. It was well worth them boarding the train in the 6 o'clock hour just to ride straight back where they had come from at 8:20 in the morning! Lawton was so excited . . .he loved the ride and he loved spending the day with his Noni and Aunt "Kafryn" (Kathryn). We rode back home alone that afternoon after his nap. We will definitely have a train day again!

Potty training, anyone?

This is the standard attire around the house these days . . . rain boots and undies!

Okay, I know this might be irrelevant to some of you readers, but if you have "potty trained" or will someday soon, keep reading! :) My mother-in-law, Donna, swore that this book written in the 70's was the end-all in potty training. . . she trained her three boys by it and even my nephew, Hunter. She purchased the newest edition of the book back in the spring and loaned it to me. I will be honest, I was a little skeptical because it promises you can do it in one day. Yes, that's right, ONE DAY! So, I did my summer reading on the beach - very enlightening- :) and picked the prime time to try it. A week where we had virtually nothing going on, and it was (and still is) so stinkin' hot that we weren't even going to play outside. It works! Within an hour, he was using the potty, (he never had before) and has not had a single "pee-pee" accident since the very first day! He had several "other" accidents, but most of the time we make it in time! He has only had four "other" accidents since we started training two and a half weeks ago. I will say, I'm pretty proud! For those who want specifics, the title is Toilet Training in Less Than a Day by Nathan H. Azrin and Richard M. Foxx. Happy Potty Training!

What a difference a year makes!

With cousins, Houston and Hunter (there was quite a saga over the Mr. Potato Head) in April of 2006 and then a year later on April 14, 2007!

Lawton was not the biggest fan of his first birthday cake, but loves "chokit" cake now!!

Lawton's 1st Birthday: Baby Einstein themed (it was really the only thing he truly loved then . . . see the Einstein caterpillar? ) and then we had a jungle themed 2nd birthday party, hence the hippo!

Thanks to my awesome sister, Kathryn, I am able to reflect and reminisce the changes and differences over the past year. (Let's pretend this is April and we are just celebrating Lawton's 2nd birthday! ;) Thanks for sending me the pics, sis!

Camp Shiloh

One of Lawton's favorite things to do: ride the tractor! Lawton and Chad also supervise a huge concrete mixer pouring a new porch in the picture on the right. At the top: Lawton and "Crazy Becky" from church hang out in the rec hall.

This June, Chad and I took Lawton to Camp Shiloh in Woodridge, NY for the first time. I worked the summer of '99 and Chad and I worked there for a summer when we were engaged in 2000. We have taken work groups from church up there for the past six years. I have not been able to go the past two years because Lawton has been too little, but we thought we would take the plunge this year and introduce him to Shiloh. Surprisingly, he was perfect the entire week, even on the plane ride. . . so good we thought something was wrong with him! :) Now he thinks every plane in the sky is going to Camp Shiloh!

We had a great group and were able to get a very wide assortment of jobs accomplished this year. (For those of you who don't know, Shiloh is a very rustic camp in the Catskill Mountains that serves inner city children from NYC and Bridgeport, CT.) Chad's parents were there once again and my dad was able to see Shiloh for the first time after I have told them about it for eight years! Mom came up at the end of the week as well (my granddaddy had a stroke the night before we were planning to leave and she stayed to take care of him. He is improving every day now.) I am sure there will be many more opportunities for us to take them again!

Trial Run

Okay, so I have totally become addicted to blogging since I discovered the world of blogging about two weeks ago. "Why just now?" you may ask. Well, we have been in the ice ages and haven't even had a computer until this summer . . . and it is on loan while Chad takes a class at Vanderbilt for the year. :) I have stayed up late at night catching up on people that I haven't seen since college about 7 or 8 years ago . . . yikes! and am loving knowing what else has been going on in the world. So here goes my first blog . . . oh, and by the way we don't have a digital camera (again Ice Age, but we have an awesome film camera) so this will probably be the most boring blog ever! I might have to borrow someone's camera every once in a while!