Category — Celebrations

We have been relaxing in St. Augustine, Florida this week!

Today is my 26th birthday and I feel kinda old! Not really old just not necessarily young anymore. I had a fun day not doing too much. We had cinnamon rolls for breakfast and then I read a book while Will took a morning nap. Then we headed to get Will’s haircut (fun, fun)! He sat in the chair all by himself – he was such a good boy. We met Bill for lunch and then headed to the mall to make a couple of returns.

When we got home Will and I both took a short nap before I started dinner. Our friends Matt & Andrea came over for a yummy (if I do say so myself) dinner of enchiladas, rice and beans. It was the perfect ending to my birthday – sitting with friends, watching Will play, eating brownies and talking.

A great birthday!

Have you missed me bloggy world? The past few days I have been super busy preparing and throwing a surprise 50th birthday party for my Mom! It was SO great and she was SO surprised! My Dad, Dana and I started planning in February and we were pretty proud of ourselves for keeping a secret for so long.

We went to Chattanooga late Thursday night in order to get ready for the party on Saturday. My Mom had no idea we were in town! We spent Friday doing this:

We also bought all the party supplies and stayed up until 3 am baking cookies and cakes. I am really too old to be staying up that late Here we are pretending to bake (we forgot to take pictures of us actually working):

We had the party at my parent’s house so it was my sister’s job to get my Mom cleaned up and out of the house for a couple of hours. They went by boat to Steve’s Landing Restaurant and the everyone was outside or on dock waiting for them to get back.

Dana, Mom & Me

The whole family!

Bill took a lot of pictures so I will put them in a slide show later this week. Thank you to everyone who helped and came out to celebrate. Mom was truly surprised – she has planned a vacation on her actual birthday so that we couldn’t throw her a party But we are sneakier than she anticipated.

I love this kid and am so glad I get to be his mommy! Being a mom is the hardest thing I have ever done but it is also the most rewarding. I treasure the time I get to be with Will and I love this age, especially, because he is discovering and learning new things every day.

One of the things I love best about Will is his independence. He loves playing with us and reading books in our laps but he is also content to make his way upstairs to play in his room or look through books on his own. He loves going to the nursery at church and is never sad to see me go! While other moms duck (to avoid a toddler meltdown) when they see the huge buggy rolling down the hall – Will and I just wave at each other And I love that about Will – of course I probably won’t love it when he’s 16 and NEVER wants to be home.

And a BIG Happy Mother’s Day to my Mommy! I would not be half the mom I am to Will without your great example

Happy Mother’s Day!

I am taking a break from Wordless Wednesday to participate in Dishin’ It!  hosted by Amanda at Serenity Now. Fun!

This month’s topic is all about your blog! Maybe I’ll find some more new blogs to read – as if I don’t have enough. I posted the blogs of people I know yesterday and next week I am going to post the bloggers I wish I knew The list may be embarrassingly long.

Anyways, here is all about The Dixon Dialogue.

I started blogging in 2007 when I found out that I was accepted to graduate school and would be moving from Nashville, TN to New York City. My blog had the clever (I think) title of “Tiny Worm, Big Apple.” I was a sporadic blogger because grad school was demanding and I had better things to do like live in New York City!

In February 2008 we found out that we were expecting this little stinker, Will.

We thought a cute way to tell our family and friends that we were expecting would be to set up a blog appropriately titled, Baby Dixon. When our family and friends went to the like it said “Under Construction: Coming this Fall.” For a while, I maintained both blogs because then my life really could be separated into two distinct categories – oh, how things change! Not to mention we moved back to Tennessee so Tiny Worm, Big Apple did not fit anymore.

A few months ago we decide that Baby Dixon did not accurately describe where we are in life anymore so we did a blog overhaul! I’m glad our marriage survived, ha! My husband is the web guru and I am the opinionated one so we make a good team. Our end result is this – The Dixon Dialogue.

What do I blog about? Mostly Will because he is so cute and funny! And in general just our everyday life – the good, the bad and the messy. I do book reviews for BookSneeze (free books! Go sign up!)  I also try to convey what the Lord is teaching me although I am not very good about being vulnerable. I have recently signed up to be a Compassion blogger so I post information and updates about Compassion every so often. I am very passionate about social justice issues (comes with the territory of being a social worker) although I don’t blog about it often. (Goal: Blog more about social justice)

What else? What else? If I got to choose one famous person to follow my blog it would be Jennifer Garner. I really do think we would be good friends if we ever got to meet! My second choice would be Brian Williams because I just love him and think he is SO funny. I may or may not have stalked him when we lived in NYC.

Why do I blog? It keeps me sane It’s a great outlet and it helps me feel like I am not all alone out here in “mommy world.”

I am looking forward to reading all about everyone else’s blogs. Yay!

On Easter Sunday we went to church with Bill’s family at the church we grew up at. I think it’s fun to see everyone dressed up and usually matching or coordinated! Will, of course, could not keep his new outfit spiffy – he had a major blowout not 15 minutes into the service and I got paged. I was afraid that he might be getting sick and did not want him to infect the other kiddos so we roamed the halls and played outside. While exploring outside we found a couple of beautiful trees in bloom and I thought it was the perfect spot for some family pictures (much to chagrin of the rest of the Dixon family, I’m sure.) Enjoy!

On the first day of the week, very early in the morning, they came to the tomb, bringing the spices they had prepared. They found the stone rolled away from the tomb. They went in but did not find the body of the Lord Jesus. While they were perplexed about this, suddenly two men stood by them in dazzling clothes. So the women were terrified and bowed down to the ground.

“Why are you looking for the living among the dead?” asked the men. “He is not here, but he has been resurrected! Remember how He spoke to you when He was still in Galilee, saying ‘The Son of Man must be betrayed into the hands of sinful men, be crucified, and rise on the third day.’?” And they remembered His words.

Luke 24: 1-8 (HCSB)

Today was full of Easter egg hunts! But the festivities really began yesterday morning. Before leaving for Chattanooga we gave Will an Easter basket full of goodies – a few new books and some animal crackers. He was a big fan of the new books!

This morning we went to an egg hunt at the Stansell’s house. Carey was my best friend growing up and it a lot of fun to see our 2 boys playing together now! We took the morning as opportunity to teach them both about sharing….. maybe they’ll understand the concept by next Easter There were 3 boys there for the egg hunt and they were so cute. Andrew was a pro! He would pick up an egg, eat the candy out of it and put it in his basket. Micah ran all over the yard – looking for balls and other fun stuff to get into. Will would pick up an egg and put it in his basket if I was holding it but soon got distracted by the tractor.

Tonight the Dixon family got together and of course there were more Easter goodies and more egg hunting! Aubrey raced around the yard finding “a million” eggs and Will grabbed up a few too. Then the cousins got to enjoy playing outside together for a little while.

We made over 70 pictures and I wanted to upload them all! But, I thought that might be a bit much so here are about 30 of my favorites