For those who missed it, below is a scan of the Christmas card we sent out this year (though the light-green background color scanned in as a white!). Hope you all have a nice, safe and happy holiday.

Yesterday we headed out to Warrenton, Mo., then took a side road into “Deliverance-like” territory to visit a tree farm. Yes, it was our semi-annual Christmas tree-chopping trip. We went out with Sarah’s parents, brother and future sister-in-law.

It was flippin’ cold out. Probably in the 20s or low 30s with strong winds. We had Oliver layered up so much that he couldn’t really move. We just carried him around and he’d stare straight ahead.



Oliver was well-behaved (as usual). He had a lot to look at, including tractors hauling trees, kids visiting Santa and cold people sipping on hot chocolate.



It took a lot of walking and tripping over stumps, but we eventually found our tree.



Sarah’s dad took a picture of the (freezing) family as we waited for our trees to be prepped to take home. Don’t we look great?

Oliver’s baptism was Saturday.



We decided to have it at Trinity Lutheran Church in the Soulard area of St. Louis. Pastor Dave Marth is, well, pretty awesome. Many of you will remember him as the paster who handled the keynote duties at my wedding to Sarah in May 2005. For the baptism, we had a small, private ceremony. Pastor Dave was nice enough to keep the men informed on the Mizzou-Kansas football score (blech!) throughout the time we were there.

Once things got under way, we were called up to the front of the church. The god-parents, my sister Carrie and Sarah’s brother Aaron, stood with us. Oliver was really quiet the whole time. He did try to grab the hymn book several times.



For the actual “baptism” deal, we headed to the back of the church. There, Pastor Dave poured water over Oliver’s head. We all laughed a bit, as he used more water than we expected. Oliver took it all in stride, smiling the entire time.



Afterward, we posed for pictures. Oliver and his godparents stood for one. Speaking of … it was really an excruciating decision to select the godparents. Sarah and I each have two awesome siblings, and picking just one of my sisters and one of her brothers was no easy move. Any of the four would be excellent god-parents for sure! Our picks, Carrie and Aaron, will be great for the boy.



As I wrote above, Oliver was well-behaved the entire time. He got noisy a few times before and after the ceremony, but only because he learned that if he made loud noises, they would echo in the more than 150-year-old church. Oliver got to spend time with many folks, including his cousins Nathan and Kaitlyn.



We also posed for a group picture, which was taken by Pastor Dave. We were excited to have most of our local relatives present, including Oliver’s great-grandmothers Carol, Frieda and Lillian.



Afterward, we drove out to Wildwood (home of grandparents “Grannette” and “Grodney”) for a little party. We had some great food, including a pretty cool cake from Federhofer’s. Speaking of, we had looked at several bakeries for baptism-themed cakes, but most were either really cheesy (wow, cool, a fake stained-glass window on my cake!) or just plain goofy (100 giant icing flowers in the shape of a cross). The party was a lot of fun, hanging out and celebrating the day. Oliver was really tired by the time we left, sleeping for the entire 45-minute ride home.